I discovered wild potatoes (sylenum jasmie) while camping in Cebolla Canyon, NM.

During my search for the namesake of the canyon, onions, in Spanish, cebollas, I found a minuscule potato attached to the root structure of one cebolla. With help I collected 59 1⁄2 tiny potatoes, all of which fit in a 35mm film canister. While digging I wondered: did pre-Puebloan peoples harvest these wild potatoes or did colonial settlers plant them? 

Back in Albuquerque, many phone calls led me to Bill Dunmire, an ethnobotanist. He left me a droll phone message: “I’m calling about the potato.” Later he explained that despite their size, the wild potatoes might have played an important nutritional role in the pre-Puebloan diet. Potatoes could be stored and eaten fresh during the winter. With this knowledge, the hours of harvest for my film canister of tiny wild potatoes took on new meaning.

To create an appropriate vessel for these tiny wild nutrition powerhouses was my next challenge. A basket was an obvious choice, but I had to learn some basic basket weaving skills first, then decide on materials (willow), harvest them, soak them (in the bathtub) and then weave a basket the size of a film canister that looked like an orderly basket and not haphazard bird nest.

2005