Melinda West | West Gardens Basketry

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

Clam Basket – A Story By Ed Carriere

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This 15 minute Cultural Art Film is Now Available - New Canoe Media After decades of dreaming, and two years in the making, this story has found a beautiful way to be told. For the Puget Sound Coast Salish People of the Suquamish Tribe, weaving baskets from cedar limbs and roots and digging clams are age-old traditions that come together in the … [Read more...]

Sharing a Cultural Art Experience Through Film

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Over the past thirty years, it has been a great honor for me to be a witness to what could be called a cultural revival, renewal, or renaissance, within the local Puget Sound First Peoples communities where I live.   I've directly benefited from this rebirth of cultural and ecological knowledge and the ways of thinking about learning and being an … [Read more...]

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