Library  Vegetable plaiting in folk tradition

I’ve long been interested in the plaiting of vegetable elements, see  Meduse  and  Alberi  in Textile Structures, and  Collane opalescenti  in Textile Design. Vegetable elements possess a suppleness that enables them to harmoniously inhabit space. Over the years I’ve been collecting and studying baskets, to which I’ll soon devote a special page in Collections. Several books in my library are devoted to basketry and vegetable structures, including structures made with live plants. They are studied both from an historical and etnographic point of view and as artistic expressions, like the works of Ed Rossbach. A small special section is devoted to corn dollies, made by peoples as different as those of Great Britain, Scandinavia, North Africa and India to thank their gods for a plentiful harvest. In the 1960s in the window of a small notions store in Milan I noticed, much to my surprise, this little doll made with rice stems. It had been made by the owner’s daughter who worked as a weeder in the rice fields near Vercelli, in Piedmont. I still hope to find out more about it from some old rice-field worker or an expert of local traditions, otherwise, fifty years on, maybe I’ll go and investigate myself.

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