Many people think of a broom as a housekeeping tool, but for Barbara Little, it’s more than that.
“It’s a lost art, certainly,” said Little about broom-making.
Baba’s Brooms is a small business run by Little. She travels to craft markets in New Brunswick selling handcrafted, old-fashioned brooms all made from imported broom corn or sorghum vulgaris, serving the purposes of being both functional and decorative.
The brooms have appeared at the Garrison Night Market in Fredericton and Queen Square Farmers Market in Saint John, as well as at the Gagetown Farmers Market and St. Andrews Market earlier this year.
Most recently, Little held a broom-making workshop for the first time on Oct. 6, which Heather Theriault attended.
“I just love doing different types of crafts,” said Theriault. “And when I saw that she was making the brooms, I thought I’d love to learn how to try to do that.”
The workshop offered a brief lesson on the history of artisan broom-making, followed by Little instructing the attendees with the preset materials on how to create their own brooms.
Theriault went home with two different types of brooms as well as a pot scrubber, all of which she was delighted to find were functional.
“It’s a piece of art you can use,” she said.
The seed for Baba’s Brooms was planted years ago when Little was working at a historic settlement. In her last four years of employment, she was searching for something to do and became inspired by watching farmers harvest broom corn.
“I’m always interested in making things and so I thought it would be an interesting thing to learn,” said Little.
Visitors to the settlement quickly became fascinated by the brooms that Little and her workmate created, many asking to buy them and if they did workshops.
For roughly five years now, Little has been making brooms and running Baba’s Brooms. Customers at craft markets often show the same fascination when discovering her brooms, with Little noting the general public reaction is “I have never seen anything like this in my life.”
The biggest aspect of making the brooms, Little explained, is the handles. The handle material often consists of foraged wood, driftwood and even donated sticks from customers. After the wood is left to dry for six months, the bark is removed and sanded down, cut to shape and the twigs are removed. The brooms are then finished with paint and oil.
As for the name of the business, Little explained how she has been known by many around her as “Baba” instead of her real name Barbara for years and how it seemed fitting for her nickname to be part of it.
“I had four younger brothers and sisters and they couldn’t say Barbara, so they called me Baba,” she said.
Little said the nickname also caught on with her son, his friends and eventually her grandchildren.
She decided to start holding broom-making workshops out of customer demand and her love of teaching. Little hopes more will appreciate the art of crafting a broom.
“I looked at this job as a pre-retirement gig, but I think it’s going to turn out to be more than that.”
