Thursday, January 25, 2018

Some Notes On Basket Making

Some notes and links relative to basket making 
Dr Grace Cochrane AM
Click on an image to enlarge

Virginia Kaiser:

THE final works of Virginia Kaiser are on display at Sturt Gallery.
The late Virginia was recognised as one of Australia's leading contemporary basket makers during her 30-year career. Ms Kaiser was inspired by the environment and landscape, including within the Highlands. She will be honoured at Sturt's latest exhibition, The Poetry of Place - The fibre art of Virginia Kaiser (1945-2012), which opens on Sunday. It will be a very special exhibition for Sturt.
Ms Kaiser taught at the gallery and completed two residencies there.

Basketry NSW:
Basket makers may also be interested in the biennial Gathering of Australian basket makers. The next Basketry Gathering will be held at Natural Arch, Queensland  26 April-1 May 2017. More information can be found HERE. Previous Gatherings were held in Silverton, NSW (2009), Port Sorell, Tasmania (2011), Canberra (2013) and Bacchus Marsh, Victoria (2015).

Basketry SA:

Baskets Vic:

Basketry & Weaving with natural materials, Pat Dale.
Kangaroo Press, 1989. Reprint, 2002. Available for purchase by Members at the Cottage. $35
​
Fibre Basketry : Homegrown and Handmade. The Fibre Basket Weavers of South Australia Inc.; ed. by Helen Richardson 

Extract from Grace Cochrane, exhibition catalogue: Response to the Island, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, 2001

Gwen Egg
Baskets, group of 10 from Dune, River and River stones series, coiled and stitched, various fibres including cumbungi, eucalyptus, bracken fern, she-oak, sagg, native flax, kangaroo grass, tussock grass, New Zealand flax, 1997, 1999. (4 x 9 – 15 x 28.5cm)

These baskets represent elements from the strong headlands, long beaches and sand dunes near Dodges Ferry on Tasmania’s east coast, where Gwen Egg lives. Born in Adelaide in 1951, she studied arts and urban planning in Tasmania in the 1970s, before organising a class for unemployed girls in 1983 triggered her own obsession with weaving in natural fibres. She has worked, exhibited and taught consistently since that time.

Weaving became a language with which to describe the coast where she lives, and as she learned more about the plants, her weaving process changed: ‘ I began to notice detail: the bifurcated tip on the Lomandra leaves, the lustrous pink at the base of the flowering stem of Lepidosperma… and the curled monk’s hats that once protected the banksia seeds…I found myself paring down the techniques…leaving only the essentials not in competition with the materials or the form.’ Gwen Egg values discovering links in processes across language, time and place: ‘Why are baskets from the Northern Territory twined with a Z twist, as are mine, when traditional Tasmanian baskets are twined with an S twist? I am altogether humbled by the elegance, economy and versatility of the fibre artists of indigenous cultures…like Ngarrindjeri weaver, Ellen Trevorrow and Maori fibre artist, Tina Wirihana. Imagine [finding] that same flash of pink on the Sword Sedge used to decorate a ‘sister’ basket from the Coorong, and to discover that Tall Spike Rush was pao pao to Maori weavers long before it was given a scientific name.’

Quotes from Gwen Egg, ‘Weaving Familiar Territory’, Textile Fibre Forum, no 61, 20/1 

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