Rabat

Rabat
Lillian Elliott
1992
Materials
Birch bark, zippers, and silk ribbon
Size
17 1/2 x 7 inches diameter
Racine Art Museum, The Karen Johnson Boyd Collection
About the artwork.
Even though her MFA degree emphasized ceramics and painting, Lillian Elliott became a significant name in contemporary fiber when she expanded the boundaries of basket making. Elliott not only used unexpected materials in new ways, she treated the basket as sculpture—a structure with an “inside” and an “outside” that could be explored from many different angles. Rabat is one such sculptural basket, named after the capital city of Morocco.