I believe creativity is a form of sovereignty. Our hands express our agency—they keep us alive—and connect us to our hearts, conjuring our imagination or emotion into form. Through creativity, we transform experience into meaning and shape beauty from what the world offers.
Creativity is human. It is as ancient as our connection with fire. When we engage in traditional craft, we kindle the wisdom of lineages—carrying forward what was given and lighting hearths to gather around.
Creativity is community. When we create with materials from our local ecology, we move beyond making objects—we enter into participation with community, both human and more-than-human.
Teaching is my way of nurturing that connection: opening space for others to discover the power of their hands, the depth of their imagination, and their place within the living world.
Workshops
Textiles
Wild Pigments
Textiles
Lena offers both animal and vegetable fiber classes. She teaches wet and needle wool felting, drop spindle spinning, back strap looms and rigid heddle looms, wild plant fiber processing, botanical printing and dyes, as well as bark and fat/smoke hide tanning.
Ceramics
Wild Pigments
Textiles
Lena currently teaches ceramics at the Alternative High School in Kalispell. She has experience with pit firings and processing wild clays. She built a cob earth oven with Kalispell Montessori Elementary.
Wild Pigments
Wild Pigments
Wild Pigments
Lena harvests and processes her own mineral pigments. She also experiments with plant dyes. She contracts and consults with local artists incorporating organic materials in their production.
Basketry
Ancestral Skills and Nature Connection
Wild Pigments
Lena teaches coiled, plaited and folded basketry with wild crafted materials.
Wild Paintbrushes and Forest Bathing
Ancestral Skills and Nature Connection
Ancestral Skills and Nature Connection
Lena leads a meditative practice inspired by the Japanese Zen painting technique, sumi-e. Students create their own paintbrush using wild hair, sap glue, and a driftwood stick. The class concludes with meditation and time in nature, where students use their handmade brushes to paint their experience.
Ancestral Skills and Nature Connection
Ancestral Skills and Nature Connection
Ancestral Skills and Nature Connection
Lena teaches survival and outdoor skills. She teaches friction fire, survival shelters, survival baskets, bird language, animal tracking and plant ID and medicines.