From Basketry to Beadwork
Artist Molly Pesata on her beloved Jicarilla Apache heritage
Molly Pesata is a fourth-generation basket-weaver. At least, this is what she can say for certain, based on her own memories.
“I learned the art of basketry mainly watching my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother,” she recalls. “I’m not sure who my great-grandmother learned from. Probably from her mother. But as far as I know, I’m fourth-generation.”
As the saying goes, her ancestors have woven baskets from plant fibers since time immemorial.
Like the matriarchs who came before her, Pesata is a citizen of the Jicarilla Apache Nation. She lives and works in Dulce, N.M., the small town at the heart of the tribe’s present-day reservation a few miles south of Colorado.
Although she first wove baskets around age 14, she taught herself additional art forms as an adult after taking a job with the nation’s Arts and Crafts Department. For the last 16 or 17 years, she’s honed her skill in beadwork, pottery, and moccasin-making.
“When I started working for the tribe, that’s when I started to learn all these other different types of crafts other than basketry,” she explains. “I was very interested in learning how to make all these beautiful things that people are wearing or…
