LOIS RUSSELL, contemporary Basketry
Lois Russell
My very informal education as an artist began very early as I watched my mother, aunt and grandmothers knit, sew, crochet, weave, braid and hook rugs, embroider, cross stitch and quilt. I also spent hours in my grandfather’s wood shop and visiting building sites with my father. Everyone in my family made things. Hands were never idle. And then there was all that coloring.
It was my mother, a weaver and photographer, who suggested I try basketmaking. I had the good fortune to take classes with the legendary Judy Olney, learning all the basics and more for years, adding on workshops with a range of masters. I only had to make one basket to know I was hooked. So many possibilities with shape and color and texture. And I have always loved the architectural nature of basketmaking.
Most of my professional life was spent writing as a journalist for national newspapers and magazines. I also taught writing and journalism. I switched to art because journalism is grueling and noisy and I wanted quiet and to do more with my hands besides type. I really am at my happiest making something with an audible book or some music entertaining that part of my brain.
I have two work areas, mostly for storage to be honest. One larger space has looms, paper and paint, a sewing machine and ironing board and everything I hoard because it just might be exactly what I need some day. The other room has needlework supplies and polymer clay. I begin by collecting a pile of material. I either plant on a work table or I throw it in a work basket that travels to some spot in the house where I want to work, usually near the sunniest window.
I am best known for twining with waxed linen, but I also love to coil and knot and do diagonal plaiting. I do harvest birch and vines, but after one experience with a black ash tree I decided that my idea of the perfect material preparation process was ordering online.
The patterned areas on my baskets are made with short rows. I do not weave all the way around the piece. And the bumps are made by constantly adding and removing spokes or uprights.
Only once or twice have I started with an idea. I got the idea for my Habitat series while working on a fall colored piece. I had been reading about what a horrible time bees were having and it occurred to me I was making a world for a bee and so that was in my mind as I worked. I decided to make worlds for other animals whose habitats we are destroying, like polar bears.
I think of myself as a decorative, not a conceptual, artist. It is not that my work doesn’t have “meaning.” I start with materials, and often a technical challenge. I have tried planning, but the plan never lasts more than an inch or two. Once I get working, the piece starts “talking” and I have to admit it usually has better ideas than I do. What is now titled “Magic Bus” started out as a six-inch piece. After a couple of inches I decided to see if I could make it jut way out on one side. The colors and the shape made me think of some of the silly days of youth and the song popped into my head. So it had to have a bus. Instead of two weeks it took me five months, but this is the nature of my work.
Several years ago I gave myself the challenge of translating aboriginal patterns to twining and I found it fascinating. I like the work and plan to do more just because I like the technical challenge and how it looks.
I am doing less with baskets and messing around with other fiber techniques. My hands are seldom idle and I am never bored