Jeffrey Gale

Jeffrey Gale (born April 14, 1952 Huntington, New York) is an American craftsman, known for his white-ash basketry. His work is found in private collections and in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery. He would pick trees that grow straight, owing to competition with others in the forest. Among contemporary basketmakers, he was the only one who worked with a tree that he had harvested, himself.

Seven of his baskets are included in the Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery. They were displayed with 98 other baskets as part of the museum's "Measure of the Earth" exhibition of 63 contemporary basketmakers, who have revived traditional basket making. All the featured baskets were from natural materials harvested in nature by their makers.

Influences Gale apprenticed with an Adirondack pack basket maker, using oak, and started his business in 1982 as a basket maker. Two books by Eric Sloane, Sketches of America Past and A Reverence for Wood, inspired him to take up the craft. His contemporary white-ash basketry derives primarily from early New England techniques, but incorporates his own methods and designs.

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