Lois Walpole

Wind and the Willows

2012-01-05T16:23:00.001+01:00

Christmas Day might never be quite as exciting again.

The day started windy, a storm force ten was forecast and by midday the waves on Mid Yell Voe had white crests. By 2pm the wind was whipping the water into clouds of salt laden mist that raced across the water and smacked into the front of the house. Large pieces of driftwood lifted into the air and a neighbour’s caravan decided to give up the struggle and let the wind push it over. The howling in the chimney was unforgettable as the Queen told us, in her annual address, of the natural disasters that had happened in her far flung “colonies” in 2011. Shortly afterwards the lights started to flicker and by 4.30pm everything went dark as the power went off. We lit the 'peerie' Mørso Squirrel with some willow prunings which then provided us with heating and the means of cooking for the next 24 hours when, thanks to men working in dangerous and very difficult conditions, the volts raced back along the wires. We now know that the wind had hit 105mph which is defined as hurricane force.

In other parts of the world hurricanes are given girls names and occupy hours of national television, yet Shetland storms are barely noticed by the rest of the British Isles and certainly not christened. Perhaps it’s because the islands aren't quite on the television weather maps or perhaps it is the relative lack of physical damage that renders them non-news worthy. People expect the wind to blow hard here and so they build accordingly. Two roofs, some garden fencing and £2million pounds worth of salmon in their cages, last seen heading towards Orkney, seem to have been the major casualties this time.

Whilst the thought of the roof being ripped off your home in the dark with the cold rain drenching everything is too horrible to contemplate the loss of some salmon cages appeared, at first, to be good news for the fish. Apparently though the cages were not in themselves damaged and so the fish would have been unable to escape and thousands of mature salmon are thought to have died of starvation, as they are used to being fed regularly. Either that or they began to eat each other when their dinner failed to arrive! Neither is a happy scenario.

Perhaps another reason for the relatively small amount of physical damage here is because there are very few trees on the islands and it is trees close to buildings that often cause the most damage in hurricanes elsewhere. Trees can, however, absorb a considerable amount of wind energy and ironically if there were more trees in Shetland there would also be less wind. There is plenty of space to grow trees well away from buildings here.

There is a generally held notion, amongst outsiders, that trees cannot grow here but there is evidence to the contrary. Samuel Lewis in his 1846 Topographical Dictionary of Scotland described the island of Yell as having “extensive peat mosses in which are found large trees”. In fact the peat that now clothes the island of Yell is the rotted remains of the birch and oak forests that once covered the land. The other main cause cited for a lack of trees is the sheep which were, until recently, allowed to roam at will and being partial to a bit of variety in their diet they are accused of having eaten all emerging tree seedlings.

But I feel there is something deeper going on here as every so often there are tales in the newspaper of 'tree stealing'. James Mackenzie of the Shetland Amenity Trust also alerted me to the sad tale of Thomas Irvines' plantation. Thomas was the owner of the Haa of Midbrake at Cullivoe on Yell in 1815. It was the house that my grandmother was born in many years later, so it was of particular interest to me to learn that he had planted some 3,500 trees and shrubs including willows there. He had hoped they would be of benefit to the community but, apparently, the locals stole the lot! Sometimes I think that somewhere along the line the relationship between Shetland folk and trees went sour as there seems to be only a half-hearted desire to plant and nurture them here now!

The previous owner of this house was not from Shetland and she created a beautiful garden filled with trees and shrubs including willows of many varieties thus creating a micro climate for flora and fauna. Unusually there is a resident robin, wren and blackbird as well as the more common crows, with their grisly nests full of sheep and bird bones, starlings and the occasional 'blow in' - a 'European Bee Eater' took refuge here a couple of years ago. This little copse also harbours hedgehogs and frogs and according to my neighbour John Tonner, who is very knowledgeable about these things, one of the best collections of snails on the island.

But wonderful as this all is there is another, and far more vital reason for growing willow here and it isn't for basket making. Rather it is as a quick and cheap alternative source of energy to the electricity which is predominant here. Each year I prune the willows to encourage root growth to make sturdy plants that are better able to withstand the winter winds but also, I have to admit, to some extent because I feel obliged to cut them for basket making. In the end, however, I use very little of it for making anything. I have realised that I prefer willow living or freshly cut, and once it is dry I seldom feel as excited by it, perhaps simply because it is dead and requires a lot of resuscitation to bring it back to life! Most of these annual prunings therefore end up being cut to short lengths and stacked to dry for use in the stove or made into faggots for the open fire. Driftwood, though plentiful here, is apparently not good for stoves or open fires as it is laden with salt but these mini willow logs have proved their weight in gold this year.

When the wind stops blowing I will go out and do the annual pruning and plant as many more willows as I can. If anyone in Shetland is reading this and would like some of these cuttings to plant their own little bio-mass copse, or osier holt, please get in touch with me and with our combined efforts, perhaps, in twenty years there will be a little bit less wind in the willows!

Plaiting Iris Leaves

2011-11-21T18:44:00.002+01:00

At the time it seemed so lucky to find a cache of iris tubers at the rubbish dump but some years later I am wiser. I have learnt that when you aren't looking they rapidly multiply and push and shove each other across pathways and over walls smothering all other more delicate plants. In no time at all you have so many that you might, in desperation, consider taking a boot load to the rubbish dump! But, the idea of rubbish dumps, let alone using energy to take anything to them is a tricky one for me, so I have tried to find other, more positive, ways to use these plants.

Cutting the leaves off after the plants have flowered has always seemed to me to be a brutal and ugly way to deal with dying iris leaves. So in this garden at least, they are allowed to die naturally and as the leaves turn brown I gather them. If I am going to use them straight away I do this in the morning, after they have been softened by the dew and put them in the shade till I am ready to work. If not I tie them in bunches and dry them.

Plaiting is something that can be done in those moments when you don’t really want to have to think too much about what you are doing, so talking, travelling and watching tv are all good companion activities. A trip to the beach for the day is for me the perfect opportunity to do some plaiting so I damp a few bunches by dipping them quickly in water and shaking off the excess, put them in a plastic bag and stick them on the back shelf in the car in the sunshine. A couple of hours later they come out of the bag on the beach in perfect condition for plaiting or rope making, both of which can later be stitched into baskets or mats.

Six years a go I started making table mats with my plaits, and have made one or more a year since then, now I have a set of 8. These are simple circular mats 25cm in diameter that are used to protect the wooden table from hot plates. I am not keen on table mats that extend beyond the plates, I don’t really understand what the point of them is because they always get food spilt on them and need endless amounts of washing or cleaning, both of which are time and resource sappers.

Of all the things that I have made for my own home these table mats probably give me the most pleasure because I use them several times a day and they do everything I want from them. They look attractive, protect the table, never need cleaning, smell nice (a musky woody scent) and inadvertently they tidy up the irises. There is something very satisfying about turning an otherwise rather pointless activity i.e. pulling off dead iris leaves so the garden looks better, into a fruitful one, making something useful out of them.

So for anyone interested in making iris leaf table mats here, very simply, is my method.

Harvest the leaves and either use them damp with morning dew or damp them just before you want to use them.

Take 3 leaves and tie them tightly in the middle with a piece of string that you can tie onto something solid such as a door knob or table leg.This allows you to pull on the plait which frees up your hands to concentrate on it and makes it easier to get an even plait. When working on the beach I trap the plait between my toes.

Divide the leaves into three even bunches and plait them as if you were braiding hair. My plaits are folded inwards at the edges to give a smooth edge.

The plait is kept an even thickness by adding new leaves as and when necessary, I join them usually on the right because it makes trimming the ends quicker and easier with them all pointing in the same direction. They are put in by the butt leaving a little bit sticking out.

Here is a short video clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soswVdQrZEI

I make approximately 15 metres of plait for a 25cm diameter table mat.The plait is dried naturally out of direct sunlight or extreme heat. And then all the bits sticking out are trimmed off.

The stitching is done with jute, polypropylene or cotton cord i.e whatever I have available that is suitable. Starting at the end that was tied onto something I roll the plait tightly and stitch through a small coil of a couple of rows two or three times to hold it all together. I then continue the stitching working in a spiral by going through the fixed plait and the free plait using a simple running or tacking stitch.

Here is another clip
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIqV3x7nv-0

As I near the 25cm diameter I estimate where the plait needs to finish and cut it at that point I then unravel the plait, cut some pieces out to thin it down and re plait it so that the end just tapers away to almost nothing. That is stitched in place and the mat is ready for use.

Urban Baskets Boxed In

2011-10-30T13:49:00.001+01:00

Two of the exhibits in Urban Baskets

Urban Baskets has now finished in the Netherlands where, again, it was very well received. It will not be going on show again until June 2012 at the Harley Foundation in Nottingham so Walford Mill in Dorset will have to store it until then. For me this is distressing, I hate to think of my work sitting in dark, suffocating boxes for eight months. These pieces were made to be seen and shared with others and when they are not on show they normally share my living space. Now the house feels empty and the baskets are shut away from view - it doesn’t feel right. Do any of you know of a vacant space, where they could be allowed to breathe again before June?

The work is very lightweight and is packed in postable cardboard boxes. It is not, by normal standards, an expensive exhibition to move around and it will all fit in a Transit van. From all the evidence in the visitors book and the attendance figures, so far, the exhibition is guaranteed to give pleasure and inspiration to it’s audience. If you know of a public space UK, Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, or anywhere else that might be able to squeeze it in please get in touch with either, me lois@loiswalpole.eu or Christine at Walford Mill christine@walfordmillcrafts.co.uk and make some baskets very happy!

At the same time we are working with various organisations and individuals on the possibilities of taking Urban Baskets to Canada and Australia from 2013 where, ideally, we would like to create mini tours. If you are reading this in either country please get in touch with suggestions of possible venues.

Duos Potier,Vannier.

2011-10-27T18:04:00.000+02:00

La petite galerie du chateau du Roussillon

Some months ago I was invited to participate in this exhibition which is currently on show until the 30^th October in the Chateau de Roussillon in the Rhone Valley, south of Lyon. The idea behind the event was to pair up potters with basket makers in order for them to collaborate on some pieces. It is an interesting and popular idea, the Scottish Basketmakers' Circle have a similar exhibition opening shortly at the Collins Gallery in Glasgow. Initially my collaborator was to be a potter in my region but that fell through, (I think it was the prospect of working with me) and I was then paired up with Michel Gardelle – a highly respected ceramicist who lives close to Mont de Marsan in the Landes region, some four hours south of where I live. Various things intervened and in the end we never met! With time running out we arranged that I would collect three of Michel’s pots from a friend of his closer to me and I was given carte blanche to do whatever I wanted with them.

Michel Gardelle's ceramic pieces

This presented me with problems, not only because I find ceramic objects a bit scary ( I was terrified of dropping them) but also because here were three finished pieces that I really had no desire to do anything to! It would have been totally different if they had been created with a view to me working on them but these were not new pieces and had been conceived without that idea in prospect. In some way, therefore, it seemed disrespectful to add anything to them as Michel had already decided that they were finished pieces. This bothered me until I stood the three pieces on the studio floor in the sunshine. The shadows were each different and I immediately realised that I was going to make ‘shadow’ baskets.

Pots, shadows and baskets

Once the idea arrived the work went quickly and I enjoyed making the three pieces. Each one taking inspiration from details on the pots as well as the shape of the shadows. I would not have made them without having had the opportunity to live with and look at Michels’ pieces in my studio, so for me, at least, the ‘collaboration’ was ultimately creative.

Last weekend we drove to Roussillon to deliver the work. There I met Francoise Demoulins who is a basket maker and friend of Monica Guilera in Catalonia. It was Monica who had suggested me as a possible participant in this event and I am grateful to them both. There were six exhibitors, the others were potters Sylvie and Francois Fresnais who were paired with the perigourdin expert Philippe Guerinel, and Christine Fabre who was paired with the irrepressible Erik Barray, self styled Vannier Urbain. Neither Philippe nor Michel were there for the vernissage but it was a great pleasure to meet the others and for me a particular pleasure to meet Erik.

