I cultivate the roots of a thousand-year-old know-how: I take you to discover an art of great technicality and extreme refinement. I strive to inscribe the art of basketry in today's world and to accompany it into tomorrow...
Would you like to discover wicker weaving with a wicker professional?
Do you want to discover wicker weaving?
You want to learn how to weave a basket?
Would you like to discover the diversity of plants that can be used in wild basketry?
Would you like to discover a new basketry technique?
I accompany the public in the discovery of traditional and wild basketry techniques. I am proud to keep these timeless gestures alive.
I am delighted to meet the expectations of a public eager to rediscover techniques that are not sufficiently transmitted. It is important for me to teach you how to use plant resources: materials that are both noble and simple.
Participating in a basketry workshop is a total experience involving all your senses:
a moment for yourself immersed in a rare and precious art craft
an experience to create a useful and unique basketry object: do it yourself…
experiment with basketry in a small group in a friendly and supportive environment.
discover or deepen a creative craft based on traditional ancestral gestures
learn the basic gestures of basketry with the advice and guidance of a professional basket maker
touch and feel the wicker material, experience its elasticity, tone and suppleness
make your own wicker object: with the help of wicker strands, you will feel and see the object take shape as you move
learn the art of patience to concentrate and focus on the present moment
Art basketry workshop - The art of weaving nature
Alexandra Ferdinande is a French, basketball art weaver. She weaves lightshade creations with graceful, delicate features. Inspired by nature, her sculpted works of art evoke poetic feelings, she also creates modern baskets with unusual shapes and decorative weaving pieces.
Her creations are unique, she makes made-to-measure pieces for decorators and interior designers, particularly those who respect natural materials, 'slow design' and environmentally friendly decorative objects.
Enter the world of Tressages Pas Sages...
basketry with a contemporary and poetic design.
Let yourself be guided...
Workshop guarantees
Art craftsmanship guarantees you unique pieces with a quality finish in the care of details, a professional quality combining originality, technicality and innovation.
Quality Made in France, handmade, French wickerwork, wicker grown in France by wicker farmers.
High-end wickerwork pieces with a contemporary design.
Creations made in my workshop in France. Original creations with a personal touch, original shapes and poetic design.
Custom-made projects and orders.
Shipping in France and throughout Europe. Careful packaging and delivery.
Contemporary basketry
Art basketry is an infinite field of exploration: contemporary basketry allows us to consider the material wicker beyond its use. It is a question here of moving away from the utilitarian aspect of the origins of basketry to explore the artistic potential of weaving plant materials.
Since my entry into the world of basketball, I have been on the edge between art and craft. I explore the contemporary dynamics of wickerwork: I put wickerwork back into its artistic dimension by taking wicker out of the basket.
I weave wicker in volume, on a large scale, in natural spaces or indoors. I explore weaving as a creative language, as a meaningful medium of artistic expression.
Collaborations with artists have led me down unexpected paths: since then, I have been considering wickerwork in its large dimensions. With two artist friends, we created in 2015 a braided performance, danced and sung, which we called "Roots to fly". It is a constantly evolving piece and we have been lucky enough to present it to the public on several occasions in various contexts.
It was on this occasion that I began to explore the motifs of anchoring, roots, the pod, the seed, life cycles: since then, the forms of physalis have accompanied me over time. It is a seed that I keep sowing and that germinates each time in a new light.
Lighting fixtures
​
Discover a collection of designer lamps in wickerwork: hanging lamps, table lamps, wall lamps, ...
​​
Custom projects and large dimensions
Unique pieces adapted to your needs
Made in France creations: from professional to professional
You have a custom basketry project
You wish to order a unique piece to your dimensions
You are a private person
You represent a gallery,
a store
You are a professional of
decoration
or interior design
Explain to me your project by filling in the form...
And if you tell me a little about your project: the context, for example, your needs and constraints, and of course the dimensions or any other useful information...
The Tressages Pas Sages workshop responds to specific requests for professional projects and works with brands in complete confidentiality.
I have carried out research and development for luxury houses and design studios, on projects combining craftsmanship, art and design and innovation.
I deploy my skills as a basket weaver for my partners' projects, offering them the full range of my weaving techniques.
To this end, I experiment with basket-making techniques on other materials, exploring combinations of materials.
I've carried out object prototyping projects, research and development into weaving materials - plant or other, the creation of one-off pieces or limited editions, made-to-measure furnishing projects, ...
I work from aesthetic briefs and develop flat or volume samples, as well as prototypes.
