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“The best teachers…. don’t mystify the work.

“The best teachers…. don’t mystify the work. Great oracles may enthral, but the really great teachers demystify. They make particle physics into diagrams that anyone can follow, football into steps that anyone can master, and art into something that anyone can see. A guru* gives us himself and then his system; a teacher gives us the subject, and then ourselves...They present a truth, then leave you with yourself to discover your own truth.”

~ Adam Gopnik, quoted from It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Us

As the pandemic lengthens + as micro- and macro- collapses accelerate, I think we are going to collectively witness more cults of personality and siloed camps emerge through the internet.

The past year has shown me that when tender relational issues arise irl, the internet can dissolve them of nuance and empathy. These little post-boxes and comment sections have a way of devaluing plurality, and instead promoting the feeling that there’s only one way to be right, and we have to be right.

Landbased skills and modes of healing are just as vulnerable to relationships of domination as any other arena, maybe more so, because people come to these things deeply hungry for them. I am so grateful for the teachers I’ve had, whether our relationship was short or longterm. My teachers always set me up on a path and said, get going. Never: follow me. Never: I am the only one who knows the way. I aim to embody that, not just with hide tanning but at all times when knowledge is shared. We are all teachers in some way, at some time, to each other.

Throwback to last year’s Hide Tanning Immersion,

Throwback to last year’s Hide Tanning Immersion, in person on Matsqui territory in the Lower Mainland of BC. We ended the program with fish skin tanning, making leather through bark-tanning and oil-tanning.

This month wraps up another exciting monthly project: the online Hide Tanning Storylines series! On the last Sunday of each month this spring, I’ve offered some afternoon tea ☕️ on one method of hide tanning. We walk through history, biology, cultural contexts + hands-on instruction. This month we end with the most complex of natural hide tanning methods: bark-tanning.

The original + natural way to create leather is through plants. Bark-tanning is this method, which turns animal skin into colourful leather due to the plant cell constituent called tannin (also known as tannic acid). Tannins are part of the building blocks of all plant life and act as the immune system of trees, shrubs, and plants. They are astringent molecules that have been used in herbal medicine and hide tanning around the world for millennia.

Bark-tanning became the most prominent of hide tanning methods in the English speaking world from about 1300-1800. For this reason, there is a vast amount of written literature, now accessible through the internet thanks to the work of many hide tanning enthusiasts. These insights on ancient practices are breathtaking. The level of skill and variety in bark-tanning practices continues to amaze me.

Sunday April 25 ~ 2pm-3:30pm PST. 🌱 Link in bio.

• Feel free to join if you are a beginner or a seasoned tanner.
• The recording is available for everyone.
• Those who can make it live can stay for questions + chatting at the end.

📸 by @bonnieklohn
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#leather #leathercraft #hidetanning #fishleather #handmade #bushcraft #naturalleather #diy #environmentaleducation

In less than a week, it’s Hide Tanning Storyline

In less than a week, it’s Hide Tanning Storylines. This one is on Mineral Tanning, and we will be talking a lot about sheep!

All hide tanning methods can be applied to any skin - fish or mammal - but methods have a certain affinity for some animals more than others. Mineral Tanning and sheepskin have a special tie for sure. It’s not a coincidence that this method is the one that evolved alongside shepherding and human-sheep migration. And Mineral Tanning is still valued for sheepskins commercially, even these days when most hide tanning has been replaced with industrial methods.

We will delve into this history and the emergence of Mineral Tanning + step-by-step guidance for at-home beginner hide tanning.

Sunday March 28 ~ 2pm PST on Zoom. Link in bio. ✨

{ { This will be recorded so no need to attend live, but those who do can ask questions and troubleshoot your own projects. Beginners are totally welcome: this is an accessible tanning method for those with any or no experience. } }
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#sheepskin #hidetanning #outdooreducation #crafteducation #naturalhidetanning #bushcraft #homemade #sheep #sheepfarming #leather #diy #sustainablesolutions #naturebased #homesteading

~ * sheepskin drop * ~ These sheepskins were tann

~ * sheepskin drop * ~

These sheepskins were tanned over the past month or more. They each get their name from the salty Sunshine Coast where their finishing touches were made. It feels fit to send them out to the world over Equinox.

The sheep are from small family farms from Montana to Vancouver Island. Each one has a story; there is more depth to them written in the website.

Scroll thru -> 📸 to find one that calls to you + head to the online shop (link in bio).

1) 𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖
-Dorset-Arcott, ultra long wool + huuge, mosaic of white and greys

2) 𝔻𝕣𝕚𝕗𝕥𝕨𝕠𝕠𝕕
-Icelandic, super soft wool + flexible leather, soft browns and greys

3) ℂ𝕝𝕠𝕦𝕕
-Suffolk, all white with a turquoise stripe, super plush little cushion

4) ℂ𝕖𝕕𝕒𝕣
-Suffolk, dark brown shearling, soft barktanned leather

5) 𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕜
-Icelandic, super plush + huuge, white with brown sides

6) 𝔹𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕫𝕖
-Icelandic, fluffy + long white woolly lambskin

Online shop is in bio above. Shipping out this week to anywhere!

