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I think I'm into basketry now
these are from 15th century egypt
these are from 19th century japan
these are by an unknown Yup'ik artist from the 1920s and they look so tender, like you would put bread wrapped in cloth in them
clara was not fucking around!!
these are gift baskets by unknown Pomo artists from the 19th-20th century, mostly made of willow
something about very tall baskets makes me want to cry
this is a willow burden basket from an unknown Washoe artist in 1900 but it looks like a dosa!
this modern Touareg basket/dish is marked wherever the artist left off her work for the day
something about this Tlingit basket from the 1800s makes me want to protect it for the rest of my life
it's so poignant and so painful to see a basket coming unwoven, or reduced to remnants
there are museums that have held onto scraps of some very old Indigenous baskets, with photos of the scraps spread out so they can be catalogued, and it just feels so sad and sacrilegious — like, I don't know what should be done with undone baskets, but it's not that
this — historically most baskets were hyperfunctional, like pre-plastic bags. when I first heard of 'burden baskets' I thought — wow, like spiritual burdens?? — but it turns out it's more like 'a bag I made super fucking fast for the shit I need to carry' https://twitter.com/MauiMescudi/status/969749953672368129
like, burden baskets were often conical because a conical basket distributes the weight of your load better
to be clear, I don't think that just because handcrafted baskets were practical it means they weren't meaningful, or that I'm projecting meaning on them that isn't there. I think handcrafted baskets *do* have meaning — that everything we handcraft is misted with meaning
I can't think about what handcrafted baskets *mean* without thinking of this life-changing passage — from a piece @RustBeltRebel (who you should follow) wrote about bread
I'm using the word "handcrafted" here intentionally, instead of "handmade" — lots of things are handmade in capitalism, and are not only soulless but worse — soaked with suffering, like those zara clothes that workers were sticking cries for help into
it's interesting to me that several of you ( @RedIndianGirl and @MauiMescudi) brought up bread in relation to baskets, and that I was thinking of bread as well
this is a good example of what I mean re: the conditions of making things by hand — enslaved africans brought their basketry skills to the US, but had to stop embellishing their baskets because they were forced to make so many baskets so fast
there are Gullah who still make and sell sweetgrass baskets rooted in West African basketry — photo here of basket-maker Marilyn Dingle at work
real
here's a really wholesome video in which two Gullah sweetgrass basketmakers explain their baskets a bit, it will make you feel like a 7th grader on a school trip
mood
Zulu basket from 1900 on left, Tlingit basket (unknown year) on right
this Nlaka'pamux basket's weave looks like rows of corn (1910)
basket embryos from chile
Karajá baskets from brazil, early 1900s
joe hogan
tfw you've been looking at basketry for 7 hours straight
I don't like john mcqueen's work very much, but I do like this basket snake he made (untitled #176, 1988)
impeccable. ana teresa barboza's 'destejer la imagen' (2017)
this 19th century Congolese basket reminds me of the bathhouse in spirited away
this school gym in thailand is arguably just a big bamboo basket
2 contemporary pieces by nindityo adipurnomo
a lovely little piece by okuno hiroko — reminds me of milkweed
this dienke dekker basket feels comforting in a childlike way — like those baskets made of construction paper? mixed with a child's bedspread?
