- Lakeland resident Marcia Morse Mullins never imagined that her childhood interest in nature would blossom into a career making art from natural materials.

Today, Marcia is president of the Bartow Art Guild and a skilled artisan whose woven baskets are receiving international attention.

(upbeat guitar music) - My name is Marcia Morse Mullins.

I am a basketry artisan.

(upbeat guitar music continues) I grew up in Illinois.

Both of my parents were scout leaders, so there was always a connection to the environment.

We were always out camping and hiking and doing all those things that scouts do, and I became very focused on plants.

Ended up getting a degree in botany, and that's what I incorporated into my weavings.

My very first experience with making baskets was when my kids were little and a neighbor was trying to figure out what to do for Christmas, and she called me to say, "Hey, I found this book.

Let's see if we can make baskets."

And as they say, that's history.

(laughs) (drum music) I went to an art festival and had this feeling in my chest that was like when you're at a parade and that big drum goes by and you can feel it pounding in your chest.

That's what I was hearing and feeling, but it was something different.

Turned out to be a Native American elder who was back behind his booth pounding on a freshly cut black ash log to make splint for his weavings.

I got talking with him.

Next thing I knew, he showed up at our house and said, "Pull on your muckers, find a saw.

We're going out back."

And he taught me the traditions of his tribe, which is Potawatomi.

Taught me the traditional techniques for selecting felling and preparing black ash tree for basketry.

(hammer pounding) (light music) - The most significant thing about the fiber art that Marcia does is she is trying to make an intentional connection with the natural world.

Any art that does that, I think resonates with people.

- It's not just making a basket, it's making art and its tradition and its history, and the woman kneels down at the foot of the tree before she cuts it down and offers up a prayer.

(light music continues) - I had a Native American elder tell me that I should listen to the tree for it would tell me what it wanted to become.

And what he meant by that was that the spirit of the tree remains in whatever you make from its wood.

(uptempo music) When I get it back here, I finish preparing it so that it's down to the very thin flexible splint that I use with my basketry, and I then weave with it.

Sometimes I will plan a piece out in entirety.

Other times when it is a more naturally shaped piece, like my signature antler pieces, those just kind of happen.

- It has expanded my own horizons and understandings of what fiber art or basket art can be.

- There's just something very all-encompassing when you're actually making something out of the materials that you collected in the out-of-doors.

- Fiber arts do not get the credit they should.

When they sit there and say, "It's just stitching," or, "You're just making a basket, aren't you?

I mean, it's just a basket.

We did that in Girl Scouts, right?"

It's a slam.

It's a slam.

You wouldn't have clothes on your back, if it weren't for fiber artists.

You wouldn't have shoes, you wouldn't have hats.

So, it's all...

It's always been important.

- Most of the basket makers that I come into contact with are female.

- It's a man's world, it's a man's world.

In order for it to be acknowledged as fine art, we have to educate those that are showing it and those that are viewing it, and Marcia does a very good job of that.

(gentle guitar music) - I have grown to think more of myself as being an artist and artisan.

The thing that took this to another level is having my work at Homo Faber 2024, which is a huge exhibition held in Venice, Italy.

(light music) I received an email out of the clear blue sky saying, "Hey, I'm an art researcher from the Michelangelo Foundation.

We'd like to have your art in this show in Venice.

Are you interested?"

And I thought, "Oh, yeah, right."

There are approximately 400 artists whose work are in Homo Faber and only 50 of those artists are from the US.

- We were all like, "Are you sure this is real?

My God, get this checked out.

Don't be sending one of your baskets to Italy."

But it was real, it was real.

(Marcia laughs) (uptempo music) - Boy, once I got there, it was just a whole different world.

(uptempo music continues) The thing that is appealing to people is the fact that you are making something yourself with your own hands.

The same thing with throwing a pot, or doing stitch work, or whatever the mechanism is that you're using, whatever the medium is that you're working with, you're making it.

(uptempo music continues) (gentle music) - [Announcer] See more at borderweave.com