Exhibitionist

There are two things that make me want to spend 24 hours in my studio, one is the desire to experiment with a particular material or technique and the other is the prospect of an exhibition. Of the two, I think the latter is the more powerful motivator, perhaps that makes me an exhibitionist?

Money has never really motivated  me to work, though occasionally selling something can.  But selling, I have found,  has its negative aspects in terms of creative autonomy and,  if it involves middlemen/women  they invariably  make more money out of your work than you do.  It also impacts on how viewers perceive and value your work, (I will come back to this another day).

Trusting that life will bring what you need when you need it has, therefore, been my guiding principle for dealing with the uncertainty of never knowing when or where the next opportunity to exhibit or teach  and, possibly earn some money,  will come from. Very occasionally  I feel this philosophy is failing me but then, out of the blue and usually from a totally unexpected source, comes an invitation to participate in something or other.

At the moment I am working on pieces for two exhibitions (see side panel), neither of which were anticipated and there are not enough hours in the day. I want to spend all day in the studio but there is a house and its garden that also demand  some engagement on my part. Now it’s  plums that need stoning and drying whilst the sun shines. Housework is basic at these times and the spiders are content that I have a deadline to work to and they are happily creating delicate lacey multi-storey palaces in every corner of the house.

Sometimes the collected and donated materials in my studio build up to a point where I know I will not ever use them all and some discriminatory clearance has to be done. This can be a good way to discover what I want to use so, for the current work,  I have employed this tactic.  It’s hard for me to throw out materials  but knowing that I can take them somewhere to be recycled in other ways makes it tolerable. This time I disposed all of the bits of dead computers and cameras that I take to bits just because I am curious to know what is inside. Consequently I now know a lot about the trickery that goes on inside these things, for example the £300 computer that has its vital connections held together with rapidly deteriorating sellotape.  I also got rid of  some  things  that I didn’t really love because, although it is sometimes possible to transform them into something that  I do love by really working hard at the relationship, it is much easier to start with something that immediately attracts me… a bit like people really!

During this clearout I came across a large roll of white polypropylene tape that I acquired in about 1988. Its time has come now and I decided  that I either had to use it or bin it.  I couldn’t see it being used well once it had been deposited at the rubbish dump, there is a lot of it and in mint condition, so I felt obliged to try and honour it by using it to make a big piece. I have taught a lot of people how to do hexagonal plaiting with this tape, because it is a perfect combination of material and technique, but I have never really exploited this mix myself. So, having been reminded of its possibilities by Susanne Whittingham, who was in my class in Denmark and is a master of this material and all plaiting techniques, I  decided to work with it, but I am mixing it with other materials. I am not going to show you what I am making until I have finished, but the picture at the top is a hint. It will be a large modular piece, either free standing or wall mounted, and it will  pack up into a very small flat parcel! It won’t use all the white tape but the sack of coloured tape will be almost empty when I have finished.

As there is only  a month  until the exhibition opens  I am off.

More Bric a Brac Baskets

It's bric a brac/ brocante  season again but this year has not been good for the vendors. The local paper forecast it would be the best year ever in the region because a record number were planned, but nature intervened. Earlier in the season, quite abnormally, it rained heavily without fail every Sunday. The rain and cold was followed by searing heat and who wants to slog around a field in 34C looking at dusty things? Certainly not me. So, this year I have, so far, escaped most of the pitiful cries of orphan baskets calling out to me from under tables.

This Sunday was a close call however, as I nearly came home with an enormous and truly handsome basket. But, in the end, I decided it would have been like bringing a comatose giant home  that couldn’t do much of anything except occupy a huge amount of space.

