Look Back & Step Forward

Ode to Unicorns, Baskets and All Things Round

Chelsea (left) the youngest generation of Gullah Geechee weavers to join Circle Creative as a guest teacher at Sankofa, Feb 15th, 2015

(This and all PHOTOS herein with huge thanks to Rachel Collett!)

A humble space with beautiful stained glass sits tucked within the foundation of an historic and lively Clinton Avenue United Methodist Church in Kingston, NY. There, hundreds of people of every age, ethnicity, and many cultures gathered to commemorate Black History Month at our Sankofa event this mid-February, honoring those who came before, sacrificed, and suffered, and celebrating all those who continue to rise and forge hope in the face of adversity. Three generations of African American Gullah Geechee women were also there, having flown north to join us and share their incredible basket weaving skills. And stories. And deep love. But we wouldn’t know all that until later, after these basketmakers had unfurled their shared superpowers from their big suitcases, along with their shimmering piles of sweetgrass. 

A circle is round, womblike, forgiving, inclusive, sacred. Our Circle carries all of those qualities, and within, new and old friends wend beauty and possibility, creative experimentation, supportive witnessing. We reconnect with our ancestors and each others’ through processes that have sometimes long slumbered, and most importantly we playyyy. We may be joining to weave or dye cloth or make baskets, but we are subtly learning about the importance of difference, the splendor of imperfect expression, and the inspiration that rises from a shared experience. We are reinforcing how perceived barriers can so quickly and easily dissolve when we focus instead on what connects, and what we can exchange instead of withhold, compete with, and divide. When Circle gathers for an event, class, or informally as friends in one of our homes, together we enjoy a deeply visceral experience in the now, and create tangible evidence of our unique personal journeys for the future. 

Martha, Andrea, and Chelsea, a grandmother, her daughter, and granddaughter... three beautiful and deeply connected women who are descendants of slaves, possess the exquisite capacity “to turn grass into art” and have each learned to genuinely appreciate that they can. Their forebears were plucked generations ago from their home country because of an innate ability to grow rice, as well as weave the very baskets that these women still make and were originally used to separate the rice from the chaff. They were brought to plantations where sweetgrass grew plentifully, and yet long after they had land of their own to tend, their impulses to express through weaving continued. Their winnowing (or fanner) baskets have been made the same way for generations, but secretly within, much more was carried forward than just the evidence of grains and technique: faith, the power of shared stories and skills and song, a well-earned sense of pride, a deep dedication to the collective well-being of one’s family, and most importantly, a celebration of one’s uniqueness. 

Yes, weaving, slowly, carefully, gifted them all that.

From left to right, the 3 generations of Gullah Geechee weavers who taught basketmaking classes @ the Clinton Avenue United Methodist Church, Kingston, NY

Martha Cayetano, Andrea Cayetano, and Chelsea Cayetano, Feb 15th, 2020.

“My kids are like unicorns,” Andrea shared early in the day with Melissa, one of Circle’s Founders. “Actually everyone in my family is. Maybe we’re not like everyone else.” 

These Gullah Geechee women hugged easily, and radiated love. At first they seemed surprised by how loving the rest of us also were, and not just the women of Circle Creative: each person that joined in the experience of Sankofa with us seemed to be caught in the beautiful spell of craft and community. Martha announced a bit later, shaking her head and laughing, “You sure are all happy people! I’m really starting to like this Hudson Valley!”

With bright eyes, and bold, contagious laughter, the women shared stories openly throughout the day, during their classes and later in a lecture about the changing geography in South Carolina where they live, the impact of development on their ability to source sweetgrass and therefore create their work, their processes, life at the market, life as weavers, what it means to do something so slow in a fast world. Their access to materials is shrinking, many people they know and love are getting priced out of the places they have always lived, and yet still, they carried a potent quality of forgiveness, of openness that was so moving. 

Cal Patch (far right) leads a Gee’s Bend inspired quilt making workshop.

In the basket making workshops, a group of mostly women and children were assembled on the floor and instructed about the correct ways to hold the sweetgrass, weave it in, and build the various shapes of the baskets. I did not take this workshop. I was minding the door of the main room, welcoming the waves of curious families and individuals who entered the large bright space, guiding them to the community weaving project, or to experiment with natural plant dyeing or to explore quilt making or the music presentation by POOK and Ubaka Hill. Some lucky ones who had signed up weeks before were directed to a separate room where the basket weaving class was taking place. 

To witness any of the day’s activities was to dip into the embodiment of complete focus. Children and adults, strangers and friends of all ages were softly murmuring together or simply engrossed in their project at hand. Old rags were being transformed with indigo and rubberbands into a landscape of vibrant starburst abstractions. Scraps of fabric were assembled into a tapestry of color that paid homage to the Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, also descendants of slaves. A gorgeous community weaving project was taking organic, wild shape with yarns that had been donated and upcycled. 

Whenever I walked around, I felt as if I was witnessing a collective purr, everyone so calm and working so intently, together. At one point in the day, I climbed the steps to the smaller room where the basket weavers worked and peered into the sublime, quiet joy therein. In fact, the feeling in both rooms (separate from where the music performance was) was deeply focused overall. Even the children and babies were quiet! I immediately had two thoughts: How urgently our culture needs more places to be able to feel entirely focused, safe, supported, where time falls away, and boundaries transform into connection instead. 

