Simon Cooper · The Bumbling BasketeerSimon Cooper is the only oak swill basket maker left in Scotland. He works from a single room in Crieff, splitting coppiced oak with a cleaver, soaking the strips, weaving them while still wet, the same way the form has been built for four hundred years.
Simon Cooper is the only oak swill basket maker left in Scotland. He works from a single room in Crieff, splitting coppiced oak with a cleaver, soaking the strips, weaving them while still wet, the same way the form has been built for four hundred years.
The desk-size brush. Small enough to live in a drawer or a wash bag. The bristles are tampico, a natural plant fibre drawn from Mexican Agave and Yucca, stiff enough to clear keyboard crumb or to brush a nail clean.
Hand-bound in coloured nylon cord, with a choice of cotton handle, red deer oak bark tanned leather handle, matching thread handle, or no handle at all. The shape comes flat-bottomed or tapered.
It is a small object, but the same hands are making it as the swill baskets. Simon is the only person left in Scotland weaving oak swill, and the same precision goes into a desk brush as into a fishing creel.
The desk-size brush. Small enough to live in a drawer or a wash bag. The bristles are tampico, a natural plant fibre drawn from Mexican Agave and Yucca, stiff enough to clear keyboard crumb or to brush a nail clean.
Hand-bound in coloured nylon cord, with a choice of cotton handle, red deer oak bark tanned leather handle, matching thread handle, or no handle at all. The shape comes flat-bottomed or tapered.
It is a small object, but the same hands are making it as the swill baskets. Simon is the only person left in Scotland weaving oak swill, and the same precision goes into a desk brush as into a fishing creel.
