Hand-Woven Placemat — Ivhu (Set of 2)

Handwoven raffia and twisted fibre placemats, made in Zimbabwe.

Ivhu. Earth. The colours say it before the name does. A blush-pink centre opens outward through rings of golden ochre and deep olive-brown the palette of laterite soil, dry savanna grass, and the darkened earth at the base of a msasa tree after rain. This is not colour chosen for trend. It is colour carried in from the land.

The coil-weave radiates from a small open eye at the centre a deliberate void that anchors the spiral and gives the piece its sense of movement, as though still in the act of being made. Each concentric ring shifts tone incrementally, the transition between blush and gold and dark so gradual it reads as organic rather than constructed. The outer border of rope-twisted fibre loops frames the whole in the same deep brown as the earth tones within the piece complete, contained, resolved.

Laid at a table set with earthenware and linen, the Ivhu disappears into the composition in the best possible way. It does not perform. It belongs.

Supplied as a set of two.