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(Barbara Kingsland) If you look at BC it is such an
amazing beautiful place, anyplace you go it is
beautiful.
>>In the crisp clear morning air
of British Columbia's Kootenay Region, stands of
cedar trees provide an abundance of natural
material ready made for a pair of
creative artistic souls.
Just north of Nelson British Columbia
across a narrow portion of Kootenay Lake near the
small town of Harrop, Barbara Kingsland and her
husband Terry work diligently, harvesting the
bark from a cedar tree that will eventually be
used to create beautiful hand-made baskets that
aren't quite like any other.
Hailing originally from the suburbs of Chicago,
Barbara planted herself in British Columbia
starting out as a schoolteacher before learning basketry.
(Barbara) The first basketry I ever did was
pine needles and that came from a workshop that I
took in Spokane 30 years ago when I was there for a
couple of days, that then became a real passion.
It's very labor-intensive it takes a long time to
complete even a small basket so I began to yearn
for something that I could make faster. We discovered
cedar bark and the cedar bark was thrilling not
only learning how to harvest It and we have a
back 40 full of Cedar and we use it a lot to build
with so that was very exciting to find that
material that was local and it's beautiful as well
it's an amazing material
(Terry Kingsland) This is the actual basket material.
(Barbara) we have to get it during the time
of the year when the sap is flowing, that's when
it comes right up off the cambium layer.
(Terry) And for storage we roll it up, and the nice thing about
cedar bark is you can rehydrate it.
>>After harvesting the bark,
strips are cut with tools that were designed by
Terry to help save time and energy in the process
of preparing the wood fiber for weaving.
(Barbara) He's been great he's an inventor I think
he's realized about himself for instance when
we first started to harvest the cedar bark we
sometimes would get strips 25 or 30 feet long if you
can get the whole strip the length of the tree and
he designed 2 different cutters for me, one that
cuts it into however wide we want the strips and
then the other one to thin it sometimes we can get to
strips out of one if the bark is thick enough so he
just invented these little machines the same as he
did, we work with copper as well, he took an old
jigsaw and hammer whipped it up, so we put the metal
in there and the jigsaw goes up and down.
>>As a self-described "earth person", Barbara's
connection with organic art forms wasn't a fluke.
Her foray into basketry was happenstance in the
beginning, but it became clear there was something
beneath her desire to create useful objects
while at the same time respecting the earth.
(Barbara) Well I think we're losing too much
connection with the earth I think were mistreating
the earth because we've lost the connection I
think then we lose the connection with ourselves
if it's all interconnected then it makes sense the
more we get into the electronic world and we
get pulled out away from the earth we just don't
respect it anymore.
(music)
(Barbara) I do have small a part of native Indian in my
heritage on my maternal grandfathers side and
that's always been a really important thing to
me I know it is probably just a tiny little bit but
it's been very inspirational to me and
they were basket makers. Their basketry is totally
different than what I do nonetheless they like many
Indian people I think basketry was very common
different styles and but I didn't really even know
that about this Abeniki people when I started
making baskets it came to me later and I thought
that was an interesting coincidence there's
something about baskets that's very sort of primal
they're ancient and they are vessels for whatever
you want them to be there's something just
really charming to me about them.
I look at pictures of old native women sitting and making
their spruce root with their old gnarled hands
and I just really connect with that somehow.
I don't want to make something that's superfluous, I want
to make something that is useful but beautiful as
well, so to weave, I call it weaving function and
beauty together, but also within that it is the
challenge of making sure that the craftsmanship is
well done, that the structure is sound, and um
I think it is the artistry, I think it holds
a different creative thing for me individually.
>>Running the gamut from square to melon shaped
baskets, interweaving color especially in the
pine needles, creating baskets within baskets and
searching for the perfect wooden handle around which
to form a cedar basket. Barbara puts them all
together to form artwork that is functional,
beautiful, and green. Quite a nice combination
when it is created by someone whose life is built around
an existence that honors herself and her heritage.
(Barbara) The response has been
amazing, they do speak to people, the work does
speak to people on a level that makes me feel really good.
There's just nothing like that feeling that
gives you to create something from yourself
taking your head and your heart and your hands to do
it is important.