My dad used to joke about “underwater basketweaving.” This is not that. Karen Tembreull is a master of weaving with mixed media natural fibers: bark, roots, found objects. She is called to workshops, festivals, and conferences far and wide to share her knowledge with others interested in preserving Folk arts and legacy, who love doing things with their hands.

According to UNESCO, basketry is “on the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.” Baskets are functional, but humans take the practice to artistic levels, passing techniques down through generations. Culture is preserved when people are relocated, like the Choctaw Nation who brought their swamp cane methods from Mississippi to the reservations of Oklahoma. Gullah and Geechee people, brought to the low country as slaves for their knowledge of rice-growing, still make and sell their prized sweetgrass baskets.

Karen and I took all the same art classes in high school, often sitting together. Most of those classes were taught by Dee Fitzsimmons, who put our hands on everything from conté crayon to jewelry casting to stinky shorn sheep wool: cleaning it ourselves, spinning it ourselves, projects designed on paper then executed in fiber.

I’ve kept up with Karen through social media – enough to ask about the beautiful datura in her yard, so she sent me seeds. When she grew black hollyhocks, she messaged: “Do you want some seeds for your death garden?” Yes, yes I do. So when she talked about learning Finnish culture so she could teach Finnish basketweaving, I had to know more. Grab a cup of tea and settle in while Karen weaves the vines that brought her to where she is now.

deb Ewing (dE): I remember you being so excited about getting a bandsaw for Christmas.

Karen Tembreull (KT): Yes. In 1983 I took an adult education class right before we graduated, through Portage Central Adult Ed. And the teacher’s name was Lavonne Stamm. I took several classes from her; also I would always go to the Bronson Park Art Fair (in Kalamazoo, Michigan.) It just happened that that year, in ’83, there was a couple who called themselves Holiday and Garshwiler. They were doing natural baskets: grapevines, huge and wonderful “hedgerow” type baskets. And I was like, “Wow, that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to use this stuff you buy in the store.”

Growing up as a kid, I just always was outside and wanted to make things with acorns or leaves or whatever. My dad had some property up here in the UP, a hunting camp south of Escanaba, and we harvested materials that year. Didn’t know what we were doing, but I got some cedar bark and I think I might’ve gotten birch, definitely spruce roots. Anyway, one thing led to another. I took all the classes I could from Lavonne to learn.

Just at the same time, basketry was booming. And Michigan had started a basketry convention.

dE: (internally): booming basketry in Michigan…whoda thought? (externally): Oh, no kidding!

KT: It was the biggest convention that I know of in the state (or any of the states) by far. It got up to a thousand attendees. The first one I went to was in ’84. It was in Flint, and it was really competitive. Lavonne and her friends invited me. So here I am, just this kid with these women, rooming with them and taking classes. And I remember there was also a drug bust in the hotel at night. So that was interesting.

dE: #puremichigan

KT: In ’87 I went to West Virginia because there was a basketry school. I learned a lot about harvesting from them. It was Connie and Tom McColly’s and it’s no longer open now. I went there twice; I believe it was ’87 and ’91. I got married in ’92; right around that time,we started a basketry guild in Kalamazoo, which still exists. By the early ’90s, I started teaching for the Guild and then shortly after I was accepted to teach at the Michigan convention.

Now, like I said, it was huge and it was competitive. They had an exhibit room every year and you could place a basket you’re pretty proud of in whatever category. Mine was typically naturals – art pieces and stuff like that. Going to that convention, I got a taste of wanting to do gallery work. Over the years I won many awards and it was great.

My kids were young, so it kind of limited how much I wanted to be away. As they grew, I started teaching at more conferences all over the country, slowly.

dE: About teaching – how do you find places to teach? What’s  your process like?

KT: Well, there’s been different magazines for basketry over the years. A lot of them are gone, but still there’s the National Basketry Organization, which came online later. So honestly, I would just see it. Back then I would just see the calls for proposals in the basketry publications. Of course, now it’s online; you get on someone’s mailing list. And I’m a member of National Basketry Organization, so people find me that way. Word of mouth, after years and years of doing it.

