Exhibit features ‘Traditional Basketry & Beyond’

A solo exhibition of Steven Carty’s work called “Traditional Basketry & Beyond” is on display at the Peters Valley School of Craft.

The exhibition will be in the Sally D. Francisco Gallery through April 23.

It showcases 13 unique baskets made with different methods of basket weaving as well as a selection of Carty’s tools and samples of material to touch.

A catalog will be produced in conjunction with the exhibition as well as a brochure with an exhibition review written by Daryl Lancaster.

Carty will host an artist lecture online at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 29. To register for the lecture, go online to https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/4316784816276/WN_APOrX8lXQDq6K3W7R8g8DQ

For information about the exhibition, go online to petersvalleygallery.org

The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation awarded a grant to Peters Valley to present an exhibition of traditional and contemporary basketry work by Carty, a second-generation basket weaver and Lenape descendant.

Peters Valley received one of 16 grants, totaling $100,718 through the foundation’s inaugural 2022-23 Folk and Traditional Arts Community Projects program.

“We are so grateful for the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s dedication to preserving New Jersey’s artistic heritage, and are excited to be a grantee of this inaugural program,” said Kristin Muller, Peters Valley’s executive director.

Carty lives and works in Mount Holly, where he creates intricate woven baskets of natural materials, interweaving local materials which he gathers from the wild, mostly close to his home near the Pine Barrens, a practice his Lenape ancestors may have followed.

His weaving inspiration comes from the land from which he gathers many of his materials, the creeks, forests and shores of South Jersey.

Lately, he has turned away from using native plants to utilizing invasive plants, such as wisteria, in his work. Examples of these and a conversation about this will be included in the show.

Carty is a member of the Penn-Jersey Basketry Guild and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, and he teaches across New Jersey at cultural centers, including at Peters Valley, universities and festivals.

This project is made possible in part through the Mid Atlantic Folk and Traditional Arts Community Projects program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Gallery at Peters Valley School of Craft is at 19 Kuhn Road, Layton. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free to the public.

Peters Valley School of Craft is a nonprofit educational center for the exploration, promotion and practice of fine craft, located in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Funding for Peters Valley is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and New Jersey Historic Trust, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Marie & John Zimmermann Fund, Windgate Charitable Foundation, The Post Foundation, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, The Greater Pike Community Foundation, New Jersey Cultural Trust Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation, Maxwell Hanrahan Foundation, and by the generosity of its members and individual donors.