Meet Artisan Market Artist Sally Turner!

In 1986 my neighbor, an accomplished basket maker and member of Michigan's Potowatomi Nation guided me as I learned to weave a basket. I am forever grateful for her generosity of time and talent. Her words of encouragement resonate with me to this day. Doors to an amazing connective world of nature, culture, science, and art opened wide and welcomed me in.

My work represents an exploration of construction techniques using long leaf pine needles, tree bark and roots, plant stems and leaves, willow, and reed. True joy comes from time spent outdoors gathering materials to prepare for weaving and collecting various nature treasures to incorporate with either a functional piece or an art vessel. Repurposed jewelry and small heirlooms will sometimes find their way into my art.

Baskets, sculptures, and framed drawings of mine have been exhibited locally and nationally. I enjoy sharing my craft through weaving classes and presentations on the journey of my art.

Sally’s Process:

My pine needle work is created using long leaf pine needles that come from the Carolinas, Georgia, or Florida. The raw needles are placed in a water and glycerin bath and roasted slowly for several hours at a low temperature. The needles retain the glycerin, this strengthens them. If I choose to use color in the needles, dye is added to the glycerin bath. Once this process is finished the needles are placed on drying racks and rotated on a daily basis until they are completely dry. They are then ready to be coiled into a vessel using various embroidery-type stitches. Not always, but often I will use a base (wood, ceramic, wire form) as an anchor for the needles and stitches when I begin a piece.

Harvesting bark has taken me to SE Alaska for red and yellow cedar, Iowa and Wisconsin for willow, and my own back yard for birch. Timing is everything when harvesting natural materials as the ease of bark removal depends on sap flow through the tree. Whatever outer bark isn't needed is peeled and left behind in the woods. Inner bark can be processed right away or set out to carefully dry for processing at a later time. Strips of bark can be thinned to produce multiple pieces (cedar and birch, not willow), these pieces can then be refined into thinner strips for weaving.

Reed is a wood-like material that comes from a type of bamboo plant that grows in a vine in parts of Asia. It is plentiful as its habitat is a tropical rain forest. Each plant can grow 3'-5' per day. The vines are harvested and processed overseas, and the product is available from basket suppliers. Reed accepts both natural and commercial dyes well.

I enjoy using a variety of materials, I find working with naturals to be the most rewarding. There are many life lessons I experience when creating art; knowing when I need to be patient, working through a challenge of design and media, being intuitive with the piece as each project has a mind and soul of its own and realizing when I've given a piece my best and the outcome is way different than what was intended. Like life itself each piece and its journey is part of a bigger plan.