PlantCraft

Community and connection with plants through art, craft, food and medicine.

PlantCraft is a 6-month, arts-based immersion into the world of plants where we learn by making and doing. We’ll explore local plant ecology through an arts-based lens, weaving baskets, carving with local wood, crafting herbal remedies, harvesting plant fibers and much more. Each month, you’ll be introduced to local species of plants and trees and their use in a variety of projects. 

Using plants for food, medicine, utility and adornment are practices both ancient and timeless. In this program, you’ll be invited to reconnect with skills that have been woven into our cultures, histories, and bodies for generations. Whether you’re an experienced artist or curious crafter, PlantCraft is designed to help you carve out time each month to nurture your creativity, on the land, in good company.

This program is for those who want to:

• Deepen relationship with the plant world through embodied skills

• Cultivate hands-on skills and practices to share with your community

• Gain direct knowledge of key species that make up our local ecosystem

• Learn in a community setting with like-minded folks

PlantCraft is guided by an ethic of care for the land. We’ll be working with plants for their beauty and utility, as well as investigating their role in the landscape. Along the way, we’ll learn responsible harvesting guidelines and practices for stewarding wild plant communities. 

Program price: $690 + HST. If cost is a barrier, please see our Economics for a Changing World page for sliding-scale and mutual aid options.

Meet your instructors

PlantCraft is co-created by Miki Tamblyn, Annie Sanassian and Dani Hagel, three artists and educators who believe in craft as gestures of care for ourselves, each other and the lands that sustain us. This year, we're honoured to be joined by guest instructors Cailey Campbell, Jen Britton and Matt Hamilton. We can’t wait to introduce you to some of the plants and skills that inspire us.

Annie Sanassian has fond memories as a kid discovering camel bones in the desert whilst exploring with her family. The bones were gifted to an artist friend and in reciprocity they were gifted back in art form. This process was awe inspiring and since, as an educator, spoon carver, mushroom farmer and owner of Full Moon Farm and Apothecary, Annie aims to integrate meaningful and creative relationships with nature and people. You might find her weaving branches, peeling bark, plucking leaves, chipping wood and experimenting with clay. She specifically loves carving playful and eccentric wooden spoons.

Dani Hagel is a herbalist, naturalist and artist whose work weaves together the art and science of plant medicine, naturalist knowledge, and the traditional folkways of her Black Sea German and Slavic ancestry. Inspired by the everyday magic of botanical colour, interspecies collaborations and wild plant stewardship, Dani believes land-based practices can help us guide us into right relationship with each other and the more-than-human world. She cultivates a diverse landscape of medicinal, edible and dye plants on her permaculture-inspired farm, Eramosa Herbals.

Miki Tamblyn is a mixed-media visual artist, wildlife biologist and student of the more-than-human world. They love to work with their hands to experiment, play, and create in collaboration with the other artists of our ecosystem, especially the plants. For Miki, crafting is a way to calm the minds and connect with life through our animal bodies. They are especially into weaving baskets, playing with natural dyes, and drawing the world around them. Miki believes that the embodied learning that comes through weaving, drawing, carving, touching, holding and feeling the earth can bring us deeper into loving relationship with our planet (Yay!)

Jen Britton’s relationship with plants began as a wee free girl of the 80's, romping through forests and watching her Oma garden. Plant crafting has provided her an opportunity to explore reciprocity, connect with community and deepen her relationship with the land. She is ever so grateful for the mothers and women in her life who gardened, preserved food, shared their knowledge of plant remedies and medicines and for her father’s love/respect of the natural world and all its beings.

Matt Hamilton is a dedicated father and nature lover who specializes in wood carving, using his passion for nature to create beautiful, functional and playful pieces that reflect his deep connection to the land. His work with wood is rooted in a celebration of the beauty and wonder of the world around us, and a commitment to a loving and sustainable relationship with the natural world.

Cailey Campbell is a mama, seedkeeper, culinary artist, and food grower. She has found solace and joy being by water for as long as she can remember and believes that the land and water are one of life's most precious teachers for cultivating our inner worlds.
Through her various roles at Skaronhyase'ko:wa (The Everlasting Tree School) in Six Nations, Cailey has had the honour of experiencing the multitudes of benefits to children in an earth-based education that is culturally-rooted. These experiences continue to inspire her and deepen her commitment to cultivating equitable and liberated relationships with the earth and each other.

