Colorful Baskets Made of Recycled Telephone Wire

A traditionally woven basket made of out of a completely modern material may be a contradiction in terms, but upon one viewing there is no denying that this seemingly incongruous relationship works beautifully. The process yields colorfully patterned baskets made in the tradition of grass-weaving.

Found over at Better Living Through Design:

These remarkable baskets are made in South Africa from recycled telephone wire. Known as izimbenges, they were traditionally crafted from hand-dyed grass, using patterns and techniques passed on for generations. The artists form a community where the women work at home, enabling them to care for their families while earning a sustainable income.

The baskets would make for an attractive accent piece for your home or a great gift. Available in assorted primary colors, earth tones or black, white and red, they can be purchased from Terrestra for $175 for a medium basket and $295 for the larger basket.

Comments (11)

These are lovely and very tactile. They can be purchased for far, far less money from other outlets.

I bought a really awesome little black and white basket at the Denver Art Museum last year. Definitely a lot cheaper!

Just to drive you totally mad - all the way from Cape town (South Africa), we think of these as street art and can buy them from pavement vendors anywhere and everywhere!!! For quite literally a couple of dollars - really $10 - $15 absolute max!!!

These are beautiful! Who would have thought that something like telephone wire could be turned into this.

Ooh... what other outlets, mirandabee??

these are so beautiful

as children we would find this wire
on the street walking home from school
we made what we thought were
beautiful rings
with antenna spirals

these baskets are a much better use
of phone wire

@sagekitten85: www.indigoarts.com is just one of many sites selling these. A Google search for "telephone wire baskets" will reveal others. :-)

@simiya

Thanks for the link, they are beautiful.

My father was in telecom and would have spools and spools of telephone wire around. While I could never do anything as elaborate as this, I would split them and make my friendship bracelets out of it.

swandiver - I had a babysitter who used to do that and I wanted to learn so badly as a kid. I work in telecom now (Bell Canada) and I have tried but all I made was a small ring for my co-worker. A couple of our new hires (while they are supposed to be training :)) have created alien-like creatures out of the telephone wire, staples and electrical tape. Pretty phenomenal what these guys come up with! Wish I had a picture to show you.