Dorinda Harmon

Member since:

Medium: Basketry

Dorinda Harmon has been working in fibers since the age of 3. Needle arts taught to her by her mother and grandmother and their friends engaged her early on. By high school, she was sewing and designing her own clothes. Through undergraduate and graduate school, she kept her hand in fiber arts creating clothing and venturing into stuffed-work and quilting. She exhibited her first public work for sale in a gallery in Columbia in 1979.

In addition to fiber arts, she works also in surface design on cloth via fabric collage and marbling. Basketmaking came into her life through a stint as a historic interpreter at Charles Towne Landing in the mid-1980s. Self-taught, Harmon set a goal of recreating every basket style she found while researching the craft.  Since that time, she has introduced over 4,000 students to basketmaking in classes held throughout the lowcountry. Beginning with traditional styles and patterns, it did not take long for her to “stretch” the medium to include mermaids, seashells, volcanos, and other unusual 3-D forms as well as incorporating a variety of natural materials.

“I have stayed with basket weaving because of the opportunities to challenge the medium; to make the materials go where I want them to go to create movement in a stationary object. Each project takes shape when I select materials, colors, and have a general concept of what I want to achieve in mind. Sometimes I am surprised at the outcome!

Teaching basketmaking is something I truly love. I learn something from every class. There are only a few basic rules so the opportunity to create a different technique or pattern is wide-open.”

Harmon also is a co-coordinator of the annual Piccolo Spoleto Crafts Shows and a frequent juror for other regional art and craft events.