To attend, you must RSVP. Send an email with the subject “March Zoom" to ColumbiaBasinBasketryGuild@gmail.com. Please put your full name and email address in the body of the message. 

This event if only for members. If you are not a member and want to attend as a guest, email us. One-time guests are welcome.

Eric J. Taylor is an award-winning professional black ash basket maker, woodworker, and teacher. He designs and creates his baskets from his own processed materials, drawing original patterns and the making of all his molds. 

Before becoming a basket maker, he was known for his Shaker box making. As a teen, he learned Shaker box making during a summer school vacation in Massachusetts. Later he studied the art of Shaker basket making, along with advancing his technique of steam bending hardwoods, mold making and the process of preparing Black Ash materials. 

After making a couple thousand boxes, he revisited black ash basket making. He has taught all over the country including major conventions and workshops. In 2000, Eric decided to stop making reproduction baskets and begin designing his own unique line. 

In 2007, Eric was one of the basket makers featured in the book Weaving History: A Basket Heritage Project. His Smith River Creel basket was a part of the Renwick’s “A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets” at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC in 2013 and is now in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian.

Eric was born and raised in New Hampshire, and now lives and works in rural middle Tennessee with his wife Lynne, an artist and designer, their rescue dog, Izzy and Minnie Kitty, along with a shop cat named CoCo.