'Eel traps' (1990-2015) by Ngarrindjeri artist/weaver Yvonne Koolmatrie — I love thinking of invisible eels swimming in the space
another of Yvonne Koolmatrie's pieces, 'Weaver's baby in coolamon' (2008) — the woven material is sedge, the fur is kangaroo
blown glass basketry by Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello — eel trap on left, dillibag on right
after looking at basketry for 3 days straight I can now tell at a glance if a basket was made by an 'inspired' white woman. I'm not kidding
glass-blown 'dillibag' by Jenni Kemarre Martiniello on left, woven (pandanus leaf) dilly bag by Carla Matjandajpi on right
dilly bags (a traditional Indigenous bag in australia) have such long, idyllic shapes — the first time I saw them was on this @InjalakArts printed cloth
[meta: this thread has gotten so long that I've started making offshoots by mistake, which I now have to snip off & stick onto the end of the main thread ugh]
I love the visual disaster of women weaving baskets. they're always in the middle of a crazy explosion of loose ends. weaving baskets uses so much space
since weaving is usually plant-based & uses local/native grasses or rushes, it's an art form that's tangled up in access to land, use of land, 'property rights', ecology, environmentalism, climate etc
like — I've read stories of settlers repossessing & privatizing land and then refusing to let weavers come onto the land to collect grasses, wetland grasses becoming scarce due to climate change, people/orgs partnering with weavers to help the weavers cultivate/access grasses etc
here's an example, re: Gullah basketmakers in the US
a quote from richard dingle (Gullah sweetgrass basket-maker / artist lynette youson's dad)
I'm thinking about the contrast between white weavers, for whom basketmaking is 'getting closer to nature', and Black and Indigenous weavers, whose land is being eroded in both the literal and legal sense & who are afraid to collect grasses lest someone shoot them
oh boy
norma minkowitz's 'baskets' (?) (1980s) feel like grief, time, and interiority
4 mayumi tsukuda pieces — 'center hole', 'silent island, 'baby trunk', and 'fish trap'. I love her work
on the left, mayumi tsukada's piece 'wrap'. on the right, yasuko hoshino's piece 'situation'
michiko fukai's 'point of contact I' (2004) is really doing it for me. it feels like mud wasp infrastructure or binoculars or building forts
this yukari kikuchi piece reminds me of when joanna newsom wrote 'and in our perfect secret-keeping / one ear of corn in silent, reaping' (a joanna newsomy reference to the eleusinian mysteries I guess) — that which is unportrayable, private, precious, perfect & immortal
where do baskets end and nests begin? I feel like birds are the original basketmakers
btw, where would this thread be without carol eckert? her blog on contemporary basketry http://contemporarybasketry.blogspot.ca/ has been invaluable
dorothy mcguinness' nesting baskets!!!
more dorothy mcguinness pieces — 'topiary twist', 'mesa mountains' and 'grey tweed'
this dorothy mcguinness piece is so pleasing
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!! https://twitter.com/melodymckiver/status/971025238917091329
oh my god Ursula Johnson has a performance art piece where she weaves a basket around herself
here's a video of one of her self-basketing performances
this Ursula Johnson piece from her Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember) series is one of the tenderest pieces of basketry I've ever seen — the description, the description
another 'mutant basket' from Ursula Johnson's Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember) series — a 'candy basket on steroids' for 'storing western medications'
her Mi’kwite’tmn show sounds really incredible, I'm so sad I only heard about her today and am only seeing it online
the description for these baby 'mutant baskets' from Ursula Johnson's Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember) series says they're for 'presenting to a same sex couple on their wedding day'. their handles are linked. I'm sobbing
Ursula Johnson's work is like everything I love about basketry & everything that's painful/poignant about basketry & everything that I think basketry could/should be come fully to form
Ursula Johnson on twitter: @ursula_johnson
more 'mutant baskets' pictured — left, 'trinket tower', right, 'split basket'
more 'mutant baskets' pictured — left, 'trinket tower', right, 'split basket'
these pieces from adejoke tugbiyele's 'grassroots' show look like there's a wind going through them
I feel like there's a nest—basket spectrum. this atsuko yoshioka piece (fiber) is obviously on the nest end of it
tanabe chikuunsai iv's basketry makes me uncomfortable. in a good way I think. he's the 4th generation in his family to become a bamboo artist
like I don't 'like' this tanabe chikuunsai iv piece but it's turning me on
upon further consideration I do like this tanabe chikuunsai iv piece and it turns me on
markku kosonen's pussy willow baskets ˚▱˚
brushes & brooms are just basketry bouquets
basketry corn cob!! by kelly church (Ojibwe/Odawa)
every time I scan this thread I feel a sharp pang of regret that I didn't put the material used for each basket in the description of the basket. I'm sorry, baskets
this is a lot. so much of basketry is interwoven (literally) with indigeneity & colonialism
[basket by unknown Aboriginal artist in australia]
![this is a lot. so much of basketry is interwoven (literally) with indigeneity & colonialism[basket by unknown Aboriginal artist in australia]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DfOFjENV4AIsLAy.jpg "this is a lot. so much of basketry is interwoven (literally) with indigeneity & colonialism[basket by unknown Aboriginal artist in australia]")
[basket by unknown Aboriginal artist in australia]
like — apparently Palawa women, who had lost a lot of their basketry traditions due to the british genocide of their people, were able to revive this tradition of kelp-based basketry (which could hold water!) after seeing a photo of this basket online in 2008
related, these palm leaf baskets from East Timor (artists unknown) that look like cakes. I love them, but —
— the stories behind their acquisition by the western australian museum, which I think the curator thinks are 'cute', are disgusting. museums are so predatory.
