The Isobel Wylie Hutchison Collection at Carlowrie Castle launches on 24 October 2018 “A Bag for Isobel”, a plaited hairmoss bag inspired by a botanist’s vasculum, is part of this Craft Design House collaboration… Images coming soon!

Meanwhile, this is my artist’s statement on the piece:

“A Bag for Isobel”

I wanted to make a bag for Isobel Wylie Hutchison to take on her 1927 expedition to Greenland. For the first time, she was travelling as a botanist, so I based the piece on a vasculum, a container carried by botanists to collect and transport plant samples. Hairmoss (Polytrichum commune), an unassuming plant that grows abundantly in Scotland, seemed an ideal material for this modest 38-year-old explorer. When plaited, the hairmoss has a tweedy side to it, echoing Isobel Wylie Hutchison’s Carlowrie heritage, and at the same time it has an unexpected green, mossy, living element, as if the bag could enclose a little bit of verdant Scotland to be carried with her to Greenland. “A Bag for Isobel” is a conceptual piece that I hope would have made Isobel Wylie Hutchison feel like a botanist. I like to imagine it being something she might show to makers in Greenland, prompting a conversation about craft, about plants and about exploration.

Hairmoss (Polytrichum commune), plaited and stitched with waxed linen.