Or Designer-Maker?

                  Maker-designer or Designer-maker? Is there a distinction? I think there is, even if it is subtle. The first suggests to me where I am from, the second: where I am heading. The emphasis seems to me to be on the first word, am I a maker that designs, or a designer that makes?

                  It took me a long time to call myself a Basketmaker. I was learning for years before I had the confidence to say, “This is what I do”. For many years I referred to myself as a “Jack of all trades, master of none”. From a defined role as a nurse, which is easily recognised as a profession, I had many years of always being busy, but never in an easily defined role. I was a mother, a baker, a smallholder; always busy but never properly “employed” on a full-time basis, and always wearing many hats at once. When I added basketmaking to the list of things I did, even knowing it was where I wanted to be going more formally, it was hard to know where the distinction lay between hobbyist and professional. There was never really a “yesterday I made baskets as a hobby, today I make them for a living” moment. In reality, I think I went to the opticians and they asked me what I did, to which I took a deep breath and replied that I was a Basketmaker. It felt grown up and truly a bit scary, but also essential. I couldn’t move forwards if I wasn’t brave enough to take ownership.

                  Once I had started though, the shifts were small but ongoing. Firstly, I was a novice maker, and then a maker. This transitioned through to maker-designer as I began to implement changes to the way I was using my traditional basketry skills; when, instead of following a ‘recipe’ to the letter, I went off-piste and tried different variations. For a long time still, these were no more than explorations in a relatively standardised way, probably following in the footsteps of most Basketmakers. I would mix up styles of weave, types of border, shapes. Slowly, though, I began making connections, and I noticed that increasingly, instead of following a ‘recipe’ and perhaps deviating from it in a style that was attempting to be my own, I was making my own ‘recipes’. Still based on traditional basketry techniques and skills, these were taking a concept and turning it around, literally; a traditional frame basket becomes a lampshade; a traditional Ose basket is used as the basis for a wall feature; the same Ose basket is adapted, widened and opened to become a feature floor basket.

                  Each of these styles starts with a shape, most commonly a circle. I love the clean lines and the silhouette of this shape, the way it frames its contents; and then I think about what I want to do with it. Where will its finished place be within a home and what would I want it to look like in my house? What statement is it making and what impact will this have on its owner and those that see it for the first time? These questions, amongst others, are used as my foundation for a concept. I consider utility, function, and perhaps most importantly, style. Will this piece speak my name? Does it fit with my previous designs and my tone of work. Sometimes I might draw a quick sketch, simply to outline the concept on paper, but I offer no self-humility when I say I am not an artist and that it has taken decades for me to appreciate that I am even creative. The sketch, if it happens, is normally a scrawl on some scrap paper, acting as a simple visual. The work is really inside my head and in my hands.

                  What follows is a series of woven pieces, each trying to play out my vision. They start out in a mostly rustic fashion, and through a series of trial and error I get closer to my end point. There are often unforeseen complications, especially when working with other materials (more on that at a later date). Sometimes I have to upskill and learn new ways of doing things, adding to my overall skillset. My journey so far has taken me through electrics, carpentry and leatherwork, and I look forward to adding to these as my ideas develop.  While I work, the design takes shape. It has never yet been perfect on my first try – and perhaps I would be disappointed if it was, for the process is part of the adventure.  It can happen that what I think I want doesn’t look right, or that my ideas shift as I weave, again reflecting that combination of maker-designer. Sometimes the design needs reworking altogether, and there have been times when although I haven’t ended up with what I thought I wanted, the process acts as a stepping stone - I have a ‘eureka’ moment that feeds into the design. This happened with my current favourite floor basket design, whereby the basket I initially designed didn’t get me excited, but putting together some of its merits with those of another design resulted in a truly exciting development. When I sit and weave, I am working through these steps, and using my hands to help it become the reality that I hold in my head. This is how I design and work. It is a physical process, manipulating the material to my demands, and it leaves a trail of evolutionary pieces in its wake, each contributing to the story of the design process.