About Ruby Taylor
Educator
As ‘Native Hands’, I provide a supportive space for people to develop their skills and creativity, as well as their connection with the living world. Witnessing the sense of achievement and satisfaction experienced from making a basket or pot in the landscape, from foraged materials, is inspiring.
We can feel deeply nourished and uplifted by taking time out of an often busy and stressful daily life to be creative in the woods round a fire, with birdsong, creatures, wild plants and like-minded people.
I’m a trained educator and maker with over 30 years’ experience, appreciated for my ability to teach the techniques of basketry and pottery with clarity and patience. My courses have a relaxed and inclusive atmosphere.
With a BA Hons in 3-Dimensional Craft (majoring in ceramics), I then trained as an Art & Design Secondary-level teacher. I later developed my work with a Diploma in the Therapeutic Application of the Arts and went on to receive formal basketry training in London and with a number of UK basketmakers.
As a team member of East Sussex Archaeology and Museums Partnership (2009-15) I taught ancient craft & technology to all ages, and co-constructed prehistoric-style dwellings. I offer trainings and courses for heritage and cultural organisations.
I’m committed to keeping a heritage of craft skills alive for the future.
I’m grateful for traditional wisdom and knowledge, and for all the kin I have learned from -and continue to learn from- along the way.
Artist – maker
My work as an artist-maker is materials-led and rooted in place. Creating with plants, plant fibres and wild clay; concerned with origins and connection and the immersive, sensory experience of making. I create sculptural land art and smaller scale vessel forms.
Immersed in the whole cycle of production: harvesting in a sustainable way, processing the raw materials, I forage materials from woods, hedgerows and from the land where I live in Sussex, UK.
In the making of my work, a dialogue emerges between myself (my hands), these wild materials and the place. I’m driven by a desire to live a reciprocal life with our ecological relations, alongside the compulsion to create with my hands.
My work is also informed by having lived and worked in remote areas of Sudan and Ethiopia, and by extended periods of silent contemplative practice in the natural world.
A short film about why I do what I do. Filmed on location in the Sussex woods where I teach Native Hands courses.