Another sense of wedding

nuno felt dress: wool and silk

Glimpse into the process. Jumping

Felting might sometimes look like this too. Shrinking felt

On authentic creativity and ethics. Interviews.

An interesting feature and interview with 3 textile artists - Elis Vermeulen. Visual artist., Andrea Graham and me, Vilte Kazlauskaite - on authentic creativity and ethics, published in Australian magazine "Felt" ArtWear Publications, issue 12, 2014. Thoughts spinning around creative identity, true self, balance, ethics, etc. And one of my most favorite quotes from this article is the answer of Elis on a question of stimulation of revealing one's true self:
"Stimulation is not a word I would use myself, I would rather say there is no other way. I do not see the reason to reveal someone else's thoughts as if they were mine. Same as I only want to live my life and not someone else's I guess".

Another sense of fashion. Purple

 

nuno felt dress: wool and silk. natural dyes: madder, alkanet

Textile Art around the World

Happy to be included in the new released book "Textile art around the world" which is a nice compilation of very different textile artists' works, I found some tapestries, embroidery, shibori, knitting pieces that are just amazing. The book can be ordered at http://www.textile-link.com/ and you can read what textile is for each artist featured in the book. Enjoy.

Another sense of fashion. Logwood

nuno felt cloak: wool and silk. natural dyes: logwood

Vilt Kontakt

 

Dutch ViltKontakt magazine
Autumn 2014, Number 42
Cover & interview

State of the Art.

Catalysta.org has published a series of talk "State of the Art": Three eco fashion experts explain how one of the most wasteful industries in the world can take the steps necessary for change and a sustainable future.
There are 3 videos released so far and all of them are so worth watching and listening to to increase your conscious choice in this world of textiles. But a second video has my work as illustration on the talk of Sass Brown, researcher, writer, blogger (ecofashiontalk.com), and educator, her area of expertise is eco fashion, about inspiring, great design and traditional materials and techniques (it starts on minute 1:55):http://catalysta.org/passion/whats-cost-fashion/

World of Wearable Art 2014

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And the story behind it? I’ve heard about this competition a few years ago and was always curious to enter it. So in 2014 I decided to do it. I designed a beautiful garment of the East princess in my mind and bought some fresh water pearls for decorating it, just to finally realize that I misunderstood the conditions of the contest and had to send the pictures of the finished piece already, because I was a first year entrant, and I didn’t have another 2 months to do that, as I thought. So I had a choice – do I step back, because it was the last day to send the photos or I send just any photo of my finished pieces? I decided to send what I had – I chose the blue dress I made for ballerina and sent it. To my surprise it was accepted and I had to reproduce the dress to send it to New Zealand. Wish I could have seen my Princess of the East Wind performing on the stage, but New Zealand was just a little bit too far, but just a little bit Glad to be the finalist of the contest though.

Another sense of fashion. Beige

nuno felt dress: wool, silk. Natural dyes: walnut

Wedding stories

photography by Viktorija Vaisvilaite

 

 

photography by Svetlana Batura

 

Every love and wedding story is different in its own beautiful way. And I am happy to meet people who want their stories “written” in unique handmade natural ways with nuno felt dresses and jackets. It is always unique.

Another sense of fashion

nuno felt blouse: merino wool, silk, flax, bamboo. natural dyes: cochineal

Hand writings in blue

Handwritings in blue. Nuno felt piece from wool, silk, and flax. Natural dyes: indigo.

A piece participated in The International Nantong Craft Biennale 2014, in China.

Authentic Creativity and Ethics

Australian Felt magazine publishing my article on Authentic Creativity and Ethics http://artwearpublications.com.au/subscriptions/felt-magazine.html(by ArtWear Publications)
With the editor's note by Wendy Bailye:
"We have a special article by Vilte on ethics and authenticity - a very timely topic. With the growth of the internet and with so many images of precious work being published, there are ever increasing concerns about people copying other peoples work and denying their own creative selves. Vilte presents us with some interesting research and questions".
Photography in the article is by me and SVETLANA BATURA* fotografija. And thank you to our beautiful models - Beata Molyte and Helman Lik.
This article is the first part - a theoretical, psychological, research approach to the matter. The second part of the article will be published in December issue with interviews with some of very well known textile artists, as well as my personal point of view.

4 full Moons

4 Full Moons - a skirt with the circumference of 4 circles.
nuno felt: silk, wool, fresh water pearls
natural dyes: weld, indigo, logwood

Handprint

"you carry the stories of the people that make your clothes"...

Who really made your clothes?
From Director Mary Nighy and Producers White Lodge comes Handprint, a provocative short film starring Elettra Wiedemann. Premiered at London Fashion Week at the launch of the Green Carpet Challenge

Through other’s lens–my felt and natural dyes

nuno felt dress as seen by photographer Viktorija Vaisvilaite

natural dyes: madder

First book "Veltinis" is now in English!

FELT by Viltė Kazlauskaitė | Make Your Own Book

My first book "Veltinis" that was published in 2008 and then revised in 2010 (in Lithuanian) is now available in English for your iPads as an eBook! You asked for it, and here it comes - Felt by Vilte Kazlauskaite. Revised English edition, 2014. Print copies are also available for order on Blurb

Rustic felt on the cover

Felt and natural dyeing by me on the cover of Lithuanian People magazine, worn by beautiful Lithuanian actress Egle Jackaite and her sons. Photography by Viktorija Vaisvilaite.

The idea of the photographer was to create rustic and cozy image of the family members. For this I chose delicate silk, cotton muslin, wool, spun silk embroidery and natural dyeing and improvised eco printing of the garments. I used madder, cochineal, alkanet, walnut and young alder collected from my yard.

Cyprus workshop 2014 - registrations being accepted now

September 8-14, 2014. Cyprus. 

The search for Identity.

This is not a regular felting workshop, rather a creative journey in search of authentic identity in felting textures, forms, and using natural colours.

What are the main traits of creativity? How does creativity work for us?

Can we define self? How do we draw parallels of our characteristics of self and our creative language?

What influences authentic self expression and imitation?

What is there in the colour? What do we base our selection of colour on?

These are the theoretical questions we will try to explore together during the workshop.

During the practical part of the workshop we will explore different felt textures as a personal language, looking for possible alterations to match our authentic identities.

We will explore felt’s characteristics as lightness, heaviness, density, transparency, drape and stretch through fiber dynamics.

We will learn to make a flat body prototype pattern to be used as a reference in altering patterns and creating interesting forms. We will also analyze specific forms and their application, such as full circle, double circle, triple circle, etc and different pattern inserts.

You will then design your own wearable piece referring to all the practical and theoretical experience lived through the workshop.

We will also explore natural colours – mordanting, extracting colors, modifying them and applying colours in a creative way of mixing and matching different tones and different plants. We will practice an analytic method of natural dyeing plan and the choice of materials depending on it.

Info and registration: viltess@gmail.com

Birds make great sky-circles. Madder red

“Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall and falling,
they're given wings.” (Rumi)
A dress comes when it's time for it to come. The dress with idea of circles came to my mind about 2 years ago when reading poetry by Rumi and imagining the whirling dervish. I just took a more feminine shape of the circle in my opinion.

nuno felt dress: wool, silk, flax, fresh water pearls

natural dyes: madder