Deb Cantrill is a contemporary basket weaver, with a passion for using materials from her garden. Growing up on a mixed irrigated farm and dry area wheat farm in the Murrumbidgee area, she spent her time fishing and playing on the Murrumbidgee River.
She worked in rice research before moving to Adelaide and later the Adelaide Hills, where she helped set up Nirvana Organic Farm with her partner, Quentin Jones. ‘Playing with sticks’ (which is how she refers to her art, working with natural fibres) is her way to relax when she’s not tied up with her roles as bio-dynamic orchardist, gardener and bio-dynamic farm advisor and educator. She enjoys “life in the slow lane” and loves being surrounded by and creating from nature, as well as growing and producing things (she’s a 2003 ABC Gardener of the Year finalist) and keeping healthy through her Nia Practice.
When and how did you first fall in love with basket weaving?First I started making fences and screens for the gardens using the materials around the farm.
These structures give the garden form and quickly and magically transform a space. The materials are renewable, recyclable, wildlife-friendly and are also economical as interest rates were much higher in the 1980s than now.
Making baskets to collect produce came next.
The first one I made was from instructions in a Grass Roots magazine. I guess I’ve always loved old things and natural ways like baskets and our dry area farm’s sheep yards, which where all made from poles cut from the bush.
Creating forms just evolved through play, experimenting and being free with no expectations or pressure.
How does Nirvana Farm and the broader Adelaide Hills inspire your work?For me working from nature is a deep-seated thing, whether as an orchardist, gardener or a basketmaker.
I love the process of growing, harvesting and creating whether it’s a garden, a meal or a basket. In basketry all the materials need to be grown, harvested and prepared before they can be transformed. Creating a woven form adds a new status and function to garden materials and brings plants to life again.
The materials have a rhythm and a season, which is reflected in the four elements earth (roots), water (leaves), air (flowers), and fire (fruit and seed). I then add the human element (Quinta essentisa). The ordering principle to create woven magic (a similar process to compost making).
I have a passion for wood, sticks and branches and love the way they integrate with the weaving materials that are softer in texture with a wide variety of colours and textures.
The Adelaide Hills landscape and gardens provide the natural forms and materials that inspire the works. I relish the fact that the works, especially those outdoors, will not last forever and, in time, return to the earth. The garden is my very own exhibition space to reflect the landscape and enjoy what I’ve created before they return to earth. Basketmaking evolved with available materials, those materials created the techniques. In the Adelaide Hills we have a rich variety of materials, which allows great freedom in creating contemporary works.
You always add a quartz crystal into your work. What inspired that idea?It is a way of adding a signature to the works. I inherited a lot of crystal jewellery from my mother-in-law, which I used.
What is the most unusual or notable weaving project you’ve created?I’m not sure – I like the challenge of mixing techniques and materials into unique shapes. I still love my dragonfly and my bracket fungus tray and the way my leaf shapes hang.
It largely depends on the day. I love my everyday basket (I made during Covid). It’s very practical as well as beautiful – it goes with me most places.
Which project are you most proud of and why?I’ve always made things for myself or my gardens but in 2016 I exhibited in the Heysen Sculpture Biennial with a work entitled ‘It all starts with a seed, with its memory of the past and its potential for the future’. From that I was awarded an exhibition, which was a shock as I never set out to be an artist.
I then created a collection as part of Natural Elements at the Hahndorf Academy in 2017. To fill the upstairs area of the Academy was a challenge, but very rewarding.
Are there any other artists who have inspired your work and how?I’ve been a member of Basketry SA and the Hills Basket Cases as well as attending a couple of National Basketry Gatherings.
These all inspire and add to my skill set as basketry has a wide variety of different techniques. Evette Sunset – a fellow biodynamic gardener – has inspired me by showing me how to follow my own path in creating works. She also constructed a large living willow house on our property, which was a fun project and was used for many memorial events.