I started cutting back on the conferences around – well, COVID changed everything. It would’ve been my biggest year, honestly. I had a full schedule and everything was canceled. I realized that I spent a lot of time away from home. It’s a lot of travel. I would sometimes fly and have to take these huge bags full of materials or mail things ahead. I felt like I wanted to be closer to home.

A few years prior to COVID, I’d started creating production work, which I’d never really pursued before, selling at Christmas shows and Art shows. In Hancock (Michigan) we have wonderful artist’s opportunities: The Copper Country Community Arts Center (CCCAC) where I’ve taught, shown at and taken classes at over the years. they have a really nice Christmas sale every year, called the Poor Artists Sale. We have the Finnish American Heritage Center and its art gallery. And, the Finnish American Folk School located at the former Finlandia University campus (where my daughter went to school.)

dE: Tell me about the Finnish school.

KT: …the Finnish American Folk School: I became a member of the Buellwood Weavers Guild. In high school I joined the Kalamazoo Weavers Guild (from age 16-18.) I wanted to join the Buellwood Weavers Guild even though I wasn’t loom weaving; they decided to call it “Fibers Guild” when I joined, because I was doing something a little different. It brought more people in. My girlfriend Phyllis Fredendall was Finlandia’s former Fiber Instructor–so, think of Dee but at Finlandia–the Folk School currently uses her old studio for classes, as well as the wood shop and ceramics studio. Right now this guild is booming and it’s kind of hand-in-hand with the Finnish American Folk School. My girlfriend Clare (Zuraw) is the director of the Finnish American Folk School.

*our high school art teacher, mentioned earlier

My nationality is Northern European, German, Dutch primarily. I’m not really Finnish, but there would be art shows I could present in through the Folk school. There’s a really high Finnish community here in copper country. And the reason why there’s a really high Finnish community here is the mining. And the Finns came over here also to escape Russian rule in Finland. Also, the U.P. resembles their homeland.

I needed to start really teaching myself to be proficient in bias birch weaving, because when I was teaching at conventions….I have to back up a minute again. Like I said there was a lot of competition at AMB and other state conventions, people were already teaching with birch bark or elm bark, all these different mediums had already been claimed. So I started combining everything, making up my own baskets and teaching how to make mixed-media bark. I made up some of my own weaves and combinations of weaving with lace work that I learned through high school.

dE: I’m thinking throughout this conversation that Fitz was really teaching us, and probably intentionally, to think in mixed media. She had us put our hands on everything. Even a stinky sheep wool. Remember that? So I think we were raised to think about how to tie things together…this is making sense to me with a lot of stuff I do, too. That’s pretty cool.

KT: We were totally immersed. I make bark jewelry;  just check out my instagram. Anyway, so where was I…to see where the Finnish tied in, because Finnish – you can’t call them Scandinavians because they’re not. They’re separate; their language ways are totally different. So Nordic is the word we’ll use. So, Nordic cultures have this birch bark weaving technique, which is my focus for teaching at the FAFS, which is a double wall technique. You weave up to and over the rim and back down to the base. Every little square of weaving has actually four layers because the two pieces cross and the outer layer not only weaves over the  inside layer but is woven back into every woven space. It’s time consuming and makes it have a fabric-like feel. It’s super functional.

I had learned that kind of weaving from a weaver who co-wrote this book, Vladimir Yarish, and here he is. (Karen shows me the book, Plaited Basketry with Birch Bark.) He doesn’t come here anymore because he doesn’t have a visa. When the conventions were booming, he taught a lot and you couldn’t always get in the classes; you would sign up for the same class every year and not be able to get into it because it filled. I ended up taking a couple classes from him and learning how to do plaited weaving. Bias is different from straight plaiting. Plaiting is with flat material, like the bark.

Straight weaving goes straight up and down and you have squares where the bias is like diamonds. I wanted to research it. I found out some really cool things that hook in with the Finnish culture. I kind of knew them, but I wanted to make sure.

It says in Vladimir’s book that in Norway, artisans produced canisters, boxes, and bags from birch sheets until the early 16th century when Finnish immigrants introduced weaving. I didn’t know that. So I’m thinking that they’re attributing this type of weaving to Finns. I knew it was all over in the Nordic cultures, but not specifically Finnish. So this is really relevant for me teaching at this Folk school.

