FEEL FELT FELT FEELING

Project: Repurpose

2012-01-15T23:15:00.001+02:00

Almost two years ago one of my clients was so excited contacting me, and she had an idea… She wanted me to repurpose her wedding dress that was sitting in the box for years. I think her excitement simply infected me and I said yes to her, let’s try this.

So the dress made its way to me over Atlantic. When I opened the big box, I had ambiguous feelings – fear to take the dress apart, excitement to repurpose it and…worry when I saw it was all synthetic and not silk as my client thought of it.

I don’t usually use anything synthetic in my pieces or projects, I don’t feel connected with the synthetics. And especially having to combine it with the natural materials… The other problem was that most of the fabric of the dress was not suitable for felting at all.

As the excitement and enthusiasm of the first moments faded away, I understood I could do nothing unless I build a connection with this fabric. I needed it to speak to me. There were dozen of times when I took it to my hands and then put it away. I took it apart, carded some fabric into fibers, and removed the embellishments to be felted on something I still didn’t know what. I was lucky to have such a wonderful client who understood my creative process and was ready to wait even for a year or more.

Concentrating my thoughts on my client, opened up my mind. Though the fabric was synthetic, it was a part of my clients image some years ago – I was sure this dress was soaking in most positive feelings, love and adoration during those times when my client was marrying a man she loved. It wasn’t just a piece of polyester to her. This was the point where the fabric could speak to me and I could listen. My work began.

It wasn’t all about felting, just a few pieces, it was more of interpretation in textiles. I applied several techniques and thought a lot about colors. I was sure the colors should be softening the feeling of synthetics and should be something that would look worth of a woman whatever her age would be. As the woman who decided to repurpose her wedding dress wants to cherish the things made of it for years or maybe a lifetime.

And…the best reward for this “communication” with the dress was my clients reaction – she loved every single piece. And I hope she is going to cherish it for years.

Furry trends in couture and feltmaking

2011-10-31T20:11:00.001+02:00

It seems that furry looks have never been that much in fashion as this Fall. I’ve already talked about this trend last year, mentioning collection of Chanel. But it seems that the furry trend reached its peak just this Fall – when you look at the styles showed in so many fashion magazines, when you look at what many shops have to offer this Fall – there’s so much of furry looks. And when you look at the runway for this Fall, for example Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, you see very soft furry collections. Just one idea keeps turning on my mind when looking at it – she could have that much successfully used felt from alpaca rather than fur and would have got very similar looks, just more eco-friendly and cruelty free. And that’s why I feel even more proud for Josephus Thimister, who let this furry trend appear on the runway using the craft of felt making (my felt pieces for Josephus Thimister Fall/Winter 2011-2012 collection could be seen here).

my nuno felt coat with alpaca fleece

alpaca fleece in nuno felt

Books

2011-10-27T20:50:00.001+03:00

There were couple of books on feltmaking published recently that included images of my felt pieces as well.

One was a very big project I would say - “500 Felt Objects” published by Lark Books.

First it strikes you with the versatility of what the felt can be – it is really an enormous collection of various felt pieces in different forms – from tiny crafts to art objects. Endless applications and the most diverse techniques that one ever dreamt of fulfilling or would be so much surprised to discover in this book.

My "Wild Pigeon" in "500 Felt Objects"

My "Iris Wattii" in "500 Felt Objects"

The other thing that strikes you is when you think that all of these works were collected for review in the very beginning of 2010, i.e. almost 2 years ago, and then you think what big path all those feltmakers have already travelled in their creative expressions since that time and how astonishing it must be to see all of their works at this moment.

It’s a beautiful gallery book for people who are interested in felt as a textile medium. The idea of the book was great though there are still some weaker points in its materialization I believe. The idea, design, format, and publishing claim for a solid and solemn publication, though some photos do surprise you in the lack of simplest quality and higher class of presentation of the object. And I am not speaking of the tastes here as they differ so much individually. The other thing that might surprise a person who has a better knowledge of feltmakers’ world already is the criteria the curator chose some photos of a particular author to be published. Some of them don’t really reveal the spirit of the author at all (e.g. the only yellow carpet by Claudy Jongstra and purses of Agostina Zwilling). This makes you doubt if there was enough of time for the publishers to really examine the submitted images and review the authors or maybe a little drop of energy and enthusiasm in bringing the idea to life.

Despite these two little things I felt like mentioning, it is really the book what its title says it to be – 500 Felt Objects. Creative Explorations of a Remarkable Material. A material to be discovered and explored. And get inspired! And a quite true reflection of the felt making world in present times.

The second book I was going to mention is written by a Russian author Ксения Шинковская - "Войлок" (“Felt”) – a little encyclopedia of many various techniques used in feltmaking. A very eclectic and informative book that included several images of my felt pieces that you can see on my Facebook page.

Becoming a character

2011-10-26T21:32:00.002+03:00

I like to intimate the stories with my felt and the way I take photos with it. And I liked the idea of someone else continuing these stories from my photos when Lyse whom I met on Etsy asked me if she could use some of my photos for her creative works in her Imaginary World – ImagineStudio.

That’s how me with my felts became a character – Girl with the Golden Earing

…Homage to Claudel

The Wave

taught by vilte

2011-09-29T21:43:00.001+03:00

Well…many of you asked for it. It took me quite a lot of time, but…here it is – taught by vilte

Some of my students from various countries have talked a lot how great it would be to see a set of images from various workshops held in different countries and compare what people make. I decided it would be even more interesting to see how people apply my techniques later in their own designs, that’s why I have included some of the images of felt designs by my students using the techniques taught by me. I want to thank everyone who emailed me letters with warmest wishes and words, and the links to their websites, and the photos. It takes me quite a long time to reply to everyone, so please be patient…But know, I appreciate your words and always answer you in my mind. There’s a connection, remember? :)

Enjoy my new tumblr site devoted just for the workshops I give – taught by vilte (I am sorry for not listing every workshop I gave there, but I don’t have any photos from some of them).

What’s in the color?

2011-08-18T12:02:00.001+03:00

Just the other day reading the book I found a more “tangible” and scientific explanation of how the colors influence us.

"Clearly, there is more to colour than meets the eye as even blind people can literally ‘feel’ different colours with their fingertips.

Colour is not just part of the object we see in the distance, it's a light wave coming right at us. Colour is simply energy. Energy influencing our feelings, our well being, and demanding a response.” A.Wright

If color is energy, probably there’s much more encoded in this energy from the plants and therefore we have such different experiences when facing a live color from the plant rather than a “dead” synthetic color.

Dyed with St. John’s wort.

Color

2011-07-27T00:19:00.001+03:00

There is something in the colors from the plants that keep you so attracted to them. It gives you comfort. It stimulates your senses that sometimes you just want to soak in that color. It might be a little scrap piece of silk, but you look at it and can’t stop – it’s like something that is encoded in that color from a plant speaks to your subconsciousness while your consciousness subsides. And you don’t have to understand anything at all, you just have to feel it.

It never happens with artificial colors. Even when you look at the color you adore, it’s different. You love it, but it’s just not the same… It lacks that feeling…

I believe it’s my third Summer when I do a lot of dyeing with plants. I can’t call myself a professional dyer who does a lot of studies and makes detailed records (if I would go that deep into dyeing, I would have to stop felting. One man can not live the lifetimes of many, no matter how you want it…) But just when I did my first samples with plants, I felt THAT. There is something that won’t let you go back too. You even don’t notice, but all artificially dyed materials little by little start to step back of your creative life and you find yourself surrounded just with what you call natural and true.

It’s my first Summer though when I collect quite a lot of dye stuff from my own land myself or use vegetable waste and medicinal herbs that have expired (I always had lots of these as this is almost the only medicine I take for more than 15 years).

St. John’s wort, sage, tansy – all growing in our fields, around us. I really love the sources that are available here… And I’ve been using them as medicinal herbs for so many years already. Strange that I didn’t think about colors before. Dyeing opens your eyes to the world. It teaches you to notice things, to cherish the world we are living in, to connect and to feel. It heals you.

And then the color meets the fiber to make a perfect duo. And makes you want to soak in it, to touch it, wander with your eyes in it, get lost and feel safe at the same time.

Comfort…

The Net. Connections

2011-07-19T23:57:00.001+03:00

Meeting people, getting into mysterious situations of coincidences, especially during my recent travels with my workshop program, always deepened that feeling of the NET, the connections in our lives. There have been so many situations when I meet people who are somehow related to the people I already knew, no matter where on Earth they lived, or me myself, when I meet people I never knew in this life but got a feeling we just parted yesterday and met again, that I really stopped to wonder. I can even say I am really looking forward to every single meeting of “my people” that is yet to come. I don’t ask why I do meet those people, I am not really trying to remember what could have connected us in lives before this one, I just accept and respect every meeting. No matter what it brings – is it me or someone else paying the debts from the past lifetimes, it’s that feeling of connections in humanity, in life, the net around us and in us – it’s like closing your eyes and putting your finger on your wrist to feel the pulse of one LIFE for all that doesn’t start and doesn’t end with birth and death.

