Birch Bark Basket Making

Birch Bark Basket Making with Wayne Valliere

Date: Tuesday July 19

Time: 1-3pm

Cost: $35 / person

Instructor: Wayne Valliere

Birch bark basket making led by Wayne Valliere and his apprentices.

Ages 10 and up.

Meet the artist:

Master Artist Wayne Valliere (Mino-giizhig in Ojibwe), a member of The Lake Superior Chippewa’s Lac du Flambeau band, will be a featured artist this summer leading various discussions, classes, and talks as well as guiding a community wigwam project as part of our summer programming theme, “Living WITH the Northwoods!” Wayne is a 2020 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor awarded to those who keep folk and traditional arts alive.

Serving as the centerpiece of our programming, Wayne and his apprentices will lead students of all ages in harvesting materials from our local woodlands and constructing a summer wigwam in the courtyard of The Warehouse. The wigwam will be on display all summer and beyond.

In addition, Wayne will showcase an exhibit at The Warehouse, “The Many Uses of Birch Bark by the Anishinaabeg”. This exhibit will feature diverse handcrafted containers (berry, food storage, winnowing (rice), cargo, cradle receptacle, feather cases, dishes and bowls, folding maple syrup baskets, a birch bark canoe). The exhibit will be on display from July 9 – August 20.

Wayne has been an artist in residence at Northwestern University and currently works as a language and culture teacher at the Lac du Flambeau Public School. He is also currently in a residency with Purdue University. He is passionate about keeping cultural knowledge and traditions alive. Wayne is an experienced artist of many mediums, including beadwork, basketry, quillwork, singing, storytelling, and more. He is also one of only a handful of birch bark canoe builders left in the United States, highlighting its significance in the Anishinaabe culture and carrying on a tradition that has been handed down for thousands of years.