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 | 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
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 | Aug 7, 2017 | All Journal Entries, Foraging, Wild Basketry
For ages I’ve been wanting to make a pack, or back, basket from wood splints. They’re best made in the spring when the sap’s rising, so earlier this year I took a trip to the woods near Bath for a few days to make one. There’s a long tradition...