This net, the connections have been my theme lately in life, and my focus in my new felt pieces – fragile, yet strong, flowing without a start and the end – every fiber entangled with one another, embracing each other in knots that never get undone, building connections, the net…

Music by Joe Hisaishi

“Meetings are not flowers. They do not fade and die without any traces, stepping into shadows. … you have to open your mind and heart and to understand people not only as personally closely related, but as the companions to the truth. And then all meetings will be blessed.” (C.Antarova “Two Lives”)

Photography

2011-07-17T01:48:00.001+03:00

Whatever is your art or craft media, you will always turn to photography as the means to reflect your work to the world or even create a continuation of the thought of your work. That’s why I always considered it to be a very important aspect in one’s artistic life.

Not all of us of course have a professional photographer, professional equipment and studio, not to mention a few super models at hand to always present one’s work in the best manner. At least I don’t – just an improvised environment in an apartment, a tripod and remote control in my own hands and the same face all the time of which I really get bored and wished I had a couple of best friends – models nearby from time to time. Anyway, on the other hand it’s sometimes the easiest option when you do everything by yourself. It’s just the maker who can really express what he meant with his work (or a real soul mate photographer who feels and sees the world the way you do and knows every corner of your soul, thus – your work too… But tell me how often do you meet such? But… I am still dreaming of the photo shoots with some photographers I feel close to my soul and to have women I adore as my models… It’s nice to imagine).

I always regret when I don’t have enough time to picture all the work I do as I consider it to be a final act of my creation that materializes the image living in my mind. Or I’d better say – a final act that requires my own input as the very final act is the reaction of observers that the piece stimulates…

wedding dress (wool & silk)

wool, silk & flax, eco dyed with vegetable plant dyes

“Poetry of fibres” in FUN

2011-06-02T10:54:00.002+03:00

Today I found a German felt magazine “FUN” waiting for me in the mailbox. And on page 12 you can find my interview on my workshop I held at Italian Felt Academy this March.

You will read most of what I wrote about my workshops before on my blog and see the dresses and samples participants made during my course under my guidance in Verona. The dress that was made there got even on the back cover of the magazine.

Magazine “FUN”
My next workshop at Italian Felt Academy will be held this October.

Why do you do it?

2011-05-30T17:38:00.001+03:00

Almost in every workshop I give I get this question. Why do you do it or don’t you feel sorry you are giving your techniques to the world for anyone to use and get more rivals? No, I don’t. No, I don’t – for the creative and growing spirits who are just getting a stimulus, an inspiration for their own work and who are going to develop their own signature with time. And the others – I don’t think about them, because if they only follow and not create themselves, thus I will always be at least one step ahead, so why bother? No, I don’t, because I just have 2 arms and a small place for felting – no studio, no staff, no felting machines, and no plans to conquer the world just by myself.

But what I really care about is that the students who come to my workshops would be open minded and have the right motivation to work more and concentrate on the concept of the workshop and not the techniques, it is the process that is important, I am not just teaching how to do it, I am talking how to think about it, I am encouraging the students to feel it. If someone comes and asks just to look at the way I apply some techniques in felting, I am saying – no, I don’t teach like that. If you are not interested to actually live it through, feel it, experience and listen to what I have to say, don’t come to my workshop.

Of course I don’t like it when people you teach later on try to hide that they were taught by me and present the techniques as an invention of their own. I don’t like when people don’t give credits. I don’t like when people become dependant and don’t want to continue on their own – when they take the same principles, inspirations, goals, approach, even ideas they heard me discussing with someone else and don’t think of anything on their own.

For a long time I was just a self taught felter, but that’s how I developed my signature in felting, later my first and only teacher was Claudy Jongstra who literally set me free from my own brakes. And since then I happily and always give credit to her teaching and recommend her workshops. And I think that’s the way it should be.

There are hundreds of feltmakers with really excellent felting skills, but there are so little who reveal their uniqueness in their felting. My workshops focus more on the latter. I believe a key to uniqueness can be discovered in encouraging creativity, in adding a feeling to the process, in developing a communication with the materials and a piece. I often call my fiber work – poetry of fibers. That’s what I expect from my students. It might be blank verses – a stream of subconsciousness, very intuitive poetry of fibers, a haiku or a poetry with complicated rhyme scheme, it doesn’t matter, it’s just a different approach to the felting process, not just a demonstration of perfect felting skills.

New techniques that I am teaching during the workshop is just the language that we are going to use for the particular subject of the workshop, it’s not the focus. I believe that creativity training and ability to connect with yourself (thus developing your own unique signature) is the most essential of all.

I have just returned from my workshop in UK with which I was really happy and enjoyed a really creative company of English feltmakers (as well as some who came from the Netherlands and Canada, and of Russian origin too). And I also had such well known students as Sheila Smith, Liz Clay, Lizzie Houghton, Chrissie Day, who have long ago developed their own signatures and taught others and I am sure they just came to try to speak “in my language” and will tell their own in felt if they do like it. It’s that other approach that I was talking about – when people don’t really need the techniques “step 1, step 2, step 3- bye bye”, they just learn your language to speak their own stories.

Photos – kimono coat – an example of wild fibers and manipulation to be taught in my workshop in the Netherlands

Workshop updates

2011-05-17T00:47:00.004+03:00

Happy to announce 2 more workshops in the Netherlands this September (you can find updated info on workshop’s page) in the beautiful studio of Truus in beautiful Friesland.

photo (c) and the piece made for Josephus Thimister AW 2011 collection, Paris Fashion week

People and wisdom

2011-05-04T15:54:00.001+03:00

One aspect of travelling that I appreciate and adore now is meeting people. When I was younger I was so much taken by places I got to visit, the surroundings that people always went to the second plan. Now it’s the other way around. If I had ever developed a talent of a writer I would now have hundreds of characters and their stories to put into ink and paper.

Piet Mondriaan – Passie Bloem. One of my students Bertken gave me a postcard with P.Mondriaan painting “Witte rozen” and told me the story about Piet and how she wanted to give me another postcard - “Passie Bloem”, but couldn’t find it. Touched by the attention of my student I just had to find that painting myself.

Besides all the enriching and inspiring communication I get from the people I meet during my trips, I also sometimes hear the special words of wisdom they share.

When I was having dinner with my colleague friend Eveline van der Pas (into whom I just bumped into on my stay in the Netherlands without knowing where exactly she lived) her young daughter musician said that we always admire someone who’s potential we have ourselves, just haven’t developed it yet. And I found it so true and encouraging in everyone’s way of creativity.

On a short visit to Elis Vermeulen and discussing all the impressions from my workshop life and travelling, she said that you always have to get back to yourself and understand what it is that YOU want after hearing what others say you should/could do. And that’s exactly what I am doing now. I am getting back to myself and what I myself want out of my felt.

In the making. What is felt II

2011-04-26T02:32:00.001+03:00

We choose a lot of things spontaneously in our lives, only later realizing the meanings of the processes. I had been a dancer for 10 years in my life and I quit dancing as I started my psychology studies. I always longed for dance and just recently realized that perhaps felt in some way has become a compensation for dancing . It’s not me who is dancing now but my hands make the wool and other fibers dance, move, entangle, interlock. If one could film this process with a macro camera, we would see a dance of these migrating fibers. Even my finished pieces have movement encoded in them, they are flowing, organic, and never static.

It’s my quote from the article that was written about me and my work in Dutch magazine about felt VILT Kontakt

Workshops

2011-04-20T23:21:00.002+03:00

When I came back from the Netherlands I found a CD waiting for me in the post. Agostina’s (Italian Felt Academy) husband Gosta Zwilling was taking photos during the workshop and sent them to me as well. It was really interesting to see these photos after some time has passed after the workshop in Italy ended. There is always something you see and realize in the moment it is happening, and always something else that comes to your perception when the time passes.

I pay a lot of attention to working on samples during my workshops. And here are some of the samples the participants made in Italy. Their concept for the workshop was combining archaic spirit of the woman using raw fleece with modern, subtle femininity using tactile surfaces from various fabrics.

The workshop in the Netherlands was taking place in a perfect studio of Truus Huijbregts. It is always more inspiring to work in the surroundings like these and create a healthy environment for creativity in a relaxed way without the stress that is no good at all during such workshops.

The students made lot’s of beautiful and promising samples, as well as dresses, but I didn’t take any more descent photos to be posted. One of the reasons is that after the workshop the dresses are still quite wet and the process of working with textures is not finally finished, thus I never get to see them in a full beauty, but knowing the technique and what it gives, I always know, what the students will discover when they go home with their dresses and finish them 100%.
Workshop in Belgium gave me an opportunity to meet one Lithuanian woman living in Belgium and also making felt. We had quite a lot of conversations about creativity and felt making during the workshop and the time after as Sigita accompanied me on the trips to Antwerpen where we also visited MOMU – Mode Museum with an exhibition on knitwear in fashion “Unravel”. And I felt really happy when she sent me a photo of a dress she made straight after returning from my workshop, inspired by what we did and talked during the workshop and the knitting exhibition we saw. When I see something like that, I understand that my student got the point (which is not always easy, especially for people who are used to working just inside the box), and that my teaching is not just a mere play of techniques, it makes people create using the language I teach. And that is my goal as a teacher.

P.S. You can always check my schedule of workshops on my blog which should be updated soon with more workshops in Autumn, 2011.

