by Ruby Taylor | Dec 5, 2023 | All Journal Entries, Courses, Foraging, Wild Pottery
What is Clay?Ask this of anyone and they’ll most likely reply ‘mud’. And that’s true… but there’s also more to it than that. It’s made up of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Clay minerals are formed over long...
by Ruby Taylor | Jan 7, 2023 | All Journal Entries, Courses, Foraging, Mindfulness & Re-Wilding, Wild Basketry
A photgraphic essay. Weaving bramble baskets in the woods, I’m joined by photographer Bethany Hobbs. These are her words and images, her story of our day. The humble bramble, the scratcher, the snarer, the snagger of jumpers, the bearer of tongue-staining fruit,...
by Ruby Taylor | May 2, 2020 | All Journal Entries, Courses, Foraging, Wild Pottery
Lots of us haven’t made anything from clay since primary school, and it even then it was most likely commercially produced clay, which is bland in comparison to stuff you dig yourself. Perhaps that was also the last time many of us got truly stuck into squishing...
by Ruby Taylor | Apr 4, 2018 | All Journal Entries, Courses, Foraging, Wild Basketry
After a day of making cordage from foraged plant fibres, my grubby fingernails show evidence of all the separating and scraping. Once you’re committed to the steady, repetitive nature of prepping and twining cordage, it’s a deeply satisfying process. So...
by Ruby Taylor | Jul 29, 2015 | All Journal Entries, Courses, Foraging
It’s a busy time for foraging plant materials right now. The plants have made all the vegetative growth they’re going to make this year. And now they’re setting seed. Over the past months I’ve logged key spots in my mental map of the neighbourhood, spots where certain...
by Ruby Taylor | Jul 18, 2015 | All Journal Entries, Courses, Foraging, Stonehenge / Heritage, Wild Basketry
During the Neolithic time at Stonehenge, there would have been willows growing on the banks of the river Avon, which ran right by the houses situated at nearby Durrington Walls. These are the Neolithic dwellings that have been reconstructed at Stonehenge visitors...