PAT BENNET
Weaver and sculptor, Pat Bennet, works out of Salt Spring Island. She brings us large, beautiful, voluptuous woven vessels. Her work directly engages with international traditions of old. Weaving, being one of the earliest technologies known, is a choice medium for Bennet whose baskets seduce viewers with their curves and colourful charm.
Pat
Bennett graduated from Ryerson University in 1976 with a Bachelor of Applied
Arts in Design. For more than twenty
years Pat and her late husband Ken pursued careers as wood sculptors. After moving to Salt Spring Island, British
Columbia in 1993, Pat became interested in the world’s oldest craft of
basketry. Since then she has focused her
creative talents on weaving sculptural vessels.
After
the technical skills had been mastered, Bennett had a desire to challenge the
traditional notion of a basket’s purpose: to gather, hold, or carry
possessions. Her design process evolved
into one that supported creative expression rather than traditional
function. The combining of her extensive
experience in wood sculpture with traditional weaving techniques sparked an
exploration into a new realm of design possibilities.
Each
piece begins by creating a hand sculpted wood form that suggests the shape for
the vessel. This unique form allows the
artist to create a sense of movement within each piece. It is a blending of architecture,
imagination, control, and freedom.
Exotic and domestic hardwood, each with their own natural richness of
colour and striking grain characteristics, provide the colour pallet for each
form. The range of colour in the reed is
achieved through a hand dying process.
View her work in the Gallery of on our website http://
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