Breathing Baskets and So Much More

While I had heard wonderful things about NCSW for years, the demands of my job had prevented me from attending workshops in the winter. Once retired, I immediately signed up for Pat Hickman’s 2020 Breathing Baskets class. I knew of Pat’s impressive body of work and I knew of many her international awards. Our studio assistant turned out to be Jackie Abrams, one of the founding members of North Country Studio Workshops and the one responsible for bringing Pat to NCSW. Jackie, being a much-celebrated basket maker in her own right, we had two women power houses in the studio.

Pat and Jackie were patient and kind, teaching twelve of us the intricate nuances of netting, fiber technique that appears very uniform with repetitive knotting or looping. One could assume that with just a few simple steps this might be an easy technique to master. I can assure you that looks can deceive and mistakes are often difficult to correct. In addition to teaching, each day Pat presented on her work and spoke on the vast history of netting. Additionally, she gave each participant a private review of their body of work. 

It took me the entire five days to catch on to netting. A fiber technique that I had never tried before but one that I have now added to my fiber skill sets.

Who could have guessed that soon after the last NCSW in February of 2020 the world as we had known it was about to change so dramatically. Covid19 was declared a pandemic in the United States in March and in April my brother contracted the virus while hospitalized for emergency surgery. 

Trying to absorb the reality of the world-wide pandemic and my brother’s dire situation, I began working on the sculpture “Covid19, We Are All in This Together.” This piece consists of 225 diagonally plaited cubes captured in a 12-foot knotted waxed linen net. 225 was the number of countries and territories that reported cases of the virus to the World Health Organization in April of 2020. Each cube is unique and the size relates to the population of the county or territory. 

Earlier this year “Covid19, We Are All in This Together” was entered into the National Basketry Organization’s virtual exhibition, Every 1. This work would not have been possible without my attending Pat’s workshop at NSCW.  I am happy to report that “Covid19, We Are All in This Together” won an Exhibition Committee Award from NBO.

The Breathing Basketry workshop was well beyond what I had imagined and my expectations were set pretty high. Thank you, Pat Hickman, Jackie Abrams and NCSW for all that you did to make the workshop a wonderful experience and in helping me learn a valuable fiber technique.

By Lynne Francis-Lunn, NCSW Planning Committee Member and Board Treasurer
You can find her on Instagram @lynnefl