I've admired Hanna Van Aelst's gorgeous willow baskets and sculptures for years. After narrowly missing the chance to take one of her workshops in Tipperary, Ireland, in 2018, I began learning from her videos and more recently joined her wonderful "Becoming a Basket Maker" course. In our conversation earlier this month, Hanna spoke of the connection between land and craft, the seasonal rhythms of making and resting, and how learning ancient skills can connect us to our ancestors while opening up possibilities for change and evolution. I'm so grateful for both her skill and her wisdom.
You can learn more about Hanna and her courses on her website and see more of her beautiful creations on social media. Enjoy!

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Jess: You grew up in Belgium – were you involved with willow weaving there, or is this something that opened up for you when you moved to Ireland? 
Hanna: It was very much associated with the move to Ireland. If I look back now, I can see that the interest was definitely there when I was smaller – I remember asking Santa for a basket one year! But what happened was my husband and I decided to move to Ireland. We came over first for a three-month stretch and we were working on organic farms. We had this book about places we could go, and we just picked one that was fairly central in the west of Ireland, because it was still kind of wild. And we ended up with a basket-maker. So it just kind of fell into place from watching him. I became fascinated. He showed me how to make my first basket and then I would weave as much as I could. He grew the willow himself and he sold his baskets from home, so that was very inspirational to me to see that he was making his living from doing that. And immediately when I started weaving, I felt that I could do so many things with it. I had always been creative as a child and was encouraged to be creative, but I never felt I could fully express myself with just paint or just drawing. But when I was making baskets, I felt that I could express myself so much. So it was very exciting. So yes, it was very much to do with Ireland. After those three months, we bought our own place and planted our own willow, and I kept learning mainly on my own through books and practice. And it grew from there.

J: What do you love most about working so closely with this particular plant, and what do you find most challenging?
H: The main thing is that it’s so very flexible. It’s just amazing. It grows nearly everywhere, you can cut it back every year and it comes back, and there are so many different colours that I absolutely love. I love the fact that I can grow it myself and harvest it myself, and the fact that every time I have to go through the whole cycle of the plant – growing it, harvesting it, drying it, soaking it. I’ve found that this slows me down. It keeps me in the natural cycle of the plants. I feel that there’s still loads that I’m learning from willow every single day, and I just loved that interaction. The challenging bit is that willow is not the easiest of materials to work with – it is quite hard work to bend, unlike grasses or rushes. It actually it demands a lot from you physically. But, again, it makes me slow down, which is for me a good thing. 

​J: Slowing down and aligning yourself with the rhythm of the plants is a different experience than just purchasing material and using it right away, isn’t it?
H: Absolutely. And it’s the first hurdle most people encounter. In most places you can’t just go and buy a bundle of willow, so you have to go out and look around and see what’s available in nature, and then you have to connect to the seasons, because you can’t just harvest willow at any time. This awareness of nature and its cycles is something we so badly need individually and as a society. 

​J: Many craftspeople feel a deep sense of social or ecological purpose in their work. Do you see your weaving practice and your teaching aligning with a collective movement or process?
H: I do mull that over. I can see that when I just started out, there was hardly any interest in basket-making as a craft. There was hardly anyone teaching, and it was hard to fill classes. And now, there’s a real resurgence of people wanting to go back to making things with their hands. People do want to learn these skills and this knowledge passed down from older generations. And it’s not just basket-making, it’s all the other crafts as well, which is absolutely amazing. And so I feel that I fit in there with people who want to cultivate skills and to work with their hands, to not just be in a virtual world but to be in the real world and make something that is actually useful. Well, it doesn’t have to be useful, it can be beautiful as well! But to take something from the natural environment and craft it, to sit with it and not give up, to do the same movements over and over and over again, to create – I think a lot of people feel the need to go back to these basics, to our older knowledge, before we lose it. I feel I’m connected to this, if that makes sense.

J: In my ethnobotany classes, I remember learning that basketry was one of the earliest human crafts, and that many weaving techniques and materials haven’t changed since ancient times. This connection to the land and to our ancestors through weaving is so rich and intriguing to me. Do you feel this as well?
H: Absolutely. And the more I teach, the more I feel that actually it’s in our DNA, the need to create with our hands. Just imagine, hundreds of years ago, most people would have been making something in the evening or during wintertime. Nearly everyone would know how to make a basket, or know the basics of it. And it’s not something that we really need to know to survive at this time in the world, but it is something that is nourishing for our souls. A lot of people who take a basket-making course say, This is so relaxing. This is like meditation. Because you’re kind of in a zone when you start making. And that’s something that we need. It doesn’t have to be basket-making, but any kind of making is healing in a way – it allows us to feel our connection to our ancestors. 

J: What conditions enable you to feel most alive and engaged in your weaving? When you feel depleted or uninspired, how do you find inspiration and energy to weave again?
H: You know, there are days or weeks when I don’t make anything, or when I don’t feel like sharing anything, but I suppose that’s how I stay creative – by just resting, by just doing something else, like going for a walk, gardening, spending time with the family, spending time with our animals, just doing something completely different that, for me, is recharging. I learned this at the very start of my basket-making career, when I was making a lot of functional work and putting myself under a lot of pressure to weave as much as possible and make this into a viable income, until my body gave out and I got multiple injuries. And then I started looking at what is actually sustainable for me and for my body, but also for my family and the people around me, because when I’m weaving all the time I get tired and grumpy! So I suppose since then I’ve been more aware of this cycle of making and resting and making and resting. And, again, it’s like the natural cycles of nature. There’s a summertime when I’m out there and I’m sharing and showing everyone what I’m doing and I’m having lots of fun, and then there’s an autumn, when I have to recalibrate, and a period of rest in winter, and then I go back into springtime with lots of energy and new ideas. I’ve learned that I can’t be productive all the time. And, actually, the more I allow myself to recharge, the more inspired I can be when I do create – I’m fully there. 

J: You share your knowledge so generously and it’s clear that teaching is a big part of your life. What do you love about teaching willow basketry to others? 
H: I love sharing. I just love seeing students take the knowledge and the techniques that I teach and make them into their own practice. When I started out, it was really hard to learn consistently. I moved away from my teacher and had small children and loads of other things to do, and I had to learn on my own and kind of figure it out myself. So what I really want to bring to my students is a full collection of basket-making techniques that they can dip into again and again, and eventually start making their own work. There are so many things you can do with willow. It’s just incredibly amazing. So one thing I really want students to do is open up their minds to the possibilities of willow. It’s not just baskets, it can be so many other things. And I want students to know that they can do this themselves, and then they can spread the word in their communities so that basket-making becomes part of everyday life again. And it can be fun and creative! I hope that the techniques and possibilities just continue to grow and adapt through the next generations. ​

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