Tri and Leaf

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 to 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