When Mavis Muller found herself in Arcata last year, she knew she had landed somewhere special. A renowned basket weaver, storyteller and installation artist — as well as a self-described “migratory artist” — Muller leaves her Alaskan nest during the fall and travels south for several months. While on the road, she exhibits her work and engages in community art projects. Immediately taken by Humboldt and its creative vibe, which reminded her so much of her home in Homer, Muller learned of Arcata Playhouse Arts. There she found a perfect fit for her Burning Basket project, the annual Zero to Fierce festival, a 10-day artistic extravaganza celebrating talented women from Humboldt community and beyond. This year, she is back once more for the Zero to Fierce festival with a new interactive piece: “Outpour – Basket of Giving and Receiving.”
Given the moniker “artivist” by author and wilderness hero Edward Abbey, Muller has been using her art as activism in defense of the wild natural world for over 40 years. Her work generally incorporates community action with ancestral, homesteading skills she uses in her daily life in Alaska and her basket burning project is no exception. Muller has led a total of 41 Burning Basket enactments in and outside of Alaska and abroad, first initiating the project over 20 years ago. Each basket is created and burned with a different theme in mind. She weaves her contemporary basket installation with such consciously gathered natural materials such as fennel, eucalyptus bark, cattail, flax and yard clippings, and each time she incorporates community involvement in some fashion. Some of the woven sculptures have been as large 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide.
“Most of my artmaking has taken place in a solitary way in my studio … I had a desire to expand my craft to a larger size, outdoors, into the real life of the community and collaborate with others to share the magic,” says Muller. “I thought the first burning basket was a one-time experience, but the immediate passionate response led me to believe in the importance of impermanent, collaborative art as unifying, as a healing force and as a civic function. [Last year] I found a place to stay [in Arcata], built a big heart shaped basket to install in the lobby for public participation during the festival and it was ultimately ignited and burned as the festival finale. It was called ‘Many Thanks – Basket of Giving and Receiving.’ It was magical.”
Hoping to create more magic for this year’s festival, Muller will be weaving a 6-foot, heart-shaped basket once again installed in the lobby of the Arcata Playhouse during Zero to Fierce. Along with the basket, she will provide Japanese origami paper cranes for folks to write on — whether it is names of departed loved ones or wishes and sentiments for peace and non-violence, as symbolized by the crane. People will be able to tuck personal messages into an opening in the basket. There will also be red paper tassels that visitors can place on the basket in remembrance of stolen, missing and murdered women, “which has become a heartbreaking reality across the US, including Alaska,” says Muller.
As Muller sees it, along with other themes and sentiments, her baskets are a symbolic way to celebrate the waterways and flyways that connect all of us as communities and as a small world. The idea of “Outpour” for this year’s festival basket is closely tied to the historic dam removals on the Klamath River.
“Our basket, ‘Outpour – Basket of Giving and Receiving,’ encourages us to gather together in an act of flowing freely and a pouring out of deep gratitude for the gifts the natural world gives us, so we may receive insights and inspiration from the beautiful watery places we love as well as the other meaningful aspects of personal participation,” says Muller. “Endings are also beginnings. Opportunity is sometimes disguised as loss. The event of dam removals on the Klamath so the salmon can return home is remarkable and significant to me, because in Alaska we also are wild salmon warriors with decades long efforts to keep salmon habitat healthy for our rich fisheries. It is heartwarming to celebrate that victory.”
At the end of the festival at sundown on March 9, Muller will give an artist talk and the completed basket will be transported outside to Eighth Street between L and N streets, where it will be set ablaze, sending the collective outpouring of positive wishes and hopes into the universe.
Frequently asked the question: “Why burn it?” Muller likes to evade a direct answer, saying that she does not want to take away from anyone else’s perception or experience of the event. What she will say, though, is that the basket burns “so that we can do it again.” And that every basket burned reminds her how much she likes to give a good gift.
“Outpour – Basket of Giving and Receiving” will be on display at the Arcata Playhouse March 3-9. In addition to creating the basket, Muller will be teaching a basket-making class at the Playhouse March 3-6 and giving an artist talk on March 3. For details about the installation or Zero to Fierce, contact Arcata Playhouse (707) 822-1575 or info@playhousearts.org. For more on artist Mavis Muller, visit her Instagram @mavisartalaska
Tamar Burris (she/her) is a freelance education writer and relationship coach. Her book for children of divorce A New Special Friend is available through her website tamarburris.com.
This article appears in There’s a Fish Market Splashing into Eureka.