With nature
Kuulua vuohmaan: Belonging to a mire - Ida Isak Westerberg returns to the queer space of mire in order to recover their Tornedalian identity, imprinting their tapestries with its colours.
Avi Amesbury ✿ Our material home - Julie Bartholomew reviews a sensory exhibition of ceramics that connects us to sand, seaweed, ash and other planetary materials.
Biomater: Life hanging by a thread - Catalina Mena reflects on the exhibition in Chile by Clarisa Menteguiaga, Liliana Ojeda, and Paulina Villalobos, which witnesses the beauty of decay in the gallery.
The forest on my flesh - Priyanka Jain draws on ancient Sanskrit poetry and Indian miniatures to reflect a contemporary appreciation of our microbial desires. 
Humans as a custodial species - Tyson Yunkaporta explains how humans became a custodial species and their role to increase the connections within the world. 
Heron story - Ilka White is inspired to make work in response to the bird on behalf of whom she speaks.
Chinese landscape cut-out over time - Pamela See charts the evolution of Chinese papercutting from its Daoist roots to the influence of Western landscape. From Poverty to Prosperity: Landmark Landscape Exhibition at the Huaxia Papercutting Museum in Changsha, Hunan Province, Explores the Rise of a Proletariat and their Visual Language. Over the past decade and a half, I have observed a transition in the papercuts that line the streets during the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year. Hand-cutting was supplanted by laser-cutting. Paper has been replaced with plastic. In addition to the methods of mechanical reproduction, I witnessed the position of papercutting evolve from folk to high art. Irrespective, they continue to play an integral role in this most significant of calendar observances. Introduction: From Craft to […]
Ode to Waratah: Designing mythology - Through a series of objects based on the waratah flower and its relationship to its pollinator, the honeyeater, Elliat Rich creates a mythology for understanding the poetic nature of creation.
Nature hooks - Jes John writes about earrings made by Jill Hermans for adorning yourself with a beautiful fallen leaf.
Ayvu Rapyta ✿ A selection - Andrea Ferrari presents a part of her translation of Ayvu Rapyta, the sacred myth of the Mbya people of South America, compiled in the twentieth century by Leon Cadogan This story has been shared with permission of the Mbya, as represented by the community of Yasi Pora. Elsewhere in Garland, you can read about the background of this project and the experience of translation by Andrea Ferrari. This project is based on the principles of circular knowledge. ✿ from Chapter I Chapter 1 speaks of Creation, and how Ñamandu Ru Papa Tenondé springs from darkness into being, as a hummingbird flutters around his head and feeds him. Maino´i 1.T.N.: Maino´i: Hummingbird; some identify the species named as Thalurania glaucopis, (Violet-cappedwoodnymph) […]
Sophie Carnell ✿ Gnat orchid - Our December laurel goes to a jeweller based in Bruny Island, Tasmania, for a silver sculpture inspired by the gnat orchid, whose elegant form clings to the land.
long water: fibre stories - Freja Carmichael reflects on artists whose work provides a conduit for the spirit of fresh and salt water.
The case for wood - Guy Keulemans advocates for the use of timber, particularly with new technologies that preserve the structural integrity of the wood.
Bridget Kennedy ✿ A fragile beauty between the ashes - Our February Laurel goes to Sydney jeweller Bridget Kennedy, for a ring that reflects the tragedy that engulfs Australia in 2019-2020. The ring evokes the geometrical beauty of the beehive, while acknowledging the devastation wrought on the climate by use of fossil fuels.
Alice Whish ✿ Works from the Understory - Helen Wyatt describes some of the learnings revealed in the stunning new jewellery series by Alice Whish whose work was inspired by her Bundanon residency.
Al Sadu ✿ A craft tradition goes solar - Is this a future for craft traditions? Interwoven is a Chinese proposition to design a solar system that reflects the design traditions of the Al Sadu tribal rug.
Julie Ryder ✿ Hidden Sex - Canberra textile artist Julie Ryder shares her series of beautiful works that reveal the subterfuge of sea plants and parallel hidden place of women in scientific history.
