Weaving a life's story
California woman determined to keep basketweaving tradition alive

Julie Holder is determined to keep the tradition of California Indian basketweaving alive. [Courtesy Photo]

By John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

CORTE MADERA , Calif. — As the crow flies, Julie Holder’s home is only a few miles from George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, but she doesn’t need The Force to generate her power — that comes from supporting and promoting the California Indian Basketweavers Association.

Holder, who hails from California‘s Diegueno and Kumeyaay Nation, is a CIBA board member.

“I’m probably the only one on the board who isn’t a basketweaver,” she said.

She is currently working as a community liaison for the California State Parks as a Cultural Resource Specialist, in development of the California Indian Heritage Center , a state museum development project.

Holder works to define the vision for a California Indian Archive/Library within the California Indian Heritage Center.

It’s her positive attitude that makes Holder a larger than life figure — figuratively and literally.

“Big girls can be beautiful,” Holder laughed. “I’m a big girl, and I’m beautiful.”

Her laugh is infectious as she describes herself as a former hippie — one who eventually matured, but never forgot the age of Flower Power. She rattles off the names of beat poets, writers and artists like they are old friends. And many are.

She used to work in the music industry, and came to know David Crosby, for one. She attended a marriage for the Grateful Dead’s late great Jerry Garcia.

“It used to be really creative out here, but it’s changed,” Holder said. “The Eastern money came from New York and bought up all the land, and then didn’t want anyone else living next to them.”

It’s a good thing for Holder that she doesn’t have to worry about a Mason-Dixon Line in California , because while her roots are in the south, her heart is firmly to the north. Corte Madera is a small community in Marin County , just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco . She’s surrounded by smaller, rural communities like San Rafael , Sausalito and Point Reyes .

“I don’t like living in the city, the drivers are crazy; I need the rural areas,” Holder said.

Holder has a long history of working in the arts, from music to films, and brings additional skills in development of many types of special events. Though she isn’t a basketweaver herself, she still comes by the tradition naturally; she comes from a long line of Southern basketweavers and has been a supporter of CIBA for many years.

“As Native people, the perception of who we are and how we define our culture has long been disregarded,” Holder said. “I would like to help the truth of our past, be told by us, so it may become the voice that resonates into our future.”

CIBA is governed by an 11-member board of directors, elected by the voting members. To be eligible for a seat on the board, one must be a voting member; that is, a California Indian basketweaver. One-half the seats on the board are up for election every year.

The group’s vision is to preserve, promote, and perpetuate California Indian basketweaving traditions while providing a healthy physical, social, spiritual, and economic environment for basketweavers.

CIBA wants to insure that the art doesn’t die out, Holder said.

In the late 20th century, the age-old art of basketweaving, perfected over centuries by California Indians, appeared at risk of dying out. Few younger weavers were learning to weave, and the mostly older women who continued to weave were finding it increasingly difficult to carry on their work, Holder explained. The demands of family life and the struggle to make a living, together with the destruction of plant habitats, pesticide contamination of gathering areas, and difficulty of obtaining access to gathering sites, were reducing the time and opportunity for plant tending, gathering, and basket weaving, she said.

In 1991, a statewide gathering of California basketweavers confirmed the perilous future of the native art. Following the gathering, a basketweavers council was formed to plan future gatherings, to establish a formal organization, and to begin solving the problems identified. At the 1992 statewide gathering the weavers formed the California Indian Basketweavers Association.

Holder has weaved a life story as intricate as the basket patterns mastered by the California tribes. Her mother was married several times and, one of her stepfathers an newspaper editor in Los Angeles; through that connection, she grew up sometimes meeting the oddest cast of characters.

Like billionaire tycoon Howard Hughes.

“He was very nice,” she said. “That was before the crazy years.”

Hughes was an aviator and film producer of renown before becoming germ phobic and locking himself away in a secluded Las Vegas hotel.

She knew she was living a life of privilege, but it never gave her an oversized image of herself. She came of age in the 1960s, and experienced all that implies.

“I lived the ‘60s,” Holder said. “I ate it, I drank it and I smoked it.”

She has lived a full life.

She is aware of living right on the fault line, but puts it out of her mind.

“You can’t live your life in fear, worrying about what might happen. You could walk out the door and get hit by a car,” Holder said. “You live every day like it could be your last, and that way you experience more, you live a fuller life.”

Taking her own advice, Holder is determined to live her life to the fullest — and she’s not one to put all her eggs in one basket.

Not even a basket as beautiful as those made by California’s natives.