EmilyDvorin

Hello All,

When trying to be innovative in my approach to my art form, sculptural basketry, I find myself inventing not only new ways to define and look at my work, but some new vocabulary.

TRANSORDINARY - taking the ordinary and transforming it to be extraordinary, exceptional, different.

UP-CYCLING - giving my materials a new life and an improved identity, more than just re-using, and re-cycling.

MULTI-CONTEXTUALIZING - using the unexpected ingredient in my work. Anything in life is basket material. My personal challenge is to put it together into a vessel.

Any thoughts?

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Hello Everyone,

I am on a mission. I have been actively working toward it for the past 15 years! I am trying to change the assumed, historical, regular classic, fundamental definition of basketry. It is an art form that has been sorely de-rated, misunderstood and made fun of in our modern culture.

The "rules" of basket making have changed to allow non-functional to enter the definition. Materials have expanded and sculptural basketry is a more acceptable way of thinking about this old, traditional art form. Twining, plaiting, coiling, random weave and assemblage are still basketry techniques that I employ. Where I fall into the "unexpected" category in basket making is in using materials differently.

I am on a mission to use traditional techniques with totally familiar, yet non-traditional ingredients. I want to take common, ordinary materials and transform them. There is where I find art. Reed, raffia, natural grasses and vines are not the only basket ingredients...

What do you think?

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