BETTY KAUFMANN
For
thirty-five years Betty Kaufmann worked at a successful
e-commerce business with her husband and is now settled
in a beautiful home enjoying the fruits of that labor.
But all those years of not actually seeing tangible results
have led her down an artistic path she could hardly have
expected. It began with a class in basket weaving at
the Sedona Arts Center; Kaufmann rose to the challenge
of not only perfecting the skills taught but expanding
on what she learned until she found herself creating
woven basketry unlike anything she’d seen before.
"I wanted to do something
significant," Kaufmann remembers. That eagerness
left her stumbling onto techniques that others would
later tell her simply couldn’t be done. Rising
to the challenge of executing her unique ideas is what
keeps Kaufmann inspired. Her first basket had 50 spokes
four feet in length to weave off. Large, colorful baskets
remain her trademark along with the explosive wall hangings
she calls "vortexes".
For Kaufmann, it is elements
of color, size, unique shapes, and open spaces within
her weave, combined with added beading or bases of gnarled
pine baskets or even rock that makes her pieces so unique.
She employs a variety of weaving techniques, a variety
of often rare beads and even has holes drilled into small
rocks gathered outdoors that she can then work into her
pieces.
When Kaufmann prepares to create
a new piece she lays out her coils of custom hand-dyed
reed to decide on a progression of colors and writes
this down, along with notes about what type of bead she
may need as well as where she may work a window or double-window
into her weave and whether spiraling, backward weaving,
or textures such as that supplied by weaving in custom-dyed
sea grass could be added.
"It’s a left-brain
and right-brain process," Kaufmann explains, going
on to point out that adding a profusion of rock beads,
for example, could add weight both literally and figuratively
to the side of a basket – creating quite a tilt
if not properly addressed.
Once the plan is in place Kaufmann
begins working early in the morning and continues for
12-14 hours. Planning, executing and finishing a piece
could take over a week. Every piece Kaufmann creates
is completed with two coats of UV protection.