History in a basket at Castlehill

A BASKET holds more than Easter eggs, shopping or laundry. Within a basket is the story of its creation: the materials of the land in which it was created and the crafter’s skills and imagination.

Tim Johnson, craftsman and teacher, has been welcomed back to Caithness for two, three-day workshops on basket-making at Castlehill Heritage Centre. The first session was working with rushes, which had been gathered last November from the fields outside Joanne Kaar’s house and stored in the eaves of an outbuilding at Castlehill for Tim’s workshop.

Tim shared a few examples of baskets from around the world to open the workshop. Among them, baskets from Australia designed either to be carried on the head for women foraging and shorter-handled baskets carried under the arm for men. They could be used to hold arrows or small game and allowed the men to hold them securely as they ran. One of the most beautiful ones came from Africa and was designed for holding grasshoppers – a combination of pest control and foraging. The most intriguing basket to me in the collection was a lunchbox made from a design that has not changed much since the 12th century. Tim made a replica from an example he saw in a museum in the Isle of Wight.

Basketry is not limited to containers. Tim’s collection included a short example of fringing strands of grass used to protect the wearer from rain as late as the 1950s. In his slide show he had examples both of the practical use of basketry as clothing and containers as well as the social – costumes for rituals whose original purpose is no longer recalled and contemporary costumes for theatre and celebrations.

Assisting Tim on this workshop was Spanish basket-maker Monica Guilera. In Spain she is working to preserve a still-active tradition of baskets for everyday use – holding fruit or nuts or protecting bottles. She works in materials associated with the countryside around her home near Barcelona.

Although basketry is still in common use, some styles, such as one used specifically to transport asparagus, have almost disappeared from use. Monica is working with a photograph of one of the last such baskets to recreate it and the associated techniques before it is lost.

WHETHER crafted from chestnut, rushes, iris leaves, marram grass, dochans, or heather, the choice of materials reflects an intimate understanding of how those materials work – what qualities they bring to the intended basket, how they are worked.

For example, when Tim made an Isle of Wight-style lunch box basket out of iris leaves, it proved to be much heavier than one made from rushes such as those used in the workshop at Castlehill.

The difference in weight may be only a point of interest when the baskets are for display, but for a farm worker carrying his food out into the field, that difference would be significant. The choice of materials reflects an understanding and familiarity with the land. Collecting, storing, and working with the materials provide an opportunity to connect with the natural world and connect the basket-maker to the land. It is also very hard work.

The first day of the workshop, students created a small round coaster. The second day students completed a rounded basket shaped around a stone of their choice. The third day they created long plaits worthy of Rapunzel that could then be stitched together, as in the example of the lunch box basket from the Isle of Wight. Both those, like myself, who watched and those who took part in the workshop will never again underestimate the effort in creating a small basket.

In addition to the effort of the construction, the crafting has to be preceded by collecting bundles of rushes, sorting them, storing them, drying them, and then wetting them for working with.

The crafters in the workshop were dedicated to the task at hand and worked persistently. At the end of each day they had something well and truly beautiful and had learned about the materials, the history, and about themselves as well. Crafting does that. I do not wish to slight their achievements. On the contrary, it brought home to me how even with more skill and experience, the work to make enough baskets for carrying peats or sea shells or eggs for even a small household must have been staggering.

Tim will be back next weekend for another basket-making workshop. This time, using willow rather than rushes. Even if you cannot take part in the workshop, it is worth stopping by to have a look at the examples and the works in progress.