Working at her craft for the past 30 years, and having distant First Nations relations who are expert craftspeople has taught Barbara Kingsland a thing or two about weaving baskets.

Artisan and former teacher Barbara Kingsland’s unique Kootenay baskets and copper art pieces are created at her home studio in Harrop, which sits on the edge of the community forest, close to Nelson B.C.

Barb first started with pine needle work which is finer, moved to the larger woven baskets, then into the mix came the cedar bark baskets that are all locally harvested and done in a sustainable manner.

For the cedar bark process, Barbara works with trees that are already cut down (during the time when the sap is running), takes off the outer bark, then uses a knife to cut wide strips off the inner bark. It is stored until needed, then re-hydrated, and cut again into a weaving width. Finally, it is again cut to the right thickness ready for weaving.

“My goal is to work with all local materials – which is challenging,” Barbara emphasizes. “The weaving is the fastest part,” she adds laughing.

Barbara’s husband Terry is her support. He gathers the cedar bark, and helps make the handles at their home studio which offers workshops and a selection of art pieces.

For the past four years, they have even weaved copper into the cedar bark material to create stunning functional bowls and decorative pieces. For their gallery see kingslandartisans.ca

Barbara grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in a family of teachers and artists – so her own path fell right in line.

“My strong influence came from my grandfather who worked with his hands, doing pottery and metal work. He was a distant relation of the Abenaki tribe, a First Nations upper New York area tribe who were expert basket weavers,” she reveals.

Barbara received her Bachelor of Education from University of Iowa, with a minor in Art, then went off to the Art Institute in Chicago to take courses in art history. Ending up in Idaho where she met her husband, Barbara started her weaving business and carried on with her teaching career.

It was twenty years ago when a teaching invitation came from Canada asking her to work at the Nelson Waldorf School.

“What I liked about Waldorf was that it had a creative approach to teaching. I could express myself better as a teacher through that curriculum of rich storytelling and handwork.”

During her time teaching at Waldorf in Nelson, Barbara didn’t have time to weave but after leaving the Waldorf school 10 years ago, immediately jumped back into basket weaving full time. She ended up joining the Nelson Craft Connection Co-op which today offers her line of baskets and copper art pieces.

Utilizing her vast experience and long heritage has given Barb the weaving techniques to combine tradition with a modern twist to create functional unique sustainable pieces of art.