New Directions for Pat's Feltmaking

Over the last two years, I have taken a sort of feltmaker’s odyssey.  This all began when a guild asked me to give a lecture on “New Trends in Feltmaking”.  I told them of course I would do it, but when I started to gather information I realized that I had been isolated for a while and didn’t really know what was “new.”

You see, I had spent several years developing the technique I call “Watercolor Felt”.  I was so enamored with this technique that I didn’t really look outside of my own studio at the larger world of feltmaking.  In addition, I had stopped publishing the North American Felter’s Network Newsletter and was not watching the whole feltmaking scene for new techniques and concepts.

When I started researching the “New Trends”, I realized that I wanted to learn some of them.  I decided not to spend the time experimenting in my studio to teach myself these new techniques but to take workshops with people who I considered to be “at the top of their game.” These people had spent years developing their methods and I thought that it would be best to learn from them, rather than to take the time at this stage of my live to develop them myself.  My figuring was that it would be interesting to build on top of my own strong understanding of feltmaking and then to tweak my knowledge to push it in new directions.

In some cases I learned things that I would probably not do again while in other cases I was amazed and excited by what I learned.  I also learned that I already knew a lot that I was being shown.  Often, the techniques were derivations of ones we did back in the 70’s or 80’s.  I loved when the techniques were tangential from my own lifetime of felt and art explorations and would therefore send me off along new paths.   

I ended up taking workshops from 17 different people during this time period. I am proud of the items I've made and wanted to share them with others but I didn't want to exhibit them as totally my own work since they were made in workshops, under the mentorship of the instructor.  (Even though the design decisions were my own. Yes, I am that hard headed about my designs! LOL) But the style was influenced by the mentor and the techniques taught by him/her.  I was able to convince the organizers of two different events that it would be cool to see this body of work exhibited together-once at the Midwest Felting Symposium during the summer and once this last weekend at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival.

Here is a list of the people I have studied with along this journey.

1. Karolina Arvilommi and Rod Welch- Wall Hanging.

2. Vilte Kazlauskaite- Made samples in class and then made a Vilte inspired vest at home.

3. Leiko Uchiyama- Shawl with areas of “Pine Needle” lace.

4. Irit Dulman-Eco printed tunic and eco printed shibori felt purse.

5. Melissa Arnold- Collars and samples.

6. Pam MacGregor- Texture and dimensional felt samples placed in book format.

7. Barbara Poole- Coat.

8. Fiona Duthie- Online course, samples of various surface design techniques.

9. Kristy Kun- “Cholla Cactus” scarf.

10. Katia Mokeyeva- Surface textured collar.

11. Jean Gauger- Felted mosaic wrap.

12. Margo Duke- Mosaic pieced felt vest.

I also studied with Jorie Johnson (jewelry and small accessories), Loyce Ericson (spiral scarf), India Flint (eco printing), Tash Wesp (vest) and Sharon Mansfield (no roll felting in the dryer), but I have no finished products from these classes to exhibit.

Here are photos from the O.F.F.F. exhibit. 

Overview of My Exhibition Area at the Festival

Second Overview of Display

Collar made in Katia Mokeyeva's class. 

Wrap made during Jean Gauger class and Mosaic vest made during Margo Duke's class. 

Vest inspired by the samples I made with Vilte Kazlauskaite and jacket made with Barbara Poole. 

Collar made with Melissa Arnold, lace felt shawl made with Kristy Kun, and part of a "poncho" made in the class with Irit Dulman. 

Eco printed poncho made during a class with Irit Dulman. 

Pine Needle Felt shawl made during Leiko Uchiyama's class and dyed felt sample made during Melissa Arnold's class. 

Dyed felt samples made during Melissa Arnold's class. 

Dyed felt sample from Melissa Arnold's class and eco printed shibori felt purse made during Irit Dulman's class. 

Bird wall hanging made during Karolina Arvilommi and Rod Welch's class. 

The texture samples from the classes I took with Pam Macgregor and Fiona Duthie were in a case during this festival and I couldn't get a good photo of them through the glass. 

          

I also exhibited one of my Watercolor Felt pieces so that I could show what I had been doing while the rest of the felt world was busy doing something else.  

This piece is called Calla Lily Group I. 

I am now one of the featured artists for Gallery Calapooia in Albany, Oregon.  For this exhibit, I have applied some of the things I've learned from this long list of amazing mentors to a new body of work.  Pictures coming soon!  

New Directions for an Old Felter

A little over a year ago, I was asked to give a lecture on new directions in felting.  I had been making felt for around 35 years at that point, and to tell the truth, I had become pretty obsessed with my own directions in felt.  (I developed a technique for making photo realistic pictures in felt that I called "Watercolor Felt" and I have been making pictorial felts with this method for several years.)  I was not really aware of what had been going on around the world in my field since I was so absorbed in this relatively small aspect of feltmaking.  When I began doing research to see what was "new", I was very surprised.  New materials, new methods, new looks to the felt- lots of new things!  I was excited by these new approaches to making felt and I decided that I wanted to start learning as much as I could about them.  Until recently, I always understood how a felt product was made, but with these new felts, I was flummoxed.   I decided the best way to learn about them was to take as many classes as I could in the USA from teachers who I perceived to be experts in their approach to making felt.  In the past year, I have taken classes from Pam deGroot (Australia), Rod Welch and Karolina Arovilimmi (Finland), Vilte Kazlauskaite (Lithuania), Irit Dulman (Israel), Tash Wesp (USA), Loyce Ericson (USA) and Leiko Uchiyama (Japan and Ireland).  All of these wonderful teachers have had workshops close enough to my home in Oregon that I could travel to them.  In addition to these workshops, I have been studying from online tutorials and books.  It is really amazing what I've learned!

