Description

 

WILLOW LAMPSHADE WORKSHOP by Anna Liebman

6 people maximum

Wed 26th & Thurs 27th July . 9:30 to 5:30

Cost:  £140 plus approx £40 for materials to be paid direct to tutor during course.

Learn how to make creatively but with order and success a lampshade with willow. Anna will supply fittings as required, and you will have the option of working on a former or scalloming onto a hoop or lampshade ring.

Students will choose first whether to work on a former made of kingspan for shades that will most likely hand from a standard pendant fitting, and may be quite wide at the bottom and get much smaller at the top, working from the bottom up. Alternatively, students may work from a hoop or lampshade ring to allow he work to progress from the top down. There are so many ways with a lampshade- there will be a big design element so bring a notebook and measuring tape with sketches and dimensions of the space you require to fill/ light.
I will try and be strict and offer less choice to allow achievable outcomes… watch this space!!

You should bring:

Please bring your basketry tools. Basic tools will be available in the PACC basketry classroom.

The Tutor will provide:

Prepared basketry willow and lampshade metalwork if required for up to 6 students @ approx £40/ student

 

Tutor Biography

Anna was drawn to basketmaking whilst her children were tiny and she lived and worked at a small landfocussed housing co-operative set in 50 acres of farmland in Lanarkshire. A want for beautiful toy baskets coupled with the unsuitability of metal work (her previous passion) around toddlers and an abundance of natural materials on the land led her to thinking that making her own baskets would be a good idea. A lot of willow had been planted at the co-operative for habitat creation, wind shelter, and craft use. Anna became aware of the versatility of willow and was inspired by its zero carbon footprint. She loved the fact that she could create a basket with the use of no fossil fuels bar those involved in the production of the secateurs and the chocolate she ate during the harvesting!
Other basketmakers, ludicrous perfectionism, and a fear of making unsturdy products, have greatly helped Anna on her way. She moved to Edinburgh 9 years ago and started selling her products at the Portobello farmer’s market, and teaching locally. She finds passing on skills and knowledge to fascinated people hugely rewarding and now teaches extensively in the city and beyond. She still attends craft markets around the city and sells her work in galleries around Scotland.

She has taught for the Scottish Lime Centre, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh,The Big Tree Society, Palacerigg Country Park, Urban Roots Glasgow, Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspaces Trust, the Edinburgh Spinners Weavers and Dyers Guild, Leith Community Crops in Pots Carbon College, and Jupiter Artland to name a few. Anna has been the Basketry Tutor at the Poldrate Arts and Crafts Centre in Haddington since 2014, developing improvers’ and advanced classes to run alongside the beginners class; where she has been working with the students to reach new skills and basketry techniques that were not
part of the classes before.

Anna also enjoys working on commissions both traditional and modern, repair and restoration work, and larger scale installations…and has completed a willow boat bird hide for children in Fife, woven willow tipis and other installations for the Eden Festival in Dumfries and Galloway, made (and burnt) a fire sculpture for the Fire and Light Festival on New Year’s Day at the Kelpies in Falkirk, created sculptures on the beach in Portobello, fixed colossal baskets at Jupiter Artland, worked with the Enchanted Forest to produce three enormous sculptures for their sound and light show near Pitlochry: the theme ‘Edge of the
Water’ leading to the creation of three huge woven willow lighthouses.

Anna is a member of the Scottish Basketmakers’ Circle, having spent some years on their committee and editing their newsletter for three of those, the Basketmakers Association, Scottish Working Woods, and the Heritage Crafts Association.