Meeting and teaching

2011-04-20T10:42:00.001+03:00

When I started something like a workshop tour in Europe this March (which started in Italy at Italian Felt Academy), I never imagined what it would bring to myself. Except of the joy or elation that one feels when the students are capable of opening up, setting themselves free and letting the creativity flow; and when the students are advanced and you don’t have to explain ordinary technical things too much, then something special starts in the class, which I could call a play of higher substances.

After returning from a very special trip to the Netherlands and then Belgium, I’ve been thinking a lot of how much this traveling has given to me. Special people, meetings, lot’s of conversations, places, mysterious coincidences, deja-vu, all the feelings that help you to understand where and why you are and where you are going or why you are doing the things that you do.

a card that one of my students gave to me after the workshop: “a whole new world has opened up”. I could say the same about me…

In the making: what is felt. I

2011-04-03T01:50:00.003+03:00

…the process of felting is like a witch craft. Wool, silk, flax, all the natural fibers and water and you get a whole that puts a spell on the observer. Archaic codes that we recognize in our collective subconsiousness…
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….vėlimo procesas – lyg kerėjimai. Vilna, šilkas, linas, visi natūralūs pluoštai ir vanduo – sukuriama visuma, kuri užburia stebintįjį. Archajiški kodai, atpažįstami mūsų kolektyvinėje pasąmonėje…

“bored with seeing collections that have no soul, no feeling, no seduction”

2011-03-25T09:39:00.004+02:00

Some of you were quite curious to know more about Josephus Thimister, the designer with whom I had honor to collaborate for his AW 2011/12 collection this year. I found some quotes on the internet I would like to share for others would get at least a little sense of uniqueness of Josephus, and some photos from his last year collection, some looks I just love.

“So what made you decide to start over?
Actually, it happened quite naturally. My intuition told me so. When I observed the fashion world over the last eight years, I saw a declining story. But recently I started to make clothes for my own pleasure, to show that I still have things to say and share. With experience, you know what to do and what not to do, and at the same time you’re much more free creatively. I am stronger now than I was ten years ago. And I was bored with seeing collections that have no soul, no feeling, no seduction—just a product on a hanger. I am not a bling-bling person.”
Read more: Josephus Thimister Haute Couture S/S 10 Paris - Page 7 - the Fashion Spot http://forums.thefashionspot.com/f60/josephus-thimister-haute-couture-s-s-10-paris-95032-7.html#ixzz1Haq68bLD

“and that's the beauty of Thimister. nothing is ever without meaning....nothing is ever shocking for the sake of shocking. everything is so bound together with utter poetry”.
Read more: Josephus Thimister Haute Couture S/S 10 Paris - Page 8 - the Fashion Spot http://forums.thefashionspot.com/f60/josephus-thimister-haute-couture-s-s-10-paris-95032-8.html#ixzz1HarjzI3h

THIMISTER
The origins of Josephus Thimister are eclectic: he is Russian, French, Belgian, Orthodoxe, Catholic, Jewish... A mix that he bluntly calls "garbage". After passing through Karl Lagerfeld and the fashion house of Jean Patou, he worked as a decorator before being named artistic director of the very prestigious fashion house Balenciaga. During these 5 and a half years, he gave Balenciaga a breath of fresh air, then he created his own Parisien label in 1997, under which he has since presented his Haute Couture and ready-to-wear collections. At the same time, he became art director for the Italian brand Genny, and from 2005 to 2007 for Charles Jourdan. He has also worked for a number of ready-to-wear brands as well as being a consultant. The creations of Thimester posess a certain lightness and poetry which creates an elegance devoid of any vanity. Thimester seems to rejuvinate the traditional Haute Couture, notably by using unconventional materials.

photos from: 2e-bureau.com and Fashionologie

P.S.: Some internet sites offering THIMISTER: Barneys New York, Boutique Roma, Anastasia Boutique, Case Study Space, Antonioli

THIMISTER MMXI-MMXII

2011-03-03T14:21:00.002+02:00

I’ve just returned from Paris fashion week where I was to see a collection of Josephus Thimister, for whom I made 2 coats and several capelets. And… I don’t want to say more right now except the text of Josephus that accompanied the collection…

THIMISTER MMXI-MMXII
SNOW MYSTIC CIRCLES OF FALLEN ANGELS
DARKNESS STARES OUT THROUGH ENDLESS TIME AND YOUTH, TAKING FORM OF FALLEN ANGELS – BLACK COMPILES ILLUSION AS INNOCENT SOULS ENLIGHTEN SHADOWS – BROKEN WINGS GROW OUT OF CIRCLES, TOUCHING EARTH WITH FLOWING MEMENTOS – INTRICATE CUTTING OF FABRICS, ENVELOPE BODIES LIKE FLUID SCULPTURES RUNNING FROM MEDIEVAL CLOISTERS AS MODERN WARRIORS – BIG BLACK COATS BECOME SHRINES OF SOULS – CONFUSED THOUGHTS ARE FROZEN INTO WILD KNITS AS WHITE OPPOSES BLACK – THUNDER AND LIGHTENING STRIKE THROUGH THE MUSIC THAT RINGS IN OUR EARS ACCOMPANIED BY THE ECHOES OF SHATTERING HEELS – EPHEMERAL WRAPPINGS STORM AROUND BODIES WITH HURRICANE FORCE – THE SOIL IS ALIVE AND PROCESSING WHILE NATURE RECOGNIZES ITS BALANCE – STORMY CLOUDS DESCEND UPON SHOULDERS COVERING THEM IN HUES OF GREY – NORTHERN LIGHT APPEARS FROM THE DEEPEST PROFOUNDNESS – SNOWFLAKES MURMUR QUESTIONS AS BLACK SNOW BREEZES SOFT POETRY – BIBLICAL WOOL OF JACOBIN SHEEP IS FELTED IN ANCESTRAL WAYS INTO CAPES AND COATS TRAILED BY ETHEREAL CHIFFON – SNOW BREATHS THE REMINISCENT AIR OF OUR DEAR TOLSTOI
- JOSEPHUS MELCHOIR THIMISTER

Photos from style.com

These are the felt pieces I made for Josephus. See the whole collection at style.com

felt and fiber women

2011-02-16T09:42:00.002+02:00

Not too much time left for the blog with all the projects going on and preparation for the workshops this Spring (though you can always find some little updates in my Facebook page), but I just wanted to share and enjoy a beautiful idea of other fiber artist Ricarda Assman to connect many fiber women in one e-book of artists. And I am also happy that Ricarda and Hans have designed a beautiful page with my profile for the book.
You can find all profiles here.

As I read my profile now there is so much more I want to add about my connection to felting process, but the space was limited. No time right now, but I think I am going to share more insights about that in my blog in a near future.
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Nedaug laiko belieka dienoraščio rašymui, kuomet tiesiog užgriuvę įvairūs projektai bei pasiruošimas kursams, kuriuos vesiu pavasarį, nors visgi Facebook puslapyje karts nuo karto atnaujinu naujienas. Tiesiog norėjau pasidalinti labai gražia kitos menininkės idėja sujungti daugelį moterų, užsiimančių tekstilės menu vienoje elektroninėje knygoje. Vienam menininkui – 2 knygos puslapiai. Labai džiaugiuosi ir šių puslapių dizainu, kurį sukūrė Ricarda ir Hans. “Felt and fiber women” knygoje – daugybė menininkių portretų.
Dabar skaitydama savo profilį, manau, kad dar tiek daug galėčiau pasakyti apie savo santykį su veltiniu, tačiau, žinoma, vieta puslapiuose nebuvo beribė, tad… manau, kad savo įžvalgas paliksiu kitam kartui pasidalinimui šiame dienoraštyje.

News. Workshops

2011-02-06T23:43:00.001+02:00

If you haven’t yet noticed, I have made a section “News” on the right column of my blog where you can find all updated information about the workshops I give: News

Workshops:

March 11-13 and March 15-17, 2011 - "Archaic felt in modern couture" at Italian Felt Academy
April 8-10 and April 11-13, 2011 - "Beyond the surface: fabric manipulation in making nuno felt dresses" at studio Filt Viltwerk, the Netherlands
April 15-17, 2011 - "Beyond the surface: fabric manipulation in making nuno felt dresses" at VrouwWolle studio, Belgium
May, 2011 - "Beyond the surface: fabric manipulation in making nuno felt dresses", " Beyond the surface: fabric manipulation. Creative samples". UK - info will be updated.
June 21-23; 24-26, 2011 - "Beyond the surface: fabric manipulation in making nuno felt dresses". Moscow, Russia, Проект "Шерстяные чудеса" совместно с интернет-магазином "Шкатулочка".

There might be some spots left in the workshops in the Netherlands and Belgium or probably just the Netherlands during the dates April 11-13, 2011. So if you were interested in learning how to felt nuno dresses my style, hurry up.

Book “Veltinis”

2010-12-20T16:13:00.003+02:00

So a month of intensive work of editing and curating photos for my book “Veltinis” has passed and the book is already on the shelves of the bookstores. It is the second edition of my book that was first published in 2008. But this time it has even more techniques and tips for success, as well as new photos and new design.
Here I must say big thank you to young talented designer who worked on the book with me – Tomas aka promopocket. Love his contemporary and clean approach to the design. Thank you, Tomas!
Thank you to everyone who helped in any way to publish this book. And really big thanks to my readers who were contacting and contacting my publisher until he asked me to repeat the book again :)
It has been the first book about felt in Lithuania. The book is in Lithuanian language only, but it is full of inspiring photos of works of Lithuanian feltmakers (as well as 2 from neighbor countries).
The book covers basic felting techniques, lots of tips for success and creative surface decoration. It's a book for inspiration and encouragement for your creativity in the world of felt. Could be purchased here.

