Alison found basketmaking after a career in urban regeneration and loved it instantly. Since then she has learned skills and technique from a number of well-known basketmakers and trained for two years on the City Lit Basketry Course, completing in 2017.
Her work is mainly contemporary but calls on a rich and varied craft tradition. She is drawn to sculptural forms, which for her echo the high curves and low curves of spare open landscapes: the Yorkshire Wolds and Dales, Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, estuaries and tidal mudflats; and the forms and patterns made by water, wind and wave. Her vessels are made using the rope wale (or rope coil) weave, which involves adding a new rod at every stroke and weaving with a bundle of willow. The technique is slow and time-consuming and uses a great deal of material; but creates the sense of movement she seeks to evoke her landscape forms and forces.
She is the winner of the Cockpit Arts/ The Worshipful Company of Basketmakers’ Award 2019 and her work appeared recentlyin the major exhibition of contemporary basketry in the UK: Basketry – Function and Ornament, Ruthin Craft Centre, July – October 2019.