Canberra’s birds in hand - Isabelle Mackay-Sim heralds a new Canberra exhibition inspired by the precious life of birds. 
Baskets for lemurs ✿ An epic challenge - Our second article by Wendy Golden describes an epic fibre construction for the new lemur enclosure at Melbourne Zoo. The needs of these primates from Madagascar are met by one of the largest basket projects in Australia. 
Louisean King ✿ Solis - Roger Saddington explores the exhibition by Louisanne King whose sculptural fabrications reflect a mourning for the loss of nature.
Craft classic: Jawun - We learn from Abe Muriata about the making of the “Jawun”, a bicornual basket, which is a handsome object made from cane found in the rainforest and revered icon of Australian material culture. We also hear from Brisbane architect Christina Waterson what it is like to live with a jawun. 
Nature and beyond – the artistic fashion of Grace Lillian Lee - Australian artist and designer Grace Lillian Lee’s work is inspired by ‘prawn-weaving’, a craft technique central to her Torres Strait Islander heritage. Body Sculpture is her newest collection of work centered on the technique is at the Cairns Regional Gallery as part of the Cairns Indigenous Art Far 2016
Nature craft - The traditional story of craft as an art of civilisation involves controlling nature. Fibre is spun, wood is carved, metal is cast, glass is blown and clay is thrown. Making seems to involve an improvement in the otherwise formless quality of materials found in the environment. Natural substances are mastered in order to manipulate them into forms of useful beauty.
Nature craft – call for works - To help extend the dialogue across the Asia Pacific and beyond, each issue of Garland features an online exhibition. This will include images of works related to a particular theme sourced from a diversity of locations. The works will be sourced by a call-out through Garland and editorial board network. In return, it is hoped that artists find this a useful way to promote their work and be engaged in a transnational dialogue. The third issue of Garland will coincide with the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair in July 2016. Nature craft The modernist Western view of nature is of a realm that needs to be controlled. What is human is defined against the wild and unregulated force of nature. “Only […]
Psychometry: Series of PaAo ancient casting bronze hand ornaments with AR - Rudee Tancharoen cast a series of rings in Ban PaAo that were augmented by Peeraphat Kittisuwat, evoking the natural spirits that inspired them.
Tack Skogen: Beauty in the blemish - MADAM Snickeri celebrate the wood that the industry rejects, finding beauty in the stains, holes and deformities.
Of uncertain value: The fragile beauty of epiphytes - Kath Inglis's work reflects the concept "of uncertain value", reflected in the epiphyte jewels carved out of PVC.
Earth Nidus: An unnatural nature - Fan Ji seeks intimations of untamed nature in urban laneways through clay that clings to the metal grid.
Habitat: Terracotta homes for hard-working bees - Prompted by devastating bushfires, Julie Bartholomew produced cool but water-tight terracotta hives that reflect their ovoid form in nature. 
The Bung Yarnda Observatorium - For her FLOAT residency, Josephine Jakobi makes work about and with the estuary.
When the land becomes a jewel - Yu-Fang Chi describes her Belgian residency when she applied her jewellery weaving technique to the land itself.
Plant Power Sisterhood ✿ Dancing a basket - Migunberri artist Jenny Fraser shares writings from Phoenix Maimiti Valentine and Gabi Briggs in her new anthology, Plant Power Sisterhood.
Does the wanting monster whisper to you? - Anna Read has found a new home for her ceramics in a children's book about greed and its impact on the environment.
New Spring, Old Gods: Adornment for the people of the bear - Inari Kiuru shares the Finnish cultural roots that ground her work, reflecting an enchantment of nature. 
Exile from the Forest: Craft collaboration in the time of COVID - Reflecting on his experience commissioning kāvads, Ishan Khosla writes about what a global pandemic can teach us about new ways of working with craftspeople. 
Shedding, dwelling, making: The artist collective We Must Get Together Some Time - Gregory Pryor documents the bush encounters of a West Australian collective that is finding ways of sharing knowledge outside the formal academy.
