November 2016 Newsletter

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Steve@DunbarGardens

Rexville Grange Art Show
November 11-13 & 19-20, 2016. 19229 Rexville Grange Rd., Mount Vernon, WA. Annual arts and crafts show in the Skagit Valley the two weekends before Thanksgiving featuring baskets, paintings, pottery, glass, photography, jewelry, weaving, and wood from Northwest artists. As you can see from the photo above, Katherine has a lot of nice willow baskets that she is bringing to the show. Opening party Friday, November 11 from 6-8pm with live music from Campbell Road.

National Basketry Organization 9th Biennial Conference
July 18-23, 2017. Katherine has been invited to teach Colors and Textures: Playing with Willow at the next NBO conference to be held at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. Her class is already full at this time, but there are some spaces available in other workshops. Check the NBO website to see which classes are available. In addition to classes there will also be a couple of basketry exhibits. You can find out how to enter your work or go see the work from the NBO website. Katherine is one of the Board members who have been working hard to make this a great event.

Willow Cuttings

We will start taking willow cuttings orders for Spring 2017 delivery starting in December. Take a look at the website for all the details. Order early to reserve your cuttings; we usually sell out by March.

Classes

Katherine’s classes at the upcoming Northwest Basket Weavers Guild Winter Retreat in January are all full. Likewise the class at the National Basketry Organization Conference in July is now full. At this time Katherine doesn’t have any plans to schedule more classes for 2017. For people in the northwest, we would suggest checking out the Northwest Basket Weavers Guild and/or the Columbia Basin Basketry Guild to find out about classes and events with other basket makers. There is also a list of basketry guilds across the country on the National Basketry Organization website.

Farm

You are welcome to stop by the farm to check out Katherine’s baskets when the April shows are over. You can find out more about what we’re up to by visiting our website at dunbargardens.com. We are also on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks for your interest!

April 2016 Newsletter

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Steve@DunbarGardens

What an early Spring! Tulips are in full bloom here in the Skagit Valley. Perfect time to visit the valley and check out Katherine’s willow baskets in a couple of arts and crafts shows.

Rexville Grange Art Show:

April 1-10, 2016. 10-6 daily. 19229 Rexville Grange Rd., Mount Vernon, WA. Annual arts and crafts show during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival featuring baskets, paintings, pottery, glass, photography, jewelry, felted hats, weaving and wood from Northwest artists. Katherine has a great selection of willow baskets on display and it’s right near the tulip fields!

Skagit Artisans: April 16 from 10-5 and April 17 from 10-4. Johnson Historic Barn at 17322 Beaver Marsh Road, Mount Vernon, WA 98273. First year for this event organized by Nina Foster whose family renovated this historic barn. Located near the flower fields it should be a fun event to take in the beauty of the valley and some of the fine arts and crafts as well.

Schack Art Center 20th Juried Art Show:

Through April 23, 2016. 2921 Hoyt Avenue, Everett, WA. Biennial collection of Northwest artists in a variety of mediums for an eclectic exhibit. The Schack is one of northwest Washington’s preeminent non-profit arts organizations. Katherine has two pieces in the exhibit – “Irish Potato Basket” and “Layers”.

Farm

August 2015 newsletter

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Steve@DunbarGardens

Summertime and the living is busy! Katherine is just back from the biennial conference of the National Basketry Organization. As a current Board member of the organization, the past months have been a busy time preparing for the event. Two years ago Katherine was a teacher; this year she was one of the worker bees making the event go smoothly. However there is no time to rest with upcoming events in August and September. Read on.

Weaving Willow

La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum: August 5 – 30, 2015 in La Conner, WA. Katherine has been invited to exhibit her baskets in the museum’s Landmarks Gallery for the month of August. There will be an opening reception on August 5 from 4-6 pm. This is a great fiber arts venue and Katherine is excited for the opportunity for her first solo show. She has been working on some new baskets and will have a nice selection of her work on display. There will be two other fiber arts shows in the museum concurrently – quilts by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry and fiber art from several Graduate Students of the Gail Harker Center for Creative Arts.

