Mary Butcher

Students have fun while learning techniques and gaining knowledge of the materials they are using, insight into the breadth of the craft and an enjoyable social experience. Those are the things I aim for.

They will be able to take home completed objects, each with personal design features, functional and with charm. They will have enjoyed the days, gained a wider picture of basketmaking from books, conversation and the examples around them.

Teaching is by demonstration and discussion, on an individual basis and in groups. It is very ‘hands on’, a good way to gain experience.

I started life as a zoologist, being interested in all sorts of marine life, spiders and the small creatures of forest and grassland. As a child my time was spent outside, identifying plants and animals, searching them out. When inside, I was reading or making something, cutting, sticking, sewing. I always wanted to be a milliner, not so far from baskets after all. Sinuous sea creatures, lines of light and shade, and the nature of the materials I use all have an effect on the sculptures and baskets I now make for pleasure.

I have work at Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace, at Hove Museum and Art Gallery as part of the South East Arts Craft Collection, in the Scottish Arts council collection, in Museums in Netherlands and Denmark, at Stockwood Discovery Centre, Luton and in many private collections.

I was lucky to meet a traditional willow basketmaker, Alwyne Hawkins, in Kent who was very generous with his teaching. I also learnt later from London basketmakers , Fred Rogers and Ted Tween, who had been apprenticed for the full seven years and who taught me fine work. Later still I learned much from the Yarmouth basketmakers Colin Manthorpe and Terry Bensley. Alongside this I gained City and Guilds qualifications together with London College of Furniture Diplomas in London, these introducing me to other materials, both traditional in this country and from Europe and beyond. Travel, for teaching, making and collecting, particularly in Eastern Europe, widened my horizons as did a direction-changing Fellowship at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) where I was exposed to the experimental work of the embroidery studios on a daily basis. Further experience, funded by the Winston Churchill Fellowship Trust, The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, the British Council, the Arts Council and the Ministry of Culture in Hungary led to wide knowledge of European basketmakers and their artefacts.

I have always taught although I never planned to! I started in a Primary school as soon as I left school myself, and after my degree in Oxford went to the USA on a Fulbright Scholarship where I was plunged into teaching undergraduates from the moment of arrival. On my return I continued to teach science and, after basketmaking entered my life, I also taught for the City and Guilds course, then in Art Colleges, pariculary Norwich School of Art and Design and MMU. Now I am linked to the Anthropology Department at the University of Kent, where I show students how to use plant materials for weaving and cordage. I enjoy the teaching process and meeting such a variety of interesting people in this way.

I have had chances to write several books. ‘Willow Work’ a manual for beginners, is still in demand after twenty years. ‘Chair Seating: Techniques in Cane Rush, Willow and Cords’ written with two friends, Olivia Elton Barratt and Kay Johnson, has become known as the ‘bible’. I have contributed many articles on traditional basketmaking to a variety of Journals. ‘Contemporary International Basketmaking’ was my contribution to the Crafts Council exhibition I curated with Lois Walpole, and recently I have worked on the catalogues of ‘East Weaves West: Basketmaking In Japan and Britain’ with Laura Hamilton and ‘European Baskets’ with Joe Hogan. Two small catalogues of solo exhibitions, ‘Basketry Carte Blanche’ and ‘Encircled By Lines’ record the changing patterns of my own work.

I am President of the Basketmakers’ Association, an organisation for anyone interested in basketmaking, chair seating and allied crafts. As Trade Advisor to the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers, a City Livery Company founded in 1569, I help promote the crafts in the City of London in a variety of ways.