My dreamy hanging basket!

Healing craft and Art

​I'm looking for ideas for my basket

I read “Containing Interwoven Histories: Indigenous Basket Weaving in Art Education by Courtney Lee Weida”. And I was fascinated by the sentence below.

“Weaving in beads, shells, and scraps of colorful paper over subsequent sessions, we were spellbound by the process Meilach (1974) described as “revising creative methods used centuries ago” (p. 1).”

That led me to the idea of creating baskets in a new and uniquely creative way that modifies a creative method used centuries ago. Above all, get this done with the lure of the sentence suggested in this article, ““One day you will be famous for your work” (p. 36).” Heslop (2011) made me realize before making baskets that this is not a simple task, but that it must be done seriously with passion.

In this article, which explores the relationship between basketry and indigenous cultures in particular, I was inspired by the meaning of baskets, which are often filled with food as a celebratory gift or token of comfort. In other words, a basket is a work of art that expresses and symbolizes our real life, like a bird's nest. I was particularly motivated when I realized that this work would be updated with a new class plan in the future, as suggested in the article: “Children can create and personalize these functional objects on their own with the help of adults.” .

“All these memories and longings can be woven into the story of the basket and its meaning, providing an exciting connection to home and family in the classroom. Likewise, they can inspire us to reconsider household objects and traditions that may seem irrelevant to the current curriculum.

What crafts can be salvaged from homes today and incorporated into art curricula?”

As in the content of the main text, I was able to think about what I could recover from home and transform into an art curriculum.
When I looked around with this mindset, I noticed a bed mosquito net that I no longer use because I am a grown child. How about using this to make a hanging basket? Children like to put a mosquito net on it like a princess bed. Dream in it and spread the wings of your imagination. As if she had become a princess, she looked around at the net on the bed and was delighted. Children dream new dreams every day like this. I don't need this mosquito net anymore, but I found the color and shape of the net to be very beautiful. So I decided to use this to make a basket.

First, I need a basket-shaped frame to support the mesh mosquito net. I thought of a balloon to make this frame. Weave about half of the balloon with artist's tape to form a sturdy basket. I made the weaving of the basket using this tape. This is a creative way to make a basket that I came up with.

​The mesh of the mosquito net is very soft, so if you support it with a hard object, it will soon puncture. So I taped the balloon to make a frame. It can easily deform the model and is soft and does not damage the mesh. Tape it in the shape of a basket like the one below, then pop the balloons to make a cool basket. Depending on the color of the balloon, the color of the lining of the basket will also change. In my case, a basket with a pretty pink lining was created. It is as soft as a ball and can be easily deformed.

​Then, cut the mosquito net in half, insert the balloon basket I made, and tie the broken part at the bottom with a ribbon. Then attach flowers and birds to decorate. The string of the basket is made by twisting the remaining mesh into a braid and hanging it.

Below is the finished look. Like a child looking up at a mosquito net and dreaming, birds gather and look into the basket. ​The child hung this basket under his bunk bed.

​As the content of the main text, “Heslop (2011) also suggested that a basket may have come from human hands inspired by a bird’s nest,” making a basket and sharing it with a child, art is not far away, but extremely close. You realize that it's normal. Just like our ancestors who made baskets after seeing birds build nests, I made my hanging baskets by thinking about children's dreams and imaginations. I think it is the essence of the basket that makes invisible love, dreams, and hard work visible.