Workshops: Beyond the surface: fabric manipulation in making nuno felt dresses

2010-12-15T12:54:00.002+02:00

Glad to announce another workshop in April, this time in the Netherlands!

More information at FILT studio website.

Corner shop – for fiber supplies

2010-12-12T12:27:00.001+02:00

As every fiber artist I sometimes have a weak point when it comes to buying fiber supplies and sometimes I buy too much what actually becomes excess supplies. Or as my works evolves I refine the ways and materials I work with and sometimes some of them loose interest for me as I move forward. That’s why I decided to open a little corner shop for my excess supplies on Etsy – feltfeltfelt. Please stop by and see whether some materials would be asking you to be used in your projects rather than laying in shelves at my place ;)

Glimpse of the process

2010-12-08T23:29:00.003+02:00

photos by Svetlana Batura

Workshop updates

2010-12-01T15:24:00.001+02:00

As you might have noticed I have added News section to my blog where I will be updating information on the coming workshops and other events connected with my felting.

As the first workshop at the Italian Felt Academy has been filled, the second workshop has been announced in March 15-17, Verona, Italy. More information on Agostina’s website.

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Na ir kalėdinis siurprizas lietuvaičiams, mylintiems veltinį. Nors buvom nusprendę nebekartoti mano knygos “Veltinis” leidimo, bet, vis gaudamas Jūsų prašymus, leidėjas nusprenė dar kartą išleisti šią knygą. Redaguotą, papildytą nauja informacija, naujais skyriais, dar daugiau patarimų ir atnaujintų fotografijų! Tikiuosi kažkam tai taps gražia ir naudinga kalėdine dovana :)

Wild beauty

2010-11-23T14:53:00.004+02:00

Recently I’ve been working on a collection of nuno felted eco dresses, all dyed with plants or in natural colors, that was presented during the exhibition “World of a woman” in Kaunas together with the collection of ARZA jouillerie amber and jet stone jewelry. (You can view the photos of the show on my Facebook fan page Vilte or on Flickr gallery).
I won’t be too humble in saying that the presentation was really inspiring and enchanting, but it was that way. The collection itself was very organic and definitely not static, so I decided to reinforce this impression by presenting it in a movement on modern dance dancers.
My biggest thanks thus goes to the dancers of Studija M, leaded by Lina Puodžiukaitė, a couple of dancers from Aura – Gotautė Kalmatavičiūtė and Gabija Blochina; masters of visage and hair style from Kirpėjų ir Grožio specialistų asociacija; and photographer Nerijus Kuzmickas.

There’s a very tiny sneak peak to how the dancers moved on Youtube. And if you want to listen to the music used in the show, here it is – first part was more light with this music and the second part presented more deep textures and colors with this music.

Concept of the collection was focusing on raw, “nude” natural materials (raw silk, wool, handspun silk, sustainable banana fiber…) creating wild organic surfaces, everything formed with hands in live shapes, seamless dresses. It’s like picking up raw wool and silk and “moulding” it into organic silhouettes and textures, beautiful wild “skin” for a human being.
All the collection was dyed with plants in eco friendly way giving it another organic aspect. These colors are live and warm, they encode something that is beyond what you can see with your eyes, it encompasses the feeling of the color…

Beyond serene

She bird

White peonies

Tresor

Tree of life

Inamorata

Tactile Earth

More dresses and more photos on FB or Flickr.
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Paskutiniu metu kūriau eko kolekciją vėlimo ant audinių technika, dažydama viską augalais, kuri buvo pristatyta “Moters Pasaulio” parodos metu Kaune, kartu su ARZA joillerie juvelyrika iš gintaro ir gagato. (Nuotraukas iš pristatymo rasite mano Facebook’o puslapyje ir Flickr galerijoje).
Turbūt ne kuklu sakyti, kad pristatymas buvo užburiantis, tačiau jis būtent toks buvo. Pati kolekcija buvo labai organiška ir tikrai ne statiška, todėl norėdama tai sustiprinti, pristatymui pasirinkau modernaus šokio šokėjas.
Taigi nuoširdžiausiai dėkoju Studija M šokėjoms, vadovaujamoms Linos Puodžiukaitės, porai Auros šokėjų – Gotautei Kalmatavičiūtei, Gabijai Blochinai; Kirpėjų ir grožio specialistų asociacijos meistrėms; fotografui Nerijui Kuzmickui.
Youtube svetainėje ir nedidukė atkarpėlė reportažo – tiesiog tam, kad pajausti, kaip šokėjos judėjo. Pirmos dalies muzika – švelnesnėms, lengvesnėms suknelėms, antroji – ryškesnėms, gilesnėms faktūroms ir spalvoms.
Kolekcijos konceptas – atsigręžimas į natūralias pirmines, “žalias”, tikras, “nuogas” medžiagas (šilko, vilnos, bananų pluoštai, rankomis verptas šilkas…), jomis kuriant organiškus paviršius, viską formuojant rankomis, be siūlių. Tai tarsi “žalių” pluoštų paėmimas į rankas ir organiškų siluetų, faktūrų, laukinės naujos žmogaus “odos” lipdymas rankomis.
Dar vienas organiškas kolekcijos aspektas – dažymas augalais. Tokios spalvos – gyvos, šiltos, savyje talpinančios ne tik tai, ką galima pamatyti akimis, bet ir tai, ką galima pajausti…

Daugiau nuotraukų ir suknelių FB arba Flickr galerijose.

Feeling of a white wedding. Through one’s lens

2010-11-16T13:39:00.001+02:00

After all the celebration is gone, you are left with photos of the day that evoke feelings. It’s not just the feelings of the actual day, these are also the feelings that a person behind the lens has encoded in your photography. There are lot’s of talented photographers with their own signature, I guess it’s sometimes even hard to choose, but if I had to, the main criteria would be that footprint of feeling that photographer leaves in the memories of your wedding day.

I chose to introduce you to 3 different Lithuanian photographers who also do wedding photography. Yes, I am acquainted with all of them and that’s probably why I chose to introduce them here. Because I get a better feeling of what they do.

Svetlana Batura takes a very sensual, spiritual approach, she captures something that is beyond. Perhaps it’s more feminine look at the world, or I should better say sense, not look.

Viktorija Vaišvilaitė Skirutienė has a talent of capturing the very true pulse of life – very sensitive reality, those uncovered true moments in life, the touching point of soul and body, the relation. In reality.

And Victor Morozov, very cinematic approach, passionate and stylish. Lot’s of flight. Everywhere – in people’s relation, life or even exaggerated reality. But he is a master of creating a phenomenal day in one’s life.

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Kai baigiasi visas šventės šurmulys, lieka nuotraukos, kurios sužadina jausmus. Ir tai nėra tik tos tikrosios dienos jausmai, čia įsipina ir žmogaus, stovinčio už fotoaparato objektyvo, nuotraukose užkoduoti jausmai. Yra nemažai talentingų fotografų, turinčių savo braižą, tikriausiai sunku ir pasirinkti, bet jei reikėtų rinktis, vadovaučiausi būtent tais jausmų pėdsakais, kuriuos fotografas palieka savo kurtose vestuvių dienos fotografijose-prisiminimuose.

Norėjau pristatyti 3 skirtingus lietuvių fotografus, kurie užsiima ir vestuvine fotografija. Taip, pažįstu visus tris ir tikriausiai būtent dėl to pasirinkau juos pristatymui savo dienoraštyje. Dėl to, kad galbūt geriau jaučiu tai, ką jie kuria.

Svetlanos Baturos fotografija persmelkta jausmingumu ir jautrumu, dvasinga įkrova, jos objektyvas fiksuoja kažką, kas yra virš viso matomo. Tikriausiai tai labiau moteriškas požiūris, tik turbūt reikėtų sakyti jausmas.

Viktorija Vaišvilaitė Skirutienė turi ypatingą talentą užčiuopti ir fiksuoti patį gyvenimo pulsą – labai jautrią realybę, atvirus, tikrus momentus gyvenimo plotmėje, dvasios ir kūno sąlyčio tašką, santykį. Realybėje.

Ir Victor Morozov – labai kinematografiškas, aistringas ir stilingas. Begalė polėkio. Visur – žmonių santykiuose, gyvenime, net ir suintensyvintoje realybėje. Jis tikras meistras, kurdamas išskirtinę dieną savo personažų gyvenimuose.

White wedding

2010-11-06T14:51:00.001+02:00

Autumn has traditionally been a season for weddings in our country. Perhaps that’s why I get most of custom orders for weddings in late August and September.

