WILLOW BASKETS - HAND-MADE IN FIFE
About Me
Basketry
My passion for basket making started in the New Year of 2020. After an enjoyable weekend course in January with Anna Liebmann in Edinburgh I was hooked and eager to learn and practice more. I then took part in another excellent course with Jane Wilkinson in Alyth. Around this time I also met Lise Bech, a talented local basket maker, who was very encouraging and helped me find a source for locally grown willow, which I love using. I also want to mention Hanna Van Aelst in Ireland, who helped me get started with her excellent online videos. Since then I have been working steadily to perfect my basket making skills, very fortunate to have a great wee cabin in the garden in which to work. I am a member of the Scottish Basketmakers' Circle and The Basketmakers' Association.
I have since received a Visual Artist & Craft Maker Award (VACMA) which enabled me to take part in more specialised basketry training. An ongoing long term training with Hanna Van Aelst, which is really reinforcing my skills, and several more advanced training events with Eddie Glew. These ongoing training activities are really fuelling my enthusiasm and passion for willow basketry.
In early 2021 I planted a small bed of basketry willow cuttings in part of a local woodland garden - approx 400 cuttings with 10 varieties planted. Now that a couple of years have passed, I am starting to get useable rods from the bed and will need to decide which varieties are doing best in this location before I plant more.
I am now working steadily, accepting commissions and offering beginners' training in groups or as one-to-one tuition. Check out Forgan Arts Centre for details of my one-day workshops. More recently I have a selection of baskets and small items for sale at the Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm Shop & Cafe.
For more details about my early basketry adventures, have a look at my blog
Basketry
My passion for basket making started in the New Year of 2020. After an enjoyable weekend course in January with Anna Liebmann in Edinburgh I was hooked and eager to learn and practice more. I then took part in another excellent course with Jane Wilkinson in Alyth. Around this time I also met Lise Bech, a talented local basket maker, who was very encouraging and helped me find a source for locally grown willow, which I love using. I also want to mention Hanna Van Aelst in Ireland, who helped me get started with her excellent online videos. Since then I have been working steadily to perfect my basket making skills, very fortunate to have a great wee cabin in the garden in which to work. I am a member of the Scottish Basketmakers' Circle and The Basketmakers' Association.
I have since received a Visual Artist & Craft Maker Award (VACMA) which enabled me to take part in more specialised basketry training. An ongoing long term training with Hanna Van Aelst, which is really reinforcing my skills, and several more advanced training events with Eddie Glew. These ongoing training activities are really fuelling my enthusiasm and passion for willow basketry.
In early 2021 I planted a small bed of basketry willow cuttings in part of a local woodland garden - approx 400 cuttings with 10 varieties planted. Now that a couple of years have passed, I am starting to get useable rods from the bed and will need to decide which varieties are doing best in this location before I plant more.
I am now working steadily, accepting commissions and offering beginners' training in groups or as one-to-one tuition. Check out Forgan Arts Centre for details of my one-day workshops. More recently I have a selection of baskets and small items for sale at the Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm Shop & Cafe.
For more details about my early basketry adventures, have a look at my blog
Education, Work & Art
With an instinctive passion for materials, a deep appreciation of craft and a sense of our connection with the earth; sculpture was an obvious choice when I studied at Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 1983. Wood working and stone carving; my work at that time was all about the raw materials, about weight and balance, and formal sculptural concepts of shape and texture, with a particular interest in the traditional Japanese garden and architectural aesthetic. In my final year I was awarded the Sam Maver travel award.
A chance meeting started me on a 7-year career in Film and Television. I was a film camera technician/assistant, working on location for freelance companies as well as BBC and STV. It was an interesting and varied job and I enjoyed the teamwork and the opportunity to meet many interesting people in all manner of places in the UK and abroad; from Taggart and the Victorian Kitchen Garden, to Jimmy Reid interviewing Lech Walesa in Gdansk. I also did a short stint teaching as an invited lecturer on a couple of Film & Media college courses.
I then started my career as a firefighter in 1992, realising a childhood dream with only a month to spare before the (then) age limit of 30. First with Strathclyde and then Fife Fire & Rescue Service (later to become part of the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service). There followed a 28 year career, much of that as a Crew Commander based at Glenrothes and Cupar. It has been a very rewarding and, at times, challenging career. I really appreciated the opportunity to be part of a service that is held in such high regard.
Throughout this time I continued to be closely involved with contemporary art. I was invovled with and took part in the Cupar Arts Festivals, Dundee Commons Festival and various other events in Dundee and Fife.
I want to acknowledge and give gratitude to all the many people that have helped me so far; friends and family, other basket makers, customers. I feel that I am learning all the time and am heartened by the generosity of other basket makers and willow workers; their encouragement and willingness to share their skills and knowledge. I hope in turn, that I can pass on my enthusiasm for this ancient craft.