Thank you @tinyislandtextiles for the photos and for your well of generosity + care sharing knowledge and space.
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#sheepskinrug #sheepskin #handtanned #handtannedleather #barktannedleather #homemade #textiles #wool #woollen #woollenblanket #camping #outdoors #mineraltanned #naturaltanning #sheep

I tanned hides for years before I ever worked with

I tanned hides for years before I ever worked with sheep. These grazing + flocking beings have a long list of reputations: meek, shy, humble; “followers.” Qualities that are at once discounted and resented. Sheep are not who they’ve been made out to be, though I think their reputations act as protection to them in these times. In a culture where the most prized agricultural animals are incarcerated in AFOs (animal feeding operations, better known as factory farming), sheep have a broad allyship with human kin across the continent who farm on a small scale, and who, more importantly, have a reciprocal love of this animal.*

My introduction to sheepskin tanning came from people I taught. I was dedicated to wild animals, and totally overlooked this phenomenal creature. I started tanning them to learn about them, and then I learned more than that I ever expected. Working with sheep has guided me to undo my own biases towards all those qualities that are discounted and resented when we are socialized in settler-colonial culture. I continue to un/learn with + from the sheep.

In 2 weeks I’m offering Mineral Tanning as part of the Hide Tanning Storylines series. Mineral tanning is my favourite method for sheepskins. It strengthens an otherwise delicate textile, helps repel water for folks living in rainy climates like me, and preserves the colour of the wool. 🐑 ✨

Sunday March 28 @ 2:00pm PST ~ online ~ link in bio.

Thanks to all those folks who kept asking me about sheepskins during buckskin classes ~ finally connecting me to this wonderful animal. And thanks to @lady.ursus for opening up my world with mixed-methods hide tanning. 💜 Thank you @kisikaw_acahkos_iskwew for the 📸 and making our hide tanning dreams a reality this winter.

For anyone who wants to know more about this powerful creature, I highly recommend the book A Short History of the World According to Sheep, by @salcoulthard. 🙌

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#sheep #sheepskin #hometannedhide #environmentaleducation #naturebasedsolutions #hidetanning #hidetanner #sustainable #organicfarming #holistic #ecojustice

~ Sheepskin drop ~ Sunday March 21 ~ Equinox ~ I

~ Sheepskin drop ~ Sunday March 21 ~ Equinox ~

I will be putting 5 mineral-tanned and bark-tanned sheepskins up in the online shop. These were tanned over the past few weeks on the Sunshine Coast, on Shishalh Nation territory. They range from Icelandic to Suffolk to Dorset.

Thank you so much @tinyislandtextiles for crafting a beautiful + nourishing hide camp. And for the 📸!

Last summer I made a last minute decision to upend

Last summer I made a last minute decision to upend the rhythms I’d been in for years, and to go to school. The pandemic had closed hide tanning classes and the sweet farm I’d called home + tannery for years was sold.

I knew of a certain grad program through a random run-in with another traveller visiting my dear friend @biibroms in Victoria. The program didn’t require previous degrees, but a demonstration of life experience committed to your chosen field. For me, ‘chosen field’ was a decade of pursuing skills-as-resistance and learning about trauma healing. Somehow that struck a chord with the department head, and this wilderpunk is now in a Masters of Environmental Education and Communication.

I’ve been off social media for a few weeks as I transition now from student to researcher. Over the next year, I’ll be doing a research project in collaboration with + in service to a community project dear to my heart. For now, just stopping in to say hi, from me at my current morning ritual (📸 #2) and from this absolute queen (📸 #3).

While I’m here, I’m working away for a 🐑 sheepskin drop 🐏 in a week + getting ready for the next Hide Tanning Storylines video class: ✨ Mineral Tanning ✨ at the end of the month. Feeling into the spaciousness that dedicating time away can bring and readying for equinox season to re-emerge. 🌱

That moment when you let go and plunge your hands

That moment when you let go and plunge your hands into a bucket of brain. 😀 Brain-tanning is so named because yes we mix the hide with animal brain to soften it, and this gets us amazingly soft + supple textiles.

Brain is composed of a lot of fat, and it contains lecithin, the universal emulsifier. This winning combination is what makes animal brain the best (imo) ingredient for smoke-tanned buckskins. It creates a textile that is light as a feather yet stretchy and plush all at once.

Any emulsified fat can replace brain in the tanning process. Egg yolks and bear grease are two favourites but mixing soap with any fat or oil will emulsify it and turn it into a hide tanning agent.

This Sunday coming up is Hide Tanning Storylines! We will be diving deep into smoke-tanning + brain-tanning. 🦌🐐🐑 We will learn its history and origins + move into methodology and to help create and support at-home hide tanning setups. If you are feeling the stir of springtime, making hide tanning happen right in your backyard is one way to stay grounded and connected as we collectively hold fast during this pandemic.

Online ~ Sunday Feb 28 @ 2pm PDT ~ link ⬆️

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