Elizabeth Crawford
WINNER: Green Maker Initiative (joint)
See below for more information
Elizabeth makes her mixed media sculptural basket bags entirely by hand, using plant materials sourced from her local environment. The activity of harvesting and processing materials is an important element of her practice, bringing her into close relationship with the natural world and its cycles of growth and decay. For her, this is an essential remembering of our capacity as humans to collaborate beneficially with nature.
Her work brings the quiet language of plants into the realm of human objects, championing the often slow and humble pace of plants and basketry in the midst of a fast-paced, digital and mechanised world. Her work plays with the tension that can exist between beauty and utility, constructing pieces that may be reliably used as baskets while also having a striking decorative potential.
Elizabeth’s basket forms are rooted in the landscape around her. While she tends to use traditional weaving techniques, the organic shapes of Elizabeth’s baskets are unusual thanks to a mould making process that she has innovated to enable closed, rounded forms to be woven from soft materials. This process involves crafting a hollow mould from wax, weaving and assembling the basket over this, and then breaking it to remove it when the piece is complete. She also loves combining materials, and the opportunities for design that emerge at intersections where materials meet.
Elizabeth was awarded first prize in the Contemporary category of the 2022 Basketry of the Year Competition, by the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers, for her piece ‘Ancestor Bag’.
IG: @foraged_futures
WINNER: Green Maker Initiative Award (joint)
Awarded by Dr Emma Whittaker, Creative Industries Industrial Research Fellow, Sustainability Hub: University of Plymouth
It is heartening that so many of the designers showcased in the January 2023 MAKING IT exhibition are addressing the environmental sustainability and ethical implications of their work.
Elizabeth Crawford and Jo Weaden – Studio Arvor, have both received the Green Maker Initiative (GMI) Awards in the MAKING IT Exhibition, January 2023! The award holders exemplify innovation and creative talent, and they also demonstrate best practice in their different approaches to communicating and reducing the environmental impact of their work.
Elizabeth Crawford responsibly harvests and processes the sedge, rush and willow from her local environment to weave meticulous wearable basketry. These wondrous, organically shaped bags bring us into close contact with the natural beauty of grasses and often overlooked plants, helping us to remember the origins of material objects and the cycle of life. Created using gradual processes and traditional methods, these stunning wearable works bring to the fore slow design and living lightly on the earth.