Trip to Europe

Third World Wicker and Weaving Festival in Nowy Tomyśl, Poland: August 21 -23, 2015. Katherine is headed back to this large gathering of weavers hosted in Poland. She attended the festival in 2011 and had a great time meeting basket makers from around the world. The event has weaving competitions, basket and sculpture exhibits, craft fair and more; all combined for a remarkable event. Katherine is traveling with her friend Maria Bullock from Orcas Island who is a native of Poland. After the festival, they are going to learn some traditional baskets from Polish weavers. They are planning on some other stops in the UK, Netherlands and Czech Republic. Look for trip photos and updates on our Facebook page.

Basketry Classes

September 16-19, 2015: Columbia Basin Basketry Guild Fall Retreat. Katherine will be teaching two classes at the CBBG annual gathering of basketmakers at Rockaway Beach, Oregon. As of now the Irish Potato Basket class is full, but there are a couple of spots left in the Oval Flower Basket. All info and registration is available through the CBBG website.

January 27-31, 2016: Northwest Basket Weavers Guild Annual Retreat. Katherine has submitted proposals for classes for this upcoming event. We will post info to our website when we know which classes have been chosen.

May 14-15, 2016: San Juan Island Textile Guild. Katherine has been invited out to teach a two day class in fitching on San Juan Island.

All Things Considered VIII

National Basketry Organization exhibition: July 9 – August 9, 2015, The Grand Hand Gallery, St. Paul, MN. September 19 – November 8, 2015, Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA. Biennial exhibition of outstanding basketry work sponsored by the NBO. Katherine’s piece is titled Moon 2, a willow tray 20″ x 6″. There is a catalog available from the NBO.

Willow Cuttings

It might be time to start thinking about willow cuttings. It’s always good to have an idea of where you are going to plant next spring in case you need to prepare the spot this fall. Steve takes orders starting January 1 through March 31. We ship orders through the end of May according to your planting needs. We will be updating the website with 2016 availability and prices by the end of the year. If you ordered in previous years, we love to hear feedback on how the varieties are growing in your area.

Baskets

A big thanks to everyone who has purchased Katherine’s willow baskets. Working basketmakers help keep the traditions alive.

Best wishes,
Katherine, Steve & Spike

9th Anniversary gift: willow

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Steve@DunbarGardens

One morning in November we received an email from Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. Since it was the 20th anniversary of the magazine, the style editors were creating a photo montage of anniversary gifts for the Winter 2015 issue. They wanted an image of a Katherine Lewis willow basket for the 9th anniversary gift of willow. Of course their deadline was the next day!

They had pulled some photos of fruit baskets and trivets off our website as examples. What they needed were high resolution images. I started browsing photos, picking out possibilities and adding them to a dropbox folder. I picked out some additional baskets that might make good ninth anniversary gifts like Irish potato baskets, flower gathering basket and some lovely arm baskets.

The magazine’s art team gave me a thumbs down on my images and wanted to shoot them in-house. Well by now it was close to 5 in New York, and a little late for the assistant style editor to get approval for giving me access to their shipping account. We were easily persuaded to overnight ship at our expense and invoice them later for the cost. Didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity! We packed up a couple of Irish skibs and a couple of trivets that Colleen requested. We took a big gulp when we saw the express overnight shipping price to New York. But hey, ‘Martha’ will be good for it later, right?

So the baskets arrived the next morning and were photographed by the magazine’s pros. Details confirmed in the afternoon and a Katherine Lewis willow trivet was in the photo spread. “Will they be available for sale starting December 22?” Katherine made plans to weave some trivets!

anniversary gifts by year from Martha Stewart Weddings magazine

photo courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings

The magazine was released at the end of December, and they eventually posted an on-line gallery of the 20 gifts. How fun! When we shared the link to our Dunbar Gardens Facebook page, people were quick to comment that we were going to get slammed with orders. What orders? No rush for trivets so far. We have had many 9th anniversary gift buyers over the years. However most of them have been men buying something willow for women, or occasionally another man. So we had to ponder how many men are looking at Martha Stewart Weddings magazine? Probably not enough!

Thanks to Colleen Banks and Martha Stewart Weddings! You can view more suggestions for willow baskets to gift on the ninth anniversary here on one of our Pinterest boards.

Willow Basketmaker

Handcrafted Willow Baskets by Katherine Lewis