For instance:
1.  People are really understanding and exploiting the properties of wool to make interesting things happen in feltmaking.  The ruffles along the edge of this scarf are an example of this. I learned how to do this from a tutorial I purchased from Irene Rudman (Israel) of Rudman Art.  The technique makes use of the fact that wool will shrink in the direction of its root.  The wool in the center of the scarf was placed so that its roots were lying in the opposite direction of the fibers laid around the edge.  When the center shrank, the outside edge didn't so it was "gathered" into ruffles.  Very cool! 

2.  Another thing I learned is that really deep, wonderful textures can be created and will hold together in a felt if they are felted to a base cloth using superfine merino wool as the felt "glue".  This is the first time I had used 3 mm silk chiffon (the base cloth) and 19 micron merino in this way.  Vilte taught us the relief techniques using silk cloth and various fibers, including flax and silk.  However in these pictures below, I am exploring the textures with cotton gauze and voile.

Above: Sample of cotton fabric flower and pleat textures. 

My friend Kathe Todd-Hooker with the textured felt scarf I made her for her birthday. 

The scarf in process.  Notice that the flowers and other textures are face down.  The base cloth and "glue wool" will be put over the top of these textures. 

More another day on this learning adventure of mine. 

_________________________________________________________

Watercolor-Felt Tulips 3 In Process

I just returned from the Handweavers Guild of America Conference (Convergence) in Tampa. I really enjoyed myself there, although I did work very hard. I taught a 3 day workshop, a 1 day workshop, and 4 seminars. The big excitement was that my artwork was picked to be on the cover of the Gallery Guide! (The piece is called "Brooklyn, Disparate Parrot" . You can see a better picture of it on my web site www.sparkfiberarts.com, or link from the picture at the bottom of this blog.)
And another one of my pieces was on the inside, as an example of the felting exhibit "The Eye of the Hurricane". I won third price in that exhibit, which was also very exciting. The piece is called "Memories of Summer Calm". In fact, felt did well at Convergence. Two out of the five awards in the fashion show went to felt pieces. (By Sharon Goeres and Anne Flora). Lisa Klakulak won an award in the Eye of the Hurricane Exhibit as well as (I believe) in the Small Expressions exhibit. Sharon also won an award in the Eye of the Hurricane Exhibit. Sorry, I can't remember the other winner in the felt exhibit.

After all of the teaching, I was exhausted when I got back and I've spent the last two days relaxing, unpacking, doing laundry, etc.

I've made progress on the Tulips 3 piece. When I do a Watercolor-Felt:
1. I start with a base of pre-felt that I add impressions of color to. These impressions are based on the drawing or photograph I'm using as inspiration. I look at the image and then use a felting needle to put a blurred, out-of-focus version of the image on the pre-felt base.




















Above: Drawing of Tulips 3


2. I then wet felt this base with the blurred image to make the backing more solid. See the felt at this stage at the right.



3. When the felt is dry, I begin adding more precise shapes to the image. I start with the shapes in the background and work my way forward. See the leaves in the photo below.

Here is a picture of some of the merino top I dyed for the tulip piece. I have been busy framing two other works so that they can go off to Convergence in Tampa. I have been photographing the process I use to mount and frame my watercolor felts so that I can include it in the lecture I'm giving at Convergence on "Watercolor Felt". I had a terrible time today with the sun coming in and out of the clouds as I was trying to photograph on my porch! Usually Oregon has great, evenly lighted, overcast days. But not today!

I hope to get the drawings of the tulip piece scanned in a couple of days. And to photograph the piece as it has progressed so far.
More to come.......

New Tulip Piece in Process

I have a commission for a wall piece similar to one that I made previously. (See photo at left.) Since I never do the same image twice, this new one is going to be slightly different, but have similarly colored tulips (reds and pinks). (To learn more about the original tulip pieces, go to: http://www.peak.org/~spark/Tulips2.html)




To begin this piece, I looked through my files to find images of tulips that I liked. My friend, Kathe Todd-Hooker, had taken some pictures last year at the Woodburn Tulip Festival (Oregon) which had some wonderfully shaped tulips. But the colors were wrong. So I walked around my neighborhood and took photos of red and pink tulips, from several angles in order to get a sense of the colors I wanted to use.

Using these photos, I dyed several pieces of white merino top, in the possible colors for the piece. I also dyed some merino top in a variety of greens for the leaves. When I am working on a piece, I'd rather have more colors than I need to choose from than not have enough. I never know exactly where my mind is going to take me while I'm working, so I like to have lots of possibilities to choose from. Besides, there's always a use for dyed merino top in my felting studio!

More to come........