Stories When Nancy was little, she always listened to the adults talking about the family.  In 1989 she moved to the Carolina's to learn the Cherokee stories of respect.  These she told to her children.  Now she tells "back in the day" stories to her grandchildren and public school children of all ages.  Nancy tells different stories on the back of each of her kudzu pieces.  There are 50 different stories.  One day they will become a book illustrated with her kudzu art. THE STORY OF THIS DESIGN:  Dogwood Long time ago, the Cherokee’s elected a chief who had four daughters. When Europeans found gold on Cherokee land, the chief caught gold fever. Deciding to be wealthy, whenever young men came to see his daughters, he asked for gold instead of the customary fish or deer. The youths did as the chief requested. As the suitors came back, they were taken into the woods, never to return. This word spread quickly, and soon no young men came to see the chief’s daughters. The people knew what had happened. They asked Grandfather for help rid them of this bad chief. The chief was turned into a knarled tree. The daughters, now old and unwanted were turned into four flower petals on the tree to make it beautiful. Gold was placed in the center to help remind the people to love their children more than money. Red tipped petals, united the loved ones and honored the boys whose blood was spilled. Red berries grow there in winter reminding us always of this great lesson. THE LEGEND OF THE KUDZU VINE- Native to the Orient, Kudzu vine grows 12 inches daily. Asians use every part of the plant: Kudzu roots, weighing up to 400 pounds, are ground into powder and used as a thickener in cooking. Vines are processed and exported as grass-cloth wallpaper and are woven into expensive clothing, once used as gifts for emperors. Leaves have been used for hundreds of years in medicinal teas and a wide variety of foods. The purple flowers smell like grape bubble gum and are used in jelly-making. In the 1920’s, kudzu was imported to the southern U.S. as a ground cover and erosion control. Today, because of its prodigious, unchecked growth, it is considered a menace. Nancy hopes to change folks’ opinions about kudzu from a maligned and laughed at weed into a new and inexhaustible source of tree-free paper. THE ARTIST NANCY BASKET, in 1989, began experimenting with the "notorious" kudzu vine after moving to the Carolinas to be close to the Cherokee Reservation. Nancy shares her Native American heritage, by re-telling ancient legends orally and through her art. She says of her work," I feel the old ones guiding my fingers and I am proud to be making something beautiful." A contemporary basket maker and fiber artist, Nancy takes her name from the work she does, and from her Cherokee grandmother, long ago Margaret Basket. She is an artist-in-education in basketry, papermaking and storytelling in the Carolinas.