Meet the willow weaving artist whose work is popular on both sides of the pond

Laura Ellen Bacon works wonders with willow. She weaves it, twists it and knots it into organic sculptures on a monumental scale which in the past few years have graced, among others, Chatsworth in Derbyshire, London’s Somerset House and the Denver Art Museum in the US.

This spring and summer, her works star in two different exhibitions: she is one of six artists creating site-specific installations for Ground/Work 2025 at The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, US; and, closer to home, she is showing Into Being, a vast new sculpture, at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield in West Yorkshire (April 5–September 7). Not bad for a child who started with dens made of raspberry canes at her parents’ fruit farm.

1. It took some 80 bundles of Dicky Meadows, a Somerset willow, to form Into Being
2. Its organic shape suggests natural elements, such as cocoons, seed pods and burrows
3. Yet, the sculpture also responds to the architecture of the 18th-century chapel in which it is displayed
4. Measuring nearly 20 ft long and 10 ft high, it allows visitors to stand in its curls and folds
5. At the end of the exhibition, Into Being will be taken apart and turned into wildlife habitats