Fish Skin Tanning course over 3 weeks

Discover how to make beautiful fish skin leather utilizing a wide range of flowers, leaves, and fungi, and create unique craft items. This course goes far beyond (although not excluding) the traditional and well-known tanning methods using bark, eggs, brains and urine, and other ways of preserving fish skin. Our ancestors were in a deep way connected to the land they lived in or, reciprocally considered, lived with. We are the land, and our ancestors are buried in her lap. With this in mind, and while walking the ancestral landscapes themselves, Fergus and Charissa started to feel that there must have been more plants and plant parts then just the various tree barks that were traditionally used for tanning in the (prehistoric) past. This led to many explorations of both inner and outer landscapes, tapping into their own intuitions and listening to the plants themselves, and to co-creative experiments with beautiful wild herbs, fungi, and even seaweeds with which to successfully tan fish skin. Drawing on over 100 different botanicals, recipes and methods came into being. And now they want to be shared with the world. In this course, spread over three Monday evenings in September 2024, you will learn how to tan fish skin in different ways. The main focus will be on tanning fish skin with different wild plants, but there will also be attention given to tanning methods using tea, because even recipes of this kind can be quite challenging to find out. The online course is very practical, and different methods and recipes will be shown and explained in depth. After the course you will be able to happily tan fish skins in different ways yourself and you will know which plants to use and in which recipe. Besides learning how to tan fish skin in experimental ways, you will also learn how to craft with fish skin leather. Are you coming on an experimental fish skin leather making journey with us? Each session will be live with plenty of time for questions and answers. Recordings of sessions will be available to watch at a time of your choosing and free to access for 3 months after the completion of the course. NOTE: The fee is for the full 3-session course *Session 1: o     Theoretical background to tanning & the history of fish skin leather. o     Plants, fungi, seaweeds & lichens suitable for tanning & where to find them. o     Other fish skin preservation methods: brains, eggs, urine, glycerine, drying etc. (pros & cons). o     The physiology of fish skin structure & fish species suitable for tanning. o     How to prepare skins for tanning. o     Questions & answers. *Session 2: o     Practical journey with lots of live demonstrations. o     Preparing different tannin extracts: tips & tricks. o     The tanning process (what strength & duration). o     Tanning recipes. o     Measuring tannin: the senses & the Barkometre (pros & cons). o     Softening techniques & oil/ointment selection. o     Questions & answers. *Session 3: o     Crafting with fisk skin leather & preserved fish skin. o     Suitable stitches, types of thread/yarn/stitching material based on North Western European archaeology, traditional societies, experience & modern times (pros & cons). o     Clothing, clothing accessories, jewellery, coverings, musical instruments and more. o     Using the skin for making glue, thread & oil. o     Live crafting demonstrations. o     Questions & Answers.