The nest making is informed by basketry techniques but I’m trying to make something artless. I hope it isn’t obvious they are made by a person
which inverted the usual process by fixing the structural upright willow rods in the ground and then weaving around them from the ground upwards, gave him the idea for a series of organically shaped larger pieces.
A Crafts Council bursary allowed him the time to make a number of these strikingly original vessel- or boat-like pieces, each one informed by the shape of the found wood, which he lays on the ground as the starting point. To his surprise they suddenly became commercially successful, as did his next development, pod-like sculptures woven around ‘openings of wood’, pieces of weathered roots or branches that either form a natural aperture or that Joe creates by attaching two pieces together Joe started to experiment with interestingly shaped or marked stones as the focal point of these pods. Some of the largest of these unique pieces, more than a metre in diameter, were commissioned by the Spanish fashion house Loewe to form the stunning centrepiece of its Spring/Summer 2019 fashion show.
Weaving with other, less flexible materials – birch, hazel, larch, heather, bog myrtle – to create nest-inspired pieces is Joe’s most recent challenge. “I’ve always loved birds’ nests,” he says. “You are struck by the ingenuity, and then you become aware of the decline of bird numbers.” The first ones he tried were, he says, “a bit basket like”. But increasingly he is drawn to looser, less structured forms. “The nest making is informed by basketry techniques but now I’m trying to make something almost artless. I hope it isn’t obvious they are made by a person.” It is a skill that requires both the strength to bend less flexible branchy material, such as larch, and the lightness of touch to insert and fix lichen-covered stems without dislodging the delicate encrustations.