Joan Brink, born in New Orleans, LA., studied fine arts at Connecticut College and lived for years with her art historian husband in Florence, Italy. She moved to Vancouver, B.C. in 1972, and for twenty years lived and raised her two daughters between Florence, Nantucket and the Canadian Northwest. She now resides with her husband Joel in Santa Fe, NM. In Vancouver she spent a period making Navajo-style coiled baskets; this continued in Tuscany where she gathered her materials from the fields around a farmhouse north of Fiesole. She turned her attention to the Lightship basket in the 1980's, and learned to make the open basket under the tutelage of a craftsman on Nantucket. For a number of years she concentrated on the traditional Lightship purse, but instead of the ivory accessories common in New England, she used a variety of hardwoods for the carpentered details, and the arts of the Native peoples of British Columbia on the purse covers. Joan took the distinctive form of this special basket and changed it by placing art on the lid that partook of a mythological heritage. She brought the basket into a form that bridges several boundary lines: east coast/west coast, native/white, women's accessory/art object. Her eight years in Santa Fe, NM, have seen new influences and inspired new directions. Although she still employs the traditional Lightship weaving technique, many of her baskets now resemble Southwest pottery forms. The development of new mold forms has enabled her to create larger baskets in a variety of shapes with extensive design patterns.