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Most books found in the crafting section of your local bookshop offer lessons on making, but few will give you the opportunity to re-emerge as a keystone species entangled into the web of life you’ve always belonged to. Wild Basketry by artist-maker Ruby Taylor does both.
Weaving wisdom gathered through decades of creation in collaboration with the living world, the author offers detailed instructions on ancestral basket harvesting and creation. Prefacing her guidance are pages of sage observation and discovery on basketry as an act of reciprocity that can fill the cracks colonial culture caulks through consumption, with kinship instead.
Natural cordage and baskets made from foraged plants are among many ancestral crafts every society of our species has participated in since time immemorial. Much like animistic spirituality, it is a part of the human story that connects us all. Having read this book and experienced one of Ruby’s in-person courses, I can genuinely say that the act of basketmaking stirred something ancient within me. A seed sown in the human soul, which germinates each time we enact any part of our former cultures of reverence.
In our increasingly digitised world, it is no surprise that there is an awakening of desire to connect to our landscapes and ecosystems. What we may not realise is that our bodies also miss the tacit one-to-one knowledge passed down through traditional crafts. This book reminds us that it is our shared heritage as humans to create with our hands, and also our shared heritage as humans to be in relationship with the land. Yet this heritage is so easily lost. It takes only two generations for traditional knowledge and its accompanying cultural heritage to disappear.
Ruby writes: “Heritage is what we inherit from the past and what we value and pass forward from generation to generation; it’s a living, dynamic thing.” As the reader goes forth, following the thoughtful instructions on foraging and weaving that this book offers, questions on heritage begin to arise. It’s as if the plants themselves want us to reflect on what has been passed down to our generation, and what remains for the generations to come.
The six projects for making baskets and cordage covered in Wild Basketry fill the gaps in our heritage that our current culture has cut. They connect the maker to both the wild plants that grow plentifully in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, and the cycles of harvesting and making that would have accompanied (and still do accompany) the humans living there.
Ruby beautifully describes the soil-to-soul story that is offered in this type of interaction with our landscapes: “Sourcing crafting materials from the natural world brings more appreciation of their true value. We develop an understanding of the time and energy a harvest requires, the impact of harvesting on the plants’ future growth, and the impact on the complex ecosystem in which the plants grow and on the creatures dependent on those plants. The natural response of a caretaking and reciprocal relationship evolves, and with it an inevitable sense of belonging. This can sensitise us to our potential as a keystone species, meaning our capacity to engage in the ways that have beneficial impact on the overall ecology through stewardship.”
Just as with Ruby Taylor’s in-person courses, this book inspires its readers to find their place in the art of creation, and to live the history of our hands, in our original collective home, connecting threads from the past to help guide our weaving of the future.
Wild Basketry: Making Baskets and Natural Cordage from Foraged Plants by Ruby Taylor. Herbert Press, 2025. ISBN: 9781789942484
