PATRIZIA SASCOR: A BASKET OF ONE'S OWN

I got into basketry quite late, coming from a background in ceramics, almost by chance. While living in Sicily, 15 years ago, I went to visit a Christmas nativity scene in the mountains. It was a fictional Bethlehem where all the ancient trades were represented. At the end of the village there was a rock cave which accommodated the basketmaker’s workshop. She was a woman of age and was picking up twisted olive rods from a stone floor to weave them in an everyday basket. The whole scene was lit by candles and scented with wax and olive rods. Watching this inspired me to learn weaving. After taking a basket making course, I won a bursary at Cockpit studios and set up my workshop.



I am enchanted by the simplicity of my process, and particularly by the fact that I can make willow baskets using three basic tools: a knife, a bodkin and a cutter, and a tank of water. I can easily work from wherever I find myself. The more complicated aspect of basketry instead is achieving a good technique, which takes a lot of practice, time, effort and repetition. I’m still learning today, and hugely benefited from the support of QEST during the last months to develop my skills further. Weaving is a meditative activity - when I take my material from the tank and start working I get lost in a sort of suspended time where all other thoughts regarding my life and commitments are forgotten for a while. It is liberating.

I mainly work with Somerset willow and make sculptural one-off pieces, but now and then I also weave smaller contemporary baskets that can be used around the home. What matters to me is beauty and the possibility to surround oneself with meaningful, sustainable, handmade objects.



I usually weave at my studio in Deptford, London. It’s in a creative hub where the presence of a community of makers gives me the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences. From time to time I go to the countryside to forage materials or to cut rush from the river banks. Being in London enables me to attend a number of artistic events not strictly related to basketry, out of curiosity for different disciplines. I find it important to nurture myself with a wider range of arts and crafts. I recently visited the Museum Sorolla in Madrid and was in awe of all the Mediterranean scenes and by the light so masterfully rendered in the paintings.



I keep an old, big storage basket where I cherish all the little basketry samples made while testing ideas and techniques, and small inspiring pieces of wood, stones, metals together with seeds, peach stones, ceramics fragments and much more...It’s like a treasure chest which I open to look again at my first weaving attempts that remind me of my journey.

Text and images courtesy by Patrizia Sascor

Find out more:
www.patriziasascor.com
@nestandnet