Sally Black

Sally Black is widely-recognized by museums and collectors for her unique designs and weaving skill. Raised on Douglas Mesa in southeastern Utah, she began making baskets when she was eight years old after observing her mother, Mary Holiday Black, weaving rugs and baskets. She wove her first baskets in secret because her mother believed she was too young. Sally is driven by a strong desire to create new and beautiful designs and was an early innovator, along with her mother, in modifying the design of the ts’aa’ (ceremonial basket). Ambitious and full of creative energy, her baskets are known for their precise and intricate patterns and for incorporating motifs from Apache and Tohono O’odham cultures. Her national success as a basket artist began in the 1980s in Santa Fe where she was honored for her large-scale works and use of positive and negative space. Sally has traveled throughout the United States teaching workshops.