Choosing a basket from hundreds....

A festival of baskets – for shopping or storing, for fishermen and for cooks – fills a medieval Périgord village to the brim on a July Sunday every year.  Annual fairs, whatever the theme, can be fun or boring…. same old winemakers, same old tomato or melon vendors.  To go to a melon fair year after year, one must have a dedicated interest in the fragrant fruit.  To go to a basket fair every year (don’t count, says the vagabond after fifteen-plus fairs), my interest in woven willow verges on passion.  One Sunday in July, the weekly market in Issigeac – always colorful on its own – adds another attraction: baskets.  Stretching across the shady Place du Château between the town’s gray stone church and a medieval bishop’s palace, basket makers from many regions of France display their own wares for the shopper’s choice.  The entry fee of 2 Euros not only gives you a chance at a tombola - drawing for a prize, a basket – but helps fund the organizing of this ambitious event.

Children crowd around to watch a vanier (basket maker) coiling a wrapped rye straw basket, while at another stall, the technique involves steamed chestnut slats to construct a sturdy basket for gathering nuts.  An artisan from Brittany shows us how to make a fish trap basket and a woman chats with bystanders while deftly looping caning across the seat of an antique chair.

Chestnut strip baskets...strong, versatile, and écologique: I was heartened to see a wizened artisan from the Corrèze again this year with his elegantly finished, slatted chestnut baskets and trays.

The flexible and sturdy dark willow baskets of the southwest are in the majority at Issigeac’s fair, in an age old traditional oval form.  From the nearby village of Molières, I spotted the well known basket maker, René Carrier…over ninety and still shaping practical baskets.

Fill them with logs, grapes, plums or potatoes...

There are classes offered in the basket maker’s craft in the southwest, but my thoughts turned to the speed and finesse of these artisans’ work, wondering who will carry on the tradition.  To make hefty working baskets for wood, light, oval baskets to fill with fungi, shallow baskets for serving bread or cheese – each takes a trick or six to master the technique.

Shaping the sides of a large basket…

Of the sixty artisans at the Foire aux Paniers et à la Vannerie, many work steadily through the day to demonstrate techniques of their craft.  A simple panel banner by each stall announces the region, whether it is the Loire Valley, the Ariège or the Ardennes.  One year a basket maker from Sardinia make the journey to the foire, another visiting artisan was from Spain.  So, there are new faces every year, and hopefully the old masters will continue to bring their well woven baskets of all sizes and materials.

Baskets woven of honeysuckle roots - for tiny treasures

More basket fairs coming up! If your travels this month lead to the heart of France, the Auvergne, take a day for the Fête des Paniers in Montsalvy. This popular event in a Cantal town south of Aurillac opens with giant marionettes, and winds up with a Soirée Dansante on Saturday, July 31st 2010.  Willow growers and basket makers get together on October 2nd & 3rd in northern France in Reilly, east of Rouen for a Fête de l’Osier et de la Vannerie Française. – don’t miss the afternoon parade of the brotherhood of the noble willow, la Confrérie des Façonneurs du Noble Osier.