“We are a country whose lungs are on fire” ✿ Mourning the lost trees of Turkey - Songul ARAL looks for hope after the devastation to her beloved olive groves in Turkey, caused by the climate catastrophe of 2021.
fluxed earth ✿ Garden forage vases - Kirstie Murdoch & Rye Senjen share their daily bush walk and the vases that provide a place for what we ourselves might gather.
Mother Whale and the creation of Nerrm: A Bunwurrang women’s dreaming story - Aunty Gail Koonwarra Dawson shares a creation story in which Melbourne's huge bay becomes a gift of life.
Entangled threads: Woven knowledge systems - Charlotte Haywood presents the Mnemonic Vegetables project that includes practices to help us remember the plant world in specific locations.
Biophilia: The craft and love of life - Helen Ting presents the evolution of the idea that humans have an intrinsic love of nature.
The eel as a totem and symbol of resilience - As a Burramattagal woman, Jules Christian finds an inspiring resilience in her totem, the eel. 
Forging alliances with nature: Atlas Botánico de Chile en Joyería - Lucía Nieves Cortés shares a series of jewellery objects that activate a relationship between humans and plants in her adopted country.
Butterflies metamorphose into jewellery - Paryana Puspaputra works in partnership with a Butterfly Park to make precious jewels from the broken wings they leave behind.
Beauty from bacteria: Micro-farming batik - Nidiya Kusmaya reveals the benefits of micro-farming in ecological batik production.
Peta Kruger ✿ Weaving beauty out of waste - As an act of creative resistance, Peta Kruger processes ugly plastic into fine weavings.
How dolphins guided me to rescue a suicidal girl… - Maddalena Bearzi shares a remarkable story of a circle of dolphins who led her to rescue a drowning girl, which she commemorates now as jewellery.
Spider Woman’s Children: The next generation of Navajo weavers - Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete introduce us to the ancient myth and bright future of Navajo rug weaving.
Cherokee doubleweave baskets: “The handsomest baskets I ever saw.” - Anna Fariello introduces a history of Cherokee fibre, featuring the remarkable doubleweave basket.
He stood up! ✿ Winds of change at the Ancient Now symposium - The Ancient Now symposium heralded not only new creative pathways to China, but also a changing world view inspired by the dragons among us.
Catriona Pollard ✿ A basketmaker’s holiday - Australian fibre artists draw from the world at hand. Catriona Pollard's story shows how this adds a particular sense of place and time to the work.
Baskets for spider monkeys ✿ Wendy Golden - Wendy Golden describes the commission to make feeding baskets for spider monkeys at the Melbourne Zoo, inspired by the teardrop nests of Oropendola birds.
Art for whales ✿ A driftwood tribute from Golden Bay - Nicola Basham describes a community project to make sculptures out of driftwood to help in efforts to save beached whales. 
Daily demons and fabulous animals: In which the author finds her craftswoman but loses her cat 🎓 - Tessa Laird tracks down the maker of her treasured alebrije, a carved animal that embodies the Mexican indigenous belief in the nuhual animal spirit. 
Crafting a ceramic habitat for a handfish - Not far from Hobart’s Salamanca Market, with its vendors hawking the usual arts and crafts, ceramicist Jane Bamford is creating something extraordinary.
Drawing Out the Gold – A Crown of Alfalfa by Katheryn Leopoldseder - The Melbourne jeweller Katheryn Leopoldseder manages to make epic statements out of personal adornment. Here she pays homage to a Mexican scientist was able to develop alfalfa as a non-toxic form of gold-mining. 
New terrain in an old world - Zoë Veness writes about metal objects she made in homage to kunanyi / Mount Wellington
The art of saving seals: April Surgent’s glass etchings - Charles Littnan writes about April Surgent's glass etchings, dedicated to the marine life discovered during her research in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
Composing decomposition: An exhibition by Louiseann King - Clare Needham describes how Louiseann King's bronze-cast objects bring decomposition to the table.
Pohon Budi – the Tree of Life exhibition in Malaysia - Edric Ong talks about the inspiration behind the exhibition on tree of life motive, Pohon Budi, that he curated with Manjari Nirula.