Sylvie and Francois Fresnais
and Philipe Guerinel

Christine Fabre and Eric Barray

Nathalie and Jean-Jacques Dubernard, who live and work in a 200 year old pottery that is known as ‘La Poterie des Chals, were our hosts. They have changed very little at the pottery preparing their own clay and using foot powered wheels to make decorated slipware using only mineral glazes. The ancient wood fired kilns are impressive. They have a small shop and sell their work at many of the pottery fairs held in France. We could not have had better hosts.

The idea for the exhibition was theirs and the Association FIGLINAE that organised it came into existence because of their enthusiasm for their craft. Most of the forty members of the Association supported the opening by bringing food to share. The vernissage was packed and fortuitously a bar next door was having a re-opening party after a change of management. The Champagne flowed, the band played and the assembled potters, basket makers and friends took to the floor. Jean Jacques turned out to be the partner of choice for the women with his astonishing Ceroc moves; he will forever be ‘twinkle toes’ in my memory. Later back at the pottery the other JJ, aka ‘twinkle fingers’ played international folk tunes on his melodeon. I am not sure whether the French audience understood “Aunty Mary had a Canary”, but the clapping and stamping implied they enjoyed it. I don’t think I have ever been to a better opening!

Going Dutch

2011-10-07T13:27:00.000+02:00

In a bid to be environmentally friendly I went to Noordwolde in Friesland by train. It took all day from Poitiers and for much of the journey time after Tours it travelled through a landscape blighted by the railways’ presence. Crossing Paris underground on a very warm day didn't add to my experience. The Gare du Nord is my least favourite Paris station surrounded, as it is, by dense traffic, expensive bars and restaurants and an annoying, though nevertheless quite interesting, assortment of audacious con merchants.

Looking at the acres of new railway infrastructure construction as we hurtled through Northern France, Belgium and southern Netherlands I began to wonder why we are being persuaded that it is more environmentally friendly to cover the land with new railway lines when looking up, all I could see was empty blue sky from horizon to horizon marked by the occasional vapour trail from a solitary aircraft!

There is a scene in the wonderful animation by Sylvain Chaumet, Triplettes de Belleville, where the development around ‘Grandmas’ house has left the building that was once in the country jammed between a railway line, pylons, motorways and buildings with commuter trains now running right outside the upper floor windows. You can see a bit of it here . This vignette kept coming to mind as we screamed past bedrooms and gardens, places we usually like to think of as personal, private and tranquil havens.

It was the gardens that really got to me. Everywhere along these railway lines people had created little patches of verdant paradise with affectionately tended grass, topiary, flowers and exotic trees, as though they were trying to compensate for the hideous sight and sound of the railway line that they have to share their lives with.

Once an aeroplane is in the sky it doesn't usually bother too many people on the ground and I do believe they are not too far from developing ways to fly that do not vapourize ozone or require lakefuls of fossil fuels. Most airports shut at night but goods trains and many passenger trains allow no respite for the many poor souls who have to sleep near the lines. I am really not sure about more and faster trains.....

Things improved once I got beyond Rotterdam but, the

Netherlands

is undergoing a major construction boom. This is not just on their railways, cranes and cement mixers were everywhere. It was only after Zwolle that pastoral scenes became the norm and fortunately Noordwolde turned out to be a very small and quiet town in some lovely countryside.

On my first evening stroll at twilight I saw a hare, only metres away. I had never seen a live hare before, I thought it was a dog with extra large ears!

The motive for my journey was a two day workshop to coincide with Urban Baskets which has been on show at the Nationaal Vlechtmuseum since July. The workshop was fully booked with 21 highly motivated and hard working students, including two men! I am always delighted to get men in my workshops and I like to have a lot of students mainly because it keeps me busy. More importantly though, I believe the students can learn as much from each other as from me, as everyone inevitably does something very different simply because they come with different materials and skills. Men often make bigger things than women which, for me, is another good reason to encourage them.

On the Saturday morning the museum was closed to the public and I was given the opportunity to look at the library and the collections on display and in store.The museum is a former school of basket making modelled on the one in Lichtenfels in

Germany

. The displays include the history of the school but also the history of Noordwolde and the basket and rattan furniture industry that once dominated the town. It’s an interesting tale of poverty, benevolence, colonialism and design that you can read more about on the museum website (link above) though the google translation leaves much to be desired.

Whilst I am personally fascinated by these social histories I am even more concerned with trying to make sure that these skills are not lost for future generations, so it was a real pleasure for me to meet Esme Hoffman and to see her work.

Esme in her workshop, where she also offers classes

She is one of relatively few young people in Europe who have been taught how to do very fine skeined willow work by elderly master craftsmen in Lichtenfels spending three years of her four year course focussing just on skeined work. She is also possibly the only one who has decided now to make it her speciality.

Esmes work

There is little chance for anyone to learn this craft to the same degree now at Lichtenfels as the skeined work module of the course has been reduced to just 6 weeks, which for anyone who has ever done any will know that it is barely enough time to learn how to make skeins let alone a basket! Esme is now seeking to take this skill in new directions and will be exhibiting alongside contemporary Dutch designers in a major exhibition next year in Holland. I can’t wait to see what she does.

After the Catwalk

2011-09-17T18:27:00.000+02:00

My broadband isn't very high speed so the live stream kept stalling and the Daks show video, now online has been edited. So, perhaps, I missed something, but I could only see 3 bags in the catwalk show of the 10 pieces that I was asked to make. They were a looped white leather shoulder bag, (below) a coiled red rope shoulder bag and a large circular coiled red rope bag (above).

Sadly, they didn't use the 2 leather piped coiled rope shoulder bags, a large and a small looped leather bag, or the 3 rimless hats!

I was not given any idea of how many pieces might be used and I certainly did not expect them to use them all. But, they responded so enthusiastically to everything, that I had imagined some of the other pieces might have been used too. So, for me personally the catwalk show was disappointing. Obviously for Daks the clothes are the most important thing and the accessories secondary but I still hope these other pieces will get an airing one day. The thought of them never being seen or used by anyone seems too wasteful of both materials and my energy! But, at least, I can now show you some of the other pieces.

Extreme Looping and Coiling

2011-09-15T17:21:00.002+02:00

For the last eight days I have only felt the wind on my skin on the short walk from the house to the studio. I haven't shopped I haven't cooked (the 'kitchen god' did both) I have hardly slept and I haven't mowed the grass ('kitchen god' doesn't do mowing). The looping and coiling marathon I have been engaged in ended last night and my hands and arms now feel strangely liberated. They seem to want to wave langorously about in the open air but I won’t let them as the neighbours and their pets would be unnerved.

The last package has just gone. With luck it's contents will be seen on the catwalk at Somerset House in London on Saturday morning at 9am in Daks Spring Summer 2012 show for London Fashion Week. You will be able to watch the show live or later here:

http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/lfw_tv_video.aspx?vid=150

It was never intended to be a race against time as I had set aside the whole of August to do the work at a nice leisurely pace. But, the leather cord that was ordered for me to work with from a good sustainable supplier in the USA met French bureaucracy at Roissy airport, and a shipment that should have taken 5 days ended up taking nearly 5 weeks. As I don’t import or buy materials for my own work this is, fortunately, not something I normally have to deal with.

I suppose the moral of this story is don’t try to do anything that requires a French bureaucrat to work in August because they, like most other sensible Europeans, "vamos a la playa”. It is only those countries driven by a protestant work ethic that don’t take advantage of the sunshine and school holidays to spend time with their children. A report out this week comparing children in Spain, Sweden and

came to the conclusion that British children were the least happy because they felt they didn’t get enough time being with family and friends or doing things out of doors.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/14/uk-children-stuck-materialistic-trap

I cannot tell you much more about the actual work I did for Daks, until the show has happened, except that they were looped and coiled hats and bags. It’s supposed to be a surprise. But the picture hints at what I made and despite the rush I really enjoyed doing it. Challenging and collaborative, the work required both my technical and design skills and I had the pleasure of working with Flora Hely Hutchinson at Daks, whose attention to detail and support were superb.

Unfortunately I cannot go to the show as I don't have a cat to walk and, more importantly, "vamos a la playa"!

Bric a Brac Baskets

2011-08-16T13:02:00.009+02:00

Summer is bric-a-brac season, and each Sunday these outdoor markets occupy public squares, parks and football pitches all over

France

. Sometimes they are called bric-a-bracs, sometimes brocantes and sometimes vide greniers, but the subtlety of this nomenclature eludes me because they all look like car boot sales, with a few professional dealers thrown in.

Sellers need to enjoy watching the sun rise. Pitches are established on a first come basis before dawn and, if you are an amateur, it is necessary to be awake enough to haggle with the professionals who scan the contents of your car with their torches as you wait for it to get light enough to set up stall. If not, you discover when you do finally wake up that the things they bought from you in your early morning stupor are now on their stalls at twice the price.

Keen collectors also arrive early but those who go for the spectacle, and barquettes of freshly cooked frites or a glass of wine for 50c (unheard of in a bar) arrive at lunchtime, when eating has become the priority for sellers and buyers alike. The picnic tables are laid, the camping chairs clacked open, corks popped and Sunday lunch is enjoyed surrounded by many of the same possessions that previously graced the diner’s homes. These are now no longer wanted, liked or needed and sit sulkily on the grass hoping to attract new and kinder owners. If you find something you want to buy at this time of day you are far more likely to get a good price simply because you are taking up valuable eating time.

Visually raking over the tables laden with the physical manifestations of consumerism, I try to understand this foreign semiotic language. What could possibly have made someone want to buy a coat rack made out of the bent feet of goats nailed to a wooden board! And why does no one want to keep these lovely coiled straw baskets that are the tradition of this region and which embody so much of the history of rural existence here as it was only 70 years ago? What do either of these observations tell me about the people who once owned these objects?

That these Poitou Charente baskets employ the same materials and techniques as those of the Shetland tradition seems too coincidental for me to ignore and the temptation to become a rescue centre for these filthy, abused and neglected baskets has overwhelmed me. Invariably, after failing to persuade myself that I do not need another basket, I part with a few euros, (I don’t usually haggle as knowing the hours of labour that went into their making they are, for me, too cheap already). As the coins slip into the sellers pocket, I am aware of the burden of responsibility I am taking on. Now, I will have to find some way of dealing with this rapidly increasing collection of large baskets that will give these humble objects back some of their simple beauty and dignity.

Click here to see more baskets

Keeping It Simple

2011-08-06T16:42:00.001+02:00

On the 17^th July I returned to Issigeac for the “Foire aux Paniers” and to get first hand evidence of the public reaction to the exhibition of my latest work “Tri and Leaf”.

Unusually, I had total control over how my work was presented in this beautiful space, an opportunity I welcomed, and I chose to keep it deliberately sparse in text and not to use any plinths. The audience were only given simple labels with just the date of making and a description, in French, of the materials used, as it is not always evident that they are re-used, recycled or grown materials.

Lid hat

Now, more than ever before, I want my work to speak for itself. The visual and the literal are two distinct languages and whilst I absolutely believe that one can inform and interact with the other, when I make my work I make it with a visual imperative. If it doesn’t work visually it doesn’t work for me, no matter how many words I may write about it and I therefore want the onlooker to experience what they see and feel (because they always touch my work) unencumbered by my written words, which are far less adept than my ability to manipulate materials.

So, the only texts I provided at Issigeac were the simple labels and a copy of the “Urban Baskets” catalogue for people to look at if they felt so inclined. No name panels, no biography, no 'artists statements' and perhaps even more importantly now, for me, no price lists as the work was not for sale. This has been coming for a long time, but now I feel strong enough to do it, perhaps because I am old enough. My reasons for this decision are too complicated to discuss here, so it will be a separate post, essay or book!

Although I didn’t want to burden the visitors to ‘Tri and Leaf’ with text panels I did want to know what they thought of the exhibition. So, I provided them an opportunity to write words if they so wished by placing a school exercise book and a pen on the table which remained there for the last two weeks of the exhibition.
On Wednesday of this week I went back to Issigeac to take down the exhibition and read their comments. If you click on the picture below you can read for yourself some of the things that were said.

