One man’s yard waste is a Bonita man’s basket art
BY ANDREA STETSON
FLORIDA WEEKLY CORRESPONDENT
Piles of fallen pine needles carpet the ground by many homes in Southwest Florida. They can be raked up, used as mulch, as an aid in composting or just left to slowly disintegrate. But Bonita Springs resident, Tom Firth, has another use for these needles that fall from the tall pine trees. He turns them into baskets. It is an art he has been perfecting since 2018 when he made his first basket and became hooked on the hobby.
“It is fun, and it is creative,” Firth began. “I think of all these designs myself. I lay in bed at night and think ‘I have this color needles and this color thread what should I make’. Half the fun is thinking about it and coming up with a plan. Sometimes it does not come out like I planned, but there is no wrong. It is my own creation.”
It all began when the local hair stylist was cutting a customer’s hair, and she suggested he join a pine needle basket weaving group.
“I started by watching this friend of mine and I was just taking to it and liking it,” he described.
Firth said the group was originally taught by a retired local elementary school teacher named Georgia Horton, who died at age 100 shortly before Firth started weaving.
“When Georgia was doing it, it was sort of like a class, but by the time I started, it was not a class. It was just a group of people doing it. You just watched people, and they gave pointers, and then there was a show and tell where you would show people what you were doing. It is like an old-fashioned quilting bee where people just sit around and work on baskets and talk about things.”
That’s how Firth learned, and soon he was dying his own needles and making unique creations. It’s a complicated process of getting the needles pliable enough to weave without using too much water that makes them expand and then contract.
“I usually put them in some water with vegetable glycerin and when I dye them, I simmer them in an electric turkey roaster 4-5 hours and put in dye and vegetable glycerin,” he described.
Other times he uses a special powder that makes brighter colors with less work. After making dozens of baskets, Firth started to expand his hobby by making a variety of items. He takes hollowed out gourds, paints the base and then adds intricate pine needle stitching on top. He also makes bowls, trivets, holiday ornaments and hair clips.
“It started out as just baskets and at some point it gets to ‘I am tired of making round baskets’, so you start to think outside the box,” he described.
For the first year, Firth kept everything he made. Then he started running out of room and decided to sell some. He goes to markets and festivals and special events where he sells pieces that range in price from $50 to more than $400. During season he is at the monthly craft show at Shangri La in Bonita Springs. He also does events in Ave Maria. Firth is excited that he was recently chosen to be part of a huge craft festival in Mount Dora Oct 25-26. He also does commissioned work and he sells items at his workplace, About Face Salon in Bonita Springs.
“I don’t do anything online. I am kind of a neanderthal,” Firth admitted.
Some of his customers love the baskets so much they have made numerous purchases.
“He is amazing,” exclaimed Monica Mier of Bonita Springs. “I bought a lot of his baskets for gifts and for my house. I am a sound healer, and I needed a basket for my mallets, and he made me the most beautiful basket.”
Mier likes the quality and the uniqueness.
“It lasts. It is durable and you never get that kind of workmanship anymore,” she stressed. “The things that he makes is so amazing. There is so much you can do with them, and they are so sturdy. The love that he is putting into it is just so amazing.”
“They are fabulous,” added Terry Reel of Bonita Springs. “I probably bought 12-15 baskets from him. I am going to buy more at Christmas. He is a real treasure. I see all the time he puts into it. He is a real artist. And he is the nicest person as well. If I want to give something special to someone, I give them a basket, because they are so unique. It is not like you are buying something off the shelf. He puts so much into each one and each basket has a story.”
Tom Firth has made hundreds of baskets along with other pine needle creations. -ANDREA STETSON / FLORIDA WEEKLY
Linda Waterhouse, of Bonita Springs, commissioned Firth to create some special pieces. She had one made for her granddaughter with an underwater theme and unique beads. She has another in her guest bathroom that she fills with toiletries for visitors.
“I have quite a variety,” Waterhouse described. “I have some hanging up in my office on the wall. I have some that I bought as Christmas baskets as a gift to give away, but then I liked them so much I felt like I had to keep them. They are so unique. I don’t even know where he gets all his creativity. I just feel like the quality of them is just perfect. You would think that a machine made them.”
Many of his first creations are quite large, but Firth added smaller baskets to his inventory.
“People have to think about paying $300 to $400 on a basket,” he explained. “So, I started whipping out these little $50 baskets and 5-6 little baskets can equal one big one, and people don’t think as much about dropping 50-60 bucks.”
While his baskets and bowls might seem expensive, Firth said they are much more than a simple place to put things, they are a work of art. Each one takes one to two weeks to complete, and the stitching is quite intricate.
“People look at my things and the price, and they can buy a basket (at a store) for $10, but that is something made in Vietnam. Mine is made right here. Mine is art,” Firth stressed.
Firth collects all his pine needles locally. He doesn’t waste time picking up individual ones off the ground. Instead, he looks for fallen branches and grabs them by the fistful. Once the needles are dyed and dry, he creates a center and coils around that. Firth said that method is quite different from traditional basket weaving. The artist says there is a lot people can do with his creations.
“People ask what can you put in these. You can put anything that you want in them: cell phones, keys, letters, bread, plants, remotes whatever you want, or you can just have them sit empty and they are pretty. I have a friend that has three hanging on the wall.”
Firth makes his baskets at home and at his salon. His creations fill cabinets, bookcases and the counters around his hair cutting stations.
“I love the creativity and the thrill of the completed project,” Firth concluded. “Sometimes it still surprises me that I made this. I am really proud of this. It is pride in what you create. It is thinking things up and making it happen. Being a hairdresser, I have always been creative. I can’t draw, but I have done hair since 1973. I have done macrame, embroidery and stained glass and all the different fads, but this one has taken something as basic as a pine needle and made something beautiful out of it.”
