Open Studio: Open Weave Alternative Basketry

Bainbridge Island artist Katy Levit creates hand-made, one-of-a-kind sculptures and functional pieces in both porcelain and fiber. Inspired by nature and the everyday objects around her, Katy’s work explores vulnerability, chaos, and the wonder that can be found in the ordinary. In addition to her own studio practice, Katy enjoys teaching others the delight that can be found in creating something that wasn’t there before. When Katy’s not in the studio she can be found hiking on one of the island’s forest trails or curled up with a cup of tea, a book, and a small dachshund.

Originally from Yorkshire, UK, Alison lived in China for several years before moving to Puget Sound in 2019 with her husband and two young children. She has enjoyed knitting, crochet, and working with beads since childhood, but it was not until moving to Washington that she tried weaving. In the last four years, she's become obsessed both with making baskets and making fiber on a floor loom or rigid heddle loom.
She has taken classes with many local and nationally recognized weavers at BARN, developing her skills as a weaver and a teacher. She’s now delighted to serve as the weaving coordinator in the Fiber Arts Studio, where she also teaches rigid heddle and floor loom classes.
As an archaeology major specializing in the European Mesolithic, she spent a lot of time learning about past people through the rocks they left behind. Her recent fascination with weaving has helped to fill in the picture of the “missing majority” of humanity’s material culture, made up of perishable material that is under-represented in the archaeological record. Practicing crafts with such a deep-rooted importance to humanity across the world, using just natural materials and ancient technology, gives Alison what she describes as an enormous sense of well-being and connection.