As for the Foire, I hardly had a chance to look at it but René Parachout was there again with his lovely baskets and it was nice to catch up with some friends in the basket making world.

Rene Parachout

If anyone reading this fancies exhibiting basket related works in this beautiful space during the month of July they should contact the Tourist Office at Issigeac as they are open to proposals.
ot.issigeac@orange.fr

Tri and Leaf

2011-07-10T14:33:00.000+02:00

Log Basket II

Issigeac, in the Dordogne, is three hours each way from here and on Monday I made the journey there and back to deliver and install 11 new pieces (one of which is a tower of five baskets so it is really 16 new pieces) in the Salles du Caveau of the Chateau. I have been working on this body of work since the beginning of the year for this exhibition that I have called “Tri and Leaf”

http://web.lerelaisinternet.com/issigeac/spip.php?page=article-media2&id_article=281

There were other pieces that I rejected at the last minute, but they will emerge when I have more time to resolve some problems on them. These are technical but they usually manifest themselves as aesthetic ones. Because I do not buy materials and use only those that I have, can find, or grow, it always take time to resolve these problems.

Some of these pieces were direct follow-ons from previous work, altering the technique but not necessarily the form or the materials and some went in new directions. This was deliberate as

France

is a new and in many ways tricky audience for my baskets, so I needed a few pieces that I knew would work. Both the basket making and the artistic cultures are very different in

France

Britain

. This is a direct consequence of the educational and tax systems operating in very different ways which results in the artist/maker or designer/maker being a fairly unusual concept in

France

. The norm is that one is either a fine artist or an artisan or a designer but seldom the mixed up version that I am.

The exhibition is on for a month and we shall see what the reaction is…

Chair and laundry basket

Urban Baskets in the Netherlands

2011-07-07T18:58:00.000+02:00

Laundry basket 1995

'Urban Baskets' opened at the National Vlechtmuseum in the Netherlands on Saturday where it will be on show until the 23rd of October. I was not there because the ‘opening’ will not be until the end of September. Esme Hoffman, superb basket maker and a curator at the Vlechtmuseum http://www.esmehofman.nl/home_en told me they had learnt that openings and workshops were all better attended once the exhibition had been up and running for a while, an innovative approach that makes sense to me. So, I will be going there for a few days at the end of September, beginning of October to teach and talk and have a chance to look at the museum. http://www.vlechtmuseum.nl/?nl/ambacht/uitgelicht/26

Not having shown my work in the Netherlands before it is difficult to gauge how it will be received there, but we have now had the statistics for the showing in North Wales and because the exhibition was split between two libraries and most of the people going into the libraries had to walk past the exhibition the visitor statistics are impressive! 11,000 in Ruthin and 15,000 in Denbigh which added to the 6,000 at Walford Mill means that at least 34,000 people have seen Urban Baskets over the last 10 months, even if all they did was walk past it! We don’t have the Shetland statistics yet.

Bee Behaviour

2011-06-19T13:19:00.001+02:00

Only two weeks to go until I deliver the new work to Issigeac for my next exhibition, "Tri and Leaf" (details in the side panel), and I am behaving like a bee! This is quite normal, it always happens.

Two months ago I said I was dedicating this time to making, and I have tried to so. But, as I thought, the vegetable garden has been a major diversion due to an extremely dry spring with abnormally high temperatures. Can we really ever call weather “abnormal”? It seems to do what it wants, and fortunately, no one has found a way to control it – yet. More pumps and hoses and gadgets would no doubt make watering the garden easier and quicker but it's just more consumerism, which as a rule I try to avoid. It is also more stuff to own and maintain and hauling buckets of water out of the well has benefits in the form of nicely toned arms.

There is an old cast iron hand pump on one of the wells in the garden, but it does not work. Last week I got distracted trying to repair it. The bit that creates the vacuum was missing so I made a new one out of a piece of plastic pipe and some wire and an old hot water bottle.

I got quite excited when I replaced it, I could hear it sucking sweetly against the walls of the pipe as I levered it up and down. But, then I realised that the check valve might be broken or that the well is too deep for a hand pump. Wikipedia says the maximum depth you can pump by hand is seven metres but the water line has now dropped in this well to nine metres so I have temporarily abandoned the task, as I must make some baskets!

Decisions have to be made and pieces finished. I have five things on the go at once, partly because it stops me from getting bored and partly because it helps avoid RSI in all its painful forms. For weeks I have been buzzing around the studio landing here and there, playing with this, trying that, taking an other to bits and starting it again. I am then off onto something else, or into the garden.

The real creative stuff begins when I wake in the morning thinking there are only so many hours left to finish everything. I realised long ago that I need the pressure of deadlines in order to work well and today was a turning point as a result of finding just the right material for a particular piece, I can now see what has to be done – it’s just a question of putting in the hours and steering clear of distractions. I am buzzing off.

Talking, Talking, Talking....

2011-05-30T13:56:00.000+02:00

Some months ago, National Life Stories at the British Library asked me if I would be willing to record my “Life Story” for posterity. For some time now, my name has appeared in English school exam papers and so I get emails from students asking me to tell them my life story. It struck me that a recording could be a good resource, and would save me having to explain why their request is tricky for people who have lived a few more years than they have. So I agreed and last week I spent almost 12 hours answering well-researched questions about both my personal and work life.

National Life Stories is a charitable trust based in the British Library whose brief is to 'record first-hand experiences of as wide a cross-section of present-day society as possible'. The recordings are housed in collections such as ‘Architects' Lives’, ‘Artists Lives’, ‘Lives in the Steel Industry’, ‘Medical Lives’ etc. The one that my recording will be in is 'Craft Lives' and at some future date, it will be available to listen to, either at the British Library or as a download. I will post the details here for those of you desperate to hear it (my parents) when I get the information!

It was a strangely exhausting experience as even the most garrulous amongst us (and I do not count myself among their number) don’t normally talk for two hours at a time. I imagine it resembled a session with a psychotherapist more than anything and for the first time in my life, the bizarre nature of my parents’ home life started to register with me. My fathers’ work required that they move house almost every six months during my teens, yet this was something that at the time I accepted as normal, if a bit annoying. My interviewer, Frances, deserves a medal for staying awake and asking intelligent questions every day even though the temperature refused to fall below a sultry 24C. She pointed out that I am always seeking to make lightweight work that packs easily and suggested that it may be a consequence of this nomadic childhood. It is an interesting point that I had not considered before, I always thought it was because I needed to reduce the cost of postage!

There is no editing so everything I said is there in perpetuity. But, the interviewee is given the right to mute out the things that they wish they had not said, for a maximum of 30 years. On the whole I was nice about everybody. The exceptions are my first basketry teacher, and my excruciatingly boring history teachers. I still have not forgiven the latter for making the very raunchy story of Henry VIII so tedious. Thanks to the recent TV series 'The Tudors' I now know just how raunchy this story was. I also had little praise for a Welsh ‘English’ teacher in Tenby who destroyed the magic of Shakespeare’s prose and poetry for me. He also used me as a scapegoat for all his vengeance against

England

, not that he had any idea where my roots lay. I am, however, regretting that I forgot to tell my very personal Prince Charles story which would have explained why, for me, the guillotine seems quite a good idea….. but, it just might have landed me in the Tower.

The studio: one of the things I was asked to describe

I also restrained myself from “f…ing and blinding” and I did ask to mute one small bit for 30 years though I am not telling anyone what it is and Frances is sworn to secrecy.

Whilst I am on the theme of the British Library my Doctoral Thesis "Grown Home an exploration of processes for the manufacture and cultivation of willow products,Royal College of Art, 2003" has now been digitised and is available to download on line.

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.424690

Surprisingly, it was done because quite a few people have wanted to read it. I hope they got something of use out of it. Strangely, I haven’t received any copyright fees for it and yet I am sure I signed a piece of paper in 2003 that said I would receive something when anyone read it! I must hunt that bit of paper out, yet another case of “if you don’t ask you don’t get” …..last week I was certainly asked!

Meanwhile work continues

Basket Making for Bairns

2011-05-16T16:02:00.002+02:00

Basket by Grace. Photo: Shetland Arts

After I left Shetland, at the beginning of April, Hazel Hughson and Jane Mathews ran a 'drop in' basket making session for bairns at Bonhoga to tie in with Urban Baskets. Here in Hazels own words, (taken from her hastily written email to me) is her report of the event:

"We had 8, the youngest was 3, she pulled through and selected the materials with her granny. They enjoyed it, and some made a few containers. I had cut vertical slits in Soya Milk cartons and strips of the same material plus strapping tape and other containers. They selected from a pile and wove them in. I included a cheese box and one little lass made a good effort, curled up the edges. They all took the technique further, a boy wanted to add a handle and worked out a way with wire and tape, so others followed. I really enjoyed it, the bairns were so serious and quiet. We had no glue or staples, only a couple of hole punches and because it was a bairns event and in the lower café, Jane and I were Scissor Prefects ! So all the cuts were carefully planned! "

Baskets by bairns Photo: Shetland Arts

Teaching small children basket making skills in public spaces is not easy, there might be sharp tools involved and British health and safety laws now make it almost impossible for children in classes to handle anything that might perform as a useful tool. This over protection is not restricted to children, the adult students in my workshop at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts were not allowed to bring in their own tools for "health and safety" reasons, yet, the only tools I had requested they bring in were large eyed needles and all purpose scissors! If students (of any age) are not taught to use tools in supervised classrooms, one can only imagine what will happen once they are liberated into the XXX rated adult world of DIY stores. The tempting ranks of chain saws, hammer drills, hot air guns, electronic nailers, brush cutters, angle grinders and their safety manuals, often badly translated, can surely only lead to carnage.

One of the most memorable TV programmes I have ever seen was one of the Cuisines des Terroirs series (an Arte production that documents cooking as it is done in family homes in Europe today) and was about the Sami of northern Europe, whose main source of food is the reindeer. I watched, mesmerized, as a class of under 5’s were given very sharp knives and the bloody, freshly skinned, heads of reindeer to cut up, which they attacked with gusto. Interestingly the children, spattered with blood, showed no revulsion as they did it, and there were no fatalities.

America

there is a growing movement towards providing places where very small children can be taught to use tools. Jaqueline Allwood http://www.jacqueline-allwood.com/ a glass engraver who works at home surrounded by her small grandchildren gave me this interesting article from the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/garden/31kids.html

In most cultures where basket making is still practiced daily the children learn by just being around the adults whilst they work, playing with the materials and watching what is going on, learning initially by osmosis, rather than by practice. Now, in many parts of northern Europe and North America there are few homes where the adults regularly make baskets, so this way of learning is not an option for most children and school and museum sessions are often the only way a child will ever get a chance to make a basket. As such these sessions are important not only for the preservation of the craft knowledge but also in terms of opening up opportunities for children to work with their hands, something that has almost been written out of school curricula in Britain (and America) at secondary level. Mathew Crawford in his book “The Case for Working with Your Hands” ISBN 978-0-670-91874-4 makes a very strong argument for the re-introduction of practical workshop tuition in schools. Here is an excerpt from the introduction.

“ A decline in tool use would seem to betoken a shift in our relationship to our own stuff: more passive and more dependent…… What ordinary people once fixed for themselves, they replace entirely or hire an expert to repair, whose expert fix often involves replacing an entire system because some minute component has failed.”

As a child, like many others, I was a one-person factory with a constant production line of 'things' made out of paper, fabric, wool, twigs and mud. It turns out that making 'things' was obviously what I was put on this earth for but, perhaps, my paternal grandfather, Ernest Walpole, was also instrumental in my ultimate career choice. He made things all the time too, model boats, furniture, toys, lights and kites were just some of his creations and as children we were always encouraged to help him with his making which often involved using tools like saws and hammers. Cane basketry was one of his many hobbies and as a child I helped cut and soak the canes. If I was lucky, I also got permission to poke the soft damp sticks into the holes on the wooden bases and bend them over. These experiences cannot have been anything other than formative for me.

