Claudia Alarcón and Silät at the De La Warr Pavilion
Many years ago at a Slow Food event in Italy, before I got into basketry, I bought a bag made in Argentina. What appealed to me was the cleverness of the open-weave structure, the colours (I took it for granted they were natural dyes), and the strong smell of woodsmoke, which persisted for quite a […]
More looping with two colours
Following on from my previous looping experiments, I decided to continue working with two colours. When I worked with simple and cross-knit looping in two colours before, I was working around a tube to create a cylinder, so no increases or decreases were required. But to make a basket base you start at the centre […]
Looping experiments
Now that my Morley College teaching year is finished, the July issue of the Basketmakers’ Association Journal has gone to press, and the weather has cooled down a bit, I have more time to play. One thing that I really enjoyed during the pandemic lockdown was having the time to try things out and experiment, […]
Satellites by Dan Coopey at Corvi-Mora
Dan Coopey is a British artist living and working in Minas Gerais, Brazil. To be honest I’d not heard of him until a friend sent me a link to one of his Instagram posts about this exhibition. The Corvi-Mora is fairly local to me but again, I’d never visited. So a double first! Coopey studied […]
BA Spring School 2023
Every year (pandemics permitting) the Basketmakers’ Association organises Spring School, a residential session with five or six different basketry tutors. Members who sign up receive four full days’ tuition with the tutor of their choice. The tutors also give talks in the evening that everyone can attend, so you get to hear about the work […]
Ruth Asawa at Modern Art Oxford
Revelling in my new freedom now that my course is finished, I took myself off to Oxford on Tuesday to see the exhibition Ruth Asawa: Citizen of the Universe at Modern Art Oxford. Before the pandemic I managed to visit another Asawa exhibition in London at the David Zwirner gallery. The Oxford exhibition seemed to […]
Making a camel muzzle (sort of) with daffodil stalks
Every year I normally collect daffodil leaves as they start dying down and turning brown. After drying them, I spray them lightly with water to soften them and use them to make cordage (string). This year, however, as well as collecting a few leaves, I focused on collecting the flower stalks after the flowers had […]
