Eric Jon Taylor is an award-winning professional black ash basket maker, woodworker and trusted teacher. He designs and creates all his baskets, including processing his own materials, drawing original patterns  and the making of all his molds. 

Every basket is a unique marriage of contemporary woodworking techniques, materials and classic textures. He is currently known for his unique and functional ‘Cottage’ design baskets.

Before becoming an achieved basket maker, he was known for his Shaker box making. As a teen, he had learned Shaker box making during a summer school vacation in Massachusetts. Soon after that experience, in 1983, he began an apprenticeship under his father, Nathan Taylor and Martha Wetherbee, where he studied the art of Shaker basket making, along with advancing his technique of steam bending hardwoods, mold making and the process of preparing Black Ash materials. 

In 1988, and with the added experience of working with his hands and more knowledge of wood, his interest in the craft of Shaker box making was rekindled. In two short years, he was recognized by Early American Magazine’s Directory of 200 American Craftsmen, 1990. His take on scaled Shaker boxes were popular with collectors and after years of box making, he was continuing to be recognized. He was featured at Whitney Museum and Museum of American Folk Art, in New York. Eric’s Double Swallowtail Nest of Boxes won the Woodworkers Gallery Wood Award at the 15th Annual Juried Exhibit for the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Foundation.

After making a couple thousand boxes, he revisited black ash basket making and in 1996, he was teaching the craft of basketry nationally. He has taught all over the country including major conventions such as North Carolina Basket makers Assoc., the Assoc. of Michigan Basket Makers, Georgia Assoc. of Basket makers, Northeast Basket Makers along with many more from California and Washington, to Texas and Florida, all around New England and in the midwest for decades.

In 2000, Eric decided to stop making reproduction baskets and begin designing his own unique line. He introduced the first baskets of what would become his Cottage Collection in 2001 and as of today, he has over 200 designs.

In 2007, Eric was one of the basket makers featured in the book Weaving History: A Basket Heritage Project. In 2009, Eric’s ‘Burgundy Arch’ basket received the Best in Basketry Award and also the Best in Traditional Design Award (which included all craft categories from furniture to fashion to sculpture) from the 75th Annual League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. Eric is a two-time winner of the Viewer’s Choice Award at the AMB Convention, first being in 2009. In 2010, he won Best in Naturals at the Annual NCBA Convention. In 2010, he won Viewer’s Choice Northeast Basket Makers Gathering.

His Smith River Creel basket was a part of the Renwick’s “A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets” at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC from October 4 to December 8, 2013 and is now in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian.

Eric is born and raised in New Hampshire, but now lives and works in rural middle Tennessee with his wife Lynne, an artist and designer, their rescue dog, Izzy, foster fail Mr. Squiggs and Minnie Kitty, along with a shop cat named CoCo. He has been teaching workshops at his basket studio in McMinnville for almost a decade.