Photo from "Pomo Basketmaking" ISBN 0-87961-016-6 by Elsie Allen, taken in Hopland California in 1935 of her mother teaching a young Pomo girl how to make a "lattice weave number 4-twine basket "

Bonhoga, Bye Bye

2011-04-27T15:49:00.000+02:00

Urban Baskets is only on for another few days in Shetland and yet it seems only the other day that we were unpacking it up there. If you were thinking of visiting it this is a gentle reminder to do so before the 2nd May when it will be packed up again to head back to Dorset and then on to the National Vlechtmuseum in the Netherlands, where it gets a three month showing.

Sadly, for me, and despite our best efforts to find more venues, it will sit in its boxes for two months prior to going on show again. By all accounts the people who have seen it so far have got a great deal of pleasure from it, so it seems a shame that more people in Britain have not been given the chance to see it. It will return briefly to the

in 2012. I will, however, be teaching at Walford Mill in Dorset over the weekend of 23/24 July (the details are in the side panel of this blog under Teaching).

Meanwhile I have started on a new body of work that I will be exhibiting at the Palais des Eveques at Issigeac in the Dordogne for the month of July. This exhibition will be a constituent part of the Fete de la Vannerie that will be held there on the17th July. I have called this exhibition ‘Tri and Leaf’, a play of words, not only on the title of a Tolkien book but also with French and English,' Tri' is the French word for the sorting and selecting of things for recycling. The work employs a mixture of recycled and natural materials, so it seems appropriate!

Some months back I received an invitation from Jette Mellgren and Jan Johanson www.pilflet.dk to participate in an outdoor event in Odense,

Denmark

this May alongside other artists and makers from all over Europe. Much as I enjoy traveling, and it is always fun being with other makers, I also need to make new work. So, reluctantly, I turned it down. Ultimately, the work I do in the studio is the catalyst for everything else as it opens up new opportunities to exhibit, teach or participate in events. Making new work is therefore vital and needs time and space dedicated to it. Constantly hopping from one event or place to another or working to other people’s briefs makes it very difficult to do anything truly new or original with the limited time left. Usually, of necessity, you have to return to previously worked out ideas. Sometimes this is appropriate but I also need the challenge of setting my own briefs and developing new ideas.

The next two months are therefore dedicated to making new work, whether the garden a.k.a ‘The National Park’ will agree to this arrangement is another matter altogether!

CEO 'The National Park'

Baskets at Sainsburys

2011-04-22T13:16:00.006+02:00

Of course, there are always baskets at Sainsbury’s. But they are nothing like the ones that Robert and Lisa Sainsbury collected for their World Art Collection which is currently housed in the architectural delight by Norman Foster that is the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia. Some of their baskets are on show in the current exhibition, 'Basketry Making Human Nature' along with pieces from other collections, and some specially commissioned works. The curators, led by Professor Sandy Hislop, have put together a group of baskets and basketry that, they believe, have in some way, been instrumental in the construction of culture. It makes for a visually stunning exhibition even if only viewed in terms of the forms and techniques on display.

Added bonuses were the documentary films. One recent film included a clip about rush weavers in

East Anglia

(probably recorded in the 1950’s or 60’s) where a very 'posh' woman managed to evade answering any of the interviewer’s questions whilst fiddling slowly with some rushes. Meanwhile a “Mr. Percy" who was obviously in the employ of the ‘posh’ woman silently wove a rush mat at the speed of light behind her. The interviewer, in keeping with the social mores of the time, did not ask Mr. Percy what he was doing but, instead, he asked the ‘posh’ woman what Mr. Percy was doing - a stereotypical sociological treat! The exhibition is on until the 22 May and sadly will not tour so try to catch it if you can.

The degree to which baskets and basketry have been culturally constructive is a fascinating and highly debatable topic. It was the theme for the multi disciplinary conference, 'Basketry and Beyond: Constructing Cultures' held at UEA last week and was explored intensively by the group of international speakers which included archaeologists, art historians, basket makers, environmental artists, ethnographers, biologists and neuroscientists - to name a few. It was mental gym of the best sort. My favourite topic, i.e. basketry explored in directions that I am unlikely to have considered in any other situation. It was high quality brain food and I came away exhausted but replete and very inspired in terms of thinking and making. It seems strange that one can come up with visual ideas after listening to people talk but it sometimes happens and is very exciting when it does.

Prior to the conference I ran a coiling and looping workshop for two days at the Sainsbury Centre which resulted in some very creative experiments by the 15 students. It is always a pleasure to look at all the work at the end of these workshops and see how different each piece is. All the students are taught the same techniques but, because they have brought their own materials and personalities to the workshop, no two pieces are ever alike.

In the ‘show and tell’ at the end of a workshop I ask the students to tell each other about their experiences over the two days and to comment on anyone else’s work if they want to. This is always rewarding to do. Invariably, someone in the group who seems to feel that they have not done anything particularly special, gets singled out by their fellow students, for having created something that touches them. Even though I may have said that I like what they have done, it always means so much more to that particular student to hear it from their peers rather than to hear it from me.

One thing bothers me though why is it usually only women that come to these workshops?

During the conference, speakers referred to the division of labour between the sexes that traditionally goes on with basket making in many cultures. Often if the women used the baskets, they made them, and conversely if the men used them. Consequently, you could almost say that if the basket was going to be used indoors it would be made by women, and if used outdoors made by men. Perhaps this is still true, as I note that last week in

Galicia

, Carlos Fontales ran a course making the very beautiful traditional 'canastros' or grain stores, which live out of doors and unlike many of the more 'domestic' basket making workshops he teaches the students were predominantly male! You can see pictures of their work here. http://carlosfontales.blogspot.com/2011/04/canastros-3.html

Man with a (very nice) basket at market!

But where does that leave the shopping basket that is used by women, and some men, out of doors?

Spring and a Bum Bag

2011-04-10T13:28:00.000+02:00

Looking towards mainland Shetland from west Yell

My time in Shetland flashed by, it seems no more than a few days ago that we made the slow voyage north. Perhaps it was the excitement of setting up the exhibition again, the anxiety of having an ambulance rush a house guest off Yell into A and E and this combined with the dramatic changes of weather that have left me feeling as though I might have just dreamt it all. Being spat out of the plane into the 25C heat and sunshine of Poitiers yesterday was a bewildering experience. When I left four weeks ago it was still winter, now it seems we are into summer but where did spring go? The only evidence that it might have happened are the withered stems of daffodils.

The gallery tour at Bonhoga and the workshop last weekend at Quarff were apparently enjoyed by all. The theme of Coiling and Looping for the workshop resulted in a wide variety of objects and although I don't normally select individual items of students work for comment, because everyone always does interesting things, I am sure the other students would agree, in this instance, that Kristi Cummings' new take on the 'bum bag' deserves a special mention for its audacity and ingenuity. The coiling and looping were all on the bottom!

Kristi Cummings' bum bag

There are also apocryphal tales of people visiting 'Urban Baskets' more than once and the exhibition was honoured with a 'review' in the Shetland Times which you can read here: http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2011/04/01/an-accessible-and-cheery-show-which-is-bound-to-raise-a-smile

On Monday I head back to England to Norwich where I will be teaching a two day workshop at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia. These workshops tie in with their current exhibition 'Basketry: Making Human Nature' in which I have a piece of work on show. This will be followed by a conference "Basketry and Beyond: Constructing Cultures" where, on Friday I will be delivering a paper on the global use of recycled and post consumer waste amongst basket makers. This will be the first time I have had an opportunity to deliver a paper publicly since obtaining my doctorate in 2003 and I am looking forward to it, but with some trepidation!

Urban Baskets in Shetland

2011-03-29T13:23:00.000+02:00

There was a good attendance at the opening of “Urban Baskets; tradition recycled” at the Bonhoga Gallery on Friday night. My thanks go to all who helped with the installation and the opening but especially Jane Mathews, Kristi Cumming and Barbara Ridland. Hazel Hughson also deserves thanks as she has been my main contact at Shetland Arts over the last six years and was instrumental in obtaining funding for the exhibition package and previous workshops. Alas, she was not at the opening because she had escaped for a much needed holiday in Portugal!

The work sits well in the spaces at the old mill, both in the gallery and the cafe, and people were smiling as they left, which is always a good sign.

Today, Tuesday 29^th March from 18.30 – 20.30 I will be doing gallery tours for visitors and then at the weekend 2^nd and 3^rd April I will be teaching a two day coiling and looping workshop at Quarff Hall. Bookings for both of these events can be made through the Shetland Arts Box Office.

http://www.shetlandboxoffice.org/ The tours are free but it's necessary to book anyway.

As always, when I am here, my time is running out very fast and I have not had time to make any new work which is frustrating when there is so much material just waiting for me. The 'Voar Redd Upp' (spring clean up) of the beaches happens in a few weeks when volunteers armed with bin bags collect flotsam and jetsam that has been washed and blown ashore over the winter, the quantity and quality of the material that awaits them is astonishing, most of it a by product of the fishing industry. Here is a typical example, already coralled by locals, at the beautiful West Sandwick beach on Yell. I want it all!....

Travelling Slowly

2011-03-19T13:23:00.000+01:00

"Urban Baskets" is arriving in Shetland soon - we hope. It closed in North Wales on Tuesday and now packed, and on the truck, we will be anxiously watching the weather forecasts, hoping the Aberdeen to Lerwick ferry won't be cancelled and that it will arrive in time for us to set it up at Bonhoga Gallery prior to the opening on the 25th. An interesting alternative might, however, be to let the public open the boxes and lay the show out on the opening night!

Shetland is on latitude 60, and it isn't until you travel the slow way that you really realise just how far north that is. Prior to each visit up here I spend hours on the internet trying to find the cheapest, most environmentally friendly and least physically exhausting way to do it. This time the result of this endeavour was a two day journey and 10 different means of transport. Car, train, taxi, plane,coach, bus,and then the Caledonian sleeper which rattled, clunked and swayed its way north overnight from Euston to Aberdeen. As it alternated between hurtling and crawling there was something strangely comforting about being tucked up in crisp white sheets whilst it did so.

The following day was spent wandering Aberdeen and at sunset, when the ferry slid out of the harbour on dark silky waters, it was hard to imagine being on a boat let alone on one of the roughest stretches of water around the British Isles. Fourteen hours later the 'Hjaltland' glided onto the berth in Lerwick, I haven't slept so soundly in ages. The weirdest effect of this languorous journey to the islands was that the subsequent 50 minute drive and ferry ride north to Mid Yell seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Sometimes, after flying in to Shetland the same journey feels like an interminable trip to the very end of the earth. Which just goes to prove that time is flexible in between the rising and setting of the sun, it's only clocks that aren't.

Whilst in Aberdeen I visited the Maritime Museum. It is typical of many museums where the curators have tried to make the objects they treasure as entertaining as possible for everyone, regardless of whether or not these visitors have any interest in maritime history, or whatever else it is that the particular institution is hoarding. Consequently there is a stage set of a fisherman's cottage and a three storey model of an oil rig. The latter demonstrating very well that they are mechanical icebergs with the larger part under the surface. But, I find myself bored by the museum, there is nothing left for me to discover. It's all been picked over and cleaned and laid out by someone who is trying to determine exactly what I should understand, and experience, from each particular object. Of course, I am looking for baskets, but the curators obviously don't think baskets will draw the crowds.

Aberdeen has been an important port for fishing and the oil industry for a very long time and whilst there are few, if any, baskets used in the oil industry there used to be thousands used in fishing. There are a few crans and creels on display and some photos of them in use but no mention of where they were made or who made them. Were they men or women, this is seldom a foregone conclusion in basket making? Did they work in large workshops or was it done by 'out-workers' doing piece work in their own homes? Where did the materials came from? It is this last question that I am most curious about because many of the baskets made for the herring industry in the 19th Century employed whole rattan which came from South East Asia. It was used because it was incredibly strong and withstood the constant soaking with salt water but how did the basket makers in Britain at that time know this? And what triggered the importation of the rattan in the first place? In Shetland we have the tradition of the “willow kishie” which was actually made of rattan rather than willow, but, here there is a confusion of nomenclature that implies that the people using the rattan were not aware of what it was or where it came from and suggests that its use was circumstantial and pragmatic.

