Cherry Chung is an established Willow Weaver working in the Greater Manchester area. She can provide schools with a varied service which can add new dimensions to your built environment and your curiculum.  Willow is a unique and versatile plant which can be used in living and non living structures to satisfy many practical and creative applications. Cherry works with basketry and living willow withies to make structures and sculptures. Willow and the varied ways it can be worked, lends itself to the creation of a wide diversity of forms, from baskets to figurative or abstract decorative screens and sculptures, as well as functional living art like seating and shelters.

The shape and feel of woven willow is very organic and it is a sustainable resource, being coppiced yearly. Willows are a native species, and before they are used basketry grade willows undergo minimal processing which is limited to boiling and drying, without any chemical additives. This makes it an environmentally friendly material which satisfies the requirements of Sustainable/Eco schools status and enhances your school’s ‘green credentials’.

Projects can be as simple or as complex as the imagination allows, and a living, growing sculpture gives the added dimensions of seasonal changes in colour and form; a demonstration of growth cycles, and a potential harvest for future projects. Cherry particularly enjoys making sculptures that convey an element of surprise in their size, for example 3 foot long ants, 6 foot dragonflies, or an octopus straddling a school playground. Living willow structures are naturally sinuous and curved, and provide a soft and organic form of landscaping.

To be able to create a basket or sculpture from a pile of sticks using little more than your hands, is an experience that many people, adults and children alike, find to be deeply satisfying, and therapeutic. As an established and respected artist Cherry has worked extensively, across the North West for the past decade. Many of the willow sculptures she has produced have been in collaboration with groups, including schools; youth projects; residents’ associations; and other community groups as well as with the general public. Within schools, the development of a willow sculpture project can be cross curricular, encompassing maths, art and design, biology, and history.

Tailored willow weaving workshops give pupils the chance to learn hands on traditional basketry techniques; design and make indoor sculpture, such as play dens, screens, calm spaces, and lanterns, or extend the art form into the outdoors, and build living willow structures such as tunnels, dens and fences. Living structures have the added interest of a form which changes throughout the seasons, and which can be harvested for its new growth in the winter.

Bend your imagination…!