Theresa Secord (b.1958) is a traditional Penobscot basket maker and the founding director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance (MIBA). Theresa learned to weave in a traditional setting on Indian Island, Maine in 1988 with the late, Madeline Tomer Shay. During her 21 years of leadership, MIBA was credited with helping to save the endangered art of ash and sweet grass basketry by: lowering the average age of basket makers from 63 to 40; and increasing numbers from 55 to more than 100; in the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes. Among honors for this and for her artistic excellence, she received a lifetime achievement award, the 2016 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2009 First Peoples Fund's Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award and the 2003 Prize for Creativity in Rural Life presented by the Women’s World Summit Foundation, at the UN in Geneva Switzerland; for helping basket makers rise out of poverty.
More recently, Theresa was named a 2021 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow and received a 2022 honorary doctorate from Colby College in Maine. She weaves traditional Wabanaki baskets using her great-grandmother's wooden forms and tools that have been handed down to her and has taught many native apprentices to weave baskets. Theresa’s work resides in museums and private collections across the nation and she’s won prizes for her art in national, juried art shows. She continues to consult and volunteer at museums advocating for other native artists in Maine and in the Nation.