There was little I had not seen before among the fishing baskets in the museum but I was taken with this Northern Lighthouse Board transit basket (also made of rattan though described only as 'wicker' on the label) which was used to haul provisions up into lighthouses until very recently. The label also said these baskets were used because they were much lighter to haul up than the alternative wooden box. It might have been a way for the lighthouse keepers to avoid the stairs too, it was big and sturdy enough. Would I have preferred to be hauled up into a light house in the teeth of a gale in a basket or a wooden box ? I suppose it depends who made the basket and whether the box was made on a Friday afternoon or not! Personally I think either would be pretty scary.

The transit basket is no longer needed now as British light houses are all empty and automated, but it could have been a sustainable and cheap mode of transport - and definitely quite slow.

Books, Libraries and a little bit of Magic

2011-02-28T11:21:00.001+01:00

Urban baskets is currently on show in two libraries in Wales, Ruthin (above) and Denbigh (below) and it pleases me a lot that the work is being seen in publicly funded spaces, but for how much longer will libraries in England and Wales be able to afford to dedicate some of their space to galleries? Many of them are currently battling to keep open and maintain their primary activity of lending books, for free, to the local community. It therefore seems highly unlikely that budgets for galleries within them will be considered a priority.

Tim Johnson, a British artist who finds much of his inspiration in baskets, wrote on his blog recently about borrowing Dorothy Wright's "The Complete Book of Baskets and Basketmaking"( ISBN 0 88914 055 3) and the influence that it had on his subsequent career. In so doing he described my own experience exactly. http://www.timjohnsonartist.com/blog/the-story-of-a-book-a-basket-and-why-i-love-libraries.html

It was the only book on the subject of basket making that I found in St. Martins art college library. I kept it out on loan for months, endlessly re reading passages on my way to and from the sculpture studios by bus. There was, for me, an urgent desire to discover how an unruly and apparently worthless twig, vine or leaf could be manipulated by human hands into something of use or beauty, or both, and I spent many hours trying to decode the arcane knowledge that the black and white illustrations seemed to be guarding. I don't think Dorothy would have approved of the consequences of my in depth study, as she didn't seem to approve of 'arty' experimentation with basketry techniques. But, the life size figure of a man that I wove out of centre cane, with her unknowing assistance, was the catalyst for the direction I have taken since then, and I would like to think that my work now shows as much respect for the tradition as her writing did then.

It is impossible to say whether the same thing could have happened by using the internet instead of borrowing a book. What is certain is that not all books in libraries will be digitised, and many of those on basket making that I have looked at are treasures from another era that went out of print many years ago. "The Basket Maker" by Luther Weston Turner 1909 is a little gem, perfectly formed and with an almost cinematic aesthetic that shows us clearly that basket making really is the stuff of magic, a deft shoot of the cuffs and 'hey presto' - a basket!

Fortunately, the two libraries where Urban Baskets is currently on show are not in imminent danger and the exhibition continues at both venues until the 12th March. Please go and see it, if you are in the area, and sign the visitors book because it is in some small way a petition to save these library galleries for future exhibitions.

All library photos thanks to Shani Rhys-James friend and super painter. See her at work here http://www.axisweb.org/atATCL.aspx?AID=782

Plaiting, Twining, Nets and Knots

2011-02-18T16:40:00.000+01:00

After a few winter months in the countryside teaching in Paris made a very welcome break. Born in London and having lived in one of its more challenging areas for 32 years, I realise now that the old axiom that ‘you can take the girl out of the city but not the city out of the girl’ is probably true. I am not fussy about where I get my fix but Paris is as good as, if not better than most of the ones that I have visited.

The week started with a five o’clock alarm. A different sort of alarm took hold on finding the car windscreen needed more than a credit card to clear the ice which resulted in a mad dash to the station chasing the lights of the train pulling into the station ahead of me. Leaping breathless and triumphant into a carriage, I then discovered that the train would wait there ten minutes before departure. I have obviously lost my city nonchalance but no one sniggered openly which they would have done in London.

Five hours and two changes later I eventually arrived at the Gare d’Austerlitz. Walking to the college, the traffic seemed less frantic than I remember and there were bicycles everywhere. I bought a sandwich from a boulangerie, which is another improvement, it used to be only possible to buy a sandwich sitting at a table in a bar or bistro. Now there are small canteens and sandwich bars everywhere selling good and cheap food and the bistros are struggling to compete.

Eating my sandwich on a bench in the sunshine my delight at being there must have shown because I soon found myself engaged in conversation by a disarming and amusing Tunisian author with glossy jet-black ringlets and a tweed trilby. His name was Adem and when he invited me to be his 'Eve' for the afternoon I politely made my excuses and headed for the college.

As mentioned in the previous post the students in the Design Textile department at ENSCI work on looms creating fabric designs, so my intervention was something very different for them. It provided an opportunity for all three years to work together and gave them a break from the very intensive work that they normally do. Only one of the students had done any basket making before, which she did with me two years ago, and I was pleased to have her back in the class as she had been a very creative student last time.

I teach basket-making techniques and material skills because I believe it is important to preserve this ancient and universal knowledge by handing it on to whoever is interested in learning. I do not instruct students in what to do with these skills. That is, I believe, for them to discover and for them to choose. For me there is a parallel with vocabulary, the more words you know the better you are able to express yourself and make the purpose of your speech or writing clear. With basket-making, the more techniques you have mastered the more capable you are of choosing the most appropriate one for whatever it is you wish to do or make. I also find that once the students have grasped the basics of a technique they naturally become more inventive and creative without me ever instructing them how to be so. It is the confidence that comes with learning a new skill that seems to give them the courage to try something different and it never fails to delight me.

At the end of the week the students displayed their work and I asked them to tell me and each other what they had discovered during the week, what had worked for them and what had not. Interestingly the thing most of them found really exciting was having created something they considered worthwhile out of newspaper. It was the magic of making something from nothing and I could not have been more pleased

The week also brought the pleasure of seeing friends and staying in the house of a man who is in his 101^st year. It seemed an honour to have the chance to meet a centenarian who is also fit and healthy and only stopped driving a couple of months ago. It is known that genetics play a huge part in longevity but it also came as no surprise to learn that he takes a cold shower every morning, exercises every day, keeps his mind active, goes to bed early and has always eaten simply and healthily.

With this lesson playing on my mind I went on to London and out to Essex for a family birthday party weekend, little sleep and plenty of alcohol, though I did manage a stroll in the very picturesque Maldon before going to the pub ….. my days are definitely numbered.

Off to Paris

2011-02-05T18:55:00.000+01:00

Coiling samples done by Designer Textile students at ENSCI Paris 2009

Next week I will be teaching in Paris at the Ecole Nationale Superiere de Creation Industrielle, or ENSCI as it is known, where I will be working with the students in the Designer Textile department. It will be my third visit to the College and I am looking forward to it. You can read about the department here: http://www.ensci.com/designer-textile/presentation/mission/ .

The students will be learning plaiting and twining techniques, which they will use to produce designs for a container. Usually these students work on looms with incredibly fine yarns creating textile designs for couture and interiors and they seem to like working on a miniature scale. Last time there were occasions when a student asked me if they had done something correctly and I couldn't see whether they had or not because the sample was no bigger than my thumbnail and the threads she was using were no thicker than a baby's hair.

They are working towards a "conteneur de volume" this year and I got some new glasses today, both should help!

Plaiting samples done by Designer Textile students at ENSCI Paris 2009

Willows, Water and Woods

2011-02-01T13:27:00.003+01:00

A descendant moon in the dormant season signifies that it is the moment to harvest the willows, so that has been the task of the week. Coincidentally it has also been a week of discussion about the British Governments desire to sell off the remaining publicly owned woodlands of England to pay off some of the national debt, and in a strange way the two have become connected.

The land the willows grow on belongs to my neighbour. Having cut down some large poplars that were being cultivated there for timber, he had no further plans for the land and offered it to us for planting willow and we gratefully accepted. That was nearly 20 years ago and only a quarter of the available space was planted at that time, but it has been added to every year since. It now measures about 12 metres by 6 and has several varieties that have survived out of the 50 plus that have been tried there.

Willow bed January 2011 looking East

It used to be a real pleasure to go down to the willows on a sunny winters day. A stand of scrubby trees on the north side of the plot gave protection from cold winds which, together with a mini wood of ash trees choked with wild clematis on the eastern side, created a warm micro-climate where you could work unfettered by layers of thick clothing or gloves.

Stream January 2011

Running along side the willow bed was a stream that originated from a small bubbling source and because the water was always there I pitted the willows for peeling in it. It was an oasis set amongst the mixed landscape of fields and the little strips of potager.

Willows pitted in stream January 2000

Things began to change several years ago. As the older villagers died so their potagers were ploughed into the fields, their children choosing to buy their vegetables rather than grow them. Then the trees on the north side that provided our micro climate were chopped, and the searing north winds that often blow on sunny winter days now makes working there unpleasant. Last winter it seemed that every time we went to the plot a tractor would appear grinding noisily up and down the field spraying some noxious powder over the land and, with the aid of the north wind, us and our organically grown willows too. (This article confirms my fears.) .http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/wine/8274192/French-winegrowers-warned-over-pesticide-use.html

By August the track to the willows had become a canyon in between the giant brutish maize plants that bear no relation to their delicate South American ancestors and which are apparently always thirsty. The indigenous agri-business method for quenching this thirst appears to be astonishingly stupid. The water is pumped up from the water table and then often on a really hot day sprayed high into the air over the maize from a giant sprinkler in the hope that some of it reaches the ground. According to R.D.P.E statistics http://www.eau-poitou-charentes.org/usages/Usage-et-consequences,24.html it takes 500-1,000 litres of irrigated water to make 1kg of maize. This maize, which is unfit for human consumption, is fed to the pigs that live in sheds, never seeing the light of day or feeling sun on their skin, and which end up in pieces in the supermarkets "foires des porcs" of January at about 2€ a kilo. How do the sums add up, pork that is cheaper per kilo than cabbages?

Dry stream September 2010

It is hardly surprising then that last year for the first time we saw a gaping hole in the dry stream bed where the spring should have been, and it wasn't until November that water started to bubble up again.
Needless to say it wasn't a good willow harvest.

Reflecting on all this in the biting wind with freezing fingers trying to grasp the secateurs, I began to tell myself that we should stop doing this work. It is not much fun and I don't really need the willows, there are plenty of other available materials that I can use to make baskets with, but if we stop cultivating this little plot the trees surrounding it will be cut and the maize will be moved in. It struck me then that the only difference between Brazilian deforestation and the European version is that we have already done it.

Here is a link to a petition to halt the sell off of Englands publicly owned woodlands http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests#petition Thank you Barbara.

'Urban Baskets' unpacked in North Wales

2011-01-13T18:44:00.001+01:00

'Urban Baskets' opens this weekend at two venues in North Wales where it will be on show until March 12th. The exhibition has been divided between the Denbigh and Ruthin Library Galleries and details of the opening hours can be found here.http://www.eventsnorthwales.co.uk/events/6899/lois-walpole--urbanbaskets-tradition-recycled

Sadly, I will not have a chance to visit either venue, or to run any workshops, due to the ongoing financial constraints that are currently squeezing the cultural life out of Britain so, if you have a chance to visit either venue please tell me about it!

Labyrinth

2011-01-04T13:45:00.000+01:00

In a park in the little village of Nanteuil-en-Vallee is to be found this living willow labyrinth, it is one of the nicest I have seen, well maintained, sitting happily in the landscape and visually pleasing even on a grey winters day.

Although there was no sign to say who had created it, I guessed it was probably done by Joel Rouillé as he has become an expert at these constructions and runs a business based in Villaine Les Rochers undertaking a wide variety of commissions for public spaces. I subsequently checked Joels website and found it there. http://www.joel-rouille-osier.com/ Joel acknowledges that it was his neighbour David Drew, the British basket maker, who introduced this type of diagonal woven living willow fence to France in 1994 when he planted one around the potager outside his troglodyte home in Villaines. This was in fact the second version as the first had been planted around his previous vegetable garden in Somerset.

