Brian Jewett's Inventive Basket Making!

When Brian Jewett submitted photos of his work to the VFL gallery, I was so intrigued by his clever ideas that I was not satisfied with just a gallery of photos—I knew the rest of you would want to learn more about this artist, just like I did.  So here is the interview to accompany the Gallery Exhibit:

Your history in manufacturing is interesting. Please tell us about how that led to basketry, especially your unique brand of basketry, using innovative materials and methods, such as garden hose and straws, to mention only a few.

I've always been a "maker" of one sort or another. As a little kid I always wanted to be an inventor but somewhere along the line I cleverly decided that was part of the past and that every useful object had already been invented. I was also pretty successful in early art classes, at least until they tried to take away my ruler. ;-) Unfortunately, between the ages of 5 and 7 I was dragged, slowly and painfully, through every art museum and frescoed cathedral on the European continent. For the first half of my life I meticulously avoided anything that could be considered "fine" art.

Anyway, until my 40's, I found most of my creative outlet in the manufacturing world. I've worked as a screen printer, draftsman, machinist, tool maker and mechanical designer. Then, after buying a small business I eventually quit manufacturing and joined my wife in running it full time. But after relocating the business and redesigning all our systems and processes, I eventually ran out of creative work and started getting anxious.

Some of my old daydreams from my manufacturing days started to return and I started getting ideas for crazy projects built out of unusual materials and repurposed parts. Eventually Leanne (my wife) convinced me that instead of just talking about them, I should actually build them. Without her encouragement, I would probably never have allowed myself the time for such frivolous pursuits. Once these objects started materializing in the real world, I ended up getting lots of positive feedback from friends and people started asking me if I was an "artist".  I laughed the first time I heard it, but after a while, started asking myself the same question.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea, so I started looking at night classes at Otis, an art and design school in Los Angeles. There, at an open house, I ran into Rosalie Friis-Ross standing behind a table full of the most fascinating baskets I'd ever seen. The best thing was that not one of them was made out of the usual basket materials I was used to seeing. She had baskets made from everything else though like shredded money, horse hair, parts of exotic plants, and random pieces of film with tens of thousands of staples holding everything together.

I was hooked! What better medium could there be for experimenting with odd materials?! I took her basketry class, and intently absorbed every minute of it. I did every project twice, once with her materials and then again with my own recycled and repurposed materials. When it was done, I and one other student took the semester-long class all over again. 

Tell us more about the materials you use. 

To start with, cable ties were always one of my favorite materials. They were everywhere when I was a mechanical designer and always sparked my imagination. They were the perfect playful material, almost like a fiber version of Lego! They were cheap; under a penny a piece in bulk in most common sizes. They came in an almost limitless choice of sizes from 3 inches to 5 feet long AND in a dozen or more colors. Best yet, they made really cool hairy, spiky baskets!

My other early favorite was roll tickets. I'd buy hundreds of rolls, blend 2 or 3 colors together in one roll and shape them over found objects like bowling balls, funnels, bowls and glass lamp shades. It was these ticket bowls that got me into my first gallery, the Gallery of Functional Art in Santa Monica. Most people don't know the reason, but I almost always used tickets printed with "ADMIT ONE" even they were available many different ways. This was partly because this seemed the most iconic image, but at the time it felt especially appropriate because I saw these tickets as my ticket into the art world that I was feeling so outside of.

In the last four years, you have moved from Los Angeles, California to North Adams, Massachusetts; and now you are building a home in Ludlow, Vermont. What will you be doing when the dust settles? 

Now that we're almost finished with what will be a four-year relocation process by the time we settle into our new home, I'm really looking forward to getting back to basketry and discovering what sort new work this move might bring. We'll be living in 50 acres of trees and the most prolific rock farm I've ever seen. We now own a barn so full of junk I haven't made it past the doorway yet.

The land around the old house and barn read like a rusty museum of the history of the auto and canned goods. I'm certainly not lacking in sources for new materials. I've also had the time of my life building out the loft we live in and are now selling in North Adams, and designing and building our new home in Ludlow, VT.

In the process, I've connected with a local machine shop and am using industrial methods and materials in several parts of our new home. All of this will undoubtedly feed into my work once we get settled in and I'm a curious as anyone to see the results.

Thanks for your time, Brian.  Being introduced to your work has prompted me to think of my own projects in a new light; it is time to consider a much wider variety of materials!

In Brian's own words, he is truly "outstanding in his field!" If you haven’t seen his work, browse the VFL Artist Gallery, or visit his web site.  You can also catch up with his life and adventures at one of his blogs (EclipseLoftForSale.wordpress.com and www.SmokeshireRoad.wordpress.com). 

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