Nesting instinct

On the shores of Loch Na Fooey, basket maker Joe Hogan uses local willow, birch and larch to create woven sculptures of delicate beauty

Joe Hogan, master basket maker, is sitting on a low wooden seat in his stone workshop overlooking Loch Na Fooey in north Connemara, County Galway, surrounded by piles of wild material – stems of freshly cut willow catkins, twigs of lichen-encrusted larch, sprays of last season’s larch studded with cones. Cradled between his outstretched legs is a half-made nest that he is forming by pushing, bending and pulling stems in a seemingly random way, while he explains his journey from philosophy student to maker of unique woven pieces, showcased by galleries and bought by art lovers across Europe. It was the rugged, wind-shaped mountain landscape of this part of Connemara, where each farm had a ‘sally garden’, a patch of sallies (the local name for Salix viminalis) used for cutting, that led Joe to basket making. “I knew I wanted to live in this amazing countryside, and thought basket making might be a way to make a living, especially if I could grow my own material.” He and his wife Dolores bought a house along the lakeshore and Joe went to Cork to learn the craft. He ended up teaching himself but was supported and encouraged by two brothers who made traditional baskets in white willow (stripped of bark) and in brown (in its natural state). Joe started off making Moses baskets, which kept him in business for the first few years. But then he was drawn to two traditional baskets that were still being made locally in Connemara: the creel, used as a donkey pannier for bringing turf down the mountain, and the skib, a cross between a colander and a dish for cooked potatoes, which was hung up to dry on the wall when not in use. Traditionally, both of these were made from a single type, but Joe began to introduce different coloured rods into the weave of his skibs. Customers mainly bought them as decorative pieces, while the creels were used to store things such as logs.

About 20 years ago Joe started to experiment with what he calls ‘artistic’ baskets. “I wanted to apply the traditional techniques to other projects, and also had the feeling that I wanted to reconnect with nature.” He had been gathering pieces of weathered wood – bleached gorse, driftwood, bog pine, holly – on his walks and began to explore how he could incorporate them into his work. The technique he had learned for making creels,

The centrepiece of this sculptural pod is a ring-shaped branch of weathered holly that was stripped of bark by the weather and is exactly as Joe found it.

This page: clockwise from top left Joe uses larch twigs covered in lichen to make these exquisite, naturalistic nests. He uses just two tools; a bodkin for creating openings and a fid for intertwining the stems.

Joe forages for most of his wild material amid the weathered mountain landscape surrounding his home in north Connemara..

This page: clockwise from top left Joe has woven the base and fitted the uprights of this basket using locally harvested Salix purpurea ‘Dicky Meadows’ and is inserting the catkin-covered stems of Salix viminalis to make the sides.

from This birch large, twigs. boat-shaped ‘Straps’ of piece Salix is x woven rubra ‘Harrison’s’ serve a practical purpose of securing the contrasting, pale pieces of bog pine roots at the top of the vessel.

Joe harvests wild willow from the lakeshore by this home in early March. The stems are then kept and dried before he weaves them into nest-like baskets.