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Gift pick No. 8: Karl Vidstrand barbed wire baskets

By Craig Nakano
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For the next installment of our Handmade Holiday Gift Guide, we turn to the Ojai Art Festival, running through Nov. 24 -- a celebration of work made from trash and meant to provoke questions about waste. That’s where, if you’re lucky, you’ll see the barbed wire baskets of Karl Vidstrand.

The artist scavenges in the Mojave, near where he lives, for the desert detritus that accents his pieces. What’s intriguing about the resulting designs is that they subversively prevent each basket from performing its function: holding stuff. The wire barbs and thorny branches are deterrents to accumulation.

Vidstrand’s baskets are meant to stand as stark sculpture, and they’re priced as such. The one that caught our eye at the HumanArts Gallery in Ojai is $900. For more on the trash-themed art show, go to www.ojaiartfestival.com.

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@cnakano | craig.nakano@latimes.com

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Craig Nakano

Craig Nakano is the assistant managing editor for Entertainment and Arts. He joined The Times as an assistant travel editor, later served as home editor and most recently was the fine arts editor, leading a team whose accolades included a Pulitzer Prize and an Online Journalism Award. A California native, he worked at the Desert Sun of Palm Springs and at the San Francisco Chronicle after graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He lives in Long Beach with his husband and son.

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