BASKETRY is in one sense the most humble of crafts, employed through the millennia to produce functional objects that feature in all aspects of the everyday life of ordinary people. Yet the care and ingenuity taken in the making of traditional baskets has endowed them with an intrinsic beauty which provides the modern artist and designer with a treasure house of inspiration. The variety is astonishing and basketry ranges from the pure, practical forms of plaited Cambodian rice steamers, through the symbolic motifs on mats from Sarawak, to the flamboyance of Californian featherwork gift baskets. Although the modern world offers much in the way of alternative choices, few homes are without some form of basket. They still provide us with a link to the natural world
and a more natural lifestyle.