Fran has been a traditional weaver and textile artist for many years, and applying the same techniques and ideas to industrial materials is a natural progression of her work. She began working with copper, as its warm colour held a deep attraction for her. Copper wire is easily available in many colours and, like traditional fibres, it is flexible and can be manipulated and patinated. She now has more freedom to design and improvise on the loom as she weaves. As such, the resulting wire cloth can be shaped into a sculptural form that has no real function other than being something beautiful, with wonderful colours and textures. Fran names them ‘vessels’ rather than ‘baskets’, as the latter word implies a function. The Rumples developed from a desire to explore the pliability of the material to create sculptural reliefs that also reference the visual aesthetics of the copper wire vessels.The vertical wall hangings are initially woven flat on a loom, then later shaped by hand into deep vertical folds. As the copper panel is bent and twisted, the surface takes on an exciting energy and the flatness is transformed into a metal wall sculpture with a lively, dynamic and colourfully vibrant surface.