The following year David and his wife Judy created a sensation at the International Garden Festival at Chaumont with a much larger version of this fence. Constructed of zig-zag willow walls using his now perfected technique and white gravel, it had a strong visual presence that altered with the seasons. The completed installation offered a unique experience to anyone entering between the walls and it became one of the most popular exhibits that year. As a consequence of the publicity they received the living willow fence is now a regular feature in parks and gardens worldwide.

Image from a postcard of David and Judy Drews installation at Chaumont Garden Festival 1995.
Original photo:Yann Arthus Bertrand

The way that David makes them is as immaculate as topiary and he has developed his own techniques for their planting and pruning. This makes them distinct and aesthetically superb but there is a historical precedent for both diagonally woven fences and living woven fences. In medieval paintings, particularly of the Italian and Dutch Schools, there are often fences that look similar in construction but, despite some serious research, I have never tracked one down where the fence is obviously alive rather than constructed with dead sticks. It is not difficult to imagine, however, that if the fence was planted in the ground from freshly cut wood there is every possibility that they were living fences.

More recently a German landscape designer Arthur Weichula (1865-1941) developed techniques for creating snow barrriers for railway lines, bridges and buildings out of woven and grafted living wood (mainly poplar). According to Konstantin Kirsch in his book Naturbauten aus lebenden Gehölzen (1996 ISBN 3-922201-17-2) Weichula not only ran a successful business creating living trellis fences, but he also published a book describing his techniques and successfully applied for patents for his tools and techniques.

Image taken from 'Grown Home an exploration of processes for the manufacture and culture of willow products' 2003 Lois Walpole

Medieval gardeners created their fences to keep animals in or out or to act as windbreaks for cultivated gardens. Arthur Weichula saw a practical and commercial purpose for these fences but I feel sure they would all have also enjoyed the evolution of the diagonal living wood fence into something that can also have a place in landscape design equal to that of topiary. Both plant and sculpture, Joel's Labyrinth is the successful result of a symbiotic relationship between man and nature where neither can exist without the other.

The Law of Material Sufficiency

2010-12-06T11:42:00.000+01:00

Over the years I have noticed a little known phenomenon and as I have never seen a name given to it I have decided to call it the Law of Material Sufficiency. Not dissimilar to Parkinsons Law (Cyril Northcote Parkinson 1955) "work expands to fill the time available for its completion" ........ it works like this....

Having done some experiments and decided that I want to use a particular material for whatever it is that I am making, I then select from my boxes and sacks of collected materials the actual materials for the task. As I don't buy materials there needs to be enough for whatever job I have planned for it but, this is very difficult to guage accurately so, usually, I just hope and trust that there will be enough. The astonishing thing is, that nearly every time it works to such a fine degree that I find myself scrabbling in the bottom of a sack or a box to root out the last few centimetres of whatever it is to add the final touches, and it happened again this week.

I was given a Limousin woven chestnut chair in very poor condition. Filthy, riddled with woodworm, a lot of broken splints and the joints very loose and after giving it a serious scrubbing I realised that actually I didn't like the chestnut splints very much. But I found the curved form and simple stick structure of the chair very seductive so I decided to use the broken splints as fire lighters, but keep the frame and restore it in my own way.

My initial idea was to use either tetra paks or corrugated cardboard in the same fashion as the splints, that is, to weave panels and then nail the completed panels to the back and seat. But weaving a panel and attaching it to something never excites me as much as working 3 dimensionally and as I was restoring the chair for my own use I saw no reason why I should bore myself whilst doing it. In addition I find it hard to trust nails now after too many experiences of splitting wood by using the wrong nail for the job, and the chair was already splatter-gunned with nail holes. So, I abandoned the panel idea. Weaving over the structure with tetra pak and cardboard strips was the next thing I tried, but neither felt strong enough and the curved shape didn't lend itself to this type of weave.

There is a sack of used polypropylene strapping tape in my studio. It is the remains of a large amount of waste tape that I collected some years ago from a packaging company in London for a public commission that I was working on at the time .The tape came wrapped around the pallets of cardboard they imported and every day of the week they threw out one or two skips full of it. The skips were emptied into a barge on the Thames that floated downstream to the implausible sounding Mucking landfill site in Essex where this still perfectly functional tape was interred along with all the rest of Londons' so called waste. Something that struck me when I collected the material from the company was that the workers there obviously sensed that the material was not really 'waste' because they often bundled it into neat little hanks before throwing it into the skip, even though they were not asked to do this.

I have now used most of the colours that I like and had been left with a large amount of very stiff, transclucent green tape that, until now, I have had very little use for as I did not find it particularly attractive or easy to work with. But after a cursory rummage in the sack I realised that its moment had arrived (is this another law - when the right job comes along the material ceases to be unattractive?) and the chair has been woven with it and, as usual, I have been left with barely a metre of tape!

Depressed, Pressed and the Press

2010-11-30T19:37:00.000+01:00

Its been one of those weeks....a gallery that was apparently interested in taking Urban baskets has, it seems, changed its mind, no reasons given - a pity because I thought it looked like a good space with an interesting programme. Then there is the non payment of a teaching fee and related expenses for a weeks work done nearly six months ago, unfortunately I hear I am not alone.....It's also been unseasonally cold and last night it snowed, so to receive a good review of Urban Baskets came as welcome respite.

The marketing team at Walford Mill, Liz and Nicole, told me that they had met with 'severe apathy' when they tried to persuade journalists to make the journey from London, where most of them are based, to Dorset to review Urban Baskets - even though they were offered encouragement in the form of train fares, lunches etc. Consequently press coverage of the exhibition has, so far, been local and minimal but yesterday I received MUSE magazine from Christine at Walford which had a very nice review of the exhibition in it from someone who did not know my work previously. If you click on the picture you can read the review.

Besom Season

2010-11-21T17:30:00.001+01:00

Living in a small village you learn to recognise particular noises that tell you what is going on around you without actually needing to see what is happening. The post van accelerates fast up the road, it is about mid day and I am convinced that the French become more reckless the closer to lunchtime it gets. There is the dull, but nevertheless slightly sinister, thud of an arrow piercing a target when Daniel, over the road, practices tir a l'arc - thankfully usually after lunch - and there is Anne-Marie gardening.....

I could not have a nicer neighbour than Anne-Marie who loves her garden and is a very knowledgeable gardener. To her the garden is an extension of her pristine home that needs just as much housekeeping. Consequently she views overgrown lawns, weeds and the leaves that gently tumble from the trees at this time of year as a visible sign that she is failing as a housekeeper.

The lawn is dealt with in agri business fashion (as befits a farmers wife) with a sit on mower that sounds like a small tractor. When I hear its pistons cranking up and the blades reaching take off speed I know that rain is forecast within 24 hours. But, the weeds on the gravel and the leaves on the roads leading to her house need constant scratching and scraping and sweeping. Usually she uses a plastic leaf rake which has a distinctly plastic sound but yesterday I was surprised to hear a new type of swishing noise coming from the road and of course I had to investigate. My reward was to see Anne-Marie sweeping like a demon with a very obviously home-made besom, it doesn't take much to make me happy but this humble object gave me unadulterated joy! Apparently the plastic rake had broken.

Anne Marie doesn't know what particular plant she used but, traditionally in colder temperate climes besoms are made of birch or heather because they have the right amount of fine but resilient branches for the job. In Nova Scotia according to Peter Barrs and Joleen Gordon in "Older Ways Traditional Nova Scotian Craftsmen" (ISBN0-442-29628-2) there used to be a tradition of 'sheen brooms' made from a single pole of yellow birch where, instead of the branches being used as the brush head, the wood is peeled away in layers or 'sheens' to create the brush fibres, leaving the unpeeled part as the handle.

Technically speaking the 'Anne Marie special' is more correctly a 'swale' as it does not have a separate handle, this I discovered in the excellent " Encyclopedia of Green Wood Working" by Ray Tabor (ISBN 1-899233-07-5)

Of course, there are plenty of home made simple plant fibre brooms besoms and swales still being made and used all over the world but, it is rare now in northern Europe to find a person under retirement age who would think of making one for themselves, rather than spend their hard earned money buying something that will inevitably make someone higher up the food chain rich on the profit.

A plastic leaf rake costs about 20€ in my local 'garden centre'. Manufactured in China from planet munching materials it has probably been shipped to Europe on an ocean going skyscraper of metal boxes and I would need to work for at least an hour and a half (on the average French take home pay) to earn enough to buy one. Anne Marie thinks her swale does a superb job and it only took her about 15 minutes to cut the twigs from her hedgerow and bundle them with used baler twine which leaves her with a plus balance of 1 hour 15 minutes in her life account with which she can go and do something she really enjoys - which in her case is ironing!

The Numbers Game

2010-11-09T20:20:00.008+01:00

Galleries and artistic venues that receive public funding usually have to justify their existence by proving that what they do is of some interest to the public. It is, after all, that same public who provide the funding via their taxes so, I suppose it is only fair.

In order to provide this proof galleries need to count heads, persuade people to sign visitors books and have external evaluations and assessments done. The upside to this interminable bureacracy, which gobbles up time for gallery staff that could perhaps be more creatively employed, is that I now know that an estimated 6,380 people visited Walford Mill Crafts during the 6 weeks that "Urban baskets tradition recycled" was on compared with 2,796 during the same period last year. I have also seen a copy of the visitors book (2 pages are pictured above) and the "Artistic Assessment" by the Arts Council all of which I was delighted to discover are very, very positive. In many ways I see myself more as a performer and educator rather than as a merchant so applause, when it happens, is precious and is what inspires me to continue.

Today the exhibition has been taken by van to North Wales where it will not be unpacked until mid January. It would have been nice if it could have gone to another venue in between but it wasn't easy finding venues that were prepared to host it. Recently it has become very difficult for artists/makers to find spaces in Britain that will support solo shows but these shows are very important because they allow us and others the space to reflect on our practise, which in turn enables us to move forward.Walford Mill Crafts is an exemplar in difficult times and if the attendance figures and visitor responses mean anything then I am relieved that the risk they took would appear to have paid off.

From the Cradle to the Grave

2010-11-01T12:12:00.008+01:00

Whilst most of France is protesting at the prospect of having to work from the cradle to the grave I have been taking half-term visitors to look at churches, and have been reminded yet again of the essential role that baskets once played in our lives.

The Poitou Charentes is rich in Romanesque churches. These simple but solid limestone churches with intricately carved portals and capitols were mostly built in the 11th and 12th Century at a time when many of the roads through the region were important pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. At that time, it is said, an estimated two million people a year made the journey from all over Europe in order to pay hommage to the relics of the apostle St. James. In order for me to travel to the same place now by public transport I usually have to detour via Paris, Madrid or London. In medieval times I would have just picked up my staff, for beating off wild dogs, put on my cape, slapped on the floppy hat adorned with the eponymous coquilles St Jacques and turned left outside my front door arriving in Santiago some months later, no doubt with sore feet, but having completed one half of an amazing and no doubt educative journey.

Many of the abbeys and village churches in this region were constructed at that time to offer spiritual encouragement and hospitality to the pilgrims in return for donations to the Church. The resultant construction boom must have seemed extraordinary to the inhabitants. It is tantalising to imagine what it would have been like for them to have a comparatively huge building site in the centre of every small village, with the noise of hammer on stone ringing all day for a hundred years or so as these gems of architecture were being constructed in an otherwise noise free environment.

One of the most notable of these beautiful churches is Notre Dame la Grande, in Poitiers, with a carved stone facade that is breathtaking for its detail. Just above the right hand doorway on the west facade is a 12th Century carving of a nativity scene (pictured above) with Mary showing the world her somewhat adult looking new born in his woven cradle overlooked by two animals which look, rather scarily, as though they might just eat him. The cradle is obviously wicker and given the ecology of the region would probably have been woven from hazel, chestnut or willow.

Woven cradles seem to have been neglected by basket makers in recent years yet I am certain there are many parents who would much rather have a cradle hand made from sustainable materials than a machine made pvc one. The hand made cradle used to be an object of desire that families treasured and handed on to the next generation. It would seem to be a tradition that is ripe for revival and what could be better than making one yourself?

photo:Jonathan Middup

I was delighted therefore to be sent this picture by Pip Hall (who, by a very strange coincidence, is a stone carver www.piphall.co.uk ) of a 'moses' basket made from tetra paks. Pip participates in workshops started by Monica Tweddell in Cumbria which she calls 'crafty container' workshops because, she tells me, they were inspired by my book of the same name. This beautiful basket was made by Elizabeth Dawson, a fellow participant, for her neices son William and is plaited out of approximately 44 soya milk cartons.

