Weave Your Own Basket at Five Points Arts Center

May 7–8 | Torrington, CT | 2–5pm | $81 members, $90 non-members

Five Points Arts Center in Torrington is offering a two-day Introduction to Basket Making workshop on May 7 and 8, led by Virginia Zimmermann, a Connecticut-based artist and educator with a BFA from Parsons School of Design and a master's in art education from Southern Connecticut State University. Zimmermann has taught workshops across Connecticut and beyond, and maintains an active studio practice that ranges from painting and printmaking to mixed media—basket weaving sits within a broader curiosity about material and process that runs through her work.

Over the six hours, participants will weave a small reed basket from the bottom up to the finished rim. The techniques covered—the basic over-under structure, managing tension, finishing a border—are the same ones that underpin basket making across cultures and centuries, and they transfer to other materials once you have them down. Reed is a forgiving starting point: it's flexible, predictable, and doesn't require any specialized tools.

Basket making has a long history in the Berkshires, practiced by Indigenous communities across the region long before European settlement and sustained through a variety of traditions ever since. It's also, more practically, a satisfying way to spend a couple of afternoons.

No prior experience required. Space is limited.

Five Points Arts Center, 855 University Drive, Torrington, CT. Register at fivepointsarts.org.