Basket Maker Sally Turner is Featured as VIVA’s Guest Artist for June!
Artist Statement
In 1986 my neighbor, an accomplished basket maker and member of Michigan’s Potawatomi Nation guided me as I learned to weave a basket. I am forever grateful for her generosity of time and talent. Her encouraging words still have a lasting impact on me. Doors to an amazing connective world of nature, culture, science and art opened wide and welcomed me in. My work represents an exploration of construction techniques using long leaf pine needles, tree bark and roots, plant stems and leaves, willow and reed. True joy comes from time spent outdoors gathering materials to prepare for weaving and collecting various nature treasures to incorporate with either a functional piece or an art vessel. At times, repurposed jewelry and small heirlooms will find their way into my art.
Baskets, sculptures and framed drawings of mine have been exhibited locally and nationally. I enjoy sharing my craft through weaving classes and presentations on the journey of my art.
My pine needle work is created using long leaf pine needles from the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. The needles are roasted for hours at low temperature in a water and glycerin bath. The needles hold glycerin, which makes them stronger. If I choose to use color in the needles dye is added to the glycerin bath. Once this process is complete the needles are dried on racks and rotated daily until completely dry. They are then ready to be coiled into a vessel using various embroidery-type stitches. Not always, but often I will use a base (wood, ceramic, wire form) as an anchor for the needles and stitches when I begin a piece.
Harvesting bark has taken me to SE Alaska for red and yellow cedar, Iowa and Wisconsin for willow, and my own back yard for birch. Timing is everything when harvesting natural materials as the ease of bark removal depends on sap flow through the tree. Whatever outer bark isn’t needed is peeled and left behind in the woods. Inner bark can be processed immediately or dried for later use. Strips of bark can be thinned to produce multiple pieces (cedar and birch, not willow), these pieces can then be refined into thinner strips for weaving.
Reed is a wood-like material that comes from a species of bamboo plant that grows in a vine in parts of Asia. It is plentiful as its habitat is a tropical rain forest. Each plant can grow from 3’-5’ per day. The vines are processed abroad and sold by basket suppliers. Reed accepts both natural and commercial dyes well.
I enjoy using a variety of materials, I find working with naturals to be the most rewarding. There are many life lessons I experience when creating art; knowing when I need to be patient, working through a challenge of design and media, being intuitive with the piece as each project has a mind and soul of its own and realizing when I’ve given a piece my best and the outcome is way different than what was intended. Like life itself each piece and its journey is part of a bigger plan.
