A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers, and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are generally woven by hand. Some baskets are fitted with a lid, while others are left open on top.
Uses
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On the left side are live fowl baskets. Directly to the right are flat baskets used for selling shrimp and small fish in Haikou City, Hainan Province, People's Republic of ChinaBaskets serve utilitarian as well as aesthetic purposes. Some baskets are ceremonial, that is religious, in nature.[1] While baskets are usually used for harvesting, storage and transport,[2] specialized baskets are used as sieves for a variety of purposes, including cooking, processing seeds or grains, tossing gambling pieces, rattles, fans, fish traps, and laundry.
History
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Prior to the invention of woven baskets, people used tree bark to make simple containers. These containers could be used to transport gathered food and other items, but crumbled after only a few uses. Weaving strips of bark or other plant material to support the bark containers would be the next step, followed by entirely woven baskets. The last innovation appears to be baskets so tightly woven that they could hold water.[citation needed]
Depending on soil conditions, baskets may or may not be preserved in the archaeological record. Sites in the Middle East show that weaving techniques were used to make mats and possibly also baskets, circa 8000 BCE.[citation needed] Twined baskets date back to 7000 [1] in Oasisamerica. Baskets made with interwoven techniques were common at 3000 BCE.
Baskets were originally designed as multi-purpose vessels to carry and store materials and to keep stray items about the home. The plant life available in a region affects the choice of material, which in turn influences the weaving technique. Rattan and other members of the Arecaceae or palm tree family, the thin grasses of temperate regions, and broad-leaved tropical bromeliads each require a different method of twisting and braiding to be made into a basket. The practice of basket making has evolved into an art. Artistic freedom allows basket makers a wide choice of colors, materials, sizes, patterns, and details.
The carrying of a basket on the head, particularly by rural women, has long been practiced. Representations of this in Ancient Greek art are called Canephorae.
Figurative and literary usage
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The phrase "to hell in a handbasket" means to deteriorate rapidly. The origin of this use is unclear. "Basket" is sometimes used as an adjective for a person who is born out of wedlock.[3] This occurs more commonly in British English. "Basket" also refers to a bulge in a man's crotch.[3] The word “basket” is frequently used in the colloquial “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” In this sense, the basket is a metaphor for a chance at success.
Materials
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Palm baskets (front) and wicker baskets (back)Basket makers use a wide range of materials:
Image gallery
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See also
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References
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Sources
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Basket making is the process of interlacing short flexible fibers to form a container using a process of coiling, knotting, plaiting, or weaving. Early inhabitants of Arkansas such as the Caddo and Quapaw made and used baskets. Basket making has continued in modern times in Arkansas but for different reasons. At first, baskets were made for agricultural purposes; they later became objects of beauty—a fine craft acknowledged throughout the country and created for contemplation and decoration for museums and homes.
Prehistoric baskets have been found in dry bluff shelters in the Ozark Mountains. Because traditional baskets are made of natural materials such as vines, grass, reeds, bark, or split wood, they are fragile and perishable and have not held up to the elements. The frail and transitory nature of baskets that were fabricated from indigenous materials gathered while people moved from one site to another has led to the notion that baskets were expendable, therefore of little value. Archaeologists found, however, that baskets’ structure and materials left important clues helpful in identifying cultures and periods of development. The complexity of structure and use of certain basket forms are enough evidence to help ethnologists and anthropologists identify and classify specific cultures and their development.
Presumably, early settlers to Arkansas brought the tradition of the split white oak basket to Arkansas. The tradition flourished in Europe, the New England states, and the Appalachian Mountains region of the United States where hardwoods such as hickory and oak were plentiful. The knowledge and utilization of handmade baskets lingered on in Arkansas and the Ozarks long after baskets were nearly rendered obsolete by the industrial world. Basketmaking was kept alive in Arkansas after the Civil War, as school curricula for African American children included basket-making skills due to the belief that basket making was an essential skill needed for agricultural purposes and future employment. Baskets were considered essential tools for carrying goods from fields to the marketplace. Baskets were used in cotton fields until lighter woven sacks replaced them in the early twentieth century. New technology and the development of materials such as paper bags, cardboard boxes, and plastic products supplanted handmade baskets.
As the handmade basket was about to become obsolete and disappear forever, new forces revived it. Beginning with the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia, the nation’s focus began to shift away from a reliance on European culture and objects toward American-made objects and culture. Americans began to assume a nationalistic pride, and early colonial American and Native American history was researched and reappraised. In the 1920s and 1930s, a strong sense of nostalgia prevailed—a longing for acquiring and preserving aspects of the American past. A reaction against the industrial revolution taking place in America and perhaps events of World War I caused values to begin to shift. The basket that once had an anonymous past was being recognized and prized not just on the farm but also in the home for both its utilitarian and ornamental qualities; it was becoming a decorative object.
In the 1950s, basketry was explored as an alternative to weaving. Ed Rossbach, a professor of textiles at the University of California, Berkeley, was called the father of the “new basket” movement, in which baskets need not serve a utilitarian function. The weaving and structure are used as a means to an end—making art. At the turn of the twenty-first century, contemporary basket makers organized and left the umbrella organization of the Handweavers Guild of America (HGA) to form their own National Basketry Organization (NBO); they held their first regional workshop at the Arkansas Arts Center (now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts) in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 2002.
In Arkansas, the tradition of split white oak baskets predominates. Another tradition, coil long pine needle baskets, is also practiced. The Gibson family from Springdale (Washington County) and Leon Niehues from Huntsville (Madison County) are basket makers of distinction for different reasons. The Gibson family is celebrated for upholding the tradition of the hand-built split white oak basket without variation for over four generations, since the 1880s. Niehues earned a national reputation by building on the split white oak basket tradition by exploring new forms, structures, and techniques. In the area of crafts, basketry is a medium that has gained recognition and a greater degree of independence during what is called the American Craft Movement.
For additional information:
Du Bois, Alan. Baskets Now: USA. Exhibition catalogue. Little Rock: Arkansas Arts Center, 2002.
Sarnataro, Barbara Russi. “A Tisket, a Tasket…4 Shows with Many Baskets.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 15, 2009, pp. 1E, 6E.
Alan Du Bois
Benton, Arkansas