Knotty Baskets: a tale of (dis)content

Don’t be fooled, these are not “just” baskets

delia, 2024

Baskets and wall hangings that reweave stories that are difficult to tell, hold, and to carry. These baskets hold stories that gather and bind scattered wor(l)ds. They are a mediation on how entangled wor(l)ds remember the deformations/reformations of memory. These baskets hold networks and worlds contained in the unwinding and  rewinding of memories in motion.

Created from past-present-future threads, textures, relationships, materials. Woven by three weavers  – Wendy Taleo, Wendy Cowan, delia – who will not, and cannot be silenced. Baskets catch, hold, console, reseed and remake tales of a ‘connected rhizomatic we’.

Look closely – nothing is as it seems – chicken wire, knotty thesis words, she-oak spindles, leather offcuts. These are pestle & mortar bags create mischief or are they ‘just’ another basket? Some’thing’ already known?

The looms that we carry as educators-weavers-writers link Arrernte Country and the country of our births – Ireland, Western Victoria and a church lawn.

The italicised ‘re’, as in reweave, is a generative prefix, a rethinking, rewalking, returning, redoing where nothing is lost, nor is any story fixed or forgotten once-and-for-all. What humans know or classify as ‘basket’ or ‘chicken wire’ have storied lives that resist pre-given naming (maiming) conventions.

Walking of Country. Wendy Cowan, delia, Wendy Taleo

Walking the Antulya ridges in the season when snakes are hibernating, I come to know Arrernte Country and the country of my birth as generative and connected through walking.

Through these daily sensory rhythms I learn that there is no separation between the warm rocks, the soft brush of corkwood regrowth after hot fires, paths leading to Brigid’s well, a gathering of ancestors and their counsel.

pestle and mortar. Wendy Cowan and delia

Story told by Wendy – delia and I have worked on creative projects in London, Dublin and Mparntwe-Alice Springs. We stumble into un/knowns, spin and untangle our entangled inheritances. These ‘pestle & mortar’, carry-all bags reweave “knotty thesis” words and structures into other forms.

Story told by delia – As an in/animate entity, crone, snag, space-time hopping artist I tell you only once –  I am not a figment of anyone’s imagination, least of all yours. I have work to be doing. Be done!

Materials: plastic bag tops, ticking ribbon, foil seals from yoghurt containers, florist paper, and knotty thesis words reprinted on dressmakers interface.

Education Theory and Philosophy: Herringbone Pattern. Wendy and delia

Words written in texta on an educational article to disrupt the journals linear narrative, its ability to spin words from a distance.  To read the poetics written on the journal Education Theory and Philosophy see ‘No way draw away’, 2024.

This herringbone weave was created on a friends table on Gadigal Country using fine-tuned art conservation tools. Thanks Isabelle.

Lunch bag. Wendy Taleo

What is more nostalgic of education and school days than the lunch bag?

As technology is intertwined with education, this work connects the materials of cables, compact discs and audio leads across the outside surface of the bag. It provides an insight into the structure within. With a nod to the telephone cords that tethered us to the machine, this bag asks you to pause and think about the rapid technology changes and how it impacts education across generations.

Words from Wendy Cowan “knotty thesis” are woven into the front of the bag and a reversible poem (read it top down or bottom up) dictated by the mirrored surface of the compact discs on the other side.

Diffracted
Patterns
Now show
Touch of
Entangled being

Picnic Basket. Wendy Taleo

This basket has the gentle curve of a picnic basket. Using upcycled and newly claimed materials, patterns are woven into the wire warp and weft. I use communication materiality as a structure to bring to light intersections of education theory and mapping. Maps are a way of telling stories and wayfinding. In this piece the crocheted fibre connects in a seamless map.

The handles are reclaimed from my mother’s stash, adding an illusion of practicality to this work. The poem on the tag and woven words are the writings of Wendy Cowan. The rewording of a thesis that troubles academia sets the orientation for this work.