Backyard Baskets: Coiling with Natural Materials

with Alyssa Sacora

Wednesday, October 28 |  10 – 4pm

Many local plants lend themselves to basket making. In this workshop, we will create a coiled vessel using leaves and grasses harvested from cultivated gardens and wild places. Coiling is a hand-stitching process that transforms a continuous bundle of fibers into a strong and versatile container. Found in cultures worldwide, it is a beautiful technique to create one-of-a-kind baskets from plants growing in your backyard.

Participants can choose to complete a small basket in class or leave with extra materials to continue their basket at home. Coiling is great for beginner basket makers and those with weaving experience that want to learn more about using local plants in their creative practice. Please note that coiling requires adequate hand strength and decent eyesight. Accommodations will be made as best as possible to support participants who may have physical limitations. All materials are provided for this workshop.

 Alyssa Sacora is a crafts person exploring plant-based mediums in the form of papermaking, book arts, basketry and natural dyes. She finds inspiration by observing relationships in the wider world. To reduce her human footprint and encourage creative thinking, she primarily works with locally available and repurposed natural materials. Leaves, vines and bark from iris, daylily, kudzu, okra, tulip poplar and willow leaves are often combined with salvaged cotton fabrics to create her palette. Her artistic pursuits are directly related to her lifestyle choices with reciprocity and mindfulness as a guiding force. In addition to and in support of her craft, she tends a 3-acre homestead in Western North Carolina with her husband, Adam. They grow fruits and vegetables, medicinal herbs, and art plants. They use solar electric and solar thermal systems for electricity and heating, collect rain water and continuously look to design their space with sustainability in mind. Alyssa has taught for a variety of organizations in WNC and often utilizes an outside setting to help her students make the connection that we are nature and that our lives are intertwined with the plants, the soil, and the air around us.

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