Publication: THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE
Published: Thursday, July 03, 2008
Page: 9D
Byline: BOB SCHWARZ

Shelia Brown has been making reed baskets for 25 years, but she started thinking about selling them only after her younger daughter went to college.

“It was something to fill the empty-nest syndrome, after you’ve had two children who were involved in everything and you went to everything,” Brown said.

Brown will be one of more than 130 artisans who bring their wares to the Mountain State Art & Craft Fair, which has its annual run today through Sunday at Cedar Lakes Conference Center near Ripley.

Until early 2007, when she was juried into Tamarack, Brown gave away her woven baskets as gifts.

She makes baskets in 75 styles, with prices ranging from $15 to $150. “I have pie baskets, casserole baskets, blanket baskets, newspaper baskets, tea baskets, storage baskets, wine baskets. I could go on and on.”

She buys rattan reeds, leaving some their natural color and using a variety of commercial and homemade vegetable dyes to transform the rest. “It’s fun to experiment. I’ve done things with black walnut hulls, blackberries, teas and onion skins.”

Brown, 51, lives in Kingwood, where she has worked as an itinerant teacher of the deaf the past 29 years for Preston County Schools. She and her husband, lawyer David Brown, have two daughters, one in medical school and one in college.

She does four or five fairs a year, though she hasn’t yet done the Buckwheat Festival in Kingwood, where she would have to slip out of her volunteering role if she were to sign up for a booth.

She fits basket-making into her already crowded life. Much of the year, she writes lesson plans and grades papers. On Sundays, she teaches Sunday school, sings in the choir and plays guitar at Kingwood Presbyterian Church.

She likes to cook. She listens to ’70s music on compact discs while she makes baskets. “Or I watch the Food Network. That’s multitasking. I’m planning tonight’s dinner while I work.”

Does she have any free time? “Not much. I enjoy it that way. I enjoy other crafts as well, but nothing else commercial.”

The preparation for the fair has been intense, she said. “My fingers have been weaving madly. I don’t have a studio. I work out of my home. If you could see my living room right now, it’s piled high with baskets.”

Does her husband think she is crazy? “No, he has been my biggest supporter. I would sit down and finish a basket, hold a cup of green tea in one hand and a handful of Hershey kisses in the other, and critique my work and say this isn’t good enough. And he would always say, ‘This is good.’”