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We are having a great many of these! And a friend and basketmaker from Finland, Anna-Maria Vaartainen, asked me about them so here we go! They are times when I am available in my Studio to talk to anyone who comes in, show them the small experiments I have been making, to let them handle examples of my work, materials, and anything else that I can help them with. I have a wall of posters and ‘baskety’ event information and that has caused people to go off and find exhibitions and places they didn’t know about. I also have threads, wires, barks, inner barks, willow, and a few other bits of stuff and a selection of books and leaflets. So it is in one sense an information centre with me as a resource! From an empty room I could have tangoed in it has become a busy scene, with groups of folk talking, exchanging news, telling their stories and bringing information and history form all over the world. All very stimulating but keeping me on my toes.

On Saturday, by complete coincidence, I had two families from Bath who had come in for Manga day, involving my next door neighbour, Karen Rubin, the Comics artist. Both groups came to see me too as both have basket interests somewhere in the family. Yesterday, also by coincidence, I had two families with connections with Chile. One couple had been to a basketry centre in Southern Chile and had had lessons in horse hair basketry, one of their traditions. Very fascinating. I have seen tiny horse hair baskets and hats from Columbia but didn’t know about the practice in Chile.

They also told me of www.maestramadre.cl which is the web site for the Chilean willow basketry organization in that country. It seems to be quite an industry down in the south, further south than the Mapuche people who make superb coiled baskets of Berberidopsis corallina, a climber, which they split (teeth and fingers as tools) for stitching material.
The other Chile connection involves a future project with UK and Sudan, a three way collaboration, involving dance, adornment with a basketry connection and cultural identity.

The other Chile connection involves a future project with UK and Sudan, a three way collaboration, involving dance, adornment with a basketry connection and cultural identity.

A previous occasion had me sat between a Danish fashion designer and a UK Basketmaker on a quieter afternoon, learning how to crochet from both of them! Will I do the continental or the UK style I wonder? At the moment I am still not at all skilled so have both in my visual memory but soon one will supplant the other. On another occasion I had a vibrant conversation between a conceptual artist whose work involved up-side-down cupboard suspension, and textile-ish hangings from them and an artist in an entirely different field. And children come and ask such good questions. All very stimulating.

Part of their engagement in my Studio involves their contribution to my 3D visitors book. This was a device of mine to fill up the most enormous wall I have, with beautiful light, and also to help people over that occasional awkwardness of coming into a new and strange space. The majority have been willing, even keen, to sign and pattern a short length of paper string tape which I am then making into a wall net with pinwheel and other knots. This will be a record of my Residency and an art piece on the wall. When the sun hits my huge wall the shadows are strong, and even with the small spots, there is another layer of the drawing behind.

Yesterday, a very quiet afternoon with only five folk in, I had a good visit from a milliner in waiting, doing an MA after qualifying at Kensington and Chelsea College. She did a bit of weaving as we, me and the person who joins us on Open Studio sessions, took advantage of the quiet to start preparations for the Drop-in workshop next Sunday. I wanted to be a milliner all my childhood but got hived off to be academic, which I also enjoyed. Now I am back to being involved with form and surface in a different way, but not so different from all the thousands of model hats I made over years and then had to burn when my parents moved to a much smaller house. I also learned more of Molly Rathbone, great Basketmaker form the Northwest, as a couple who are working up there with her and with other weaving projects in the North West – so does news get handed on!

So all are welcome to come and scribble on my visitors book and check out the V & A.