Melinda West | West Gardens Basketry

Growing, gathering, and weaving with plant fibers from the Pacific Northwest

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Lessons Learned Through Weaving

March 27, 2016 By Melinda

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Wooh! No way am I ever going to be a “mad”weaver. But what a great time I had sharing this learning time with IslandWood graduate-student Lucy. We so enjoyed the opportunity to learn from one of my favorite artists, Dawn Walden, who makes the kind of baskets that really do take my breath away.  I won’t share any of the humbling moments of this class…let’s just say, it is really good to feel utterly confused and lost now and then…just to remember how important it is to give people time to learn at their own rate…..patience….patience….Patience!

And with such a gracious teacher as Dawn, when we came back the second day to finish our baskets, she must have been up all night “fixing” everyones gross mistakes, because we all came back to some really nice looking basket starts! It was fun to work with Birch Bark and enjoy it’s paper-like, yet strong, qualities!

Thanks to Jo Hart at Wilderness Basketry for hosting this class, and many thanks to Dawn Walden for coming far to share her wealth of knowledge with us.

Filed Under: My Teachers, Resources Tagged With: Dawn Walden, Jo Hart, mad weave

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About Melinda

Forty years ago, while sitting on the beach playing with my young children, I made my first basket out of a pile of willow trimmings someone had tossed there. It looked wildly made like a crazy bird’s nest. While being together with my two sons on a beautiful Pacific Northwest shoreline, this simple experience of crafting with the natural materials at hand kindled a passion for creating forms using plant fibers. I thank my family, my community, and all my teachers for cultivating this gift in me.
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