I have always admired the brides who are searching for something really original, even unusual, handmade and natural. Be it a dress or a wedding bouquet. I know there are tons of gorgeous and luxurious wedding gowns for lease in wedding salons, but… these dresses have always pushed me away with their synthetic fabrics, lack of uniqueness and handmade feeling. Especially when you try to imagine it used by a person for the celebration that is supposed to be the most honest, open, one of a kind in one’s life…

Feel felt felt feeling. Nuno felted wedding gown by Viltė Kazlauskaitė

It’s really nice to notice that there are more and more brides who take this natural and unique approach to their weddings. You might ask so where is that point of eco-friendliness if more and more brides would not lease a wedding gown in a salon for one day but would have it created just for her? Well, I think it would be much more eco-friendly to repurpose a wedding gown after the wedding to many useful and beautiful pieces of clothing or accessories or save that unique dress for the daughter or grand daughter compared to all chemical cleaning dresses in salons require.

Feel felt felt feeling. Nuno felted wedding gown by Viltė Kazlauskaitė

Anyhow, it’s all a question of choice. Every bride who chooses me to design a dress for her is very different and amazing in her own way. I see them prepare for one of the most important moments in their life and hear the story of how they came to this point of choosing this and not that. So with this post I wanted to make a mini overview of some important aspects for weddings when you choose to do it in a natural and unique way. And I’d like to look at our local artists and artisans this time.

Wedding rings. Adding something really dear to it, like a detail of fingerprints of your beloved one, choosing more organic shapes and details, putting a piece of simple beach stone that means something for you rather than diamonds, or putting a stone on the side that only you can see – all those little things make huge difference…

by Jurgita Erminaitė Šimkuvienė

by Ugnė Blažytė

by Eglė Čėjauskaitė

by Jurgita Erminaitė Šimkuvienė

Flowers… the flowers I chose grow in our country – in a wild or in grandmothers’ gardens. They represent beauty, fragility, lightness of feminine nature.

White peonies

Heath

or even wild madder! (photo credit from Madara cosmetics)

I wish I could show you really unique and elegant shoes for the brides, designed by Lithuanian shoe designers, but… As every bride I met had most troubles finding shoes for her, I had the same trouble searching in the internet for our local shoe designers and.. I am afraid nothing really impressed me..or I was not lucky in my search. So I guess our brides will still have to be content with whatever they choose - high fashion shoes from Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik or Jimmy Choo; elegant dance shoes or…everything else, just waiting for a new generation of local shoe designers to grow up and knock us back.

Wedding photography… it’s for my next post.

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Ruduo – vestuvių metas nuo senų laikų. Galbūt todėl baigiantis vasarai ir prasidedant Rugsėjui gaunu daugiausiai užsakymų vestuvėms.

Visada žavėjausi nuotakomis, kurios planuodamos savo vestuves renkasi originalumą, netgi neįprastumą, natūralumą, tikrumą. Ar tai būtų vestuvinė suknelė, ar gėlių puokštė.

Mane visuomet atstumdavo saloninės nuomojamos vestuvinės suknelės. Taip, žinau, kad ten pilna labai ištaigingų ir gražių, puošnių suknelių. Bet jų dažniausiai sintetinės medžiagos, rankų darbo jausmo ir unikalumo trūkumas veja mane tolyn nuo jų, ypač kai įsivaizduoji, kad tokią suknelę moteris renkasi vilkėti tą savo gyvenimo dieną, kuri turėtų būti nuoširdžiausia, atviriausia, tikriausia, vienatinė jos gyvenime…

Ir tiesą pasakius džiugu stebėti, jog bėgant laikui tokių moterų, kurios pasirenka originalų, rankų darbo, natūralų kelią savo vestuvėms, daugėja. Galite paklausti, kur gi čia tas ekologiškumas, jei kiekviena moteris siūdinsis vestuvinę suknelę, o ne nuomosis. Bet aš manau, kad vestuvinės suknelės “perkūrimas” po vestuvių į daugelį kitų originalių ir mielų širdžiai aprangos detalių, aksesuarų ar kitų dalykų; ar galiausiai tokios vienetinės suknelės saugojimas savo dukteriai ar anūkei, yra daug ekologiškiau palyginus su visa chemija, kuri naudojama saloninių suknelių švarinimui ir atnaujinimui.

Žinoma, visa tai yra pasirinkimo reikalas. Kiekviena nuotaka, kuriai aš kūriau vestuvinę suknelę, skirtinga ir žavi kiekviena savo būdu. Aš matau, kaip jos ruošiasi vienai svarbiausių savo švenčių ir klausau jų istorijų, kaip jos priėmė sprendimą rinktis būtent tai, ką pasirinko. Šiuo įrašu dienoraštyje norėjau tiesiog turmpai apžvelgti keletą svarbių vestuvių aspektų, kurie buvo svarbūs ir mano sutiktom nuotakom. Ir norėčiau pasižiūrėti į mūsų vietinių kūrėjų ir vietinės gamtos kuriamus ir dovanojamus dalykus…

Vestuviniai žiedai. Maži dalykai turi didelę reikšmę. Mylimojo pirštų ar delno antspaudų detalė ant žiedo, jūros akmenėlis, kuris turi jauniesiems svarbią reikšmę, o ne deimantas, ar akmenėlis ten, kur jį mato tik mūvintis žiedą, organiškos formos, faktūros…

Lietuvoje augančios gėlės vestuvinei puokštei – balti bijūnai močiutės gėlynėlyje, laukiniai viržiai ar net lipikai iš pievų. Visi jie simbolizuoja moteriško prado grožį, trapumą ir stiprumą, lengvumą…

Labai norėjau surasti unikalius ir elegantiškus vestuvinius batelius, kurtus lietuvių batų dizainerių, bet…kaip ir visos mano sutiktos nuotakos turėjo daugiausiai problemų ieškodamos batelių, taip ir aš nesugebėjau internete rasti nieko tokio iš lietuvių meistrų, kas iš tiesų pakerėtų savo originalumu, elegantiškomis linijomis.. O galbūt man tiesiog nepasisekė ieškoti. Tad panašu, jog mūsų nuotakos turės tenkintis tuo, ką pasirinks – aukštosios mados atstovų nepriekaištingus batus (Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo), elegantiškus šokėjų batelius, ar…visa kita tol, kol užaugs nauja lietuvių batų dizainerių karta ir savo kūriniais tiesiog nustebins mus visus.

Vestuvių fotografija… palikime tai kitam įrašui. :)

Workshops: Italian Felt Academy

2010-10-27T12:13:00.001+03:00

I am very happy to finally announce that I will be giving a master workshop “Archaic felt in modern couture” at the Italian Felt Academy in Verona, Italy, hosted by genial textil artist Agostina Zwilling, in March 11-13, 2011.

The class will cover felting a nuno dress from raw fleeces (Drenthe Heath included!) and fabric manipulations – i.e. combining archaic, primal aspect of felt and modern couture details.

All correspondance about the workshop should be adressed to Agostina.

Agostina Zwilling:

Cari amici e colleghi,

ho dato vita alla Italian Felt Academy

con l'intento di offrire un contenitore di formazione professionale e artistica.

Trovate nel programma 2010/2011 in allegato seminari di feltro tenuti da quattro artiste del feltro.

Dear friends and colleagues,

with the foundation of the Italian Felt Academy I wanted to create an institution for professional and artistic tuition.

In the attached 2010/2011 programme are workshops for felt makers held in Italy by four renowned felt artists.

Chers amis et collègues,

en fondant l' Italian Felt Academy j'ai décidé de créer une structure pour la formation continue professionelle et artistique.

Dans le programme 2010/2011 ci-joint il y a des ateliers pour les amateurs du feutre, tenus en Italie par quatre artistes du feutre.

Liebe Freunde und Kollegen,

mit der Gründung der Italian Felt Academy will ich ein Institut schaffen, das der beruflichen und künstlerischen Weiterbildung dient.

Im Programm 2010/2011 stehen Workshops für FilzerInnen, die von vier bekannten Künstlerinnen in Italien gehalten werden.

Through other’s lens

2010-10-22T02:12:00.001+03:00

I really love photography. And I keep on saying that perhaps when I get old I will have time to study it and understand it :) Perhaps.. But now I am enjoying looking through other’s lenses. I have so many favorite photographers, each of them so different and yet so me in one way or another.

I take my own photos with remote controler, and though I am just an intuitive photographer without any knowledge of what I am doing, expressing my pieces through photography is also very important to me, just like the same process of creating a piece. I believe that presenting a piece in photography is the continuation of your creative process, as well as respect to the piece created.

And it’s very interesting to see how others see my pieces through their lenses. It really gives you more feedback than one can expect to hear verbally spoken.

These are my nuno felted wrist warmers “Growing Spring on my skin” and nuno felted shawl used in a photoshoot by photographer Svetlana Batura. A very sensual approach.

The following photos were made by photographer Eigirdas Scinskas – a bride was wearing my nuno felted wedding dress from so many yards of silk…

Natural lightness…

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Man patinka fotografija. Kartais sakau, jog kai pasensiu galbūt pagaliau atrasiu laiko perkąsti fotografiją ir suprasti, ką iš tiesų reikia daryti su fotoaparatu :) galbūt….

Bet kol kas aš mėgaujuosi žiūrėdama pro kitų objektyvo stiklą. Kiekvienas mano mėgstamas fotografas toks skirtingas ir tuo pačiu atrandantis atgarsį manyje.

