I have been a maker since I was six years old, when I begged our next- door neighbor to teach me how to knit. Crochet and embroidery were next, followed by quilling, paperwork, flower drying, ikebana and quilting. I am always evolving in my interests, as we all are.
In 2013, I began my passion for seed saving when I took a group of my students to the Seedsaver’s Exchange conference in Decorah Iowa where I met Bill McDorman. That sent me on a trajectory of teaching seed sovereignty and offering seed schools and workshops. Next was plant medicine, foraging and herbalism. I enjoy teaching folk and community herbalism, ecology of care, and ethical foraging and medicine-making to students and community groups.
In 2019, a friend and teacher helped me make my reed first basket; I was instantly hooked and began working in reed, ivy, honeysuckle, daylily, pine needle, kudzu and wisteria, among others. In 2021 my relationship with willow began and has grown each year. I took my first willow basket workshop with Talcon Quinn, an Appalachian Basketmaker based in Athens, Ohio and in 2025 completed a one-year basket apprenticeship with her through a Traditional Arts Grant from the Ohio Arts Council. I have taken workshops with Zac Fittipaldi, Dawn Myers, Jes Clark and Hege Aasdal at Woodspirit School of Traditional Craft. Willow folks are a lovely group: I have also been mentored and encouraged by willow workers Jo Campbell-Amsler, Lee Zieke Lee and Daniel Brockett. Contact me at bethbridgeman1@gmail.com.
COURSES I HAVE TAUGHT
- Resilience, Marginality and Sustainable Practice
- Connection, Commensality, and Place
- Ecological Growing Practicum: Home, Food, Garden
- Ecological Growing Practicum: Craft, Quality and Containers in a Post-Carbon World
- Reskilling, Sustainability and Community
- Seed-saving, Canning, Fermenting, and Preserving
- Reskilling, Sustainability and Community
- Teas and Tinctures, Syrups and Salves
- Seed Sovereignty
- Food, Farming and Resilience
- Agrarian Systems
- Contemplative Sustainability in the Urban Environment
- Wildcrafting, Plant Medicine, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge
- Appalachian Herbalism & Traditional Ecological Knowledge
- Herbalism of the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora
- Self-Reliance, Repurposing and Communal Living
- Plant Communication, Medicine and Folk Art
SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Environmental Education Council of Ohio 2024. Plant Medicine and Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Black Farming Conference, Central State University 2023, Seed as Cultural Memory.
Ohio Federation of Soil and Water Conservation Districts Summer Supervisors School, 2023. Foraging.
Sustainable Agriculture Education Association 2022. Decolonizing Seed.
Environmental Education Council of Ohio 2022. Into the Woods: Food, Drink and Forest Medicines.
Organic Association of Kentucky 2021. How to Save Seed, and Why You Should.
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education 2019. Food, Forage, Farm, Feast: Teaching Reskilling, Sustainability and Commensality at Antioch College.
Society of Ethnobiology, Vancouver, British Columbia 2019.The Antioch College Apothecary: Place-Based Experiential Learning.
Environmental Education Council of Ohio 2019. The Outdoor Apothecary: Teas and Tinctures, Syrups and Salves.
Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions Pathways to Regeneration: Soil, Food and Plant Medicine conference, 2019. Decolonizing Herbalism.
Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association 2019. How to Save Seed and Why You Should: Seed Law.
The Ohio State University, 2019. College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Seed-saving and Community Resilience.
InFACT Seed to Sustainability, 2017. History of Seed Patent Law in the United States since 1930.
Ohio State University Extension Annual School Gardening Conference, 2017. Seed-saving Teaching Methods for School Gardening.
Central State University, F.O.C.U.S. Minority, Women and Small Farmers conference, 2016, Communities of Sustainable Practice: Seed-saving as Resilience.
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Ohio Reformatory for Women, 2023, Decolonizing Herbalism.
Cincinnati Permaculture Institute 2023, Seed-saving in a Regenerative Ecosystem.
Agraria, Beginning Farmer Training, BIPOC Fellowship, 2021, Seed-Saving.
Agraria, Beginning Farmer Training, BIPOC Fellowship, 2021, Food Preservation and Value-Added products.
Agraria, 2022, Seed School.
Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions 2020. Fermentation.
Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions 2020. How to Start Seed.
School of the Alternative, 2019. Decolonizing Herbalism
University of Dayton Lifelong Learning Institute, 2019. Seed Sovereignty.
Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions Pathways to Regeneration: Soil, Food and Plant Medicine 2019. Decolonizing Herbalism.
Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions 2018. Seed-Saving, Resilience and Stewardship.
Ohio Governor’s Residence and Heritage Garden 2017 Saving Heritage Seed.
Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association 2016. Seed-Saving and Resilience.