A potato skib is a very traditional Irish basket. It serves many purposes, including sieving boiled potatoes, and serving them with a bowl of salt using it as a makeshift bowl. The remains of the potatoes used to be thrown out for the hens to clean up and after the skib was washed clean, it was often hung on the wall to dry. Brendan Farren loves the practicality that the skib represents and its link to the landscape.

Height 8 cm
Diameter 40 cm

This platter serves the purpose of receiving hot pots in the centre of your dinner table. Brendan used three different colours of willow to give a dynamic contrast to the simple shape. It's the two 'lugs', or handles sticking out of each side which gives this platter it's unique and interesting shape.

Diameter 30 cm

Decorative piece in willow and driftwood. A curlew is the largest sea wading bird in Europe, and is also on the Red List in Ireland.

Length 60 cm
Width 20 cm
Height 45 cm

This sculpture of a heron was a commission from a community allotment in Derry. The beak is wrapped in copper wire, the neck is woven using a single rod rand with an odd number of uprights, and the body is a random weave, to give the impression of wings and feathers. The challenge always for Brendan Farren is to make it look alive, getting the curves right.

Height 45 cm
Width 40 cm

This composition of two baskets plus the natural material with which they're made sums up for Brendan Farren a basketmaker's journey. From growing and gathering the willow from nature, through to its preparation and the formation of two iconic baskets; the squareness of a creel, made upside down, woven with 18 rods at once, to the simplicity of a rounded frame basket, 2 hoops, and one weaving rod at a time.

Length 40 cm
Width 50
Height 60 cm