Melissa Hewitt (right) and Angel, one of our wonderful volunteers for the day’s event.

All three of the Gullah Geechee women seemed to possess an inherent grace, authenticity, and admirable sense of self, these women of humble means. I was observing them teaching when the second thought arose: Where does conviction of spirit come from? Even after so many years of adversity that these three women have experienced and gently touched on in their stories, resolute action was nestled there, tucked quietly into hems and veins and the braiding of grasses and hands, the courage to choose to continue to rise, heads high, voices sure, hearts still so full and full of love instead of defeat. How can we not each marvel at all that persistence to carry strong spirits and connection to lineage and earth, to those who have responded so gracefully to so much adversity and misunderstanding, and who have allowed for transformation instead, along with well earned pride?

May we each learn by their example to create and heal with what is wild and overlooked and disregarded. May we grow from their desire to weave a more authentic culture that is both informed by the past and ripe with the possibility of one’s own overcoming? 

Andrea said later, “First, I thought that out of all of you, only Mirabai was a unicorn too; that she’s supposed to spread her sparkles around like my kids, that that is her purpose! But now I realize that all you Circle people are unicorns!” She was laughing, wrapping an arm around Melissa’s shoulder in solidarity. “Yep, you’re all my unicorn family!”

Mirabai, unicorn and craft maker.

Which is the rice? Which is the chaff? What needs separating, shaking up, preserved, blown away to become something else? In America, this pubescent culture too often characterized by its efficiency, homogeneity, divisiveness and materialism, we have much to learn from people and processes closer to the earth and that offer a link to the past and the sacred. Our penchant for the disposable and the next best thing denies the delight and importance of rare and imperfect treasures made by hand, that wabi-sabi signature that renders things unusual and special, and the subtle and overt cultural differences that can be born of that. The Gullah Geechee weavers who joined us for our Sankofa event to teach basket making brought all that in their dexterous hands, and within the charge of mystery tucked into their old songs and Creole infused language that evoke ancient places and ways. They offered up their generous capacity to teach, and a window into their cultural experience and a first-hand account of the devastating impact that development wreaks on communities and culture. They were in fact, a living example of the wisdom that is inherent in the meaning of the word Sankofa, which derives from the Twi language of Ghana: we must look back to go forward.

Circle Creative Collective’s Team and Frank Waters, Executive Director, My Kingston Kids (from left to right): Mirabai Trent, Frank Waters, Mary Jane Nusbaum, Melissa Hewitt, Poliana Danila, Jenny Wonderling, and Sibylle Jud

It is my humble belief that our Sankofa day will linger for a long time with the many people who passed through those rooms where we co-created. Circle has done many events over this past year since our formation. Still, it was our biggest, reaching the most people yet, and the widest cross section of cultures and ages. The irony that the day felt foundational and sacred was not lost on me, set as it was in a room under a space where people have come together for many years to set intentions, ask for support, and get touched by a sense of hope. As my friend, Collin Beggs, states on his site showcasing his sublime hand-tooled woodwork, “Craft is the remedy.” Indeed. Teens from a children’s home, families and individuals of every race, newlyweds, widowers, some tattooed covered artist friends, a young homeless couple, chatty confident individuals who knew many in the room, and those who walked in quietly, not wanting to make eye contact or at first, too much conversation, they were all there, braiding visions and squares of fabric. And my sense was that everyone left feeling they could breathe a little deeper, that all goodness is not lost, that we are in fact not so alone. Not to mention how people big and small marvelled at what their very own, often inexperienced hands could do. 

What a bounty is offered up when we gather! In soft-hearted circles, with the help of strong yet balanced women, authentic men, well loved children, and things made by hand, in our own languages and in our very own beautiful ways, we can send up collective prayers to echo the the gospel and civil rights protest song: “We shall overcome! We shall overcome. Oh deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.”

-end-

-Written by Jenny Wonderling, photos by Circle Creative

And a big final thanks…

Thanks again to Rachel Collett for the beautiful photos. Gratitude for this curious, open-hearted and creative community! And to all our teachers, support staff, and volunteers, to the Center For Creative Education’s P.O.O.K., Ubaka Hill, Frank Waters and My Kingston Kids, and to Chris Hewitt and Hudson Valley Current’s SATISFY HUNGER. This project was made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson. Thanks also to our sponsors, including Ulster Savings Bank, Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School, VISITvortex, Hudson Valley Current, Wild Earth, Center For Creative Education, Good Work Institute, WKZE, Radio Kingston, the Chronogram, and Timely Signs. Without everyone’s generosity of time, spirit and energy this event would not have been what it was. Gratitude, gratitude.

Circle Creative Collective is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in the Hudson Valley that connects & inspires diverse communities by sharing and preserving traditional crafts & skills.

If you would like would like to interview our team for a story or live interview, or want to be a sponsor for future events, please call Mary Jane Nusbaum at 845-323-1374 or email info@circlecreativecollective.org

Donations welcome of yarn, thread, fabrics, sewing, weaving and other crafting supplies! Thank you!