Dennis Shaffner specializes in weaving textile basket forms more akin to contemporary sculpture than functional baskets. BIRDnest sculptures are featured in HOLIDAZZLE 2008 at KMAC. DinnerWORKS 2007 13 Moons Over Somalia: designer collaboration at The Water Tower through April this year...watch KET Louisville Life, Feb 15... www.ket.org/loulife (program 116) Each "BASKETbowl" begins as a sphere (basketBALL) by weaving rattan and honeysuckle or akebia vine, the basic structure, becoming the eventual cut hemiSPHERE... the HEMIsphere becomes a "basketBOWL", reworked into the unique finished shape; natural reed revealing the vine's wood colors are sometimes embellished using vintage buttons secured with waxed Irish linen thread. Shaffner describes the feeling of basket (spheres) weaving with this analogy..."like I'm holding the North Pole of the globe, weaving on the equator, and the whole sphere becomes a planet or moon in my hands. I can't make one of these without thinking of the earth and how large the planet must be." The size of the reed affects the size of the spherical form. Shaffner studied textiles ('82 FIT, NY) at the University of Louisville (Alma Lesch 1980), then began weaving organic forms while in Connecticut (1983) at the Brookfield Craft Center, where he understudied with Japanese weaver Hisako Sekijima, who, according to Fiberarts Magazine, "has led the sculptural-basketry movement in Japan through her experimentation with form and materials." Sekijima re-ignited within Shaffner his lifelong appreciation of bird's nests and birds use of natural and man made recycled materials. Shaffner's work is included in the permanent collections at The White House (Smithsonian, DC), General Electric, University of Louisville, Alfred Shands Collection, The Schmidt Collection in Elizabethtown, KY; Morehead State University, The Duncan Collection, Lincoln, NE; Glenmore Distilleries, a painting in the permanent collection of the Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences and other public and private collections. Dennis Shaffner is currently the Fine Arts and Crafts Department Superintendent for the Kentucky State Fair, since 2000, initiated the annual Alma Wallace Lesch Memorial Award, honoring his mentor Alma Lesch since 2001. The cash award is presented each August from KMAC for an innovative textile entry selected from all Kentucky State Fair entries. Shaffner continues to encourage the State Fair Board into widening the stage of the annual art, craft and photography showcase (which displays basketry and woodturning in their Hobbies Department).