Melle in Deux Sevres was considered such an important staging post on the pilgrim trail that three churches were built at about the same time each requiring a small army of masons and here high on a capitol in St. Pierre is a less detailed but nevertheless clear rendering of Jesus being laid in a woven coffin. (left)

The revival of the woven coffin in recent years has been, in my view, a basket making success story. Both the owner occupier versions and those crafted by professionals seem infinitely more humane than the gloss varnished exotic hardwood, or worse still,mdf and brass handled caskets that are not only environmentally dubious but have a grim formality about them that says nothing about the person inside.

The Somerset Willow Company http://www.wickerwillowcoffins.co.uk/ has made a speciality of woven coffins and this one made for a child has a simplicity and beauty that seemed perfect to me when I saw it being made. Perhaps it is the similarity between the woven cradle and the woven coffin that suggests that a life has come full circle and the physical body is now returning from whence it came that makes it in some very small way, comforting.

Moving On

2010-10-16T16:22:00.007+02:00

Tempus fugit and Urban baskets tradition recycled will close at Walford Mill Crafts in Dorset next Sunday 24th October in the evening and is not planned to re-open in the South of England. So this is just a gentle reminder that there is only one week remaining in which to see it. The next showing is in North Wales and is being divided between two galleries Denbigh Library Gallery and Ruthin Library where it opens on the 15th January 2011 and will run until March 12th.

If you have already seen it and you would like to tell me what you thought of it, please do, either here, publicly, or by emailing me lois@loiswalpole.com or, best of all, if you are planning a visit please write something in the visitors book. That way both the gallery and I get to know your thoughts and both of us can learn from them. As I said in an earlier post my work is meaningless for me unless other people engage with it one way or another.

There are still opportunites for other galleries to have the exhibition either in the UK or abroad, so if you know of a gallery that seems appropriate please tell me or Christine at christine@walfordmillcrafts.co.uk about it.

Basket News

2010-10-10T00:10:00.006+02:00

Yes, I have fallen for this one many times forgetting that "baskets" to a Francophone are a type of lace up sport shoe, presumably something you might wear to play basket ball in. Converse All Stars are a typical example but, the game of basket ball is also often abbreviated to just basket and is very popular in France, hence the demand for 'Basket News'.

I first encountered this linguistic trap some years ago when an attractive French man asked me (in English) what I did for a living and I told him I designed baskets. The ensuing conversation was quite strange because he seemed, unusually, very impressed with my chosen career and I hoped, by implication, me. However, he appeared quite disappointed when he learnt that I wasn't undertaking commissions for Nike, Adidas etc. It finally dawned on me what was going on but I decided not to tell him.

Chiswick Eyot Osier Holt

2010-10-04T09:16:00.001+02:00

Hek Khaleeli, a friend and much valued patron, sent me a link to a BBC news item about Nick a 67 year old man who has been living on Chiswick Eyot for the past 6 months and it has spurred me to write about this very special place.

I first learnt about the Eyot from Tony Kirkham in 2002. At the time he was responsible for the Arboretum and Horticultural Services at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and he had just agreed to let me plant my grown home experiments in the nursery there. I needed to get hold of willows for the experiments but, buying them was not an option because, I wanted them to be local and readily available in order to be true to the philosophy behind grown home. He told me about this little island in the Thames covered in pollarded willows that he thought used to be cut by basket makers. It sounded incredible to me as I had lived in London for 28 years, making baskets for much of that time, yet knew nothing about it.

My first visit to the Eyot in March 2002 was in the company of Diana Hutchings who at the time was a volunteer at Kew and had been instrumental in helping me make contact with Tony. She also knew about the Eyot and kindly offered to show me where it was and to help cut some willows. Hidden behind the Fullers Brewery just off the thunderous A4 was a piece of basket making history that seemed poignantly beautiful to me in the mix of sunshine and snow that we had on that day.

I had been researching the history of willow cultivation in London for my thesis and had found very few records of osier holts anywhere in the greater London area. I was convinced that there must have been many small plots of land used for cultivating willows for baskets around the edges of the city but could find very few references to any. Those I had found were either of nurseries or plantsmen in Chelsea and Hackney who sold willows for cultivation or of its natural occurrence documented in studies of the Flora of London and its counties. But here in all its wintery beauty was the evidence that, at some time in the not too distant past, basket makers had cultivated these osiers.

The Eyot is a tiny island that is covered with water twice a day at high tides but that you can easily walk to at low tide. The Thames rips in and out of there very fast so you have to be acutely aware of the state of the tide when you visit . Diana (pictured here) had found out the time of low water and we squelched across the mud and climbed the bank. The soggy ground was a jetsom lovers paradise, thick with the detritus that is thrown or blown into the river and growing majestically out of this mattress of refuse were the pollards. We spent the next couple of hours cutting common osier rods in the sunshine keeping a wary eye on the rising tide.

Subsequent research revealed that the Eyot had been planted and cultivated for basket making between about 1800 and 1935 when the last person granted a right to cut the osiers went out of business and the island was subsequently taken over by the local council. The demand for baskets in the area had come from the numerous market gardens in the area that needed containers to transport their produce downstream to the markets of the city of

London.

Since 1949 the willows have been managed by the Old Chiswick Preservation Society in order to prevent further erosion of the island. Another incentive for the locals to cut the osiers, however, is that they block the grandstand view from the houses on Chiswick Mall of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. It seemed too strange a coincidence to discover that one of these handsome houses overlooking the Eyot is called Walpole House!

There is a good account of the history of the Eyot in the following publication for anyone interested in doing more research.

Pape, David, Nature Conservation in Hounslow Ecology Handbook 15, London Ecology Unit 1990, ISBN 1-871045-11-8

This is the BBC clip which shows the island and Nick constructing a shelter for himself from the osiers.

">http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/uk-england-11382907

Urban baskets, tradition recycled

2010-09-26T23:10:00.006+02:00

Is now open to the public at Walford Mill in Dorset and will be so until the evening of the 24th October so there are only four weeks left in which it can be seen in the south of England. We then have a gap in the schedule before it moves on to Denbigh Library Gallery in North Wales where it opens on the 15th January so if you run a gallery or an exhibition space and would like to have the show for the pre Christmas slot please get in touch with Christine Fletcher Jones, christine@walfordmillcrafts.co.uk as soon as possible.

There is a 60 page colour catalogue to accompany the exhibition which can be ordered by mail from Walford Mill. The details of how to do this are on this link http://www.walfordmillcrafts.co.uk/current.htm

Last week the exhibition was visited by a group of 50 mayors from all over Dorset (playfully referred to as the 'chain gang' by someone who will remain anonymous). Many of these mayors were not aware of the work that is done at Walford Mill and were apparently delighted with what they saw which can only be good news because like most other arts organisations in Britain, at the moment, Walford Mill Crafts is fearful about the projected cuts in public spending.

There has also been a political proposal that the arts should operate like commercial businesses and survive on their "profits" without tax payers help. In which case the only people who would be able to afford to participate in the arts would of necessity have to be middle aged, in work and rich as ticket, entry, participation fees etc would all have to go up and private enterprises do not normally subsidise the young, old or unwaged to attend events! The only arts events staged would be those that could be certain to bring in punters and the vision of endless re-runs of "Les Miserables" and non stop Constable exhibitions without the option of anything new or daring or different is just too horrible to contemplate. Removing public sponsorhip for the arts would be to abandon the next generation to a cultural life determined by the profit making organisations that dominate the virtual world.

It would not have been possible for me to do what I do without opportunities to show my work and teach classes in publicly funded venues in Britain and in many other countries and although my personal history is not important in the greater scheme of things, there are thousands of other artists/craftspeople/musicians/actors and authors who have also been supported in some small way or another by tax payers and most of them in return will have enriched many other lives by doing what they do.

Today there is a photography event taking place in a small village called Barro in France http://barrobjectif.canalblog.com/ that attracts thousands of visitors who pay nothing to enter. It has been running for 10 years and is there for everyone that wants to see it. It is a prime example of the type of event that could not function without public money and it is superb.

It has enriched my life by showing me other ways to view the world in which we live, but I really wonder if I would have been prepared to pay to see it if I had never seen it before and didn't know just how good it is.

The Opening

2010-09-14T17:51:00.006+02:00

On Friday I flew to Southampton from Limoges and arrived at Walford Mill with enough time to add the piece I was finishing on Thursday night and the labels for each piece. Having got to know Christine (the CEO of Walford Mill Crafts) a little bit over the last couple of years I had no doubt that she would have done a good job on the layout, I was right and it felt almost as though I had done it myself, nothing needed changing even though she very graciously gave me the opportunity to do so.

On the morning of the opening we went for a walk on the beautiful Dorset coast which was superb preparation as by lunchtime we were all so relaxed that we arrived late! The weather had been a bit grey and damp but as we approached the Mill the sun came out and the first people I saw there were my parents who had come from Exeter with my brother and his wife, a two and a half hour journey away and it made for a very special beginning. About 50 people came to the opening, a mixture of locals and family and friends, the latter all having made long journeys to be there which I appreciated greatly. Private views are always strange occasions filled with expectation and nervousness and so friendly faces are always hoped for and treasured.

Bunty Ball who is currently the chair of the Basketmakers Association officially opened it for us and I am very grateful to her for doing so although I was a bit alarmed when she described the exhibition as my "lifes work" - I rather hoped I might make a few more baskets yet.....

The afternoon was so enjoyable that I forgot to take any pictures of the exhibition but Caroline the Education Officer at Walford took this picture of Bunty (left), Christine (right) and I as the doors were closing...........I will try to remember to take some when I go back to teach this weekend, but it is, of course, open to visitors before then.

Buff Basket Making

2010-09-05T16:47:00.012+02:00

For the last five days I have been camping in a forest of maritime pines a short walk from the sea enjoying the wildness, natural beauty and pure escapism that is the Aquitaine coast. This particular camp site is slightly unusual in that one of the house rules is to "vivez nu" whenever the weather allows, and if you get bored with the beach there are lots of "animations " provided in July and August that you can participate in such as surfing, archery,photography, boules and basket making!

Usually my sojourn there is too late in the season to meet the person who teaches basket making, (I go there in September deliberately to avoid animation and because at 11€ a day it is amazing value) but this year I finally had a chance to meet Agnes Gaillut who has taught cane and willow basket making there from the 1st July to the first weekend in September for the last 18 years. Agnes comes from Marne in North East France and told me that she teaches for pleasure rather than as a profession and over this summer season she had taught 200 children and 30 adults to make baskets and she could have taken double the number if she had had the space in the workshop and someone to help. She is a true champion for the craft! On the day I was in the workshop she had two men making willow baskets, a woman making a willow platter, a boy of about 13 weaving a willow base for a round basket and a girl of about 12 weaving cane on a wooden base and all were obviously totally absorbed by their activity. If you have ever made a willow basket you will know that it usually involves knives and pointed implements so you might think it could be a dangerous activity for naked bodies but Agnes had thought of that and had 'aprons' i.e. strips of inner tube from truck tyres which provided the necessary protection.

That so many people had wanted to make baskets for pleasure was a delight to hear but I couldn't help wondering how many of them would ever make one again once they returned home because the effort involved in sourcing and ordering cane or willow would probably be sufficient a deterrant to stop most people from bothering, added to which most willow suppliers in France do not deal in quantities of less than a bolt which if you just want to make a small basket is far too much.

The maritime pine has long needles that carpet the ground in

the camp site and the beach can usually supply ropes and cords so it seems to me to be a lost opportunity not use them for coiled basket making. I asked Agnes if she had ever considered using the pine needles but she did not know it

was possible to make baskets from them so we arranged a mini coiling workshop after her class and she seemed genuinely pleased to have learnt something new to offer and promised to show me what transpires next year.