Pati aš fotografuoju visiškai intuityviai, absoliučiai be jokių fotografijos žinių (deja), naudodamasi pulteliu, tačiau fotografinis savo kūrinių pateikimas man yra be galo svarbus. Tai yra tarsi tos pačios kūrybos tąsa ir pagarba kūriniui…

Visuomet labai įdomu pamatyti savo darbus kitų fotografų akimis – tai suteikia nepaprastai daug atgalinio ryšio, daugiau, nei galėtų kas pasakyti žodžiais…

Aukščiau pateiktos mano darbų nuotraukos dviejų skirtingų fotografų akimis – Svetlanos Baturos ir Eigirdo Scinsko. Svetlana savo fotosesijoje naudojo mano veltas riešines ir šalį – itin jausmingas, jautrus pateikimas… Eigirdas fotografavo vestuves, kuriose jaunoji vilkėjo mano veltą vestuvinę suknelę. Nepaprastas natūralus lengvumas…

P.S. My Facebook Fan page has moved to http://www.facebook.com/vilte.net

Mano gerbėjų puslapis Facebook’e persikraustė į http://www.facebook.com/vilte.net

Felt and amber or dare to dream

2010-10-16T02:10:00.001+03:00

For the last few years I’ve been really obsessed with amber. If you have followed my creations, you could have noticed that I even used it in my felt works sometimes. I have bought amber supplies to use it in my work, but I just can’t – I want to have it in my home, just have it and feel good knowing it’s here and being able to touch it whenever I want to.

Loving amber I naturally fell in love with amber jewelry from ARZA jouvellerie…

There is some refined wildness in their work that attracts me to their creations… And just look at this dress…it’s like a dream..to feel all that amber on your body…

Dreams are powerful tools in life. Sometimes they full-fill before you even start to dream. Such was the invitation from ARZA jouvellerie to show our works together in an exhibition “Žavi moteris” (“Charming woman”). Nature of felt and amber jewelry is so incredibly alike…

These were my nuno felted dresses decorated with ARZA jewelry in the exhibition.

And here are the same dresses “live”:

I am so much into texture lately… (well, actually, when wasn’t I? :) ) More photos on my Flickr page!

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Paskutinius kelis metus esu tiesiog apsėsta gintaru. Keletą kartų esu jį derinusi su veltiniu ir esu prisipirkusi gintaro žaliavos savo darbams, tačiau…niekaip negaliu jo naudoti, kadangi tiesiog noriu jį turėti namuose. Man gera nuo to, kad jis, gintaras, tiesiog yra namuose, kad bet kada užsimaniusi galiu jį paliesti, pačiupinėti…

Nežinau, ar būtent gintaras, ar pati ARZA papuošalų stilistika – rafinuotas laukiniškumas, lygiai taip pat pakerėjo mane.

Svajonės kartais tokios stiprios, kad berods nespėji net pasvajoti, o kažkas pildosi… Taigi ARZA kvietimas kartu pademonstruoti savo darbus parodoje “Žavi moteris” buvo labai maloni staigmena.

Tiesiog neįtikėtina kaip tarpusavyje dera veltinis ir gintaras. Kažkas nepaprasto šiųdvejų medžiagiškume…

Parodoje buvo pristatytos dvejos mano suknelės, kurių nuotraukų daugiau galite rasti mano Flickr galerijoje.

Archaic couture or what’s in common between Chanel and feltmaking trends?

2010-09-08T23:22:00.003+03:00

There is no surprise why there is a big trend of all the wild things in feltmakers world. If you saw Chanel’s ready to wear collection for Fall 2010 you will not ask why. If Karl Lagerfeld can get that wild in couture world, sure we, the feltmakers, can :)

These photos of my eco-friendly nuno felted dresses with raw organic Wensleydale and Drenthe Heath wool are the prelude to some news to come. Soon :)
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Kas matė 2010 rudens “ready to wear” Chanel mados namų kolekciją, nesistebės ir šiuo metu veltinio pasaulyje vyraujančia laukiniškumo tendencija. Jei Karl Lagerfield gali taip sulaukėti, galim ir mes :)
Šios mano veltų suknelių nuotraukos yra preliudija į tam tikras naujienas. Jau greitai :)

A Wild Sheep Chase

2010-08-23T02:50:00.001+03:00

A Wild Sheep Chase is a title of a marvelous mysterious novel by Haruki Murakami. But it fits so perfectly to the Drenthe Heath sheep chase in feltmakers’ world. It was genial Claudy Jongstra who made this breed of sheep known and fashionable.

Drenthe Heath

On my first year of felting I have been experimenting a lot and I found out my own ways of combining raw wool straight from the sheep and fabric. It was not Drenthe Heath fleece back then. It was only after I discovered works of Claudy Jongstra, I fell in love with this rough, wild looking fleece. I was lucky enough to get to know a sheepman who raised this breed of sheep and since then I’ve been getting this wool for my work from his small herd of sheep every year.

For the last few months I’ve been getting lots and lots of emails from feltmakers around the world asking one question – where to get Drenthe Heath wool from??????? Some emails are very sweet and kind, some are pretty demanding….sometimes without any “thank you” reply after receiving my tips on how to look for the wool. (I try to answer all my mail, but please excuse me if I don’t sometimes, but it seams to take too much of my personal time lately…)

A real sheep chase, isn’t it? Well, it feels a little bit weird… With plenty of sheep breeds to choose from. And I mean the same rough and wild look, long staple length wool. As I have just written, it happened so that I knew a man who raised Drenthe Heath sheep, but if he was raising Heidschnucke, Icelandic, Hebridean, Old Norwegian sheep, etc – with no doubt I would have been buying those fleeces.

Yes, Drenthe Heath is a special breed. But so are some other breeds – also the oldest, also very rare and also very wild…

I looked through some breeds of sheep and put photos of some of the wild looking sheep (and there are much more!), and you know, looking at all these ancient breeds and feeling this wildness, I just wish I knew more sheepmen who raise these sheep, I would definitely buy some and use in my felting! Why chase one breed of sheep when there is a selection, perhaps even native, somewhere just around the corner? And…it’s not really the wool that is so magical, these are the hands of the maker and mind of the creator.

The Heidschnucke is a group of three types of moorland sheep from northern Germany.

The Icelandic sheep (Icelandic: Íslenska sauðkindin)

The Hebridean is a breed of small black sheep from Scotland

The Spælsau (Old Norwegian Short Tail Landrace, Gamalnorsk spæl Norwegian) is a breed of sheep from Norway.

Polish Mountain Sheep

Bavarian Forest (Waldschaf)

The Churra (also known as Spanish Churro)

The Faroes

The Racka

The Sardinian (Brabei Sarda in Sardinian, Pecora Sarda in Italian)

The Shetland sheep

Skudde

The Ouessant (or Ushant)

The Valachian (Walachenschaf)

The White Polled Heath (German: Weiße Hornlose Heidschnucke, also known in Germany as the Moorschnucke)

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Avies medžioklė – toks yra nuostabaus, magiško Haruki Murakami romano pavadinimas. Tačiau jis labai tinka apibūdinti Drenthe Heath avių medžioklei veliančių tekstilininkių pasaulyje.

Claudy Jongstra savo genialiuose darbuose naudodama Drenthe Heath vilną taip ją išpopuliarino visame pasaulyje. Pirmaisiais savo vėlimo eksperimentų metais atradau savo būdus, kaip sujungti tiesiai nuo avies nukirptą vilną ir audinius veltinio technika. Tiesa, tuomet tai nebuvo Drenthe Heath vilna. Su šia vilna susipažinau tik vėliau atradusi Claudy Jongstra darbus.

Taip, aš taip pat įsimylėjau šią laukinę vilną. Ir manau, jog man pasisekė susipažinti su žmogumi, kuris laikė būtent šios veislės avis ir kiekvienais metais galėjo mane aprūpinti vilna iš savo mažutės bandos avių.

Paskutiniaisiais mėnesiais mano elektroninio pašto dėžutė tiesiog užsigrūda nuo veliančiųjų laiškų, kurių vienas pagrindinių klausimų – iš kur gauni šią vilną???? Kai kurie laiškai labai šilti, mieli, asmeniški. Kai kurie – tiesiog reikalaujantys…ir net po mano atsakymo patariant, kaip ieškotis vilnos, nebeseka nė mažiausias žodelis “ačiū”… Tikra avies medžioklė.

Man truputį keista. Kaip jau minėjau, susipažinau su žmogumi, kuris laikė Drenthe Heath veislės avis. Bet jei tai būtų Islandiškos, Norvegiškos ar kitos ilgaplaukės, laukinės dvasios avys, aš vis tiek būčiau pirkusi jų vilną!

Taip, Drenthe Heath – ypatinga veislė, seniausia Vakarų Europoje. Bet…tokios pat ir kai kurios kitos veislės, kurių pavyzdžius čia pateikiau. Žiūrėdama į jų nuotraukas, jausdama jų vilnos laukiniškumą, tiesiog negaliu nusėdėti, norisi sukišti rankas į monitorių ir visas tas aveles iščiupinėti, suleisti pirštus į jų pirmykščius gaurus… Jei pažinočiau daugiau šių avių augintojų, be jokios abejonės, pirkčiau ir naudočiau įvairių avių veislių vilną. Kam vaikytis vienos veisles, kai yra įvairovė? Ir…stebuklas tikriausiai slypi ne vien tik pačioje vilnoje, o kuriančioje rankose ir galvoje…

Dunes. Dragonfly meadow. Weddings

2010-08-20T12:37:00.002+03:00

My soul land – Curonian spit.
The brides who choose a very unique, natural and handmade look for their special day. And feel so free like the dragonflies.
Brian Western: “Everything about these images evokes a sense of calm serenity--the felt is practically alive!”

