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 although that may seem true on the face of it, there’s a lot more to clay than that. Clay has been formed over millions of years, since the time of the glaciers. It’s is made up of a number...
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 | Aug 26, 2020 | All Journal Entries, Foraging, Wakehurst 2017
Site specific sculpture commissioned by Wakehurst in 2017 as part of the Wild Wood Festival. Situated in Pearcelands Wood, their newly-opened ancient woodland. The horizontal oak branch (from which hazel poles are suspended) fell in the great storm of 1987. The branch...
by Ruby Taylor | May 2, 2020 | All Journal Entries, Courses, Foraging, Wild Pottery
Ankle-deep and barefoot in the cold stream (or thigh-deep as we were one April after a long rainy period), grubbing away at an exposed seam of clay. It’s just like being a child again, squidging clay between our fingers, stirring memories of making mud pies,...
by Ruby Taylor | Jul 9, 2019 | All Journal Entries, Foraging, Wild Basketry
‘Plants are integral to reweaving the connection between land and people. A place becomes a home when it sustains you, when it feeds you in body as well as spirit.’ (Robin Wall Kimmerer) There’s an arable field margin under two ancient oaks that is species-rich with...
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...