Woven Communities

Connected Communities Woven Communities: Exploring the Dynamics of Socio-cultural Change through Material Culture Special Case Study on Scottish Vernacular basketry Dr Stephanie Bunn Background Executive Summary Researchers and Project Partners This scoping study began with the premise Dr Stephanie Bunn that material culture forms an invaluable University of St Andrews starting point for the exploration of the socio- Members of the Scottish Basket-makers cultural history and interconnectedness of Circle communities. The project has developed a special case study on Scottish vernacular Curatorial Advisors and Other basketry and, in collaboration with Scottish Regional Experts basket-makers, Scottish museum curators Lyndsay McGill and other experts, situates itself within both National Museums of Scotland regional and international concerns and research on this subject. Dorothy Kidd Scottish Life Archive, NMS We approached the study through examining Linda Fitzpatrick existing research on the interwoven domains Scottish Fisheries Museum of human action associated with Scottish vernacular basketry. In doing so, we aimed to Dr Ian Tait explore how the material fabric of social change Shetland Museums and Archives is enmeshed in human action, as communities Rachel Chisholme develop and respond to socio-economic and Highland Folk Museum technological shifts through time. Ian Edwards Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh Greg Kenicer Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh Key words Basketry Woven Communities Collaboration Practice Socio-cultural change Process 1 Woven Communities This project is both an exploration of available Scottish basketry research, research on different basket-making and -using communities and also an exploration collecting, and documentation: of the value of community engagement an overview during a research project. It is thus both a scoping study of interwoven domains of Early reports on the ‘decline’ of Scottish community knowledge and ‘research with the basketry were made by the Scottish Home communities’ themselves. Industries Association, formed 1889. Its aims This review paper presents a summary of both were largely liberal-philanthropic, aiming to the findings and the process. promote an appreciation of ‘home-made’ fabrics, improve their quality, and stop them falling into disuse, along with ‘promoting thrift Why basketry as a research and adding to the comfort and self-respect focus? of the poorer classes’ (Report 1912; Harrod 2000). The Association both reported on and Basket-work makes an excellent starting point promoted basketry in the Western Highlands, for a study of the dynamics of socio-cultural Caithness, Skye, Shetland and Orkney during change in Scotland because of its subtle, yet the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They persistent, presence in daily life. It is often noted that peat creels and other baskets perceived as a rather mundane domestic continued to be made in these regions, while craft, rendered almost obsolete following the also promoting classes and exhibitions, and industrial and petrochemical revolutions, and supporting local endeavours such as the the introduction of plastic bags, cardboard establishment of a basketworks in Kilmuir, Skye boxes and shopping trolleys. However, while (1909). historically basket-work was used in fishing, The first significant Scottish basket collectors, farming, crofting, made by local practitioners Evelyn Baxter and Leonora Rintoul, made a and by Travellers, it continued to play a role definitive collection of early 20th century through the Industrial Revolution and was Scottish vernacular basketry for the National also made into containers for carrying loads, Museums of Scotland. They also promoted measuring fish, for mill skips, hospital beds, the craft during the 1920s and 30s through chemical containers, and in transport, including basketry classes, the SWI, craft guilds, air travel. In the latter cases, such baskets were magazine articles, and supported basket supplied by basket-works and regional blind displays at Highland Shows. Examples from asylums. A study of the woven communities their collection were displayed in the Living of basket-makers and users therefore has the Traditions exhibition, Edinburgh 1951. potential to provide important insights into Isobel Grant, the great collector of ‘homely both the material fabric and the process of Highland things’ made an immense collection socio-cultural change. of baskets (over 100 artefacts) for the Highland Folk Museum from the 1930’s onwards. 2 WOVEN COMMUNITIES In Highland Folkways (1961), she noted how been mainly carried out by basket-makers, in wickerwork ‘was an important Highland craft’ particular, the Scottish Basketmakers Circle. (1988, 80) yet, perhaps due to its continued, The SBC was established 25 years ago. yet tacit, presence as a craft which she herself Members come together, linked by a common still used, she did not include it in the ‘Crafts’ concern to cooperate and pursue a creative section of her book, and most prominently interest. Early members researched and referred only to more unusual straw and bent travelled across Scotland meeting older grass basket artefacts in the ‘Common Tasks’ practitioners, learning about local skills, section (1961). Hope MacDougall (of the techniques and materials, as well establishing Hope MacDougall Collection) took a similar regional groups, running courses, and visiting approach, collecting and documenting baskets museum collections. The SBC have an which pertained to rural life, yet possessing a exceptional slide collection and library, as well vast number of ‘house baskets’ for her own use as a very informed membership, some of whom which remains undocumented. have published or produced films on the subject This collecting was given texture through (Wilkinson 2001; SBC 2002). Alexander Fenton’s Scottish Life Archive, Across Scotland, we found that locations established in 1959 at the National Museums where basket-makers live have provided rich of Scotland. The Archive includes drawings, sources of data, where local collections and photos, newspaper cuttings, handwritten notes practices are best known, where local social and old manuscripts of aspects of Scottish history and its use of baskets is best researched, social history. Fenton chose ‘Creels and baskets’ and where local plant resources have been as a defining category of his unique collection explored by makers themselves. (This is evident of facts on Scottish life. In parallel, the School on the developing pin map on our website.) of Scottish Studies holds significant collections Furthermore, the practice of basketry acts as a of recorded oral history and photography, kind of ‘provocation’ to other local people who including the Werner Kissling Photo-archive frequently may be compelled by witnessing the (which is duplicated in Dumfries Museum). practice to communicate memories about local Kissling documented life in the Hebrides during and family historical basketry practices. the 1930s. He had a special interest in people’s use of straw, heather and other available materials to make necessities such as ropes, Scoping tour mats and bags, and also documented basket- making among Travellers and in basket-works Throughout the project, we combined textual in eastern Scotland. and archival research with a ‘scoping tour’ of A subsequent, more fallow documentary museum collections and archives. This tour period coincided with the final decline of was almost universally appreciated by curators vernacular basket-making throughout Scotland who benefitted from the knowledge of the in the 1950s and 60s, which paralleled the basketmakers in regard to materials, techniques mass-introduction of plastic and the use of and social history of their collections. By motorised transport in farming and crofting. combining frequent meetings with the Subsequent research, since the 1980s has National Museums of Scotland throughout the 3 project with one-off visits to local and regional to the strong sense of regional identity of these museums, we built up a picture of the pattern two areas, and increased availability of finance of use across Scotland with samples of more following the development of the oil industry. focused, in-depth, studies of regional variation. Western Scotland and Highland museums East coast museums and archives are extensive, had fewer, smaller collections. The Highland and very representational of east Scottish Folk Museum at Kingussie, based on the Grant fishing history between the early 1800s and Collection is the exception. The majority of the 1950s. They contained the line baskets, this collection was drawn from the Outer sculls, rips, creels, bait baskets and quarter Hebrides, rather than the west coast or crans which were required for line-fishing, Highlands. The collection reveals the use of herring drifting and fish-wife travel and selling willow and hazel for the distinctive western in the region They reveal remarkable local Scottish creel, and similar use of bent grass, variation, both in the refinements to which oat straw and heather to the Northern Isles baskets could be developed for this trade, and for smaller containers and ropes. in style and terminology. There are several possible explanations for Southern Scottish museums of rural life these regional variations. Grant argues that are fewer, and their collections illustrate mid-19th century economic history, including less variation. ‘Tattie sculls’ (for potatoes) the Highland clearances and migration, predominated,

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