Join us for a day of learning with our beloved willow! Together we will craft a basket base and tune into what this plant has to teach us through deep listening, guided meditation, story, song and finally weaving a stake and stand willow base.

Willow has so much to teach say if we create the space to listen. The intention of this class is to inform right relationship with willow as a plant, working with them beyond end goal of basket and into the liminal of willow as a being in their own right.

❋ Learning Willow Speak

Tucked out in the oak and hickory woods of rural Oskaloosa, KS we will sit by a cozy fire and sip willow tea. We plan to gather seated on the floor in a yoga studio. Bolsters and blankets are available

❋ The Setting

Class is sliding scale $80-$120. Due at time of registration via venmo or paypal. If you need to set up a payment plan, please specify below.

Supply fee is an additional $20. This is due at the time of class

❋ Cost of Event

❋ What's included

Lunch will be provided, each individual in this small group will take home a willow basket base and a willow salve.

ABOUT YOUR FACILITATORS

Clare Odegard is a basket maker and sculptural weaver based in Kansas City, Missouri. She enjoys weaving with a wide variety of materials and has a special place in her heart for willow. Clare has studied basketry and weaving since 2022, traveling to craft schools and working mentors across the country. She began teaching in 2025 and loves introducing students to the magic of baskets and working with plants. She has found deep meaning in cultivating a relationship with willow. To be in relationship with willow is to listen to the land, spend time along waterways, be a critter alongside beavers, locate myself in lineage, and work at the pace of plants. When she is not weaving, she works as a nurse and enjoys spending time with her cat and beloveds.

Shelby Merry follows in the foot prints of her ancestors by residing in the tall grass prairie alongside the Missouri River. Her work/play as a herbalist, basketmaker, and land steward is a practice of remembering that we are not separate from our lands and all who reside within them. The past decade of her life she’s dedicated herself to being a student to the plants by making medicine, stewarding prairie, seed saving and most recently weaving. Her work and craft alongside our plant relatives centers on working with bioregional and locally grown materials. While the end result of a basket is enchanting, Shelby equally draws life from growing, foraging and processing basketry plants such as willow, kudzu, mimosa and basswood. It is her joy and pleasure to support other folks in this inquiry into deep land belonging and plant teachings.

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Willow Groundwork