(Karen’s reading from the book.) It says, “Items from plaited bark have been found in archeological sites in Finland. It is thought that the technique of plaiting was brought to Sweden by Finnish colonization beginning in the middle ages.” So again, it’s confirming. I was going to do this anyway, but I’m glad that I actually read my book.

dE: This is so cool.

KT: Living here with all the people of Finnish heritage and feeling the need to be proficient in this type of weaving (which art sales helped with) I would make all of these fun little items. I love to stitch so I made these cool little turtles.

The next piece is what I’ll be teaching on September 19th for the Folk School. It has a driftwood handle and copper nugget washers.

dE: So what’s that? Is it folded over? What’s that extra bit there? The textured weaving.

KT: That’s a curl. Isn’t that fun?

dE: Yeah, that’s great. How long have you been living in that area, Copper Country with the Finnish community?

KT: Oh, ’99 we moved up.

dE: What about the age range of students? Is it pretty varied?

KT: Typically adults. Typically adults, but it varies. The age from maybe 16 to 80s. I don’t know if we’ve had anyone in their 90s, but yeah, it’s going really well. So I really enjoy it. And now I can tell them that it appears that this weaving began in Finland. Because when it’s your culture, it’s like, “Oh yeah, everything came from Finland.” You know what I mean?

I still do gallery work; I have some other pieces I can show you. One new technique I learned through the Weaver’s Guild is eco-printing, botanical printing on silk fabric. Silk is a protein fabric and takes dyes better, but this is linen (a cellulose fiber.) They’re napkins, Christmas gifts. We’ll see how well they function.

dE: Oh, man, that’s beautiful.

KT: But a couple years back, I figured out that I can eco-print on birch bark.

The National Basketry Organization contacted me to teach next year. So I’ve signed up for two conferences next year. One’s in April, Shenandoah Creates.

dE: That’s not that far from me. You were out there before, right?

KT (holding up a program book): Those are my hands. I’ve taught for them twice already. I’m teaching there in April; it’s a very good venue. See, I’d rather teach at these smaller venues than at conferences anymore. I kind of just got burnt out on all the time-consuming and laborious preparation, plus I’m not as young as I used to be.

Here’s something I wanted to show you. It’s a large canister with eco-printed patches and a cool dovetail joint.

dE: That is amazing.

KT: I learned that from a Russian basket I bought and finally just took apart because I had to figure out how to do it. It’s lined; it has a wooden base; the rims are spruce root. This canister will be taught at the NBO conference next June in Shepherdstown, West Virginia (it’s a smaller conference.)

This one’s called “Barbwired.” I don’t know if you can see that’s actually barbed wire!

dE: Yes. Did you have a picture of that on Facebook? I think you did.

KT: Might have. “Barbwired” is woven with sedge, cedar, and willow bark. I start by threading the spokes through these vintage spigot handles. It’s a wonderful foot and it gives it weight and a foot. The barbed wire I used is probably over 100 years old. I cut it from the ground at the tree line by my house. I heated and forged it over and over to fit the basket. Another skill learned in high school!

This is “Nightshade” and it was in the NBO show last year, in 2025.

dE: I see that curly technique in the middle!
*me, to the audience: this is the basket pictured in this post’s cover image, cropped from the cover of Basketry Now 2025.

My friend Birchbark Beth – Beth Homa Kraus – is going to teach for National Basketry Organization with me next June as well. She teaches regularly at the North House Folk School in Minnesota. Folkschools like North House and John C. Campbell Folk School have been around forever. Now we’re seeing a Folk school boom.

dE: And I’m so happy about it. I really am. We need it.

KT: We have a lot of new young people in our Buellwood Guild =, and at my Folkschool classes. They bring such great energy. They’re open to trying new things and exploring traditional techniques.

Follow Karen on Instagram @barks.n.roots to see what she’s doing next. You can also follow @finnishamericanfolkschool and look into Shenandoah Creates Basketry for upcoming events.

---

debora Ewing writes, paints, and screams at the stars because the world is still screwed up. She improves what she can with music collaboration, peer-review at Consilience Poetry Journal (based in the UK), or designing books for Igneus Press. deb is on the editorial board for Berlin-based Beyond Words Literary Magazine. Follow @DebsValidation on X and Instagram. Read her self-distractions at Folkworks.