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Mano sielos kopos.
Nuotakos, besirenkančios unikalų, natūralų, rankų darbo įvaizdį. Tokios laisvos lyg laumžirgiai…

MAD about MADder (+concrete)

2010-08-06T01:19:00.002+03:00

It is always interesting to look back through your work and notice some periods in your creation. Periods of fibers, objects, colors…
I’ve been mad about madder lately. Well, for at least half of past year. You can see madder color in many of my apparel items. And it was fun noticing that most of the samples I brought to my Midwest Felting Symposium classes were also dyed with madder :)

+ concrete :) I am mad about concrete now. Felt + concrete, isn’t it an especial combination?

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Retrospektyviai pažvelgus į savo darbus įdomu pastebėti periodus kūryboje, kuriuose kažkada buvai. Pluoštų, formų, objektų, spalvų…
Paskutinį pusmetį pamečiau galvą dėl dažinės raudės :) Dažnai šį augalą naudojau rūbų ir aksesuarų dažymui, visgi buvo truputį juokinga pastebėti, kad rinkdamasi pavyzdžius Midwest Felting Symposium kursams, daugumą jų pasiimiau taip pat nudažytų raude.
+ betonas :) Veltinis ir betonas – labai ypatingas duetas.

I’ve got slippers from OSmanufacture!

2010-08-03T01:13:00.001+03:00

I’ve got hand felted slippers from OS manufacture – brainchild of Ramunė Toleikytė! Natural, eco-friendly, comfortable, flexible, soft, warm, cozy, durable, contemporary – and all 100% handmade! What else would you want???

Her set of slippers inspired me to take a photo shoot in concrete surrounding (I love concrete!). So – all the slippers are by Ramunė Toleikytė and all photos are by me :)

Oh, and no butterfly was harmed for making this photo shoot. Butterfly wings were found and collected after the spiders or birds had their share.

And this is in my future studio, with a wall hanging I felted myself, and Ramunė’s slippers. They match, don’t they?

And one more.

Not about felt. About feeling I guess – lightness on the concrete. A swan’s feather.

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Gavau tiesiog nerealias Ramunės Toleikytės, OSmanufacture, šlepetes! 100% rankų darbas, natūralios medžiagos, patvarumas, švelnumas, jaukumas, modernumas…ar galima norėti daugiau???

Jos įkvėpė mane šiek tiek pažaisti “fotografą” – taigi nedidelė fotosesiją ant nuogo betono, kurį, beje, aš labai myliu.

Tiesa, ką domina drugelis, joks drugelis nebuvo paaukotas fotosesijos labui. Tai tiesiog radiniai po matyt įvykusios vorų ar paukščių vakarienės… Natūralus gyvenimo ciklas.

Ir dar – mano veltas kilimėlis mano būsimoje studijoje ir Ramunės šlepetės. Dera.

Ir…tiesiog. Ne apie veltinį. Turbūt apie jausmą. Lengvumą ir betoną. Gulbės plunksna.

Back from USland

2010-07-30T00:50:00.001+03:00

Sitting in a plain from US to Amsterdam one of the movies I watched was “Alice in Wonderland”. And I drew a funny parallel between what Alice was saying in the movie - “I keep on forgetting that it’s only a dream” and my short trip to US and back. It was like a blink of an eye – I keep on forgetting that it was reality and not a dream.

My thanks go to Susan McFarland who invited me to Midwest felting symposium in Madison, WI, and who made sure my stay there was exciting. To tell you the truth I was really fascinated by this energetic woman! She also runs Susan’s fiber shop that looks like a paradise to any fiber artist and if I had to spend there the whole day, I am sure my bank account was empty in a few hours, too much temptation :)

My thanks to Susan’s Teeswater sheep, especially no 29 who’s amazing fleece I took with me back to Lithuania. We used Teeswater sheep fleece in our raw wool felting class and I am sure everyone loved its soft, shiny, springy locks.

And my wonderful students at the symposium! Oh, I loved teaching! It’s such a joy to see your students in a process of creating (not just making!)

Eugene, thank you for the flowers too!

Holly and Maryanne – for assisting and driving, Susan once again – for carding and crazy spinning tips ;)

I am sure – Midwest Felting Symposium 2012 will be a hit again!

I really appreciate the invitation from the University of Madison where I read a lecture on “Archaic felt and its tradition in Lithuania”. Thank you to all the people who attended the lecture!

Thanks to Donata who gave me raw skudde sheep fleece – probably the oldest Lithuanian breed of sheep. And all my gratitude to wonderful traditional feltmaker from Lithuania – Anelė Radvinskienė and her daughter Milda Stanevičienė who shared their movie about living felt traditions in Lithuanian villages.

Thanks to very hospitable Lithuanians living in Madison – Gediminas and Jolanta who showed me around Madison and invited me to their cozy home.

My biggest thanks also goes to my family who made this all possible! And…for the pilots for the safe flights and bringing me back home (well, there were 7 flights during this trip, so it’s worth it, yes? :) )

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Didelis didelis ačiū visiems! Mano kelionė į Madisoną, WI, JAV, pilna teigiamų įspūdžių ir malonių pažinčių! Ir…man be galo patiko mokyti veltinio technikų, subtilybių tokius nuostabius mokinius, kokius turėjau Midwest Felting Symposium’e!

My eco felt fashion and photography by Victor Morozov

2010-07-17T03:54:00.002+03:00

I have been lucky enough to win a photo shoot with wonderful talented photographer Victor Morozov. It was an unforgetable experience, lot’s of impressions and emotions, and fun!
I chose only eco dyed with plants hand felted outfit for the photo shoot. The photo shoot took place in Vilnius, Lithuanian capital. It was really interesting choice to show the “eco” living in the urbanized world. Please enjoy!

And then so free…back to the nature…

telling stories about pixies…

I love when photographer is telling stories, don’t you?

All photo credits: Victor Morozov ( http://www.facebook.com/meninefoto)
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Man iš tiesų pasisekė laimėti fotosesiją su nuostabiu fotografu Victor Morozov. Be galo daug neišdildomų įspūdžių, potyrių, emocijų, nuotykių iš fotosesijos Vilniaus mieste. Mano pasirinkti apdarai – visi iš eko serijos, t.y. dažyti ekologišku būdu augalais arba natūralių spalvų, velti ant šilko. Taigi sprendimas “eko” apgyvendinti urbanizacijoje buvo labai įdomus ir tikrai įspūdingas.
Fotografas, kuris pasakoja istorijas… apie laisvę, apie laumes, apie…

Self taught has got a teacher

2010-07-03T15:32:00.001+03:00

When I was caught by felt few years ago, I started studying and experimenting with it on my own, going deeper and deeper into this archaic textile from point 0. Joy of discovery has been one of the greatest stimulus for experiments (even if it was the same as inventing a bicycle :) ). I think from one point I might be even proud that I am a self taught, that I managed to “domesticate” this technique by myself and little by little learnt to express myself through it.

But like in every other field, at some points of development a human needs a teacher (directly and literally). And it’s not actually about techniques and skills, I know that, it’s about personal development of your creativity, expression, relating, growing, moving forward, getting feedback, or even hearing your own thought aloud, tracing your artistic self and identity… And if I said I “might” be proud that I am a self taught, then I can definitely say that I AM for sure proud that my one and only teacher was Claudy Jongstra.

Thank You, Claudy, for all you gave to me. And You gave a lot!

I won’t show you everything I made during the workshop yet, just a glimpse, hope you enjoy.

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Nuo pat to momento, kai susidūriau su veltiniu, atradinėjau, eksperimentavau, gilinausi, grimzdau į jį pati, niekieno nemokoma. Atradimo džiaugsmas visuomet būdavo vienas iš stipriausių stimulų suvokti šią archaišką tekstilę giliau ir giliau. (Net jei tai buvo dviračio išradinėjimas :) ) Galbūt galėčiau pasakyti, jog galėčiau didžiuotis, jog prisijaukinau šią techniką pati, po truputį mokydamasi ja išreikšti save.

Visgi kaip ir visur kitur gyvenime, augant ir vystantis, žmogus atsiduria tokiuose etapuose, kuomet jam reikalingas mokytojas (tiesiogine ir perkeltine prasmėmis). Ir tai nėra susiję su technikomis, įgūdžiais, juos galima perkąsti patiems. Tai susiję su asmeninio kūrybingumo ugdymu, išraiška, augimu, atspindėjimu, judėjimu pirmyn, atgalinio ryšio gavimu ar net savo paties minčių klausymu garsiai kažkieno kito lūpose, savo kūrybinio “aš” ir identiteto apčiuopimu.

Rašiau, jog “galbūt” galėčiau didžiuotis, jog viską išmokau pati, bet aš TIKRAI galiu pasakyti, jog didžiuojuosi, jog mano viena ir vienintelė mokytoja tapo Claudy Jongstra.

