“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are undistinguishable from it.”
Mark Weiser in Scientific American
It’s easy to read the quote above and think of technology because we understand how dependent we’ve become on it. But there are other innovations we don’t even think of, much less see. They seem part of nature itself.
Like string, for example. The invention of string, and rope, was the prerequisite to things like fishing nets, baskets, thread, woven cloth. It enabled us to store, carry and catch more things. To tie, tether and transfer. It also enabled us to develop skills such as weaving and spinning so that we could clothe ourselves, create our homes, cradle our babies.
So essential string is to our survival that it is considered by many to be the base of human culture.
Thanks to my own very rusty basketmaking practice, I actually know how to make basic string – or cordage as its called in the fiber world. These days, I’m slowly making my way through Harriet Goodall’s Form to Freedom fiber art and weaving courses, and before we even get into weaving or basketmaking, we first learn how to make cordage. It’s foundational. Before weaving fibers, one must learn how to make them.
And it’s a very wild process if one is using foraged materials (plants) to make the cordage and baskets. It requires not just knowledge of a plant, but something more. Learning how to find the best plants for weaving requires a lot of time, attention and ALL of the senses. It’s that embodied knowledge that I’ve talked about before in other posts around handcraft.
Now, I’ll admit that I have a reputation for acquiring skills that most people consider “useless”. (How about that masters degree in Comparative Literature that I spent years earning? I disagree that it’s useless, but 9 out of 10 people seem to think it is.) But the skill of making string is actually useful. I’m amazed by how often I reach for string – there never seems to be enough of it – it’s core to life.
And of course I could just go to any shop and buy string. And I do buy string – more often than I make it. But I like making it, because then I know it intimately. With it comes memories of a place, of a day, a season, the weather, my mood, a time in my life, whatever hope I carried at that time, perhaps even a baby I carried at that time too. Not just memories from the day the plants were foraged, but memories of the day(s) when it was cleaned – hung – dried – split – twisted – woven. Unlike string that I buy at the shop, which I have absolutely no relationship with, I use my handmade string lovingly and carefully.
I really enjoy the process of making it too. When I’m engrossed in the movement, my hands are busy twisting the fibers, but my mind so still and free, it really feels like I can tap into something special. After a while it’s almost go into a trance. The frenzied world we live in passes away like a shadow, and I feel as if I’m guided by something beyond me. Ancestors, perhaps? Those primal centers? I’m not sure.
Inspired by Basketmakers
Today I want to focus on basketmaking. Because baskets are integral to life. We are laid in them from the day we are born – from being woven together into our mother’s body to being cradled by woven plants.
The structure and skill involved in basketweaving work is thought to be what led to textile technology, mathematics and even the earliest forms of engineering.
The basket played a role in the birth of civilization, carrying the fruits of our labor as hunters and gatherers and later as farmers and merchants. Creation myths from Mesopotamia to Mali paint our debt to the humble basket with Babylonian gods and first ancestors forging the world with a basket. Ironically, baskets helped us create a world where we no longer need to weave them ourselves.
Hakai Magazine, The Basketmaker
Yet despite the dizzying array of storage options we’re presented with today, we still reach for baskets.
I, for one, have a serious basket problem! My partner rolls his eyes when I walk out of another shop with another basket.
But for me, no two baskets are the same. Each one carries a story – a story of place, of time, and a person, perhaps even a community. It tells me a lot about the natural world as well as the human culture.
** Baskets can be made with a wide range of materials – various grasses, vines, bark, roots, etc. This, in and of itself, tells us something about place. It tells us something a time, and a season. It also tells us about the journey of the basketmaker. The material choice is incredibly interesting to me.
** Depending on where it was made, baskets can be made using very different techniques. Sometimes a basketmaker develops his/her own technique, but usually technical knowledge is acquired from someone around them, or someone they had access to. Basketmaking is a communal skill. In fact, in communities where the knowledge is still apart of life, it’s no different than how we learn to push buttons and turn knobs in our culture. The motion is embodied – it’s learned from such a young age that it’s never actually taught, but rather inherited, intuited.
** Baskets can even be dyed with plants specific to that area. The dye plants also tell us a lot, just like the basket materials. It tells us a lot about the place as well. It also tells us a lot about the knowledge and journey of the basketmakers.
** And of course baskets are made to serve all sorts of functions – and those intended functions give the basket its final form. A basket made for foraging mushrooms needs to be very different than a basket made for storing grain. A basket made for fishing is very different than one made for winnowing. A basket made for holding water is very different than one made for cradling a baby.
Basket Love
Since this is a blog post, I will try to communicate some of the reasons why I’m totally smitten with baskets. I will try. And in my trying, I discover interesting dichotomies again and again.
- Baskets are traditional, yet totally contemporary. Timeless forms.
