03/06/2025
This spring on Saturna Island, eco-artist Sharon Kallis will be offering a Wild Fibre talk on Thursday, March 27th, and a walk and workshop on Friday, March 28th. Participants who sign up for one, two, or all three of these activities can expect a tactile experience foraging for, learning about, and crafting with a variety of beneficial plants that grow in our bioregion.
Timed to coincide with Saturna chef Hubertus Surm’s NettleFest happening on Saturday, March 29th, these events will be an occasion to gather and celebrate Saturna Island’s abundant stinging nettles and their gifts of medicine, food, and fibre.
Email [email protected] to register.
PROGRAM:
Thursday, March 27th
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm - Wild Fibre Talk & Demonstration at the Community Hall - $15
Sharon will give a talk about the three plant fibre sisters of flax, h**p, and nettle, as well as other native, cultivated, and invasive plants growing on Saturna Island that provide materials for handcrafts. The evening will include a tactile show and tell of clothing, netting, and basketry made from local plant fibres. Participants can try their hands at stripping fibres from nettle stalks. Fibres processed during the talk will be used in Friday afternoon’s workshop.
Friday, March 28th
Explore cultural connections between plants and people while learning new skills using raw materials from nature for creative practices.
10:00 am to 12:00 pm - Wild Fibre Walk in Winter Cove - $15
In the morning, Sharon will lead a walk to forage for spring nettles for medicine and food while identifying other bountiful, local plants that can be harvested for dyes, fibre crafts, and basketry.
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm - Wild Fibre Workshop at the Community Hall - $20
In the afternoon, Sharon will lead a conversation around the properties of native and cultivated plants including nettle, flax, h**p, fireweed, dogbane, milkweed, willow, daylily, dandelion, rushes, reeds, and sedges. Even invasives like Scotch broom, English ivy, and Himalayan blackberry can be raw materials for art and craft. Continuing the show-and-tell of projects made from these plants, Sharon will demonstrate the steps from stripped fibre to spun threads. Participants will learn the simple process of making 2 ply cordage from which nets, twined baskets, and more can be made.
About Sharon Kallis
“How can I be a maker, without first being a consumer?” Sharon Kallis began asking herself this question over twenty years ago in response to a creeping feeling of dis-ease about the materials she was using in her practice as an environmental artist. She began investigating unconventional fibre sources and approaches to art and handwork in her studio, tracing lines of knowledge about how to harvest and prepare fibres, and adapting techniques to use them. Since Sharon is a community activist and connector at her core, her passion and skills quickly expanded into a community-wide pursuit. Through the EartHand Gleaners Society she founded, Sharon has made it her mission to empower new groups to be makers in connection with the land and continue to grow the community of artists working with invasive and native plant fibres and dyes. Artists and dancers, gardeners and herbalists, weavers, knitters, spinners, scientists, ecologists and educators, from First Nations as well as settler communities, have all come together to share and contribute. This spring, Saturna Islanders will be part of that wild fibre journey.
