Lorna Singleton is one of the four people awarded the ‘My Artful Way’ commission.
Lorna chose to make a three-day walk from her home in Grizedale Forest, through woodlands and across open fields and fells, to the coast, and back again. The route follows the journey of baskets from their source – the trees – to the coast where they were once shipped from; it also took in several meetings with others working creatively with trees, wood and woodlands. On each day, Lorna stopped to weave. She had anticipated that she’d only make hazel baskets, but in the end was inspired to weave with rushes as well. After three days, she had made three hazel baskets and two, tiny, rush baskets – the latter just big enough to hold a handful of wild raspberries.
“My inspiration starts from a need to work in the woods and to maintain the unique habitat and biodiversity that has evolved alongside coppicing traditions. Watching the coppice change through the seasons and from year to year is a delight, as flowers emerge into the light that have been patiently waiting in the seed bank for a generation, and then trees grow to fill the canopy and overshadow the flowers until an unknown time when they can emerge again.”
Lorna is a woodworker and a basket maker, and also one of the few people to continue the rare traditional craft of swill making. To find out more about Lorna’s work and the walks she undertook, visit her page here.
Read more about Lorna and her work as part of Artful Ways here.