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Basket Weaving 🧺

Name: Basket Weaving 🧺
Start: 2022-06-04T09:30:00+00:00
End: 2022-06-04T16:30:00+00:00
Location: Sunbury Shores Arts & Nature Centre

June 4, 2022 @ 9:30 am – 4:30 pm

Saturday, June 4, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm. At Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre.

Registration Deadline: May 20, 2022. $150.00

Beginner / Youth (12+) / Adult

Picture of a basket. Text reads, Basket Weaving with Ralph Simpson.

Create a beautiful basket with Ralph Simpson, one of New Brunswick’s top fibre weavers, using natural plant fibres – Soft rush, sedges, grasses, leaves etc. A great day of fun for family and friends!

This one day workshop will be an opportunity for beginner and intermediate basket weavers to explore the use of plant fibre in the construction of a small basket. You will learn about foraging for plant fibres like common rush, iris blades, and lily leaves. Ralph will be demonstrating methods of processing and storing the material, as well as several weaving techniques to help you complete your basket in a day.

All materials are supplied, but you are encouraged to bring your own fibres – wool, fabric, ribbon etc. to incorporate and personalize your own creation.

Materials Required by Students: Optional – Bring materials from home to personalise your basket!

About the Instructor:

Ralph Simpson is an artist working in basketry and sculptural plant-fibre weaving, with a background in forest biology. He is developing techniques and researching plant materials for use in his art. Materials include wood fibre (ash, birch, maple, spruce, cedar, willow), tree bark (cedar, birch, willow, ash, poplar, maple ), grasses, garden plants (iris, day lily, Dracena sp.), handmade paper, and natural threads (cotton, linen, wool) – for the most part, collected in local fields, marshes, and forests, adhering to harvest principles based on environmental integrity and sustainability.

Ralph has studied basic traditional weaving techniques in Canada, USA, Spain, and Poland. Sensitive to issues of appropriation, he is interested discovering new materials to develop his artistic style. His innate connection with the natural world, field, forest, and wetland is expressed in his work, combining traditional weaving techniques with innovative materials to create a contemporary art form.

He has featured in numerous exhibitions and has been one of our Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Artists in Residence in 2020.

$150