Bim Willow sounds like the name of a charming character in a delightful children’s fairy tale. Instead, he’s a taskmaster of tree-limbed furniture whose not-so-whimsical workshop we attended one early Saturday morning in November.
The Chicago Botanic Garden, which hosted the session, offers classes in everything from drawing to yoga to nature-walking. On a sweltering day last July, we at mutterhood decided that Bim’s holiday workshop was one we wanted in on. So we signed up, and before you know it, the day arrived.
It was a beautiful morning, perfect for a nature craft. We arrived at the garden well before Bim’s 9:00 start time, bought coffee at the cafe, and strolled over to the workroom, where at least a dozen people were already busy. We were early, but Bim was earlier — and we were already behind.
The workshop description detailed the day’s task: Build your own holiday tree or reindeer from natural materials, no experience necessary. The tree was definitely the easiest, or so we thought. Crafted from willow limbs and branches, the trees were constructed from green branches we selected from several piles around the room and nailed together in a tee-pee shape. Other piles held smaller branches that in theory you wound around the tree frame, adding texture and movement and, at least in the four-foot model Bim made, professionalism to the design.
The tree topper was a Star of David, already assembled from cut branches. Bim’s holiday mash-up, if you will.
Needless to say, approximately none of the trees looked remotely like Bim’s. Ours were much taller (blame the supplies, not the makers) and the branches twining through the tree skeletons looked, well, like someone found a bunch of twigs in the back yard and stuck them on.
“Oh, yours is beautiful!” we gushed to our workshop neighbors, and they to us, each of us determined that as a group we would leave proud of our morning’s work.
Cathi’s tree came the closest to Bim’s, though like everyone else’s it stood five-plus feet tall and three-plus feet in diameter. She festooned it with branches and vines, adding contour and depth and charming natural detail. Mine lacked that level of artistry, achieving a sort of minimalist quality due to the fact that I was having trouble hammering the branches together in the first place. Bim’s tattooed helper reminded me several times that the nails had to go ALL the way through the branches or the tree would fall apart. I whined and swore until Cathi (and anyone else within earshot) heard enough; she stopped embellishing her tree to come over and secure the nails in mine.
It takes a village, as they say.
The two hours flew by until we declared we were done. (I was done a lot earlier.) As we collected finishing nails from the floor and unused branches to be composted, we surveyed the workshop forest. Trudy, the woman working next to us, worried that her tree wouldn’t fit in her Honda hatchback, while a couple from Wisconsin pondered how they were going to get both the tree and reindeer they’d made home. Bim’s tattooed helper shrugged and said it probably wasn’t going to happen.
Turns out, scale was the legacy problem for our willow workshop, and we were no exception. Cathi and I had driven together, and with a large SUV and the back seat folded down, I was sure fitting two trees in the back would be no problem at all.
HA.
We walked our trees back to the parking lot, smiling at the people who commented on our designs, and stopping every minute or so because folks, willow limbs are heavy. We finally made it to the car, where we pushed, pulled, opened windows and crammed the trees into the back until Cathi called her son to come and pick her up. There was no way both of our trees were going to fit into one car, which turns out wasn’t the worst thing happening in Parking Lot B. Ten or so cars down, the folks from Wisconsin were realizing that Bim’s helper was right — the tree and reindeer didn’t fit, and what were they going to do?
Bim should have warned us, but those are minor details compared to the holiday heirloom we all created.
Was the tree workshop a success? Yes, but not so much that we’re going to do it again. If this is your kind of thing though, Bim offers workshops year-round, including several in which you build your own furniture — coffee tables, side tables, even a willow settee.
We’ll leave those to more accomplished artisans, though. Like the ones who bring a U-Haul.
Check back tomorrow for pictures of the decorated holiday trees.