Wickerwork Industry

Wickerwork can be said as the branch of artwork. It firstly appeared thousands of years ago. Historically, this artwork was originated from the nomadic people who created some kind of rope made from rattan and wood to help them hunt the animals. It uses the material from bamboo, rattan, leaves, plastic, and any other materials as long as you can get the fibers from it. Wickerwork is usually made by using simple tools like knife, scissors, pliers, and so on. In order to make wickerwork, someone must have the needed skills. Many handmade wicker products can be created from this art branch.

These handmade wicker products can be related to the applied artworks. Applied artworks here might mean the artworks that have direct connection with the human life. By considering the connection with the human life, these artworks, indeed, must fulfill the values of its usage but at the same time the aesthetical and beautiful values are also maintained. Therefore we can find the examples of this wickerwork in our house. Our wicker basket, chairs, tables and bas are some of the examples. Although this wickerwork has direct connection with our life which supposedly make it easy for the artists to search the markets for the products, but there are some problems faced by the wickerwork industries. The problems are related with the supply of the material and the number of artists. The main material in creating these handmade wicker products is fibers gotten from bamboo, rattan, willow, reed, and so on. It is quite easy to find bamboo but it is not easy to get the supply of rattan whereas the products made from rattan are highly demanded by the market. To overcome this problem, the artists seek for supplementary material to create the products. They usually use synthetic material which looks similar to rattan. They also planted their own rattan trees so that they can get the material for the handmade wicker products directly from their field.

The next problem is the number or the artists. It seems that there are only few of the artists who are interested in this artwork branch because the materials to create the products are not easy to be gotten. They prefer to choose another art branch such as sculpture, painting, and so on. It is quite ironical that actually the market of these products is huge. The handmade wicker products are demanded highly by the people from foreign countries. They are attracted to these products because they are unique and can be used in their daily life.