Coincidentally, I would not have even been at a brocante had it not also been for extreme weather. A terrifying thunderstorm with hurricane force winds and torrential rain on Friday night cut off the electricity and phone for the weekend. Not knowing how long we would be without electricity and having a dead mobile it seemed a prudent idea to go somewhere to charge it, preferably a nice bar. So, it was a bonus to arrive in Aigre to find a brocante in  full swing. There were a lot more local baskets for sale than usual, but now they really do have to be good looking for me to be susceptible to their simpering. It’s prejudice, I know, but I have to look at them every day!

Chatting to a friend, without my glasses on, I noticed what looked like a large ridged metal container in the distance, then I tuned into the whingeing and knew that it wasn’t metal. Putting the glasses back on revealed a tour de force of coiled straw one and half metres high and about 70cm across and oval in form. Rather sinisterly there was an ancient doll lying face down in the depths as though she had fallen fatally from the rim, I wanted to pull her out but couldn’t reach down far enough.

The vendor said the basket had come from a boulangerie in the Limoges region but she had no idea what it was for. You couldn’t put anything too small in there because you would never get it out again and if it was for flour the flour at the bottom would never be used, which could prove fatal for the customers!

The price was so low I would not have even bartered but I knew I had to resist.  If, however, our paths cross at some future date, I will probably invite the giant to come home with me as I will consider it our destiny that we have met again.

Weaving with Hands and Feet

Brandbjerg Hojskole near Jelling in Denmark was the setting for Flettetraef last week. This is the name given to the week-long biennial summer school run by Pileforeningen the Danish basket makers association. Topics this year were, the ubiquitous, cultivated willow and the increasingly popular willow bark employed in various ways, along with  rush and cardboard.

There were 10 tutors and about 90 participants, most of which were female and the majority over 35. So, really, it’s a kind of retreat for women, where they can escape their families and be fed, both physically and mentally, without having to do any shopping, washing, or washing up. There I met many strong women who have had plenty of very tough things to deal with in their lives but who smiled for most of the week. It cannot be a bad thing.

My students, like all the others, worked like crazy. I could see the light on in our workshop after 11pm most nights as they pushed themselves into new territory, wrestling with strips of cardboard and discovering things about it, and perhaps themselves, they hadn’t found before.

But the week was not just basket making. There were also  guided nature walks, keep fit classes, a trip to the royal burial mounds in Jelling, talks, meditation, communal singing and dancing, a fair on the Wednesday afternoon where you could buy books and baskets and materials, an exhibition of the students work and an end of week party.  Of course, all of this takes a huge amount of voluntary organisation by many people, but particularly in this instance by Else Marie Pedersen , Solveig Langballe and Suzanne Kampp for whom it had been two years in the planning and to whom everyone involved was extremely grateful.

All the  activities  I have mentioned  were of course  pre-programmed but on the final night we were given an extra curricula treat.

Whilst the basket makers occupied most of the building there was also another much smaller group staying at Brandbjerg who were either  learning, or practicing, Argentinian Tango, I’m not sure which. We hardly saw them all week but they were invited to come to the exhibition of our students work and after the celebration dinner their tutor gave  us a short talk about the origins of the dance and an explanation of the differences between Argentinian Tango and the more macho European version. His students then offered to put on a performance for us. Slightly overawed by the large audience and somewhat shyly they danced for us and in so doing gave something of themselves to us. It was a gesture that many of us found profoundly touching. I only had my phone with me so the quality is not good but you can see a short clip of one of the performances here.

Looped and Found

Collaborations between potters and basket makers seem to be quite popular at the moment. Last year I participated in  Duos Potiers Vanniers and this year Nathalie Du Bernard of Poterie des Chals invited me to partner her  in Osier la Terre an open submission exhibition which is now on at the Ecomusee de Bresse until the 30 Septemeber.

