Meet Caleb Hoffman, a rising star in the world of Wabanaki basketry

Caleb Hoffman didn’t expect to win a ribbon when he brought his baskets to this year’s Santa Fe Indian Market, the largest North American Native art market and juried competition in the world. In fact, he almost missed the call when he announced that his piece titled “Embers” had won Best of Show in the basketry category. He was relaxing in the hotel hot tub, but luckily his wife Lauren spotted his phone nearby when it rang.

Hoffman is the son of Theresa Secord, founding director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance and a respected Penobscot weaver, and the apprentice of Jeremy Frey, a famous Passamaquoddy basket maker who recently had a solo exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art. He is 32 years old – the same age as Frey when he won first prize in Santa Fe. He lives in Orono and works as a physical education teacher, and he attributes his big win to his faith, his mother and his teacher. He recently answered five questions about his basketry.

How and when did you start making baskets?

It probably started when I was very young, when I was weaving with my mother, Theresa Secord, in our house. She would take me to her workshops everywhere, just teaching me the real, real basics. Over the years, I’ve made a few baskets with her. But over the last year and a half, almost two years at this point, I started working for Jeremy and apprenticing for Jeremy. So it’s been going on for a while, but over the last year and a half, it’s gotten serious.

What inspired you to start working with him, learn more and take this practice to another level?

I don’t know. It’s just something that stood out to me in my life, something that I really wanted to do to express myself, my creativity. I used to love weaving, but I never did it – it was just the right time, I guess. Jeremy, his career has obviously taken off, so I was just coming to help him and get to know him.

I watched your talk in Santa Fe and really loved how you talked about the many steps of making a basket and the experience of harvesting a tree for the first time. How did starting this process in the woods impact the making of the basket or you creatively?

Oh, it’s like your real creation. Does this make sense? It’s not like a board at Home Depot or something. No, we actually go out there, into the woods, and we actually process our own trees. I knew that, but I didn’t really realize it until I did it and how much work actually went into it. It makes everything a little more yours, if that makes sense, and a little more special. It’s just a sense of pride and accomplishment that comes into play.

The very first tree you harvested was used to make the basket you brought to Santa Fe. What were your inspirations for this piece? What did you like about it?

It was my first basket made under Jeremy. … It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, you know. That it turned out even closer to what it could have been, than I even did it in the first place. I also have a full-time job, so I come here after work and do more work, help Jeremy with his baskets, weave my own baskets.

When you do something for that long, the way you view your shopping cart can change. It’s not like you finish it in a week. It took me, I think, five or six months to complete this basket. So I went through several different color schemes in my head, different ways it would look. Sometimes you just don’t know, and your inspirations and hopes change all the time. But I just loved the way it looked. I like the way people talk about it. One thing I heard from people that made me happy was that they were from around the corner of the market, and that was the first thing that caught their attention about all these sellers. I was very honored to hear this.

What are your hopes for your career? Before?

I’m still figuring this out. I would love to be able to transition and become a full-time artist and make a living from it, and I think I could do some really good work at that. But right now, I’m a teacher. I’m just taking it day by day, and that’s all I can do at the moment.

I loved this tradition and grew up with it, but I don’t think I ever really realized I could make a living from it. It’s really hard to make your life revolve around art, and most people fail. So I think that’s also another realization, that this could be a real thing.

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