Living Arts January 2008
Get Wired!
Wire Basket Art from Africa
It began in the early 1990s in the South African coastal region of Kwadulu Natal. As the story goes, a night watchman was alone at work in an office building. He was there for the weekend with not much to do, so he began to look at the walls of the rooms that he was guarding. He noticed that colorful plastic wiring ran along them. Being a weaver himself, he let his imagination run wild. “I can make my imbengi [beer pot cover] with this,” he thought and immediately began ripping the long, colorful chords out of the walls. Needless to say, when the people came to work on Monday, there was no phone service in the building. It was a small price to pay, however, because the night watchman had made himself a beautiful imbengi of intricate designs, made from a sturdy and brilliantly colorful material. And something far more important than this had occurred as well. The bored night watchman had discovered a new artistic medium to an ancient tradition. Soon other Zulu basket artists in the region saw what the night watchman did. They were impressed and they began ripping telephone wire out of the ground and creating their own variations of the form. Basket patterns became more elaborate and swirls of colors graced each plastic-laden container.
According to Ian Allan, owner of Africa and Beyond in La Jolla, before the use of colored wire for basket decoration, the process of coloring the materials for traditional natural-fiber baskets was difficult.
“They
have to crush the roots of a tree for many days to get the black,” explains
Allan. “Brown they get from bark of a tree. They use ashes; they use leaves
and skins of berries to try to get color in their tradition baskets. The
telephone cable wire is basically copper wire that is wrapped in bright,
colorful plastic. And that is what they love—the colors are something they
can never replicate in nature.”
Of course, over time the practice of ripping telephone wire out of the
ground eventually began affecting phone service in a big way. In response,
the local phone company gave basket artists leftover wire to work with.
This practice stopped recently, however, since copper prices have tripled
in price in the last year alone. Now Allan and others have created fundraising
projects with the aim of buying the copper wire for artists to work with.
Despite the obstacles, the art of wire basket-weaving continues to grow.
“Some of the weavers [are very well known],” says Allan. “There is a book that is out about them and some are highly collectible now…That is the amazing thing to me—if you look at what the telephone wire looks like in the ground, it is a mess. [The fact that] you can weave that, let along create the beautiful patterns and figurative elements that they do with their baskets—that takes a lot of skill.”
South African wire basket art is for sale at Africa and Beyond, 1250 Prospect St. La Jolla, Ca 92037. Prices can range from twelve dollars to almost $1,000. Visit www.africaandbeyond.com or call 858.454.9983 for more information.