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Bowl vs Basket?

If you made it then you can call it whatever you want. I use "basket" to describe my turned wooden illusions of coiled Native American baskets. Most of my basket illusions will hold water (which says they don't qualify as art). :D

wedding basket.jpg
 
Tim Tucker said:
I think most observers would be hard pressed to believe that is wood and not a "real" woven basket. I am curious to know how many hours you have in this piece Bill. Incredible detail and accuracy. Beautiful.
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Many years ago I attended a David Nittmann demo at SWAT. Somebody in the audience asked him if he worried about people copying his basket illusion pieces. He replied, "They would have to be crazy and if they weren't crazy beforehand, they would surely be crazy by the time that they were done. I would have to agree with that statement, but the good news is that being crazy isn't a bad state of mind if you're into doing basket illusions.

After the demo, I made a small basket illusion bowl and after I finished it I swore that I would never do anything crazy like that again. A few years later I attended a Jim Adkins demo at SWAT. His basket illusions were much more realistic than any others that I had seen before. Suddenly, I found myself making another basket illusion bowl and another and another with increasing enthusiasm each time. So, as David Nittmann pointed out, it really does help to be crazy.

My first couple of attempts weren't anything to write home about. But, I decided that my third basket illusion was good enough to take to show-and-tell at my woodturning club. I don't know how many hours it took because I worked on it intermittently (or to be more precise, in maniacal spurts) for six or seven months. As a rough guess, I probably spent at least 500 hours, but much of that time was figuring out how to accomplish specific tasks.

Native American Basket-small.jpg

Somebody asked if I would donate it to the club's Christmas banquet auction so I said, "sure, why not". At the banquet, a friend asked me where I got the pretty basket. I replied that I bought it at Garden Ridge Pottery. After the auction was over, my friend told me that he actually thought it was a real coiled basket and believed me when I said that I bought it at Garden Ridge. :D
 
Gotta say, Bill, I've seen quite a few basket illusion pieces and that is definitely the most realistic representation. Kudos to you.

A psychiatry professor once said, "We're all crazy--some of us are just better compensated." (He was from Oklahoma and he said a lot of memorable things in folksy, Okie expressions, like "You're just pole vaultin' over mouse turds.")
 
Bill, I've only been a forum member a short while but have looked at many turnings in books and videos. I just wanted to add my admiration of your basket, but everyone has used up all the great things one can say...then about being crazy to turn, when I tell people who ask what I am doing with all the wood I harvest, I get this look that says, "He's got to be a few tacos short of a full....basket"
 
Bill Boehme said:
If you made it then you can call it whatever you want. I use the term "basket" to describe my turned wooden illusions of woven native American baskets. Most of my basket illusions will hold water (which says that they don't qualify as art). :D

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Great work Bill! Simply amazing!
 
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