Basket Cases

The Arts Team asked local basket maker and artist Tim Johnson to give I2k staff an expert guide round the fabulous 'East Weaves West' exhibition at Quay Arts last week. This was an incredibly inspiring and rich exhibition showcasing Basketry from Japan and Britain and it has been received with great enthusiasm from gallery goers on the Island. A whole spectrum of basketry was on show, from the strong and functional to the decorative and fragile and all things in between. We wanted to look at the show in relation to the variety of work we do at the Trust. In particular we realised that the natural materials that are cleared in some of our conservation work could be channeled back into arts and making projects and that our fledgling 'scrapstore' we are developing should have a 'natural scrap' section too.

The picture to the left shows Danny and Ian modeling (Chinese and Dutch respectively) woven shoes. Warm, comfy and good for sliding across galleries apparently but very creaky.