Melinda West | West Gardens Basketry

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

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Grateful for Wonderful Students

July 31, 2016 By Melinda

Folded Cedar Bark Pouch with Braided Border and Shell Button

I've been meaning to catch up on blogging, but life has its way! Between a bumper crop of raspberries and Marionberries to pick, regular harvesting of our produce, family gatherings, and a lovely hike in the Olympics with friends, I've been silent! I hope to remedy this beginning now, with some entries that are retrospective of the past year or … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving with Cedar, Workshops Tagged With: Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network, BARN, Cedar From Tree To Pouch, spring, students, teaching, workshop

UW Society of Ethnobiology

May 30, 2015 By Melinda

It was a beautiful day for the outdoor workshop 'Weaving With Invasives' held in the lovely Medicinal Herb Garden on Seattle's UW campus.  I'm grateful to the UW Society of Ethnobiolgy which hosted this event, and especially to Alex Harwell and Ashley Blazina. Along with organizing this event they made sure we had plenty of English ivy and Reed … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving from the Wild, Workshops Tagged With: English ivy, ethnobiology, ethnobotany, ivy, Small Plant Fiber Projects, spring, students, UW Society of Ethnobiology, Weaving with invasives

Cedar Workshop June 6, 2015

May 12, 2015 By Melinda

Cedar Bark Pouch

June 6, 2015, I'll be teaching a workshop at the Rolling Barn, in Rolling Bay Washington.  I'll be bringing in a freshly cut Western Red Cedar tree so students can learn from the tree to the finishing, how to make a folded cedar bark pouch.  The class size is limited so every person will get plenty of individualized attention. There will be enough … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving with Cedar, Workshops Tagged With: Bainbridge Artisans Resource Network, BARN, Cedar From Tree To Pouch, spring, students, Weaving With Western Red Cedar, Western red cedar, workshop

Weaving With Western Red Cedar

May 11, 2015 By Melinda

It was a lovely week at IslandWood this May, with every kind of weather. Warm and sunny, then cool winds with dramatic clouds and thunder, torrential spurts of showers, and back again to warm slightly humid air, scented with the fragrance of everything living.   I brought a simple project for both the graduate students professional … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving Nature, Workshops Tagged With: cordage, Eagle Rock Multi-Age School, inner cedar bark, Island Wood, Professional development, sap is up, spring, students, The Evergreen School, The Valley School, Weaving With Western Red Cedar, Western red cedar, wild rose blooms, Woodenville Montessori, woven Cedar Bark Mat Wall-Hanging

IslandWood Students 2014

July 2, 2014 By Melinda

Happy

This May I had the opportunity to bring a freshly cut Western Red Cedar tree with me to IslandWood so the young people I worked with each week could learn first hand why this tree has been, and still is, so highly valued by the Local First Peoples whose ancestors have lived along the rivers and shorelines of the Pacific Northwest for thousands of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving Nature, Workshops Tagged With: artist in residence, graduate students, IslandWood, spring, students, teaching, Weaving With Western Red Cedar, workshops, woven cedar pouch necklace

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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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