Because I was in Shetland at the time when we needed to be working on the project it wasn’t  really feasible. But, when I went to Roussillon to teach in March, Nathalie showed me a large terracotta head, that she had made, and asked me if I would like to work on it. She was hoping that we might be able to squeeze our joint effort into the exhibition at the last moment, but the opening was very close and we had to get the very heavy head from Isere in east France to west France for me to work on. Nathalie had relatives returning from their easter break in the Alps who were cajoled into squeezing it into the boot of their car and I made a trip to Poitiers to fetch it from them. Despite our best efforts the opening of the exhibition came and went but once I finished the work it went back to Isere, this time with the assistance of a potter, Patrick Rollet, who was attending a pottery market in the Dordogne.

Nathalie assured me he would be amenable to this idea but when I arrived at his stand at the fair with the one metre high scaffolded head he seemed less keen, but graciously allowed me to leave it with him! I have heard nothing since….. Whether it will ever been seen publicly is still all a mystery to me.

When I first saw Nathalies piece, in the very special and ancient pottery that she works in, the idea for my contribution came almost immediately. I wanted to do  something that was about thoughts and memories of ancient pots.  I wanted to use a mix of materials  to create something that was extremely light in appearance as a contrast to the physical weight of the terracotta. Looping offered the lightness and could also suggest pathways of neurones and I still had a sack full of used green wire, given to me by the electrician next door, to loop with.

Whilst gardening  I often dig up little pieces of old earthenware. Over time I have collected these fragments on my windowsills and now this project seemed to present the perfect opportunity to make use of them. I enclosed each piece in a looped structure of fine copper wire and subsequently they were incorporated into the vase-shaped form that grew out of the head.

I have previously discussed the phenomena that I have called ‘the law of material sufficiency’  it happened again and when I had finished this piece the sack of green wire was empty, I had needed no more, or no less.

El Costurero de Aracne

Last August I was invited to participate in a project organised by Angel Sanz Montero of the Department of Art Textiles at the University of Granada. The brief was to make 40 'identical' works that would become part of the 6^th edition of El Costurero de Aracne which translates as Arachne's Sewing Box. 

Arachne was, according to Ovid a superb, but mortal, weaver in Greco Roman mythology who picked an argument with the goddess Athena. Being, among other things, the goddess of weaving, Athena wasn’t too impressed when Arachne boasted that she was a much better weaver than the goddess. A mega spat ensued and Athena used her superpowers to morph Arachne into a spider! The tale, it is suggested, explains why spiders aren’t bad at weaving either. 

The brief didn't mention any of this, it just said the works should be of a textile character that measured no more than 3x3x2,5cms!!!  Que horror!  Anyone who is familiar with my work knows that  I do not normally do small, let alone miniature. I like to make sculptural objects that occupy some space. Also, as a consequence of handling a lot of wire, my finger tips have become quite desensitised which makes working on a miniature scale difficult. However, even with only the promise of receiving a copy of the final work as recompense I decided to take on the challenge and today my copy of El Costurero de Aracne VI arrived in the post.

I was determined that I would make a basket and that it should use recycled materials and not be too labour intensive as I had to make 40 of them. In the end, after considerable experimentation, I decided to make small frame baskets. I used plastic bottle tops to give me a standard size for a circular frame that would not exceed the limitations. I then cut rings off the plastic lids and looped telephone wire onto these rings making small hemispherical baskets. Once I had the formula it didn’t take too long and I just made a few a day in between other jobs. The colours are different but technically the baskets are identical.

At the time of designing the baskets and whilst I was making them, I had not looked up the myth of Arachne so I hadn’t consciously considered making any references to the myth. I was too busy worrying about what I could possibly do on such a tiny scale! So, it was a pleasant surprise  when I had finished them and laid them out to photograph to see that I had made 40 little spiders webs. This phenomena is happening so frequently to me now when I am making that I am beginning to lose all sense of what is a conscious thought and what is not.....

In total 15 artists took part and each little box has 15 compartments containing a miniature art work. There is also a DVD with details about the works and the participating artists. It was produced in an edition of 50 examples so the other 35 boxes will go to other places and people. Tomorrow at 11.00  El Costurero de Aracne VI is being publicly presented at the University of Granada.

