Need a Thanksgiving centerpiece? Kentucky basket weaver shows how to build a cornucopia

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, I went searching for a handmade cornucopia in Kentucky.

I came back with a really beautiful story of gratitude and a deep appreciation for an ancient art.

Hoping to track down someone who could teach me how to make this harvest icon, I sent messages to as many Kentucky basket weavers as I could find in early November. Cornucopias appear frequently in paintings and imagery of autumn feasts, but tracking down someone who could actually make one was more difficult than finding canned pumpkin during the pandemic shortage.

A few days before I almost scratched this idea entirely, I heard from Taylorsville artist Dani Sue Anderson.

She had never made a cornucopia before, but she was willing to try.

Grateful, I drove a half-hour southeast of Louisville through the rural countryside to the 600-acre farm where Anderson’s late grandmother Ardia Herndon once lived. Granny, as Dani still calls her lovingly, taught basket weaving in Kentucky for 30 years before she died in 2019. She’s been carrying on her grandmother’s legacy through her own basket-weaving business, Dani Sue Creations, for nearly eight years.

As I stepped into an old dairy barn turned weaving studio, I marveled at the fact that up until the day before, Dani had never woven a cornucopia. She'd seemingly woven everything else. The space felt like a wicker art gallery complete with a rainbow wall, draped in reeds of any color and shade you could imagine. She’d woven lampshades, a rolling tote, a decorative Santa’s sleigh, and a vast collection of functional baskets.

A small orange and brown cornucopia no bigger than a standard shoebox rested on a table, next to a second partially finished one that Dani had started weaving so that I could get a feel for the craft.

“What you have asked for Maggie, is not an easy thing,” Dani told me. “But I love that you asked because I love a challenge.”

This holiday fixture dates back to well before Americans first began planning out lengthy menus filled with turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce.

Cornucopias first appeared in Greek mythology. The way the legend goes, Baby Zeus was so strong, he accidentally broke off the horn of the goat that nursed him. Ancient Greeks believed the horn had the power to provide never-ending nourishment, and Zeus eventually honored this ever-giving goat by placing it in the sky as the constellation Capricorn.

That’s how the horn and the cornucopia became a symbol of harvest.

At the same time, having symbolism alone doesn’t necessarily make for a great basket.

Most basket weavers focus on functional pieces, Dani told me as we toured through the studio. People want baskets that they can use, whereas a cornucopia just sits there looking festive for one month each year.

She suspects that’s why in more than 30 years of weaving, she never thought to make one and no one ever asked her.

But in the days since I sent my initial email, she’d designed her own woven cornucopia pattern just as she’d drawn out so many others over the year. She’d taken reeds and woven them around the base of a bottle to give it that narrow, cylinder shape at its end. Then she’d chosen an ombre-like reed that faded from orange to purple for the part of the cone that fans out.

On an imaginary scale that the two of us invented at that moment, Dani tried to explain how much skill this would take. A simple beginner’s “snack baskets” that a 4-H student could do with little coaching would be a “one” and the intricately curved “egg baskets” that are such a labor of love that Dani has never considered selling them were “10s.”

A cornucopia falls at about six.

Making a horn requires knowing how to shape and weave at the same time so that it can widen out from the base, she told me. For a beginner to weave something like that, it would take at least five hours and a lot of careful guiding and correcting on her part.

We both laughed. Just like filling a Thanksgiving Day plate, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. So many things about this assignment were more difficult than I imagined.

Even so, I grasped the base of the horn, and Dani guided me patiently through a rhythmic, almost therapeutic, over-under motion. There was a catch, though. With each new ring of the cornucopia, I needed to weave over two reeds at once to maintain the spiral-like journey of a continuous weave. Just as I thought I’d caught the hang of it, I’d miss each of those double jumps.

Then I’d have to undo part of it and start again.

No two baskets are ever the same, Dani told me, as I worked my way around the cornucopia’s upper cone. A whole room of weavers can follow the same pattern and each end up with a different basket. Most people don’t realize baskets can’t be woven by machines, she explained. Even when they’re mass-produced, wicker baskets still require human hands to weave the reeds.

Baskets are certainly utilitarian, but they’re very much still art.

Her grandmother first learned to weave baskets at the World’s Fair in Tennessee in 1982, which was the same year Dani was born. She was only six years old the first time she sat on the floor “crisscross apple sauce” with her grandmother and wove her first Nantucket basket. By the time she was 16, her skills had advanced to the decorative Santa sleigh she’d shown me earlier in her studio. That was a “9” on our imaginary scale, she said, and she didn’t have much interest in finishing it.

“You’re going to appreciate this someday” she remembers Granny telling her.

When Dani gave birth to a daughter in October 2012, her baby was the perfect size to fit in that sleigh once the holidays rolled around. Ardia’s wish came true. Dani appreciated it so much she had a picture of her great-granddaughter in that basket framed as a Christmas gift for Granny that year.

A few years later, while on maternity leave with a different daughter, Granny asked Dani to help out with one of her classes. She spent four hours working with the weavers and left with a full heart and a big idea. Maybe running her own basket-weaving business could help her be a stay-at-home mom.

Once word got out that Ardia’s granddaughter was teaching classes, the slots filled up quickly. Eight years later, she’s designed more than 50 original basket patterns, launched a basket kit subscription program, hosted digital lessons throughout the pandemic and now she’s teaching classes in-person at her new studio.

There’s a lot to be grateful for, she told me, as I finished wrapping that final reed.

“You’re going to make me cry,” she said.

That list was seemingly as long as all the unused reeds hanging from her wall. She’s met lifelong friends from basket weaving. She's able to run this business alongside her husband on her family’s land. Even though it’s been a few years since Ardia died, her Granny is still present in her work. She never teaches a class without bringing along a photo of her grandmother or telling stories about her.

But just like weaving a cornucopia is so much more complex than I ever imagined, so is what this art means to her.

“I'm really grateful that Granny shared this craft with me, and that she gave me a place to feel confident,” Dani told me.

When Dani was a little girl, she struggled in school with reading and math. She had dyslexia, and it always felt like the words and the numbers were dancing and moving across the page.

Dani didn’t fully realize it while she was complaining about weaving that sleigh all those years ago, but making baskets gave her a sense of accomplishment when test scores couldn’t.

“Oh, this is something I'm good at,” she remembers thinking as a child. “This is how my brain works.”

I looked down at that cornucopia and marveled at each curve and pattern she’d designed.

“I always had stability, and Granny didn't know she was giving me that,” she told me.

Features columnist Maggie Menderski writes about what makes Louisville, Southern Indiana and Kentucky unique, wonderful, and occasionally, a little weird. If you've got something in your family, your town or even your closet that fits that description — she wants to hear from you. Say hello at mmenderski@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4053. Follow along on Instagram and Twitter @MaggieMenderski.

Want to weave?

Dani Anderson posts her class schedule, basket kits and information for her subscription program online at danisuecreations.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky basket weaver shows how to make Thanksgiving centerpiece