Bud and Carole Sloan make their home in Ponca City, Oklahoma and have been making baskets since the mid 1980’s. Prior to moving to Oklahoma in 2003 they made their home in Florida. Bud is a native Floridian and Carole was originally from Pennsylvania, but moved to Florida with her parents during her teenage years. They have two adult sons and five grandchildren.

Bud and Carole’s formal education has been in Education and Nursing, respectively. Bud has a Master’s Degree in Guidance and Counseling. Carole has a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing.

Their journey in basketry began approximately 23 years ago as a hobby and eventually developed into a full-time occupation for both. They have displayed and demonstrated their craft at art and craft shows for nineteen years in the Southeast, Northeast and Midwest. Some of the shows attended include Great Gulf Coast Art Festival, Pensacola, FL, Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, State College, PA, Kentuck, Northport, AL, Westmoreland Arts and Heritage Festival, Greensburg, PA, Yellow Daisy, Atlanta, GA, Guilford Handcraft Show, Guilford, CT, Mainsail, St. Petersburg, , FL, Long’s Park, Lancaster, PA, Gasparilla Arts Festival, Tampa, FL and KRASL Art Fair on the Bluff, St. Joseph, MI, Cherry Creek Arts Festival, Denver, CO, Omaha Summer Arts Festival, Omaha, NE, Coconut Grove Arts Festival, Miami, FL, Craft Boston, Boston, MA, Brookside Art Annual, Kansas City, MO, and Des Moines Art Festival, Des Moines, IA.

Formal instruction in basket making has included a class in ‘white oak basketry’ for Bud and a class in the construction of a “fishing creel style purse in ash” for Carole. They attended a class at John Campbell Folk School in North Carolina to develop their skills in woodturning. Carole has also taken a class in Shaker Boxes at John Campbell. The primary learning method has been “reading and doing” and conferring with other basket makers. As their skill has increased, so has their use of more intricate and diverse weaving techniques, the use of wood turning skills to add lids and pedestal bases in the Nantucket style baskets, as well as the varied use of color and texture in their baskets. All baskets are touched by both Bud and Carole in the process of creating basket, whether it is in the design process or in actual hands on construction.

Prior to the year 2002, their baskets styles have varied to include Shaker, Native American, New England and Appalachian baskets. This has given them a solid background in weaving techniques and the flexibility of those techniques. They are now concentrating on one style, the Nantucket Lightship Basket. By using their knowledge of weaving techniques and incorporating their woodturning skills, they are lending their own touch and individuality to a two hundred year old traditional basket style. The most notable change to this basket is the use of color by incorporating waxed linen thread, dyed rattan and monofilament to the traditional weaving material for this basket. The Oklahoma sunsets, the landscapes throughout the Midwest and the Native American designs were the impetus to incorporate color.