Pine Needle Basket Weaving

Sing up at the Gualala Arts Front Desk, 707.884.1138

Join Bea Acosta for a fun and creative workshop on how to make a pine needle basket. You will make a small basket 4”-5” in diameter , learn different stitches and three different methods of starting a center. The workshop will take place on Saturday and Sunday, April 20 and 21 from 11 am to 4 pm. The fee is $80 for Gualala Arts Members and $110 for non-members, plus a $40 materials fee payable to the instructor.
You will need to bring needle nose pliers, a small hand towel, and small scissors and beads. You will make a small basket of about 4 to 5 inches in diameter, using different stitches and methods to start the center. This is a great opportunity to learn a new skill and create a beautiful and unique basket.

Materials List

Needle Nose pliers, small hand towel, small scissors, beads

About Bea Acosta

After searching for most of my adult life for a creative media I discovered my hands drawn to clay in 2000.  The majority of my learning has taken place under the tutelage of Kay Like,( Brandybuck Studios)  who provided a nurturing studio in which to explore, be creative and turn failures into learning experiences. 

I am drawn to making masks and vessels with clay. I am mostly a hand builder, employing the slab and coil method with the inclination to use natural elements to finish my pieces.  To that end I have explored different patinas such as burnishing combined with smolder fire, saggar fire incorporating seaweed, salted corn husks and copper wire, using red or white terra sigillata with horsehair and using acrylic paints .

I learned how to make pine needle baskets to enhance my pottery in about 2004.  I am now devoting most of my creative time to fashioning baskets and basket forms with pine needles, Watsonia leaves, Amaryllis leaves, sweet grass and sea grass. I am delighted in the shapes and colors I weave together to make a one-of-a-kind basket or basket form. I enjoy  combining colors and using beads to bring out the final form.   

I love the earthiness of the material used in basket making and the reverence shown to the natural elements that are collected under the mother tree.  I can sense the ancestors deep in my cells as I create. 

I have branched out in the past several years and started making baskets that do not serve a normal basket function. I call them pine needle woven creations.  There are gaps in the coils with beads that usually fill the space.  Creating a flowing nonfunctional basket is like being in a free-form dance. It is very meditative and a patience type of creativity.

I rarely develop a plan as I create with clay or pine needles. I am always assessing and letting the piece speak to me, whatever appears is meant to be. I am blessed to live on the coast surrounded by the magic of nature that always inspires me and evokes the feeling of another time and place.

Gualala Arts retains $35 fee for cancelations, no refunds after the sign – up by date of April 13