[marketplace] Bolga Baskets

Currently *on sale* at Urbanoutfitters.com , beautiful hand-woven baskets from Bolgatanga, Northern Ghana! I definitely see these things around, being sold in boutiques around the Village and many other fair trade organizations. They're perfect for picnics, and the leather handles make them pretty sturdy.

These baskets have a special place in my heart. When I was in Ghana, I had the opportunity to hang out and interview some of the women in a co-op who were making them:


A group of American students, we began our trip in mid-November from the city of Tamale to the Upper Eastern Region of Ghana searching for Baobab trees. Passing a few hazy bushfires and seas of wispy fair-haired savannah grass, we finally came across a most majestic figure; the baobab, perhaps the most quintessentially African tree, stood with its portly trunk laden with fruit, hanging from its root-like limbs. Underneath, we were greeted with yet another surprise, colors. Bright hues of orange, green, and purple leapt into my eyes yet still somehow seemed to be a natural extension of the surrounding landscape.


The bodies which contained these colors were containers themselves of space, baskets. The scene soon became boisterous—interlaid with the baskets were fans, hats, gourds, dancing, and thunderous children with their humble mothers, their laps strewn with straw. Nevertheless, the beauty of the colors, intricacy of the patterns in their grassy-woven bodies, how they play with form and space convinced me that indeed these baskets are art and their creators, artists. 


These artists carry several identities; they are mothers and daughters, “Northerners,” strong African women, but in their society, they are deemed foremost as widows. Although these women have worked hard in perfecting their craft, they are still only known as the basket-weaving widows, which in this region is not only an overwhelming title but a crippling one. Thus, in order to study them as artists, we must not only have an understanding of the evolution of their craft but also their identities as widows, incorporating a dialogue about the pervasiveness of cultural traditions, especially those which continue to violate the rights and dignity of others. Only then could we appreciate their art for both their aesthetic qualities and the personal stories of struggle behind them. 


When the director of Widows and Orphans Ministry, Betty Ayagiba first came to speak to our student group in November, she was particularly distressed. Only moments earlier, a widow had entered her office with a broken arm. Her husband’s family had severely beaten her because she refused to choose a male relative to remarry. The practice of true levirate highlights one of the most controversial customs regarding widows in Ghana. Originating from Biblical times, it involves marrying the younger brother or nephew of the deceased husband to continue having children for that husband because marriage is meant to continue into eternity. Therefore, the widow has little power over her own body. WOM has found that levirate marriages are responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS to the widows and to young men and also puts a financial strain on the widows for having to take care of so many children. Refusal to remarry often leads to physical abuse. On the one hand, these rituals are steeped in tradition forming an integral part of the cultural fabric for people in this region. However, like female genital mutilation (FGM) and facial scarring, since widowhood rites are discriminatory and oppressive to women, their place in Ghana today should be reconsidered. In Bolgatanga, there is this group of escaped widows who having been rejected by their own communities have come together to form their own community, supporting and finding a family in each other.

During my interview, one widow offered to teach me the basic double-weave technique. She had already completed the base of the round basket and was not weaving stripes of different colors around the different spokes in a circular fashion, building the body of the basket. The materials she uses are elephant grasses from Southern Ghana. They normally grow on riverbanks or swampy areas. After harvesting, they are sun-dried to guarantee a better quality basket. She then dyes them by submerging the grasses into vats of boiling artificial dyes. The weaving process begins by splitting each grass into two halves down the middle. These halves are then twisted together, making them more durable. These straws are then dipped into water, making the weaving process easier. The base begins with twisting together a set of straws to make a structure resembling a spider; individual legs stick out allowing straws to be woven horizontally in and out along the ribs. At the top of the basket, the ribs are pushed flat and a straw is looped around them, creating a rim. Handles, straw or leather, may also be added. Finally, the excess straws sticking out at the bottoms are trimmed. After mastering this process, weavers are free to develop their own patterns, structures, and styles leading to unique colorful and challenging creations. 

It is not difficult to understand why handicrafts like baskets or pottery are termed traditional art. Basketry is a traditional skill; it is traditional in the sense that it immortalized the Ghanaian, even African culture, but the art itself is certainly contemporary. We must give these women credit for being innovative and developing their own individual style, building upon but not simply copying the basketry of centuries past. This begs a further question: what is contemporary art? Does an artwork have to reinvent the wheel or be abstract to be called contemporary or could these baskets be tributes, “containers of memory,” celebrating a long-standing heritage but still being relevant in their own right today.

The women who created these baskets are contemporary, and this struggle between how we wish to divide art into traditional and contemporary reflects the same struggle of these women; it is the traditions surrounding widowhood which wholly encases and defines them, but are they not modern women? Weaving their stories & requires artistic vision and a contemplation of their present situation. If anything there baskets tell the stories to the international community of how they are overcoming a very contemporary issue in their society.

Link to a video of our trip by Jaimie Shaff.