A tisket a tasket a tree in a basket

The giant basket arrived by plane with its creator, William Colebrooke (Scrap Iron), and Rasta sculptor, Henry Wallace, in February of 2005. Magnificent though it was (the largest palm frond basket ever sewn on Andros Island) it had trouble written all over it. Customs allowed it to pass from the Bahamas into Florida - apparently the termite damage in the bottom of the basket went unnoticed due to the large number of other crafts, shells and trinkets crammed inside.

The basket traveled up through Florida in a van and arrived at our house in Gainesville with our shivering island friends. Too large for Grinter Gallery, the venue for exhibit, the basket sat in the building's entry and excited many passers-by because of its size. Countless photos were taken of students, faculty and other visitors standing in or around the enormous work of art.

When the exhibit wrapped up in mid-2005, the basket went to live in Micanopy with the co-curator. There it stayed in a small sun room gathering dust for two years, waiting to be sold or for the van to take it on a journey back to the island. In 2007, the co-curator moved and responsibility was passed back to me, the basket was transported to our garage where spiders and cockroaches immediately took up residence. I contacted Scrap Iron who stated emphatically that he never wanted to see the basket on Andros again; it made it off island and its destiny was now to live a different life.

I attempted to find a collector who would love the unique piece, and when that didn't work, a museum that might exhibit it (permanently) and when that didn't work, I offered it to UF for display in various public areas. In the interim it sat. We moved to New Orleans and it continued sitting.   

We returned to Florida and were again faced with the conundrum, "What do we do with the giant basket  in our garage?" Inspired by the work of Steve Siegel, the artist I exhibited for my thesis in 2003, we decided that the work should return to nature and made plans to move it to Luna Oak Grove (LOG), James' property on the Sante Fe River.

We learned of Scrap Iron's death a few days before our next planned trip to the river and thought it appropriate that the basket be placed in his memory. So, on Monday, we drove to High Springs in the rain, and arrived to sunshine and high humidity. James rolled the basket 1/4 mile down a path to the spot we selected, gathering chiggers all the way (17 in all - he is very itchy today). I trailed behind carrying a young sycamore in a bucket, a machete, a serrated knife, and a shovel. While James cleared the area, I cut a plate-sized hole in the bottom of the basket. Together we dug a hole into the earth, placed the basket over said hole, and planted the sapling that we brought from New Orleans. A little gecko kept me company as I squatted low in the basket filling the hole and tamping down the dirt.

Afterward, we sat on the bank of the river watching the sunset and James asked me if I said any words to Scrap Iron while creating his memorial. I answered yes, but that I'd said them quietly because it was just between me and him. "Did you?" I asked. "I was just thinking of him throughout, but I've been thinking about him a lot lately." With that, the stories began, one after another, we each took turns, laughing, talking, remembering, honoring a person very dear to our hearts.

In Memory of Scrap Iron

William Colebrooke (Scrap Iron) in December 2007


We received the news on Saturday that our friend, William Colebrooke (also known as Scrap Iron or Old Iron), died the week before. Scrap Iron was born in Red Bays and was the last of the Black Seminoles on Andros Island. He had no children and to my knowledge, was never married. After spending his teens and early 20s working as a migrant laborer in the US, he decided to stay on the island full-time where he worked as a sponger and fisherman. When the sponge beds were devastated by a hurricane, Scrap Iron began making baskets - the biggest and strongest on the island. James introduced me to him for the first time in 2002; Scrap Iron was sitting on the side of the road in front of his hut weaving a giant circular mat. "No one buys dem." He told me then. "Dey's too big to take home, so I'm gonna stop makin' dem." Two years later, when we lived on Andros, he was weaving and had created his largest basket ever.



Scrap Iron Weaving in 2004


In 2005, he exhibited this and other baskets at the University of Florida and sold some of the pieces he thought would never find their way off-island. Our last visit with Iron was in 2007, he had aged significantly and lost weight. He must have been in his late 70s at the time. He wasn't weaving any longer and was getting by on fish, conch and iguana - living a quiet life in his hut in the bush of Andros Island.

Henry Wallace and Scrap Iron after returning to Andros from their Florida adventure in 2005