In July I finished an artifact made of waste and time.
It started as a tangle of coaxial cable and a spool of thrifted crochet thread.
Orange is a meaningful color for me, so I selected it to contrast the black cord. It is a color I’d put on our family crest. My husband and I were friends before we got together. When we were 20 somethings together, a key part of his visual identity for me is an orange stocking cap. Hunter’s orange, even though I cannot imagine him hurting a fly. He wore it so much it relaxed and sagged. When we had a child together, I made sure I got a toddler size orange stocking cap so that our kiddo could match with my husband, who still has his perfect hat. A hat the color of memories from a decade ago. A color that never brought me comfort and joy the way it does now.
They weren’t made to be a basket, but I saw them, loved them, and transformed them.
I think all things can become something after they have stopped serving their purpose. I think they can be rehabilitated or made into something new. A piece of furniture you save from the dump can find new life with caring hands. A box of recycling can become a collage or a Papier-mâché sculpture. The skill is finding that new life. Resurrecting it like a trash necromancer. We, as humans, create so many things. Our nature is to find resources and store them to save ourselves from unknown future risks. But what if we all take the position that the resources to make are around us every day. Waste and offcuts and objects can become new things. Those new things will carry story and love and time and care from the hands who transformed them into something meaningful instead of choosing to throw them away.
The cord brought me images and music and information. It has memories of serving this purpose – a connector and labels. Then it lived in the corner of the basement, waiting to be recycled with other e-waste because it no longer functioned as intended.
I’m not a networking expert. Before my much more hardware-savvy husband reconfigured it, my setup was a pile of spaghetti. This cord was connecting a modem to the cable company so that my internet would connect. It swooped across my basement like a vine in the swamps of Louisiana. At some point a staple gun was used by a friend of mine to make it not linger down trying to decapitate us. After that it only worked if it was in a certain angle.
The basket did not take shape easily. Coaxial is stiff. I had to coax it during the weaving. It was stubborn, but so am I sometimes. So we figured it out together.
Imagine me, wrangling a cord that wants to be straight much more than it wants to twist. Looping basket weave stitches around it while I shape and ply it. Imagine the cord clanking about beside me, my toddler asking “What’s that?” and me trying to explain networking cords to him. “Come on, sweet one.” I’d say to it. And it would say “I’m not made for that.”
This is my second swing at Basketry. I love her.
My first basket project lives with a friend now. It’s an inch and a half tall and an inch and a half round. It was the cord from a hoodie that broken. A friend gave it to me with a handful of scrap yarns, twines, and ropes. I used the most brittle yarn I have, separated into singles, to gently wrap it. It was my travel project for a week or so, a thing to do with my hands when I was out and about at an event. Brittle things are often my favorite.
Following curiosities:
- A family crest including husband’s famous orange.
- Papier-mâché sculpture made from recycled paper.
- Resurrect furniture.
- Trash Necromancer
- Another orange stocking cap for our second.
- Get a picture of lil green.
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