About

Hi Im Felicity Hall, i was born in the year of 1989 in Wiltshire, South England to an English father and an Irish mother. I came to basket weaving at the tender age of 27 after a long period of mental dis-ease. During the slow period of recovery that followed i found little in the world that gave me any sense of ease and i could not push myself back to life. Something inside me had closed down and the ember of my imagination had relinquished. A year on i met a stone carver who was carving the headstone for my fathers grave at the time. I came to his workshop in the next village to try to carve a stone tile but unfortunately like many things previously, it felt impossible. I had been depleted of all energy and curiosity in the world by the endurance of the long depression that enshrouded me. I never finished my tile and the kind man suggested i weave a basket. At the time I was puzzled by this suggestion but it stayed with me and regularly came into my thoughts seemingly out of nowhere.

I took my first steps into the natural world gathering ivy and wisteria vines from around my mothers small village that had been my sanctuary for the past two years. I twisted the vines and made small baskets that resembled pigeon nests and hanging structures that looked like wild dream catchers. Perhaps in some way at the time the plants i was interacting with were showing me some new way to belong and dream in the world again and the dream catchers were part of that. I didn’t think much, i just did and i slowly found the hours were passing and i didn’t feel like my soul was in torment any longer. I gently began to notice more of the plants and trees around me and they didn’t ask me the same questions that humans did, at a time when i didn’t feel able to exist in the human world. It was as though each time i wove a basket, i wove a small part of myself back into the world and i was beginning to feel a sense of curiosity and imagination within my body and mind that I had not felt within me since I was a young girl. Weaving was teaching me something; I was starting to feel a deep sense of harmony and balance within the rhythm of weaving that was inviting me to feel a different pace of time, a relationship that felt softer and deeply needed within my bodily ecosystem. One that existed long before the breathtaking pace of the capitalist mindset and is ever-present within the life-way of basket weaving. 

Writing this here in 2023, 7 year on weaving has never left me. Weaving has both been the medicine that supported in a time of great need and my ongoing companion that brings me a sense of belonging and balance in the more-than-human world. Weaving with the plants constantly alters my relationship to being in the world and what i notice around me. I used to walk through the land and feel as though i was looking upon something other than myself, seeing a landscape only as a beautiful scene to be enjoyed for my own fulfilment. This is the dominant commodification and objectification of the natural world that i was taught and felt in my mind and body until i started to weave and became more curious about my entanglement within the living world. I was taught to consume nature on those holidays to the beach or to the mountain. My relationship with the living world was a one-way street, i was a visitor in the natural world with only fleeting moments of appreciation that felt meaningful. These years on, i feel so grateful that what started as a yearning to feel a sense of ease in the world has blessed me with so much and become the heartbeat of my life guiding me ever since.

Nowadays i understand my craft and basketry practice as part of a broader journey of remembering my interwoven relationship, intimacy and connection within the living world. Through working with the living materials I weave my baskets from, I feel connected to the abundance of the living world. Weaving invokes a type of ecological groundedness whereby I feel part of the ecology of the land I am living on and with. 

Through weaving I feel the Earth wants to be loved, to be nurtured and seen so weaving with the plants and stones, the earth's gifts and spending time out on the land tends to be a reciprocal relationship. I feel I am receiving and I feel I am tending and feeding the land with my love, my gratitude and praise. I see that my wellbeing and the Earth's wellbeing are inseparable. Creating something so beautiful from something so simple, the fibre of a plant becomes a vessel, transformation happens in your hands, the alchemy of this occurs externally as well as internally, the landscape out there mirrors the landscape in here so to speak.

I see my work mostly as a prayer and honouring of the natural world that humans have treated with such disrespect which I believe mostly ensues because of lack of connection. We have forgotten how to respectfully coexist as co-equals with the larger system of the living world and our planet is sending us signals of distress that are so continual now they seem almost normal. Perhaps one of the most fundamental reasons humans can cause much destruction to the earth with no consciousness is because it is seen purely as resources for human consumption. We have fallen so far from our alignment with life and become so separated from our interdependence within the web of life that we seem intent on destroying our only home. In the face of this, my work is both an act of beauty and an act of protest to reweave roots of remembrance of our interelationship with Earth. 

Weaving has brought me into a deepened connection, intimacy and belonging within the living world and continues to invite me into relationships with the plants, people and ecologies I am situated within. In 2020 i came to Panamá to apprentice with a group of Emberá women who weave intricate coiled baskets and masks from the forests where they live in the Darién and Chagres regions of eastern Panamá. The initial intention was to come for a month but due to the covid pandemic initially i stayed living with the Emberá for nearly two years where they adopted me as fictive kin in their communities. The core community became like a beloved second family to me and the roots of my love for the wilds of this beloved country which i now call home. I now live in the province of Los Santos where i met my partner. We live with our four dogs within a beautiful village community and are building a small homestead where i will continue to weave and share with others who wish to learn.

