The harvest is original. In the middle of the swamp, the basket weaver Lucile Fourtier and his small group of pupils pick long stems of Iris, without much interest at first glance. "Open your eyes to the vegetation that surrounds us, that's also wild basketry," explains the craftsman.
Ten years ago, Lucile Fourtier put down his baskets in the village of Marais-Vernier (Eure). Rather than turning to planted land like osieries, the former maternal assistant only uses the plant fibers that surround her, many of which are adapted to the humid environment, especially in a strip of land taken from the marsh.
Rush, sedge, bramble, ivy, hedge clematis: between marsh and forest, the harvest is always abundant, especially during the winter period, when the sap has left the stems to nestle in the roots. The rule is, however, that no more than 30% of the resource be removed.
Transmitting ancestral know-how
Once dried, the plants will be used to form objects using different techniques. This June, sheltered under the large parasol in the garden of her workshop, the young basket maker introduces her trainees to the art of spiral basketry. At the feet of the learners, the dried bouquets of rush and sedge will be braided in spirals.
"We learn to make objects with what nature has to offer," Philippe and Florence, trainees from the Caen region, confide with enthusiasm. These picking and weaving techniques, the couple intends to transmit them to their grandchildren, "to awaken them to this ancestral know-how and because nature is a source of happiness".
An activity that is not very remunerative and laborious - it takes a day to make a single basket - that few still practice as professionals in the region. “But, in the past, on the other side of the Seine, there was a tradition of making baskets from chestnut trees, says Lucile Fourtier. They were used to unload the boats and the tradition was lost with the arrival of plastic. ” Despite the difficulties, the young woman therefore perpetuates a Norman tradition and does not intend to throw her links with the nature that surrounds her into the basket…