In 2026, I’ll be traveling around the United States to bring my workshops to new communities. I’ll be teaching in Illinois, Kentucky, and North Carolina, offering accessible, grounded classes that invite people to slow down, work with their hands, and reconnect with the natural world.
Where the Pines Grow
I’m Abeni Pierson, a Chicagoland native, fiber artist, and educator. I studied Fashion Design at Columbia College Chicago, but over time, I felt drawn away from the fashion industry and toward a sustainable way of making.
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Now based in Northern California, I work with pine needles, sorghum (broomcorn), gourds, and cattails. I forage, clean, and dye my materials by hand. In 2025, I grew both broom corn and gourds on a small scale.
Through my teaching, I’m committed to keeping the language of American folk arts alive. I teach pine needle weaving, gourd carving, cattail weaving, and broom corn weaving
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I Put Down My Phone and Picked Up Pine Needles, Now I'm Connected to Something Real
In today’s world of constant notifications and endless scrolling, it’s easy to lose touch with the moment.
Fiber arts offers a meditative, screen-free experience that inspires focus, patience, and a sense of achievement.
Long before factories or written instructions, people learned by watching, touching, and repeating.
My workshops are designed to inspire mindfulness and encourage creativity.
Take one of my workshops if you’re curious about working with natural materials.
The materials ask for time and attention
I feel every step harvesting, drying, soaking, braiding, stitching. And the work responds directly to my hands. There’s no shortcut that replaces understanding the fiber itself. In that way, fiber crafts teach patience, problem-solving, and respect for natural materials.
Gourds
Gourds are among the earliest cultivated plants used by humans. Across Africa, the Americas, and Asia, they have been transformed into vessels, instruments, tools, and sacred objects. I work with dried gourds to create birdhouses, musical instruments, ornaments, and bowls.
Broomcorn
Cattails & Raffia
Did you know the Broomcorn Capital of the World is Arcola, Illinois? Sorghum is broomcorn. In the United States, brooms have carried more than just practical use. They hold significance in rituals, ceremonial spaces, superstition, and cultural traditions, alongside their role as everyday household tools.
Cattails are one of the most accessible fiber plants to work with if you know how to prepare them. After harvesting, I dry the leaves for about three weeks. Once dried, I braid the cattails into cordage and use it to create purses, baskets, and handles for whisk brooms.
My classes are a place to learn, ask questions, and spend time making something useful together.