It is always with thankfulness to the Emberá women who have taught me so much of what I know of many of the plants that I continue to weave with here in Panamá. My relationship with these plants is with deep honour to the shared knowledge and guidance of the women and the beauty of their intimacy with weaving baskets from the forest for generations. So much of what I know about the plants that I continue to live alongside and weave within the ecosystem here, is because of time shared with the women in the community gathering and processing weaving materials as well as learning about so many other uses of wild and cultivated plants over the last two years. My skills in finer coiled basketry have been enriched because of many hours weaving with skilled Emberá women in the community, harvesting, processing, dyeing and weaving. It is not just the physicality of my basket weaving practice that has been nurtured by weaving with the women here, but also my relationship to time and harmony within the weaving process and many other parts of deepening into a way of being with the land and water in relationship.

Workshops

Rekindling Ancient Skills, Reweaving our hands with the Earth

I feel that as human beings, we have lost our way and fallen out of alignment with life, forgetting our place within the interwoven web of life that sustains our wellbeing. We fail to see our interdependence together with the earth, the life giving plants, trees, waterways and soils and continue to treat the earth as nothing more than a resource for human consumption. We have forgotten how to respectfully coexist as co-equals with the larger system of the living world and our planet is sending us signals of distress that are so continual now they seem almost normal. 

I am passionate about sharing my knowledge of basketry with others and the ways it has been so fundamental in reconnecting me to my belonging within the more-than human world. My workshops are interwoven with my work as an artist weaving roots of remembrance of our interrelationship with Earth through the practice of basketry. I believe that we are most well when we are connected with the natural world and with our creative selves as part of the web of life. In my own journey, curiosity and creativity have been fundamental in rekindling a relationship to  belonging here on earth in a meaningful way. Weaving baskets from the gifts of the plants that the Earth provides is a journey of reciprocity and respect for the land we call home. 

“Weaving continues to teach me how my own body and nervous system are part of the same cycles and seasons, something that has always been part of our coexistence with earth. I feel this is one of the greatest teachings that nature-based crafts can offer us in this time of cascading crisis and separation from nature -  an invitation to remember a way of being in the world that honour’s the pace of the living world, of plant and root, and soil and sky. It constantly teaches me so much about relearning and returning to live a pace of life that gives me peace and feels harmonious within my internal ecosystem and the wider natural ecosystem outside my body. When I am weaving I somehow feel part of the wider creation story and the energy of that in my own participation with my environment.”

During the workshops i share there is an invitation to inquiry. To observe, feel and sense the texture, temperature and lifeforce of the living materials and plants in all their beauty and to participate and feel “in relationship with” the natural world. I am less interested in teaching participants to finish perfect pieces of basketry, and more interested in cultivating a space of inquiry to explore our relationship with our hands and the plants we are sharing time with in genuine curiosity.

By engaging our senses, we actively participate in observing our relationship with the more-than-human world. This is a practice of mindfulness where we are able to feel part of the natural world and grounded within the larger presence and web of life. The intention of my workshops is to create a safe and comfortable environment for us to come into relationship with nature and engage the creative parts of ourselves that our culture often does not invite space for.

I host workshops in English or Spanish.

If you have an idea, a space or some magic you would like to weave together please get in touch. I live full time in Panamá and do not travel often, therefore all expenses will need to be covered.

I also work with the Emberá women to support facilitate these workshops and occasionally with other artisans close to where i live.

If you would like to inquire about arranging a workshop please email me.

connect@mindfulbasketry.com

Research 

Throughout my work as a weaver, I have become deeply interested in people-plant relationships, especially the interdependence that basket weaving illustrates between people and the land they are situated within. I am particularly curious about what we can learn from understanding the wider bonds of belonging and kinship relations that weaving demonstrates about human coexistence within the ecosystems they weave with. I am researching how cultural and socio-political migration patterns, environmental governance and rights to land effect and inform changes in traditional basketry life ways. Throughout history and in this present day basketry has been influenced by globalisation, land-theft, privatisation of land and ancestral harvesting locations for many nature-based groups of people. Having witnessed first hand whilst living with the Emberá people how environmental destruction directly threatens their cultural artistic expression and identity, this is something I continue to research and raise awareness of. I also work to encourage dialogue on these issues of ecological and cultural erosion through my work with the non-profit Dayirã Neka organising educational workshops to facilitate dialogue between the artisans within diverse cultural contexts to encourage awareness of, and meaningful responses to these issues.

I am also interested in the interwoveness of human wellbeing and planetary healing and my work is informed by questions raised by ecopscyhology and deep ecology and how we can return to ecological consciousness living in kinship with Earth though mindful creative practice.

Buying My Work

I live in a remote off-grid area in Panamá which means i do not have access to the fast paced courier services that many of us are accustomed to. I am several hours drive from the closest location where i post my parcels, therefore i go every 7-10 days to make the journey efficient and mindful of resources. I ship with DHL so once your purchase is on the journey it usually goes well. From the date you place your order i aim to get your purchase to you within 20 days. Due to courier services being limited in Panamá the prices are excessively high in comparison to the United States and Europe and the domestic postal service is unreliable. If have researched high and low to see if there is a more economical and reliable way to run my online shop but there is not.

I occasionally sell my from a base in the UK where i am able to send my work to you for a “normal” price. I intend to do shop drops of this manner twice a year.