Basketry sculptures playing with asymmetry
- Polly’s cedar bark sculptures are influenced by basketweaving traditions
- Wire enables the pieces to assume unconventional shapes
- Her approach is instinctive, allowing shapes to develop as she works
Polly Adams Sutton has been making structural and sculptural baskets since the 1980s. Based in the Pacific Northwest, her practice is influenced by the basketweaving traditions of the local Native American population. Polly’s pieces are made from woven cedar bark supported by wire to add structural integrity, with cane and sweet grass for embellishment. She sources materials from her local area, gathering cedar bark from freshly logged forests and sweet grass from Pacific Ocean tide-flats. Polly is a self-taught artist and approaches her work intuitively. “I just start sculpting and see what happens,” she says. Polly has exhibited extensively across the USA. In addition to being featured at the Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair, over 50 museums, galleries and associations have her pieces in their collections. She was also a 2024 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize Finalist.
INTERVIEW
I mainly work with cedar bark. I did not use wire for a long time, until another basket maker encouraged me to try it. I realised how much I could shape the pieces by integrating wire. It was helpful because I was always trying to create sculptural baskets.
It shifts it from a useful basket with a function to a sculpture that is not really a basket, though it shares a similar shape. It also allows me to sculpt and find a form that I have not seen before that pleases me.
I studied sculpture and painting in art school but was never a conceptual artist. If I sketch something and have a shape in mind, it never really works out. I take an instinctive approach and try it out. Because the cedar is really soft and pliable, and I can bend it the way I want it with the wire will hold it there, eventually I will get something that I like.
Learn as much skills as possible from your teachers. With the techniques you learn, strive to find your own voice and expression.
