It’s A Small World
Creating and Collecting Miniature Lightship Baskets
The challenges of creating and the joys of collecting miniature Nantucket Lightship Baskets will be the subject of a discussion on Saturday, April 26 at 1:00 p.m. in the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum’s lecture gallery. Featuring expert basket maker Nap Plank and noted collector Nancy Tower Scott, the program will explore the big world of tiny baskets. Accompanying the discussion will be examples of miniatures in various stages of completion and some tools required for this exacting work.
Known for his distinctive miniature versions of lightship baskets, Nantucketer Nap Plank uses various woods or antique ivory to create baskets as large as five inches and as small as a half-inch in diameter. Part weaving, part engineering, each miniature is made using traditional methods with painstaking care to every detail.
“It started rather slowly but miniatures now make up a good portion of the baskets I make,” noted Plank recently. “There is just something about the miniature scale that I find fascinating.”
Nancy Tower Scott bears the distinction of owning one of the largest miniature lightship basket collections in the world and has been finding, purchasing, and making baskets for more than 20 years. The Scott Collection includes local and off-island makers and has over 38 basket makers represented in her group of more than 170 of the tiny treasures.
“I hope to include all of the well-known local basket makers in my collection,” Scott said. “I have several yet to go!”
The Scott Collection was first seen in the 2007 NLBM exhibit, “Through the Collector’s Eye” and some of the baskets were featured in the Museum’s entry in the Nantucket Historical Association Festival of Trees, with the appropriate title, “It’s a Small World.”
Saturday’s program is free with Museum admission and offered at no cost to NLBM members.
