Brightly coloured and ready to be destroyed.

Brightly coloured and ready to be destroyed.
Wood steaming in progress and had to borrow some extra clamps from my neighbour. Hoping to take this out of the ‘frame’ tomorrow….hoping it won’t fall apart.
Paper rope woven into an unfinished cylinder like shape. Size still based on the capacity of a bushel. Cylinder ‘stuffed’ with goose and dove feathers. This is VERY fragile.
The last bushel basket is complete…the full bushel.
The ball is no longer ball-like….but will it survive the kiln? Several days of drying required. It now looks rather like a parcel of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk
This really works and ends up looking rather like umbilical cord. As usual I managed to ‘rope’ in a friend to help me in the making. Once done you start to weave and realise its potential.
This one just happened! I’ve always like charring wood and constructing things using hand cut wooden dowels, and this is the result. Not exactly a useful ‘basket’ but it definitely has character and creates interesting shadows.
Still fairly conventional baskets….these consist of 1/2 bushel, 10th bushel, 100th bushel, and 1000th bushel. Coiled, long grasses from neighbouring fields, bound together with raffia, using a blanket stitch. I’ve still got to make the actual bushel basket….the biggest last. I’ve cut the grasses, just need better weather as it’s too messy to work inside, […]
I’ve now started playing with materials to make ‘bushel’ baskets in response to the brief for Stoke sub Hamdon tithe barn. The aim to to produce a mixture or ‘traditional’ and contemporary and make them colourful so they brighten up the barn. So, I’ve been thinking about materials for quite some time, natural and man […]