For me this is a not just a question of the dubious sustainability of imported centre cane or commercially grown willows but it is also, and maybe more importantly about empowerment. The child who learns that they can pick up the materials that are lying at their feet and make something useful from them has learnt far more than just techniques and will be able to repeat the exercise whenever it finds appropriate materials to hand, without needing any help financially or organisationally from an adult. For hard pressed parents this could also be a big attraction!

Economy Drive

2010-08-20T12:35:00.015+02:00

There are only 2 weeks left until Urban Baskets opens at Walford Mill Crafts. The last couple of weeks have been particularly intense for me as I had several pieces to finish as well as all the work to pack and document for the tour. Despite the aching hands and arms there are always benefits for me of making under pressure. It forces me to think more analytically and each process is then considered in terms of how much time it will take for the results achieved. Some of the techniques that I have developed to save time have been discovered in the last hours before the work has had to be posted/ delivered/collected or displayed.

Christine Lawry, who is the Chief Executive at Walford Mill and a person with huge amounts of

energy and passion for her work hired a van and drove the 600 mile round trip to Charme on Tuesday with Paddy, the man she married last weekend to collect the work! What a star! The 7 large boxes were whisked away on Thursday morning and my studio suddenly seems very empty. I am very grateful to them both because it took away the stress of posting the work with the hideous spectre of the work not arriving in time for the opening.....

As well as the actual baskets there has been a lot of work on the catalogue but now, finally, it has gone to the printers. Richard Broadway at East Dorset County Council has designed it and has come up with something that I am very happy with. I have had many experiences of my work being represented in print in ways that have not been appropriate or sympathetic so it is a real delight for me to be able to say that I think this catalogue does the job very well.

One of the things I wanted for this catalogue was to have other people write about about my work. Artists and craftspeople are constantly asked to write statements to explain what they do but often they are not very good at using words, they are, after all expert visual communicators and I am indebted to the following people who all generously gave of their time to write about my work from their perspective: Martina Margetts, Senior Tutor in the School of Humanities Department of Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, http://www.rca.ac.uk/Default.aspx?ContentID=503135 Tony Hayward Artist and Publisher and fellow student in the Sculpture Department at St. Martins in 1975, http://www.tonyhayward.com/index.html Carlos Fontales, Author and Researcher into the Spanish basket making tradition, http://carlosfontales.blogspot.com/(and apparently the only person reading this blog!) as well as Michael Norton, Social Entrepreneur http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/author/michaelnorton/ and Alice Meynell, Designer and mother of 4 children, who are both much appreciated patrons.

Still labels to do and documentation of the other smaller exhibition of baskets from other cultures......

Photography

2010-08-06T15:43:00.009+02:00

This week I have been photographing my work for the catalogue that is being produced for the forthcoming exhibition, (see Exhibitions for details).

It is always the same, with nearly three years to prepare for this exhibition everything gets squashed into the last few months including the photography.

It has always been my job to photograph my work and a challenge that I have enjoyed. In the beginning I had to do it because I couldn't afford to pay a photographer, I still cannot, but now I would not consider employing anyone else because creating the images of the pieces at least gives me some control over how my work is presented. It also helps me to see the work, the good bits and the bad bits and draws attention to anything that doesn't quite work on the actual piece.

The pieces that are easy to photograph are usually ( but not always) the ones that work best in reality. In this instance I took over 800 photos to arrive at 32 that I was happy with, something that was not possible for me prior to digital cameras because of the expense and time delay.

The accidental photos or the ones where I am just 'playing' with the piece the light and the camera are often for me very interesting, although they don't necessarily show what the audience for these images is wanting to see - a dilemma.

Work Space

2010-07-28T17:54:00.004+02:00

Monday was a special day because some tools and materials, equipment and the piece I am working on were moved into my new studio. Never having had the luxury of a purpose built workspace before (I have always worked in spaces meant for other things) it was quite an emotional experience for me.

It would have been possible for me to continue working as I always have done but I wanted to have a space big enough for me to be able to offer workshops and classes in the same space that I work in. I have always taught wherever I have been asked to teach but recently I have realised that the space in which you teach is almost as important as what and how you teach. Not only because the students can learn more about material storage and preparation, tool organisation and working methodology but also because the makers/artists philosophy is evident in the environment they have created to work in and the students can see their own work in the same sympathetic context. Trying to teach willow basket making in a classroom full of computers is not only a logistical nightmare but it makes it very difficult for the students to see and appreciate what they have achieved.

There are some lovely places to teach that are no ones' private studio or workshop, El Taller in Lugo, Galicia is a superb dedicated basket learning centre (that is sadly currently being threatened by administrative changes).

Sellafirth Hall on Yell in Shetland is a tin shed but with a lovely wooden interior and atmosphere that just seems ideal for basket making and under the trees in a village square in Mas de Barberans, Tarragona is also a very special place to teach and learn in, as some lucky people will discover this coming weekend http://www.cdrmuseudelapauma.cat/activitats.html

We started building these studios just under 3 years ago and although there is still work to do, it is now possible to work and teach in my space, all I need now are some students, some door handles and to clean the windows.

Thanks go to Yvette Clergeau ( Madame Le Maire) and Ghislaine (her secretary) for their assistance with the plans, to Lionel Belair for the walls and floor and Neil Read for the roof and electrics both of these men were super professional and a pleasure to give our savings to www.charenterenovation.com Thanks also to Pascal Carr for sharing his knowledge of stonework and John Guest and Mick Miller for help with plaster boarding at great heights, something I was unable to assist with. But most of my appreciation has to go to JJ who has worked solidly, often on his own in heat-waves and bitter cold, in dust and at 5 metres high on a ladder to give me a space of my own to work in, I cannot thank him enough.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

2010-07-19T17:56:00.019+02:00

The annual Fete de la Vannerie took place at the medieval village of Issigeac in the Dordogne last Sunday. It has been 9 years since I last visited so I was curious to see what changes might have taken place and together with David and Judy Drew we made the three hour journey. David is a good companion because he knows many of the professional French makers. He is also acknowledged as one of the leading experts on the making of the Perigourdin or Bourricou the spiral basket traditionally used to gather vegetables and walnuts and one of the baskets specific to this fair.

The first thing we noticed was that there seemed to be less Perigourdins on display this year, perhaps some of the older men who were making them last time are no more, and of those that were on display there were a lot that incorporated modifications of the traditional design that made them more decorative and less functional. The logic for some of these square, triangular or starfish (?) shapes was hard to fathom.

The training of French basket makers at Fayl Billot or at the Co-Op in Villaines is so rigorous (and excellent if you are making baskets for the baking or fishing industry) that to break the rules, which is what they probably have to do to be truly innovative, seems to be very hard for them. As a consequence those that seek to break free seem to make baskets that are immaculately woven but in extraordinary shapes or forms, as though just changing the form without changing the mindset will result in art. It's a pity that few of them seem inspired to make beautiful functional baskets ( as they know how to do) but adapted for contemporary life.

As with all fairs the content was very mixed. I particularly enjoyed the chestnut frame baskets made by Rene Parachout from Augignac on the borders of the Dordogne, Charente and Haut Vienne. His 'stand' was a minimalists delight, just a wooden table, the baskets and a hand written paper notice with his name and address. Nothing more was needed.

Francois Deplanches, who makes technically excellent willow baskets, is self taught and is also, unusually, a member of the British Basketmakers' Association. He told me that he draws inspiration from the work of some British makers such as Alison Fitzgerald and his versions of her 'ciathogs' I thought were particularly fine.

At the end of the day we watched a maker from Finisterre finishing a basket with wire stakes used for shellfish gathering. The handle required a great deal of skill, concentration and physical effort and he seemed genuinely surprised and delighted when he put the finished basket down on the plank and the gathered crowd burst into spontaneous applause, it was as though he had not noticed we were there.

It struck me then how important these demonstrations are in terms of teaching the general public about the quantity and quality of the work that goes into making a basket. Those that had watched this man would have had no doubt that it was worth every cent of the 31€ he was asking for it.

Clicking on the picture on the right will take you to more pictures of the Fete.

Tour de France

2010-07-19T17:54:00.000+02:00

Basket making can be quite a lengthy and monotonous activity, especially when coiling, which explains why,traditionally, basket making was, and still is often, a communal activity. Not necessarily something that everyone present in the same space is doing but something that is done in the presence of other people.

In Shetland the baskets for use in the home and on the croft used to be made indoors in the winter. Made by the men the baskets were coiled or twined from oat straw, whilst the women of the house would probably have been spinning or knitting , but its also highly likely that someone was telling a story or playing the fiddle or tending the fire and as family numbers were large and the houses small there would also have been children and babies doing what children and babies do.

Commercial basket making workshops have always been communal workspaces but often in these spaces, by contrast, the making process itself is shared out, consequently no-one has propriety over one basket, instead they are produced, in effect, on a production line, one person doing bases the next the sides, yet another to border and someone to do the handles and finishing touches.

Both ways of working permit chatter and conviviality that allows the basket maker to work without thinking about the action of their hands and instead allows the body to work rhythmically doing what is asked of it and what many sports psychologists suggest is the ideal way for the body to perform i.e without intellectual interference. (Timothy Gallwey "The Inner Game of Tennis"). Which brings me to the rather satisfying connection I have found between the Tour de France and basket making.

I have been working on a coiled paper laundry basket for months, in small bursts, the technique has not altered from start to finish so requires little thought -just the occasional glance at the shape, which is one of the reasons I cannot work all day on it without some external stimulation. When I lived in London I listened to radio 4, the spoken word providing the company and distraction I needed to just get the job done, but here in France I have happily discovered that for three weeks of the year the Tour de France on television is sufficiently distracting to allow my body to work efficiently without my brain interfering. Watching 150 young fit men wearing skin tight clothing slogging round France on bicycles in some stunning scenery has meant the basket is almost finished, without me noticing the clock ticking away.

Nine weeks ...

2010-07-10T23:12:00.000+02:00

It is exactly nine weeks today until the opening of 'Lois Walpole urban baskets; tradition recycled' at Walford Mill in Dorset, England. It is in fact two exhibitions 'Urban Baskets' is the larger one and includes some of the work that I have done over the last 28 years as well as some that I haven't finished yet..... 'Tradition Recycled' is the smaller show that I have put together of traditional baskets from different parts of the world that also use recycled materials.

It has been 18 years since I had a solo exhibition of my baskets in UK, so there is a whole new generation to show my work to, and I am delighted to have this opportunity. Having an audience for my work is paramount, it only really has any value for me when other people engage with it . This exhibition will be touring in Europe for at least 2 years and I am hoping a lot of people will, therefore, have a chance to engage with it.

Now I am wondering why I am at the computer when there is only nine weeks to the opening....?!

Plaiting garlic

2010-07-05T17:23:00.006+02:00

Today I plaited the garlic.

Plaiting braids from leaves, grasses and cereal stalks is a universal, simple and very portable activity. It isn't really necessary to look at the work, you can feel it and it doesn't require much thought, just a steady rhythm. The finished braids are found stitched together into baskets and mats all over the world.

The leaves of garlic are plaited with the bulb attached and don't require any stitching, they are just what they are, braids of garlic. It is a very practical way to store the garlic because every bulb is visible, making it easy to see which ones need eating first, it is also very decorative and it is one of the jobs I enjoy at this time of year. I always try a few different ways of doing it, usually because I have forgotten which method I liked best last year, and the only thing that seems critical is how dry the leaves are. Yesterday I tried doing it late in the afternoon but the leaves were very dry and brittle and kept breaking so I decided to do what I do with other leaves when I want to plait them and let the dew moisten them. I left the garlic out overnight and this morning they were soft and silky.

Why?.....

2010-07-02T16:00:00.005+02:00

Set up as an adjunct to www.loiswalpole.com this blog will allow me to quickly tell you about any teaching I am doing or exhibitions my work is in. It will also give you, the people who come to my workshops or view my work, a space where you can let me, and anyone else interested, know what you think about the experience....... if you wish to.

It will also allow me to talk to you about all the baskets and basket related things that I find interesting, inspiring, infuriating and intriguing, of which there are many....