A Woman In Business / November 2006
Rattan to the Core
 Gail Hutchinson
|
By Pat Lawrence
Gail Hutchinson always had clever fingers and an eye for color. Needlepoint and crocheting were customary pastimes, and painting was an important part of her life. But, on vacation in 1985, she visited Cherokee Village and “watched the Indian ladies weave. It was fascinating.” When she came home, she sat down with a friend who was making baskets. “I thought maybe I could support my painting habit by making a few baskets! I couldn’t even finish one that day.”
But, she didn’t give it up. “I bought instructions, and taught myself.” She took her first basket weaving class in 1990, but by then, she was already selling baskets and teaching the craft herself. She began showing her work at local arts and crafts shows, first at the Rhododendron on the Capital Complex grounds, then at Mountain State in Ripley and Jackson’s Mill. By 1994, she was designing her own patterns and by 1995, she was on the road, traveling across the Mid Atlantic and Eastern Coast, selling her basket designs, rather than baskets and teaching other basket weavers her techniques.
“I had attended a weaving conference, and took the opportunity to propose to teach at the following year’s conference. They accepted.” Gail began submitting proposals to teach at conferences all over. “You an choose which events you want to propose a class to. At first, I chose everything! In the beginning, I’d make about 300 baskets for a show. I’d make them in the kitchen and stack them in the living room from floor to ceiling-and we have a small house!”
Since conferences are generally annual events, and proposals are submitted the year before, Gail knows her working schedule a year in advance. She’s on the road twenty weeks a year now, traveling from Georgia to Wisconsin to South Carolina to Indiana. She usually teaches three classes of about twelve students at each event which lasts from 3-7 days. “I love teaching people to weave.” Students bring their own awl, scissors, measuring tape “and a sharp knifel” They buy the kit which contains the pattern and materials for Gail’s baskets. She creates new designs every year, occasionally bringing back a favorite or especially interesting design.
One of this year’s designs is Blue Blossom, a hand-shaped, triple twine basket with a start and stop weave and a ribbed rim, ten inches in diameter. Her French Navy Cat, a navy blue basket with French randing, a kind of diagonal weave and a cat head base has proved very popular.
Aiden’s Wild Berry Basket, named after her grandson, is a beginner or intermediate project that is woven on a wooden base with stack weaving and an oak handle.
According to Gail, “Interest in weaving has grown dramatically. I started teaching because there was no one around to teach. Now there’s a West Virginia Basket Weaving Guild and Basket Weaving Association.”
Basket making may have been the earliest craft-the earliest dates for baskets, from 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, are older than any yet established by archaeologists for pottery. Basket making has been practiced in every civilization and every part of the world. Although baskets were sometimes replaced by clay pots, the clay was pressed around a basket for molding. Weaving baskets is a living tradition, that has survived and evolved, a process that intertwines art and sculpture with form and function.
Although she teaches basket weaving with reed, Gail especially enjoys making the very traditional natural baskets out of white oak. “I learned how to split white oak from a tree, quarter it, take the heart out level everything and then split it. It’s quite a process. If I had a source for white oak, I’d teach that all the time.”
She has taught at the Huntington Vocational Technical school, the Huntington Museum, Cedar Lakes and elder hostels. She is a juried artist of Tamarac and a just completed a mentor ship as a master weaver for another weaver who was being juried in. She sells her patterns and kits at conferences and conventions directly and through pattern distributors. She has begun designing painted baskets, with shimmery LuminArte paint. “It’s the prettiest paint I’ve ever seen. I paint the reeds and them weave them. They’re gorgeous!”
In 1994, Gail’s husband built a 24’ by 24’ workshop for her basket making. She says, “It’s getting smaller every day!”
To contact Gail Hutchinson, call 304-634-2602 or email weaveme@aol.com.
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
Top • Home • Subscribe • Advertise • Submit • Distribution • Contact
Support Our Advertisers • Organization Resources • Women Owned Business
Send an Email About This Article