My clients include color and material designers, collection managers, creative studios, interior designers and architects, branding departments for boutique projects or exceptional window displays, etc.
NATURAL LIGHTS
A poetic dialogue between wicker and glass
‘On the one hand water, slowness and suppleness, on the other fire, speed and the frozen instant.
Alexandra Ferdinande - Tressages Pas Sages - basket weaver, and Florence Lemoine, glass blower. It was a shared understanding and inspiration that brought them together in the same workshop.
The result of their meeting is a collection of lights combining their materials and expertise.
‘Each choice must bring balance and complementarity. (...) The materials are superimposed to highlight each other, while the airy voids of the wicker structure respond to the compact transparency of the glass.’
Vincent Jousseaume, in Magazine Ateliers d’Art n°168
Studio mo-mo
is an intermediary between matter and object. Its projects are based on collaboration. Hence the desire to host a residency that would bring together complementary talents.
His project? To develop the transmission of know-how. His approach? Confront a universe of materials, shapes, patterns, textures and colors, with combined talents, to bring out design pieces.
OOI residency
After an initial collective workshop, the 12 invited talents worked in pairs or as free electrons, with the aim of presenting their proposals at Paris Design Week 2024.
Liée I Collection OOI I Edition studio mo-mo
Audrey Guimard and Alexandra Ferdinande have created a sculptural design piece, a luminaire that evokes a totem pole, where light becomes a central element.
This project explores the dialogue between stone and wickerwork, with a subtle interplay of fullness and emptiness, creating a dynamic reading of the piece where contrasting materials respond and balance each other.
During this residency, the experimentation of two distinct artistic languages fosters the emergence of an innovative dialogue in the design of a lighting fixture.
At the origin of Tressages Pas Sages, in 2013, I started my activity as a basket maker in Sainte-Croix-en-Jarez, in the Loire, labelled one of the "most beautiful villages of France". This is where I set up my first workshop, within the walls of a Carthusian monastery that had become a village, in the heart of a historic site.
After training with basket makers in their workshops, I took the basketry CAP course with the GRETA in Lyon and obtained the Certificate of Professional Competence (CAP) in 2014.
Since 2019, I have set up my art workshop in the historic district of Pélussin, in Virieu, in the heart of the Parc Naturel Régional du Pilat, in the Rhône-Alpes region.
I share my studio with Florence Lemoine, glassblower and Adeline Contreras, visual artist. The workshop is open by appointment.
​
I am delighted to be able to share my workshop with other professionals. The sharing of experience and the pooling of resources are precious assets when you work alone.
​
​
In my art studio, I store my raw materials along the stone walls. I buy bunches of wicker from French wicker farmers and glean plants from the seasons (bamboo, rushes, ivy, bramble, chestnut, twisted willow, blood dogwood, etc.).
​
Basketry is an artcraft with ecological values: French basket makers transform wicker grown in France. To weave a basketry object, all you need is light tools and a water source to soak the wicker, without any products or machines.
The basket makers harve the plant material from their immediate environment and transform it with very light tools, with their bare hands, equipped with a pruning shears and a serpette, in direct contact with the material. I am proud to practice this profession with a neutral ecological impact: an art profession in phase with my time and my relationship with the world.
Alexandra Ferdinande is a French, basket-art weaver.
She weaves lightshade creations with graceful, delicate features.
Inspired by nature, her sculptured works of art evoke poetic feelings, she also creates modern baskets with unusual shapes and decorative weaving pieces.
Transforming and intertwining natural willow stems and rods have become essential for Alexandra : she seeks to enhance natural materials and brings out their pure beauty.
​
In 2013, following a career change, Alexandra created her basketry workshopcalled “Tressages Pas Sages”. Since 2019 she has been based in Pélussin, has opened a shared workshop and a joint- shop L'Etonnante with other craftspeople from the area.
At the beginning she practised natural wickerwork, collecting pliable plant materials throughout the different seasons. Today she designs more contemporary basketry: her unique weaving creations help people reconnect with sensations associated with nature.
She shapes pieces of artwork designed to make our homes reassuring places; bringing nature inside. Her creations are entirely designed and handmade at her art-workshop in France. The willow branches are also cultivated in France by other basket weavers. A large range of willow rods are used, revealing contrasting, natural colours of bark in her work.
Currently she presents her creations in art and craft exhibitions. Her creations are unique, she makes made-to-measure pieces for decorators and interiordesigners, particularly those who respect natural materials, ‘slow design’ and environmentally-friendly decorative objects.