Instructor
Beth Hester
Beth has been making baskets since 1975, initially experimenting with coiled work, an extension of her love of hand-sewing and constructing. Learning from Ollie and Lestel Childress and Leona Waddell she is honored to be a bearer of south central Kentucky’s white oak tradition. A partner in The Basket Maker’s Catalog, Beth creates patterns, products and learning opportunities through teaching and hosting other professional basket making instructors in and around Scottsville. She has studied basketry with teachers from North America, Germany, France and Denmark and her most recent love is for willow—skeining as well as rod work.
In 2015 Beth presented a series of programs for the Kentucky Folklife Programs at local public libraries through out South Central Kentucky. She was awarded first place in fiber arts for ‘Willows’ Rhythm’, in the 2016 US Bank Celebration of the Arts Open Art Exhibit at the Kentucky Museum. She won the Merit award at the same exhibition in 2017. Beth served on the Board of Trustees of the National Basketry Organization, a non-profit that unites a diverse group of people to provide education and to promote basket making.
She co-curated, with Brent Bjorkman, Director of both the Kentucky Folklife Program and the Kentucky Museum, the exhibition ‘Standing the Test of Time: Kentucky’s White Oak Basket Traditions’ at the Kentucky Museum on the campus of Western Kentucky University.