Earlier this year, a huge basket was found in Muraba‘at Cave in the Judean desert. When archeologists unearthed it, the woven form was fully intact. It’s believed to be 10,500 years old! – for context, Stonehenge is 5,000 years old – making it the world’s oldest basket.
And yet we know that basketmaking goes back much further, because it’s been found in cave drawings. Yet because they’re made with natural materials, they don’t often hang around for too long. The 10,000+ year old basket found in the cave is a little bit special, because the very dry conditions of the desert cave preserved the basket (as well as some dead sea scrolls, a child’s body and more).
But look at the form of this basket. It’s so contemporary, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure I could find a basket of similar form at Zara Home. I don’t say that in a negative way, but in a positive one! There has to be something so incredibly special about something that has moved through time and human culture so humbly, yet so indelibly.
2. Baskets are universal, yet culturally specific.
In every place in the world, baskets have been made to serve various purposes. As I said above, the baskets themselves tells us some things about the people who made them, and the culture they were apart of. It also tells us about the natural environment, the place, and the people’s place within their environment.
In the Cumbria region of England, swill baskets have been made for centuries out of wood and have served functions in the coal mining industry as well as farming. Owen Jones is one of the last living swill basketmakers – check out his site here and also this article about his process.
In many parts of Africa, huge baskets are made from reeds and grasses not only to store and transport, but to house entire families.
For Hopi and Navajo people, baskets were woven out of Sumac and Willow and used them to store food, hold water, and even for cooking in.
The Maori people of New Zealand wove baskets out of flax, while the Anasazi people used parts of the Yucca plant.
In Sweden, even today, baskets are often woven together with Birch bark. Birch roots can also be used, for a different style and function. But other trees used traditionally are Hazel, Rowan and Willow.
Here you can watch Kristian Stensmyren, a Norwegian basketmaker, make a basket from scratch – starting from the moment he goes outside and begins to gather tree branches.
3. Baskets are handmade and humble objects, yet require an enormous amount of time and skill to make.
I absolutely love the work of Native Hands, led by Ruby Taylor. She is everything I could dream of becoming – a woman who makes, who teaches, who lives in collaboration with nature. From her little place in East Sussex, she holds courses on wild basketry and wild pottery, showing people how they can forage materials from their own local environment and create with them, both basketry and pottery.
A big part of her educational experience is in learning humility, coming to find one’s place in a much greater whole, and getting one’s hands dirty with life again. She has this quote on her site:
“If you are one of the tens of millions of people who spend their days indoors, embedded in the ‘man made’ world, it’s to be expected that your concept of life will be largely human-centered.
When you begin weaving more of nature into your everyday existence, however, your sense of life may open up to encompass the much richer, more complex, more communal and more timeless universe that you’re actually apart of.”
C. Cook, Awakening to Nature
4. Baskets are made with natural materials from one’s very local, limited environment, yet they are useful for an unlimited number of tasks.
While a basketmaker might be limited by the materials found in his/her local environment, once the basket is made, its uses are pretty much infinite.
And you might be surprised by what a humble basket can do. Much more than just storage containers! In some cultures, they are cooking vessels. In others, they are homes. In others, they are actual living structures.
Because they are made with natural materials, they return to the earth as quietly as they came out of it, leaving almost no trace.
5. Baskets are insanely beautiful, yet also highly functional.
Today we may think of them as decorative objects rather than necessary ones, but for most of human history, the skill of basketmaking was essential to life – and the intended function of a basket is what informed its design.
Perhaps the maker worked with a particular purpose in mind, but they certainly did not skimp on beauty. They honored the plant material.
6. Baskets are fine art and can be found in museums everywhere, yet they’re often made by anonymous hands.
Made by anonymous hands. I just love this. In our cultural addiction to fame, recognition and competition, the idea of that this timeless object is usually made by the hands by unknown people is just somehow… freeing.
7. Baskets are vivid storytellers, yet defy our modern obsession with traceability and multi-tasking.
You know how, when you meet someone new, they almost always ask you what you do, as in how do you earn your living? I’m just imagining that I meet someone in the city. They ask, “So what do you do, Beth?” And I say, “Oh I’m making a basket.” I’m imagining the look I would get in return. Making a basket? Is that work? they might think. Why doesn’t she just go to IKEA and buy a basket?
“If you’re going to weave a basket—a process of indeterminate time, a process so antithetical to our multitasking world obsessed with traceability and results—you may as well accept that it’s going to take as long as it’s going to take. You may as well accept that you might have to undo a few mistakes and start over. Sooner or later, a basket is born and tells the story of its maker.”
Hakai Magazine, The Basketmaker
Hopefully this post helps illuminate why basketmaking is indeed work – very good work. I respect those who dedicate themselves to the work and to preserving the craft.
Featured title image is Whispering by Ingrid Becker, Norway – which you can learn about on Norwegian Crafts.
