Wild Alive Outside
Ancestral Crafts
Basketry, spoon carving, earthenware, and handcraft rooted in natural materials — gathered, processed, and shaped by hand.
What We Offer
Group Workshops
Small-group classes in basketry, spoon carving, natural cordage, and other crafts. All materials are provided, most of them wildcrafted from local landscapes. No experience needed. Workshops typically run 3 hours depending on the project, and some take two or more sessions.
Private Events
Birthday parties, team retreats, family gatherings, rites of passage, date nights. Any group that wants to make something together. We bring the materials and instruction to your location, or host at the Bear Creek Wilderness. Private events can be tailored to your group’s interests and skill level.
The Materials
We work with what the land provides. Cattail harvested locally, pine needles found in the forest, wild cucumber vines from my backyard. Some materials are gathered at Bear Creek; others come from foraging sites across western Oregon. Sometimes I add color to fibers by dyeing them with natural plant dyes, gathered when and where they are offered by nature. Part of what makes this work meaningful is the relationship with the landscape it comes from: knowing where your materials grew, what season they were harvested, how they were prepared.
The Story Behind the Work
These crafts begin as a treasure hunt. Not an online search for deals or free shipping, but a journey into nature. Before any weaving happens, we go outside, eyes scanning, searching for what the land has to offer. Pine needles beneath a towering ponderosa. Cattails tall and green, waving to us by the lake. Willow by the stream and dogwood stretching long and straight, offering those beautiful bright red stems. The craft doesn’t start when we sit down to work. It starts when we step outside and begin to notice.
When the gathering is done, the work deepens. The finding gives way to processing, the processing to weaving, and each stage becomes its own meditation. There is a rhythm to this work, the repetitive motion of hands coiling, stitching, bending fiber around fiber, that is older than any of us. These are the movements of our ancestors. The same sounds: the soft creak of a willow rod yielding, the whisper of grasses pulled through a stitch. When we work this way, we are not making something necessary in our modern world, but we are speaking a language our ancestors knew. The motions of our hands are familiar to them, and in that familiarity, we can feel their presence around us. No matter our bloodline, each of us is descended from humans who worked with the natural materials from wherever on the planet they lived. The earth has gifts for each of us, no matter where we live, but most of us have forgotten how to look.
In a world where you can buy a spool of synthetic cord for much less than many earn in an hour, choosing to process nettles into cordage by hand is a strange and deliberate act. But there is something in it that feeds the soul, something that has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with belonging. To a place. To a lineage. To the long, unbroken thread of people who shaped the world slowly and lovingly with their hands.
Workshops & Events
Small-group classes held at local venues and at Bear Creek Wilderness. Sign up for the newsletter or reach out to get on the list for upcoming offerings.
Current & Upcoming
New workshops are in the works — check back soon or get in touch to be the first to know.
Get on the list →Past Workshops
