Release a stream and feel good about it! Join the Campbell River Museum and community partners in creating eco-art while restoring natural areas.
Greenways Land Trust has organized an Ivy pull on May 9, 10 a.m. – 12 noon just off Erickson Road, near the Island Highway, (look for the Greenways Land Trust Volunteer sign). You can remove the Ivy blanketing the riparian area around Willow Creek while enjoying a peaceful morning in dappled forest light near a burbling stream. As a companion project, the Museum at Campbell River and the Campbell River Arts Council are organizing a Weaving with Ivy workshop on May 23, 1-3 p.m., at the Sybil Andrews Cottage in Willow Point. Local First Nation’s artist Wayne Bell will lead the workshop.
Ken Blackburn, public programmer for the Museum and Director of the Arts Council, envisions this as a multi-faceted project with further invasive pulls, walks, talks and weaving workshops throughout 2015 including: Himalayan blackberry in July and yellow flag Iris in late summer. The aim is to ‘create community’ through weaving with invasive plant materials.
Blackburn says, “The partnership between Greenways, the Museum and the Arts Council represent environmental, historic and artistic approaches to dealing with invasive plants. Over the next year we hope to put on a number of programs and workshops that creatively explore how communities can come together to address a local concern. Ecology based art forms, or ‘eco-art’, are an advanced way of working together to address both environmental issues and foster local creativity.”
“It’s a win, win, win project all around,” said Luisa Richardson, the project initiator. “From spending relaxing time in nature, restoring native habitat, creating art projects for community and schools, learning to make items from locally sourced materials...the possibilities are endless.”
The plant fibre from the ivy can be used to weave baskets, art or nets for stream bank restoration. The newly released ground will allow native plants to re-establish in the area.
Join them on May 9, 10 a.m. – noon for the first ivy pull and/or May 2 noon to 2 p.m. for the first weaving workshop. Call Luisa at 250-202-3266, or email Lu.rich52@gmail.com for more info. If you would like to join the ongoing project of creating community through eco-art, send your contact info and we can keep you in the loop. The cost for the workshop is $35. Call 250-287-3103 to register for the May 23 weaving workshop.