Beginning With The Shed

Every basket in Wyldcraft Hollow begins with a problem.

The antler is already shaped.

It has curves I didn't draw, proportions I didn't decide, points exactly where they decided to grow, and scars left behind by a life that happened long before the material ever reached my hands.

And I can't change any of it.

That's precisely why I like working with it.

I'm trained as a sculptor, and I've spent years working with materials that can be cut, welded, modeled, carved, cast, sanded, or otherwise persuaded into becoming what I want them to become. Antler asks for something different.

It asks me to respond.

Before I weave anything, I spend time turning the shed around in my hands. I look at where it naturally wants to rest. Where the weight sits. Which tine could become a handle, which might interrupt the basket, and which strange curve is going to cause me problems later.

Usually, that last one ends up becoming my favorite part.

There isn't a template for fitting a basket around something that refuses to be standardized. The antler establishes the first set of rules, and I make decisions from there.

Sometimes those decisions work.

Sometimes I pull half of them apart.

That's making.

I think this is also why I want the pieces from Wildcraft Hollow to remain one of one. I could work toward reproducing the same shape over and over again, but I'd lose the conversation with the material that interests me in the first place.

I don't want twenty identical baskets.

I want to find twenty different sheds and discover twenty different answers.

The first Wyldcraft Hollow Object begins long before the first strand is woven.

It begins with something found.

From The Hollow

FIELD NOTE №001
BEGINNING WITH THE SHED

Found / considered / worked by hand.