Depressed, Pressed and the Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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