“A Bag for Isobel” by Sarah Paramor
For the Isobel Wylie Hutchison Collection at Carlowrie Castle outside Edinburgh, I used an abundant plant material to make a bag for a botanist...
“An intrepid Scottish woman”*
Isobel Wylie Hutchison was born in 1889 in Carlowrie Castle outside Edinburgh, and by all accounts led a fairly conventional life until 1925, when she travelled to Iceland and, against all advice, walked across the interior of the country. Now with a taste for exploration – and already a writer, poet and artist – she decided to go to Greenland.
“With becoming solemnity I plant a stout Highland brogue upon the Green Isle”*
In celebration of this extraordinary woman, Carlowrie Castle, now predominantly a venue for weddings and events, asked Craft Design house to put together a collection of contemporary craft pieces. Gillian Scott has a talent for connections, and brought together jewellers, print makers, ceramicists, leatherworkers, glass artists, and one basketmaker: me!
Each craftsperson found their own inspiration within Isobel’s life – not difficult given that as well as being an explorer, Isobel Wylie Hutchison was a writer, artist, filmmaker...
I was inspired by Isobel Wylie Hutchison’s trip to Greenland, and wanted to make something for this quiet Scottish woman as she set off, in brogues and tweeds, on her 1927 adventure.
“I go as a botanist”*
I tend to make unconventional basketry handbags, so I set about thinking what kind of bag I could make for Isobel Wylie Hutchison. To reflect her role on the Greenland expedition, 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 (it likes the wet!) is described as “One of the most surprising basketry materials used in early Scotland...an unobtrusive but attractive plant of bogs and woodlands...remarkably tough” in Flora Celtica,* which seemed appropriate for this “quiet explorer”. I had worked with hairmoss before (my “Highland Hairmoss Basket” won third prize in the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers’ “Best Basketry 2017” competition), and thought it the ideal plant material for the job.