baleen basket by joshua sakeagak (Iñupiat) — made from a substance in whale's mouths, that's apparently not unlike plastic
dr. seuss-esque basketry by maria nepomuceno (2006)
I need it ,for work
I NEED IT ,,, FOR WORK
it comes in three sizes and I need them all
insect basketry (photo from @MCZHarvard)
these little Klamath baskets have such tender energy. they're made of tule, a bulrush, and are both less than 5 inches tall
there's a whole tradition of impossibly tiny baskets. like here's a Pomo basket from the early 1900s, next to a single corn kernel for scale
here's another miniature Pomo basket, a bit bigger (half an inch tall, just over an inch wide), but with a very satisfying shape
I posted some full-size Pomo baskets upthread but as a reminder, Pomo basketry is just bananas
here's a super poignant 13-minute documentary-style segment with Pomo basket weaver Corine Pearce — I love how she says she snuggles baskets because 'it's good for them' (i.e., to absorb skin oils)
in that segment, basketry curator Sherrie Smith-Ferri (Pomo/Miwok) also talks about how basketry takes so much upfront work — growing grasses, harvesting, prepping/drying etc — that by the time you start weaving, you're actually 'almost finished' lol
"my grandma used to say, you can't go to a store and find [basketry material], but you also can't go outside and just find it. it's this collaboration of you and the plants working together to provide you, as a basket-maker, the kind of material you need" —sherrie smith-ferri
corine pearce says, about teaching basketry, 'everyone already has a basket in them, and I’m just helping them to bring it out' I want to cry
I love thinking that we have baskets in us, that what feels like a void inside may actually be a vessel. that maybe all voids are vessels
another thing the segment touches on is cradle baskets for babies. Pomo cradle baskets are U-shaped, and Corine notes that you don't start the cradle basket until the baby is born — so the baby's timing will influence how/when you harvest, what materials you use etc
she also notes that the oak ring at the top of the cradle isn't a handle, but a spiritual element that symbolizes acorns (a Pomo staple food)
here's a 1920s photo of an unidentified Yurok baby in a cradle basket, from the autry museum's collection
I also love this 1920s-30s hazel Hupa cradle basket. the museum says the circular "lid" protects the child’s face from branches, direct sunlight and insects. being a baby and seeing the sunlight filtered through a basket weave must have been so, so nice
another 'baby in a basket' photo, this one of a 1yo unidentified Cahuilla girl from the early-to-mid 1900s. I love how she's obviously being told to look at the camera, but is instead gazing at the person who is telling her where to look
one last 'baby in a basket' photo — three unidentified Chemehuevi kids from the early 1900s in a big ass granary basket
also found some lovely old photos of Pomo basket-makers in the autry museum's collection
- two unidentified girls (you can see what I meant upthread about basketry taking up space — I love the crazed whorl of an in-progress basket)
- Katie Fred
- two unidentified girls (you can see what I meant upthread about basketry taking up space — I love the crazed whorl of an in-progress basket)
- Katie Fred
oh, I forgot the most miniature basket of all! this microscopic Pomo basket from the early 1900s that's 1/16 of an inch (1.5 millimeters). honestly I can think of no reason to make this basket except to flex and I wish I could have met whoever made this
like it's so comically small I have a hard time imagining it wasn't woven from a place of pettiness lol
I can't tell if it's finished or not, but this 1930 basket by Nellie May (Tolowa) is breathtaking to me — look at that row of Xs! "conifer root open plain twined over hazel warps, section with closed plain twining in half-twist overlay of beargrass and maidenhair fern"
I think partly why I'm drawn to little baskets like this Klamath one is that you can only store something whimsical in it. like it's hard to tell from the photo, but this basket is the perfect size for presenting someone with a single mandarin orange. just imagine an orange in it
I've mentioned this before, but I'm just re-noticing how much I love basket weaves that look like corn — where it doesn't even really look woven, and it looks like if you hit the basket against a rock it would break apart into hundreds of individual husk-kernels
ok last basket for the day — this Pomo basket that's both a lovely long shape and has a fitted lid. it looks like what closure is supposed to feel like
I do realize I've been posting nonstop about baskets for 2 hours straight, in case anyone was wondering if I had any self-awareness. I do
some contemporary japanese basketry at @TAImodern — 'meditation' by higashi kiyokazu, 'aster' by kawano shoko, 'flower bud' by tanabe kochikusai, 'dance' by yamaguchi ryuun
mutsumi iwasaki's waxed paper sculptures are so simple and perfect, like stacked wood or a fence slanting from its own weight
mutsumi iwasaki also made more conventional baskets, which were also lovely. for me she was definitely one of those artists in which everything she made felt saturated with like, special and loving intent
I thought this was a contemporary basket about gender or sexuality or something but it's a traditional shrimping basket from taiwan lol
look at this beautiful Makah basket with a whale on it
