Make Sacred - Our Hands Remember

Ancestral Arts

Our hands hold the memories, of the ancestors who came before.  Through the works of our hands, with a little nudge, we know how to shape stone and bone, feather and wood, fur and hide, working practical magic. Every item, sustainably and ethically hand-gathered, hand-crafted, carries years of care, collection and preparation, to ultimately come together in the making of the sacred.

Featured: Sheepskin rawhide drums (from an 11 month old ewe lamb I was present for in her death, her skin I de-haired and stretched into rawhide, then strung over purchased wooden frame; worked with bear fat); embroidered drum bag I sewed from thrifted material; drumstick made from a yew tree I knew for 3 years (adorned with deer sinew I processed, rabbit and fish hide; cedar bark cordage from a beloved forest that was clear cut; deer buckskin I purchased, deemed “too precious” to use for 15 years); Purse of the Deer, made entirely of deer (deer sinew cordage; rib; vertebra; fur on brain tanned hide, purchased buckskin); greenling fish skin pouch (finished with cedar bark cordage and shaped shell); Momma Cabezon fish belt (fished from the ocean in a kayak - unknowingly I ate her roe which is the only toxic roe in the Pacific Northwest, a roe so poisonous, some who eat it go into a coma; adorned with cedar bark cordage, shell and bear claw, affixed onto purchased deer buckskin); Sandals made of leather and cork (fashioned entirely by hand at a workshop); Bear Bone necklace (made from vertebra and found copper wire); cordage (cedar, fish skin, octopus and reed); Dress sewn from thrifted linen tablecloth (natural dyed with logwood); Rattle (sheepskin rawhide and driftwood); fish skin pouch and shell; Basket (made of invasive English ivy); Basket (made from willow at a workshop); Vertebra talisman (bear bone, found copper wire, fish skin).