Melinda West | West Gardens Basketry

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

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Bare Bones Abstracts

January 28, 2021 By Melinda

Bare Bones One by Melinda West

Those of you who are weavers, that work with plant materials you grow and gather yourself, likely understand that building a fine basket takes a lot of time. Sometimes it’s freeing to allow oneself to do a type of work that isn’t about the perfection of the weaving, but instead is more about allowing beautiful materials to breath, to gesture, like … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Artwork, Community, News Tagged With: Bare Bones, Curly Willow, Fig, hazelnut, inner cedar bark, willow, Yew

Heat Spell-New Work

June 28, 2015 By Melinda

It has been unseasonably warm for our part of the world, so it has been a good time to clean out the studio.  Lots of my precious space is taken up by scraps of barks and grasses I save for making paper. Finally, time to cook up the cedar and make paper!  Also it has been a great time to lay out all my found materials, many that my arty friends … [Read more...]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Bare Bones, cedar paper, maple poles, new work, summer

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Recent Posts

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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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Melinda West and basket, Indianola WA

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