Teaching at Ensci, Paris

It is always interesting to teach young people who have never done any basket making before. They come with few preconceptions about what a basket should look like or how to make them and they also have enormous freedom of expression in how to solve problems. The down side is that they often try to do impossible things with combinations of materials that are too big, too flexible, too rigid or too small. That, however, is how they will learn what works and what doesn’t. Of course I can tell them that, in my experience, what they are trying to do will be difficult, or impossible, and that it probably won’t work, but what will they have learned? They won’t have had the frustration of trying or the pleasure of finding their own solutions.

Last week I taught a course in the three main basket making techniques (plaiting, coiling, stake and strand) for textile and product design students at Ensci in Paris. This was my third visit but the first time the course was open to students from departments other than textiles. It made for a large dynamic group including, I am delighted to say,six males, (the male student count for the year is now 10)!

A day and a half on just one technique group can never be enough but I try to cover basic starts, finishes, weaves and shaping possibilities in all three skills.  With 27 students it is not possible to work one to one all the time so I start each session with a demonstration of techniques and ask them just to watch. They then commence at their own pace, and I am able to attend to each of them when they need help. This pedagogy works well for me with large numbers of students and by the end of the week I find the students are eager for more demonstration sessions. What I cannot teach them, however, is probably the one thing that is of supreme importance in basket making and that is how to choose a combination of material and technique that works. They can only learn that by handling the materials themselves. Unlike pottery where a pot can only be made of clay, baskets can be made from almost anything and so the possible variations of material and technique are infinite. I do not ask the college to buy particular materials so we work with whatever is available. This time we had a supply of seating materials that came from a company that makes the plastic woven bistro chairs you see in French bars. This included some rattan, in one size only, some wooden sticks and lots of coloured plastic lapping. There were also some sheets of veneers and lots of different yarns and cords. The students also brought in some materials that they had scavenged.

It is fascinating to observe how they solve problems when left to play on their own with the techniques and materials. Sometimes they work collaboratively, sometimes they copy someone who they think has found the answers,  sometimes they ask me and sometimes they just put their work on their heads! I only intervene when I see a student becoming frustrated and then I make suggestions that leave them with as many options as possible.  

It was an intense week and on the last day they set up an exhibition of their work. This year staff and students from other departments came in to see it and to hear what the students thought about the week. It is always a pleasure for me to teach at Ensci. Thank you to everyone involved, staff and students.

Willows and Widdies

Some of my living willow experiments at Kew Gardens 2002

When I embarked on doctoral research at the Royal College of Art in London 1999 I had no idea really what research was about. I knew at some base level that it involved ‘finding out things’ but how that was to be achieved was a complete mystery to me. I just assumed it involved reading books and asking questions and then compiling it all into something meaningful. Four years later, thanks to the support provided by the College, I had a far better idea of what it was.  One of  the things that I learned is that academic research is pretty similar to the research one does as an artist and can be equally as exciting.

You have to start somewhere and that starting point is often just a question that you ask yourself. In my studio, it is often  ‘what can I do with this material?  But you quickly discover that in order to answer this question you have to re phrase it a million times. This is because the first question you came up with doesn’t get you the information you think you want, or need, and the information it has provided isn’t as interesting as maybe you hoped it would be. So my question to myself in the studio might then change to ‘what can I do with this material if I combine it with this technique?’ and then ‘what can I do if I combine this material with another material and this technique? It is not always quite as clear-cut as this but I hope you get the idea.

Current studio research - 'how can I join ceramics and wire'?

But, just as you think your question is starting to get the answers you hoped for, an even more interesting thing starts to happen. The research takes over and leads you to all sorts of places you never imagined going to. Before long, you have discovered the answer to a question, but it isn’t to the one you asked in the first place and is in fact often far more interesting than that original question. This explains why one of the first things  you are told when you embark on academic research, is that the abstract  (which outlines your enquiry and which goes at the front of your essay or thesis) cannot be written until you  have finished the research ! This is often one of the hardest things for the research student to accept because right from childhood we learn that questions come before answers!

