In Honour of my Teachers

Since I wove my first basket, my love affair with basketry 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. I have also been able to form deeply meaningful relationships with other weavers that have become like family in ways I could not have expected. I am deeply humbled by the many layers of this interwoven path and all of my teachers who have woven with me and shared their gifts. 

When I first began weaving baskets I explored many types of basketry from twining, stake and strand to coiling, in many ways and techniques. At this stage, I was mostly self taught but I also give thanks to Polly Pollock, a woman from England who showed me the basic skills of basket weaving early on in my journey and gave me the roots from which my own exploration could grow. After some years of exploring different techniques and all sorts of other techniques that seemed to make sense or work for me that I hadn't been taught by another human at this stage. I do however very much view the plants we work with as teachers themselves, as they have their own way of showing us how to interact and weave with them. I suppose at the beginning of time, before the first basket was woven, something of this nature of convergence with creation would have occurred. 

Some time on, I had begun almost exclusively weaving coiled baskets and was becoming deeply immersed in the peacefulness, interrelationship and soft joy it brought me within the emergence of such baskets. I was beginning to notice in more depth how the rhythm of weaving in a coiled spiral, rather than other techniques which don't require the weaver to move in this same motion, felt like an extension of myself somehow and just simply felt, somehow, more in tune with my deep soul. I later learnt from my Emberá teachers in Panama, who exclusively practice coiled basketry (except for some utilitarian plaited baskets), that this is deeply embedded in their cosmology and this connection within coiled basketry is understood between the weaver and the wider cosmology of the living earth. Coiled baskets are formed by a central core plant (fibre) that forms the structure or “bones of the basket” (as referred to by my Emberá teachers) and then another fibre is wrapped around the core in a spiralling motion. There are many different ways of coiling, from leaving the core exposed to reveal the core plant, which I often like to do, and many people exclusively practice closed-coil basketry which completely covers the core and is often used to create patterns and more detailed designs. 

Whilst exploring coiled basketry for some years in England, my homeland I had also become enchanted by the work of many nature-based and indigenous peoples who weave coiled baskets, but the fine coiled baskets woven by the Emberá and Wounaan people of eastern Panama, brought a sense of wonder that connected within me in ways that never left me. At the same time, I was working on farms and doing my best to soften the discomfort I was feeling, witnessing the progression of ecological breakdown and abuse of the earth and trying to figure out what it might be like to live in a way with more sovereignty over how we exist from the state and global capitalism. I was splitting my time between the farm work and weaving baskets at the time which often coexisted beautifully as I would discover different vines that were suitable for my weaving experiments throughout the day on the farm. 

After learning more about the Emberá people, I started to research how I might reach out to one of the communities and express my admiration of their basketry and was put in touch with the leader of one of the communities who invited me to weave with them. The initial intention was to come for a month but I stayed for five and three years on, the community has become like my second family.

 All I know of these plants is with deep honour to the shared knowledge of the women and the beauty of their intimacy with weaving baskets from the forest for generations. 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.

Living with the Emberá teaches me many things, but most meaningfully, it gives me hope as I constantly witness how it is possible for humans to flourish and live as part of their ecosystems. Despite long and ongoing colonial histories of displacement and violence, the Emberá maintain deep bonds of interrelationship with the land they are part of. I hold much gratitude for being so welcomed as a fellow weaver from another culture, in a history whereby my culture has caused so much suffering to their people and continues to do so. I am greatly humbled by the ways that weaving together over long periods of time seems to create a web deep enough to hold all the ways we are separate and all the ways we are together. I consider the women who so generously share their knowledge with me as my teachers, friends and family.  

I divide my time between living with the Emberá and returning to my homeland and family in England a few months each year. I am also working on a project with the community, which we look forward to sharing more about soon.