Maggie Smith

Basketweaver

©Maggie Smith

Grow your own baskets

Maggie started basketmaking as a hobby
She grows the wood used to create her pieces
Getting to know the material is essential to her

Basket making started as a hobby for Maggie Smith: it was while working full time as an occupational therapist that she looked for a workshop she could join to learn the fundamentals of basketmaking. In 1997, her hobby overtook her career and she embarked on a City & Guilds course in creative basketry, completing her training in 2004. Her interest is rooted in her love of the material, she grows and collects her own wood with a fond interest in getting to know it by exploring all its aspects. This deep-knowledge of the material gives her an intricate approach to her work, and allows her to reinvent the basketry techniques she uses to create, solve problems and design new ideas she gets while harvesting.

Interview

©Maggie Smith

©Maggie Smith

What is important to you in your work?: I put an emphasis on exploration and experimentation, it feeds my creativity and my ability to make. Exploring a material means literally breaking it down and discovering the different elements that are available. This widens the repertoire of techniques I can use.
Does it take time to collect the material?: Growing, harvesting, collecting and processing all take time and are led by the different stages of the growth cycles of my materials. However, this time spent outdoors gives me the time and space to look, to see, to think. This is often when I start designing.
Do you mix any other skills with basketry?: From a young age, I was always drawn to craft and making of all sorts. Now in my work I don’t feel confined to only using basketry techniques, instead I feel free to access my whole skill set to work through and resolve any problems my ideas throw at me.
Can your craft be considered in danger?: Some specific basketry techniques are considered endangered, which is why I’m drawn to learning traditional basketry skills in the hope I can play a part in helping to keep them alive and help them find a role in today's world.

Maggie Smith is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2004