I love it when clients connect with a piece of art that I've created. This happened recently at the American Craft Council's Atlanta show back in March. One of the first pieces I sold was a beautiful tabletop collection and the client was kind enough to allow me to keep it for the whole show in order to share it with other clients and take commissions from it. Lucky enough, I was commissioned to remake it 3 other times. This is the second commission based off of the original and I'm very happy with how it turned out. 8 kudzu and poplar bark baskets covered in encaustic wax and nested in mountain laurel. To accent, I added 5 hand-hammered copper fern and rhododendron
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I've been in Australia for over two weeks now and one of my favorite fines has been all of these beautiful pods. These beautiful, organic creations have served as some of my primary inspiration for the last few years. It is such a treat to get to see them in person!
Here are a few images from an installation I completed this week at a beautiful home at The Cliffs over in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, just south of Asheville and across the NC border. These clients have been some of my most dedicated collectors and have the largest single collection of my work in the state of South Carolina. It's a pleasure to have such wonderful clients who celebrate my work and allow me the freedom to create unique pieces for their home.
The pieces above include my first ever fireplace mantel installation created for these folks several years ago. The newest piece is featured on the sofa table; a collaboration between me and my friend Margie Bibb Johnson who's a ceramicist in Greenville, SC. Take a look at this beautiful room designed by uber-designer, Carole Weaks from Atlanta, GA. Carole included my sculptural art baskets in this covered porch during the Cashiers Designer Show House and Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles just did a feature article on the house. Here's the link to read the article and see all the other fabulous rooms:http://atlantahomesmag.com/article/carolina-cool/
If you're an artist, the thought of collaborating with another artist whose work you love is something you've entertained from time to time. As with most great ideas, it's not the "if" questions, but the "how" questions that can end up in lots of head scratching! Let me share 5 things I think are super important when collaborating with another artist.
1) Make Sure You Like Each Other's Work This might go without saying, but when you're collaborating with another artist, it's important that you're into each other's work. Don't be nice. Don't just say yes to a collaborative relationship if it's not ringing your artistic bell. Otherwise, you'll be sorry! A new client came to me last fall with a request to create a special, sculptural hearth basket for her all-seasons room fireplace. They built a beautiful home nestled in the mountains of the upstate - Landrum, SC - at The Cliffs at Glassy Mountain and the home just exudes mountain elegance. Situated among the rhododendron and flowing mountain creeks their home was the perfect setting for one of my sculptural baskets. Even more exciting was the fact that I was able to create the piece in a way that was upon first glance sculptural art but upon closer inspection, a functional hearth basket. I delivered the piece today and enjoyed seeing it in it's forever home, accompanied by a hand-carved stone bear from Yellowstone. It looked right at home!
![]() In late 2015, I received an email from a wonderful interior designer down in Florida who had some clients in Aspen, Colorado. They were looking for some accents to feature in their modern rustic decor and luckily, found me on the internet. After taking time to peruse the website, she emailed me and we connected by phone. I created 3 pieces for the living room including a bark, vine and clay vessel for a side table and 2 pieces for the fireplace hearth; a woven pod with 7 baskets and a nested basket in laurel branches. They turned out beautifully and were safely shipped before Christmas! A couple of weeks ago, the interior designer had the opportunity to visit the home for another project and was kind enough to snap this picture for me. Hopefully, these fireplace mantel sculptures are the first of many home owners in Aspen, Colorado will have in their mountain homes.
It never fails. Every time I create a commissioned work for a home, another client comes in and says something like "Oh my gosh, I've just got to have it!" I laugh and say "Well, I'm sorry, but that one is sold. However, I'd love to make you something in that same style!" That's what happened here and I thought it turned out really beautifully!
This 7 piece sculptural collection was created for a client of mine who has homes in New Jersey and here in Asheville. They enjoy the serenity and natural beauty of our mountain landscape and wanted to have art in their home that enhanced their modern rustic aesthetic. Sculptural baskets are a great way to do that because my work is created from 100% locally harvested natural materials like bark, vines and branches but it doesn't stop there. Over the 23 years I've been creating sculptural art baskets, I've learned to refine the materials in such a way that they honor nature but also really take it up a notch into what I call rustic elegance. For those of you who might be wondering "how does a collection like this stay together", let me share some insider secrets. Almost all the baskets are wired together with the main bark and wire piece as the anchor. I then added the branch to the left, wiring that basket on and then everything else falls into place. This make it easy to clean and transport to a different location, if needed. Dusting you ask? Forced air or feather dusters always do the trick and are easy on the materials. For more of my sculptural art baskets, check out my current inventory page or some of my other featured work like fireplace mantel sculptures, tabletop collections or wall hangings. I'd love to create something special like this for your home, too! |
AuthorMatt Tommey is a sculptural basketry artist and basketry teacher working in East Texas. His work is commissioned and collected around the country. Archives
November 2024
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