MARBLEHEAD — These are busy times for Patti DiCarlo Baker and the Marblehead Arts Association.
Housed in the 290-year-old Hooper Mansion in historic Old Town, the association is teeming with activity. And no one is teeming harder than executive director Baker.
She is overseeing preparations for this Saturday’s masquerade party, one of two principal fundraisers for the MAA in the third-floor ballroom of the old mansion. She’s also closing in on having the logo she designed for the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor’s Holiday Pops Concert in December.
The logo, called “Marblehead Mailbox,” will be unveiled Tuesday, Nov. 6, at a reception at the Abbot Library, 225 Pleasant St.
However, what Baker is perhaps known best for, and is most proud of, is her basket weaving, for which she has won numerous awards.
The weaving came about thanks to the many times Baker and her husband, Bruce, went to Nantucket for the Figawi Race, which departs from the island and finishes at Hyannis (and which got its name pretty much the way you’d imagine after a group of sailors racing in 1972 got lost in the fog).
“I’d always see this elderly man, who was a shopkeeper, making these baskets, and I was very intrigued by it,” said Baker, who grew up in North Syracuse, N.Y., and always knew she wanted to be an artist (her major at Syracuse University was illustration and design). “I liked how he was making them.”
So she learned how to do them, and how to imprint them with her own style and tastes. She especially loves designing them as mailboxes, similar to the soon-to-be-unveiled logo.
“And,” she said, “they are not merely decorative. They’re meant to be used.”
She said she enjoys the precision of the craft, while exploring and creating new shapes and designs.
“I have always loved baskets,” she said. “I weave them from moulds, and I make them to be useful.”
She’s been weaving for 14 years, and you can find them at the Marblehead Farmers’ Markets, the Festival of the Arts, and in the MAA shop. She even won two blue ribbons for weaving at the Topsfield Fair, one for the Home Arts and the other for Nantucket Baskets categories.
Baker’s latest avocation is a far cry from the way she started using her talents. She designed covers for the NYNEX telephone books (later Bell Atlantic, and, still later, Verizon). There, she learned all about the sanctity of logos, as the telephone company had stringent guidelines. Still, there were times when even the strictest guidelines didn’t stop disasters from happening.
“We did the Providence book one year,” she said, “and there was a typo on the cover. The word ‘vicinity’ was spelled ‘vincinity.’
“Thankfully, the mayor of Providence loved it.”
Though she sees herself as an artist, “most people see me as a basket-weaver,” she said.
Baker began drawing at an early age, and found she liked it.
“My grandfather played piano, and he always taught us art,” she said. “And my mother kept pushing it, so when I told her I was going to school to become a veterinarian, she was not happy.”
Paramount on Baker’s mind these days, however, is the masquerade party, one of two main charity events that she says helps keep the doors of the MAA open (the other is a Kentucky Derby dress-up day run in conjunction with the Boston Yacht Club, with raffles and prizes substituting for actual wagering on horses).
“It costs $11,000 a month to keep these doors open,” said Baker, who has been the MAA executive director for two years.
Baker will have her work displayed at the Abbot Library in the Virginia A. Carten Gallery throughout November.
