Making a fishing net from plants

In a world where plastics can be found in everything, from our food chain to our blood stream, it can be refreshing to come back to the basics of making with plants.

It’s hard to imagine in our current world, but ALL of our materials for living were provided by the natural world around us. No synthetics, no over-processed products. In recent history here in Cornwall, fishing nets were traditionally made by the women and the crab and lobster pots by the men. A fact that gave me goose bumps when I first heard it from local pot maker Barry Mundy, from Mullion.

There’s something about working with soft, pliable plant fibres that I love. Using a knotting technique called ‘single sheet bend’ I worked for 60 hours to make the cordage from the fibres of the Lily Palm (Cordyline) growing here in Penzance, before knitting it together in this timeless fashion.

Artwork: Forgotten

The result – an crafted artwork, a forgotten skill, a forgotten labour that also makes me think of all the nets out at sea and drifted up onto beaches. Of course the synthetic ones will last a lot longer, get tangled with all sorts of life and materials. While the natural ones will disintegrate away, forgotten.

Want to work creatively with plants?

I offer tuition in working creatively with plants. Using traditional techniques that have been used for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years to produce art and craftwork. Want to learn with me? See: Bespoke Foraging Experiences.