I eventually  found some answers to my questions,  wrote them down in the right order and completed my doctorate in 2003. It was about willow product design and manufacture and if you are interested  it is available to download from the British Library.

It is possible, however, that research may be addictive because I have now started again, this time into the Shetland basket making tradition. It seemed to me that there might be more to it than the scarce amount of printed information suggests. I don’t necessarily mean more in terms of variety of techniques and raw materials, but more in terms of how particular forms developed and how because of the location, ecology and inhabitants of the place it became very individual and particular to the islands.

The first time I went to the old Shetland Museum, (since 2007 there has been a lovely, shiny new one) I saw a black and white photo of a woman with a back basket. The title was ‘Woman with Willow Kishie’. The photo was very clear and it was immediately obvious to me that the kishie was not willow at all, it was rattan. My immediate assumption was that whoever had written the label didn’t know the difference between the two materials and had, out of ignorance, made a mistake!

Willow Kishie

But, in fact, the label on the photo was not a mistake. This particular basket was, and always has been, known locally as a ‘willow kishie’ even though it was never made out of willow. You could say that the first person to call it  such made a mistake but did they?  It seems possible that they just used a word that would distinguish this kishie from a straw kishie and they used the word willow because they may have heard it  used for baskets that aren’t made of  indigenous materials.  Although some varieties of Salix grow in Shetland, there is scarce evidence that it was ever used for basket making and they are called 'widdies'. If the sheep couldn’t get at them (they love chewing the bark off) 'widdies' were used to dye wool.   As a consequence  the word ‘willow’ in Shetland  dialect has come to mean a material for basket making that doesn’t grow there rather than a member of the Salix family.

I cannot speak Shetland dialect, I only know a few words and phrases. So it was very nice to have Barbara Ridland, a local textile artist come to the Shetland Museum stores with me to look at some of the baskets in the collection back in March. The first stage of this particular bit of research was for me to look at the collection database and conduct a search using all the words that I thought might bring up the objects that I would like to see. It is possible that I missed out some things by not being thorough enough in this initial search, (methodology and rigour are two words that come up a lot in academic research!) A lot of the dialect words for particular baskets were spelt differently by the different people who had input the data.  This is inevitable with an oral dialect like Shetlandic  but it makes it difficult for the database search mechanism unless it has been very carefully designed to take account of these variations. Unfortuantely few of the baskets have been photographed for the database, so it wasn’t possible for me to use images as an extra filter. (I have given the museum copies of the photos I took for them to use on the database so it should be a bit easier for the next person looking at baskets). Once this initial search of the database was done I drew up a list of the things I wanted to see with their acquisition number and location reference so that Jenny Murray the head of the the Collection could locate the objects easily. That done Barbara and I went  to the Museum store for two days and Jenny and Helen brought objects out of the freezing cold store for us to unwrap examine and photograph.

 It was at this point that the research started to take over. Whilst Jenny and Helen were in the store getting the things I had asked for, they would spot others on the shelves  that they thought we might be interested in but which had not come up via the database search.  It was some of these objects that both Barbara and I enjoyed seeing the most.  This simple besom made of bent is one example.

I cannot forget Jenny saying as she entered the room at the end of one of the days carrying a tissue wrapped package  “I know you are going to love this”. We both did, because it was a little twisted and plaited doll made from oat straw that in Shetland dialect was called a “duckie” (there is an image of her on the Wintering in Shetland post). Here then is another word used in Shetland  that in another place means something else altogether.

If you want to know more about traditional Scottish baskets  and the materials they were made of Woven Communities  is a new website  recently  created through a collaboration between academia, museums and basket makers. It should be the first port of call for anyone doing research on the subject.