If you want food or water—those necessities of life—you need something to carry them in. Typically, that something is a basket, even though examples these days tend to come in forms more modern than their woven counterparts from yesteryear.
Kathy Badrak and Karen Osland of Lavenpine Consulting like those old forms. They like them so much, they specialize in practicing and teaching the art of basket making.
“If you think of it, baskets are containers, and we’ve used containers throughout cultures—even now, things like plastic bags and plastic containers you put in the fridge,” Badrak said. “You can’t have a community and depend on your food source without having a container.”
As proof that the practice has been around a long, long time, the oldest baskets were carbon dated at 10,000 to 12,000 years old. Getting accurate data on how far back the process dates, however, is difficult because most baskets are made with raw materials that decay over time.
Badrak and Osland are newer to the art, anthropologically speaking. They got into the craft more than 20 years ago after seeing a basket-making exhibit in Lompoc. Eventually, someone suggested they start a class to teach the ancient art, and so they did. The classes were well received and became the core of Lavenpine Consulting.
The women collect and use botanicals, flax, split leaf philodendrum stalk, tulle, and yucca as embellishment. The materials allow them to make a variety of container creations.
“We’ll make pine-needle baskets and wicker weave Appalachian egg baskets with rib construction,” Badrak said. “We don’t tend to stay with one type.”
Their designs range from rustic to more sculptural and artistic to contemporary in shape. But before a basket ever settles into a comfortable form, Badrak and Osland think about the materials they have on hand—or that they can get their hands on. They approach the process from the components up, rather than deciding first what it will look like.
“We try to think, what did other cultures use?” Badrak said. “It’s not so much deciding what basket we’re going to make as what we’re going to put in it.”
Typically, basket making involves weaving any type of pliable material—most often pine straw, animal hair, hide, grasses, thread, and wood. Baskets are often classified into various categories: coiled, plaiting, twining, and wicker and splint.
Coiled basketry makes use of grasses and rushes, while plaiting basketry takes advantage of materials that are wide and ribbon-like, such as palm, yucca, or flax. Roots and tree bark are used in twining—the most popular technique for most wicker baskets. Reed, cane, willow, oak, and ash are used for wicker and splint-type basketry.
Badrak said the materials are the most important aspect, and she leaves the rest up to her creation.
“The basket takes its own shape,” she explained. “It calls out to us.”
Arts Editor Shelly Cone likes to weave words. Send her a few pliable ones at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 10-17, 2010.