2024 Session Dates

PlantCraft runs one Sunday a month, from 9 AM to 2 PM at GOS’ Stone Road site.

Sunday, May 12th: Weaving with Dogwood with Miki and Annie

Sunday, June 23rd: Wild Foods with Cailey, Annie and Dani

Sunday, July 14th: Carving with Annie and Matt

Sunday, August 11th: Medicine Making with Dani, Annie and Jen

Sunday, September 22nd: Natural Dyes with Miki, Dani and Annie

Sunday, October 13th: Plant Fibers and Cordage with Annie, Dani and Miki

Here’s what past participants are saying:

"I absolutely LOVED PlantCraft! It was such a wonderful way to connect with myself, creativity, and the land. I really liked the process of each week - it wasn't just show up and do a craft. We were engaged with the plants we were working with in a really connected way. The carving week stood out to me - harvesting and processing our own tree made the experience real, and was a great reminder of the living beings we're crafting with."

"I really enjoyed being part of PlantCraft! Connecting with the land through the lens of creativity helped deepen my appreciation for all the life forms who share themselves with us in various forms as helpful tools (e.g. spoons, baskets, writing utensils, dyes, etc). Our lives are deeply enriched by plants, and I'm grateful to have had PlantCraft experiences which helped illuminate and deepen these connections. Understanding all the work (both the work humans put into creating art, as well as the work plants put into growing) that goes into creating a craft piece also inspired more care, reverence, and consideration both for the objects as well as the plants and people who make these objects possible."

The GOS Field Trip

What to expect:

Full-immersion experiential learning

Rich & Relevant links to Ontario curriculum

Connection to local landscape

Fresh games & nature-based challenges

Create a connective experience for positive classroom culture

Thrilling, Wholesome, Joyous, & Unforgettable.

the GOS outdoor classroom

The GOS Field Trip is designed to connect kids with themselves, with others and the natural world.

Through a direct nature immersion experience we bring curriculum links to life. The day’s content is a combination of open-ended opportunities for experiential, child-led learning, and structured “lessons” which emphasize plant ID, animal tracking and pattern recognition, sensory awareness games and challenges, and bush-craft demonstrations.

What is unique about the GOS field trip is that we practice the art and science of creating connection with the natural world over and above information about it. Our work is to generate inspiration to get outside and engage - at school and at home.

A Field GOS Trip

9:15 am Arrive & Opening Circle

10:00 am Warm-Up Games! Gather at fire, snack, & orient

10:30 am Stations 1 & 2

12:00 pm Lunch and Free Play

12:30 pm Stations 3 &4

2:00 pm Closing Circle & back on the bus for

2:30pm Back on the bus!

Fee Structure

Up to 2 Classes (Up to 50 students), 2 GOS staff. $925 + hst
3 Classes (50 - 75 students), 3 GOS staff. $1225 + hst
4 Classes (75 - 100 students). 4 GOS staff. $1525 + hst

Sliding Scale Options available

For visits to our location, organizing transportation and bus fees are the responsibility of the visiting school.

GOS also offers the BUS-LESS field trip, where GOS instructors come to your school yard and deliver a similar program.

“I have been on a ton of great field trips over the years, but I have to say, today’s trip probably tops them all! Amazing staff, programming, student attitude and engagement - the entire day pretty perfect in my eyes from beginning to end! Thanks for the experience and please pass along my gratitude (again) to your team.”

— Cathy Dykstra, Kortright Hills PS

Who's experienced the GOS Field Trip?

Kortight Hills • Alma • Jean Little • Trillium Waldorf • Meezan • Elora• John F. Ross • J.D. Hogarth • Willow Road • Gateway Drive • Brant Ave. • Rockwood Centennial • John McCrae • Holy Trinity • Jean Steckle • Everdale • GCVI • Rainbow Daycamp • Victory • Ottawa Cresent •  Arthur • Westminster Woods • Wellington Hall • Aberfoyle • Hamilton Hebrew • Centre Wellington • Arbour Vista • Holy Cross Catholic School • Edward Johnson • the CELP program, Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) • Ecole Guelph Lake

A Warm Welcome

Gratitude and Song often start and end the day. Nature-Based Challenges, Games, Wandering and Exploring.

Just like GOS Weekly Programs, the GOS Field Trip is simple but essential.

This is a video of GOS instructor Maya getting us warmed up for the day >>

Gratitude and Song feat. Maya & jean Little PS