Editorial : Anglo-Francophone!

Le Lien Créatif (LLC for short) is an independent quarterly magazine devoted to basketry and the art of basket weaving. It is celebrating its third anniversary and this means that as you read this page, twelve issues of the magazine have already been published and distributed… With 3 free editions that is a total of nearly 800 pages of information, advice, tips and tricks and reports on how to weave well! A record without a doubt and it is only the beginning… The LLC journey continues: it takes on an international dimension…

This anniversary is an opportunity for us to go further and we are pleased to announce the release of this first edition of LLC in English. The bet is probably a risky one, but we are firmly convinced that it is a risk worth taking. Basketry is a universal discipline, it needs an international media!

This new publication will be available on the internet in the form of PDF documents and as a printed 68 page magazine. It will allow us to reach a wider audience, even on the other side of the planet.

At one time or another, many of us have had the feeling of being something of a dinosaur, the last of the weavers, a lonely oddity, weaving away all alone. But one of the lessons of these last three years has been that basketry is alive and well and being practiced with passion across the globe. Here in the pages of LLC, both the printed and the yet to be printed, you will find a rich variety of these stories. With our new English language edition we invite you, the weavers of the world, to send us letters which we can include. To make a contribution to the section “You’ve got talent” with pictures and the stories of your weavings. To contribute articles on any subject you want within the vast subject that is basket weaving.

The thematic dossiers are an exciting example of what we want to do. Take the example of the dossiers about the plants used in weaving. To date we have covered eleven different species, in order of appearance they are: bramble, ivy, reeds, periwinkle, purple moorgrass, scots pine, clematis, hazel, linden, rattan and bulrush (two dossiers). There are still dozens to be discovered, not least the willow, chestnut or bamboo to name but three!

In fact, to date, we have barely touched the infinite richness of this ancient art that still remains, in many parts of the globe, at the heart of all human activities. The immensity of this ancestral knowledge carried by practitioners of basketry is unique, it is not by chance that Unesco has inscribed it in the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, while stressing that this so sacred knowledge it is threatened.

There is an urgency to collect and transmit to those who want to preserve. Much is at stake: Unesco emphasises that, like subsistence agriculture, or the arts and crafts books, self-knowledge constitutes an effective barrier to poverty and insecurity.

Gather knowledge, develop it, sharing the “secrets” in transmitting the basics, are some of the main tasks of Le Lien Créatif, it has no other purpose than to keep alive the art of basket weaving…

Bernard Bertrand

Le Lien Créatif magazine, Free Special Edition (September 2015).

Tags: editorial