Ačiū, Claudy, už viską, ką man davei. O davei tikrai labai daug!

Dar neparodysiu visų darbų, kuriuos dariau studijoje su Claudy Jongstra, bet tikiuosi, jog šis mažas žvilgtelėjimas pro rakto skylutę jums patiks.

Roots

2010-06-07T02:46:00.001+03:00

There are many things that are being born through the hands of the maker. One of the underlying things are the roots of the maker… I’d like to quote prof. Viktorija Daujotyte here: “Ethnic culture acts like tradition inside us, like blood that circulates inside us without our knowledge, perhaps even if we don’t want that. … We can not separate ourselves from it, it’s not the culture among all other cultures, it’s the underlying culture”.

Pixie’s strips (Laumės juostos)

Recently I had to create some nuno felted clothes with ethnic inspiration. This top above was one of them. I took a modern approach to it, but I definetly drew inspsiration from Lithuanian national costume by imitating woven webbing used to tie around the waist by men, green color and fabric with linen. Sometimes the smallest details hide much bigger meanings…

Just trying to feel Lithuania… Can you?

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Kūrėjo rankose gimsta daugybė iš gelmių ateinančių dalykų. Vienas iš pagrindinių dalykų yra šaknys. Norėčiau pacituoti prof. Viktoriją Daujotytę: “Etninė kultūra veikia mumyse kaip tradicija, kaip kraujas, kuris teka mums nežinant, gal net nenorint. (...) Atsiskirti nuo jos neturime galimybių, ji nėra tik kultūra tarp kitų kultūrų, ji yra pamatinė”.

Neseniai kūriau keletą veltų rūbų, ieškodama įkvėpimo etninėje plotmėje. Vienas iš jų – aukščiau pateikta palaidinė. Moderni išraiška, forma, tačiau detalėse glūdi ir etninės prasmės – austų juostų, aprišamų ant baltinių, imitacija, žalia spalva ir medžiaga iš mum taip artimo lino. Mažose detalėse kartais glūdi daug gilesnės prasmės…

Wool

2010-06-03T01:13:00.002+03:00

When I received a small parcel another day, I was coming back from the post office with a smile on my face, then sitting in the car, with my hands in the package, with no sense of time or anything around me. Do you call it little moments of happiness? Perhaps :) I was sensing….the wool! I’ve got some soft, curly raw wool in the package and for that moment it seamed I was holding a world in my hands.

People have different passions. When it comes to feltmakers, it’s usually wool one of the passionate things in their lives. Every wool is so different and every wool makes you feel and sense different things…

One of my favorite wools is from the Dutch sheep – Dreanthe Heath. It has lots of primal energy, expression, freedom and…wind!

woman and wool… some magical connection, isn’t it?…
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Žmonės turi skirtingas aistras. Veltinio mylėtojas paprastai sieja aistra vilnai… Todėl galbūt gavusi nedidelį, minkštą, šiltą siuntinėlį sėdėjau kelias minutes sukišusi rankas į jį ir nebejaučiau laiko.

Vilna be galo skirtinga savo savybėmis, savo išraiška. Viena mano mėgstamiausių vilnų yra olandiška Drenthe Heath veislės vilna – seniausios avių veislės Vakarų Europoje vilna. Kupina pirmykštės energijos, ekspresijos, laisvės ir…vėjo.

Matyt dėl to ir fotografija tokia. Moteris ir vilna. Magiškas ryšys, ar ne?

FUN!

2010-05-30T11:42:00.002+03:00

I got something very special for me in my mailbox yesterday! Copies of German felt magazine FUN! And guess what – My “Little red riding hood” nuno felted hood-shawl is on the cover!

Then you can find my felted coasters “Cafe Mocha” in the editorial!

And finally a beautifully written article about me and my felt by Sonja Scheungrab

The magazine features many talented felt makers from over the world and I really felt honoured to be featured among them. FUN is a very well done magazine, professional and of high quality. It’s a pleasure to look at and read it – there are many interesting articles that focus on artists and how they came there where they are now. I wish that one day this magazine was published in English as well.
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Vokiškame žurnale apie veltinį straipsnis apie mane ir mano veltinį. Džiaugiuosi, jog mano šalis-gobtuvas “Raudonkepuraitė” papuolė ant žurnalo viršelio. Beje, labai kokybiškas ir įdomus leidinys tiems, kurie domisi veltinio pasauliu.

From scrap

2010-05-02T12:50:00.001+03:00

I am sure that every feltmaker has bags or boxes full of scrap of felt from previous projects. These are like caskets of treasures. There’s no doubt felt has a great potential for being a sustainable textile. One of the aspects of its sustainability is of course its raw nature – it keeps the number of textile processing steps at the minimum, involves renewable materials and eco-friendly “making”. The other aspect of felt being green is that you can use all the scrap, no matter how small it could be, until the last thread, the last fibre. You can felt it in, felt it on, sew it or even use for stuffing.

I’ve recently used some of my handmade felt scraps to create these textile cuffs by sewing felt and other fabric scraps by hand.

Calligraphy in wool and rust. Chimes. Memory of time

Haiku

New website design for vilte.net

2010-04-10T01:38:00.004+03:00

Finally! My new website design is on! You can see it on http://www.vilte.net and I hope you’ll love it as much as I do.

There are times in life when you feel a need for a new skin because you’ve outgrown the old one… I was feeling that my old website was becoming too tight for me in some places and too worn out in others. I wanted something else I couldn’t put in words what exactly.
I was chatting with my friend Ramune and we touched this topic about website when she just started giving me feedback on a way I present my work. And it was it! The concept of presenting my work in a new website! She said my works had stories in them, my photos of my works were a glimpse of those stories and I put things into words well enough – so why don’t I make this a focus of the concept to present my works on a website? The minute she said that I knew she just put my feelings about the website into right words – it was exactly what I wanted but couldn’t define. I needed to hear how someone else sees, feels me… to understand what I need myself.
Ramune even started sketching – finding a place for the photo and a place for the thoughts about the work in the photo. She said it must be like a magazine – you would always want to come back, look and read it over again.
When I finally knew more or less what I want it was the time for the designer to develop this idea and put it to life. I might have sounded weird asking to do whatever he wants just find a design for my wild side and for the subtle, elegant side to go together side by side. Which, I think, he did perfectly :) He built a very sensual mirror of my world. I hope you can feel it, sense it, looking at every photo and reading the fragments of the thoughts echoing the felt object and the photo. I hope you can enjoy.

And my most sincere thanks goes to this wonderful talented artistic team of brother and sister who helped me refine the “skin” I have today in this virtual world!

Check out Ramune at:                                  Check out Tomas at:
http://www.osmanufacture.com            http://promopocket.etsy.com
http://onstail.etsy.com                               http://www.pollopocket.deviantart.com/gallery
                                                                                http://www.pollopocketdesign.com

P.S. Ramune makes incredible felt accessories, hand bags and slippers.
         Tomas made my logo and Etsy banner too.
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Pagaliau mano tinklapis http://www.vilte.net turi naują veidą!
Kartais ateina laikas išsinerti iš senos nusidėvėjusios odos. Būtent toks laikas pribrendo mano tinklapiui…
Įdomu, jog kartais reikia, kad kitas žmogus papasakotų tau apie tave patį, kad suprastum, ko iš tikro nori ir ko tau reikia. Esu be galo dėkinga Ramunei, kuri atspindėjo mane, padėjo man susivokti ir išvystyti visą mano darbų pateikimo internete koncepciją. Man patinka, kai žmonės žvelgia giliau, moka skaityti istorijas net paprasčiausiuose dalykuose, man patinka žmonės, kurie jaučia.
Esu dėkinga Tomui, kuris išvystė visą šią tinklapio koncepciją į regimą rezultatą, kitaip tariant – sukūrė man naują odą virtualiame pasaulyje.
Lietuviškai šiame bloge rašau nedaug, neverčiu pažodžiui, pateikiu santraukas to, kas svarbiausia – šiuo atveju, manau, padėka šiam kūrybingam ir talentingam duetui ir yra svarbiausia blogo įrašo dalis. Ačiū jiems!
Ir kviečiu ne tik į savo naują, išjaustą, kitokį tinklapį, bet ir į Ramunės bei Tomo pasaulį virtualioje erdvėje:
http://www.osmanufacture.com   &     http://www.pollopocketdesign.com

Eco Spring Fashion

2010-04-08T12:46:00.003+03:00

Eco nuno felted top Damascus Rose Water. Eco dyed with plants

Eco nuno felted top Walking on Vanilla Clouds. Eco dyed with plants

Eco nuno felted top Apricots. Eco dyed with plants

Eco dyeing. Happy Easter

2010-04-05T01:12:00.002+03:00

Just can’t wait for the Summer when I will be collecting plants again and doing lots of solar dyeing with plants. What’s most exciting about eco dyeing with plants is that there’s always a factor of the unexpected. There are so many influences in this technique that dyeing becomes a close communication between the dyer and the nature.

I loved dyeing Easter eggs with plants this year as well.
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Laukiu nesulaukiu vasaros, kuomet vėl rinksiu augalus ir užsiimsiu dažymu jais. Toks dažymo būdas matyt labiausiai žavi savo nenuspėjamumo prieskoniu. Yra be galo daug veiksnių, kurie dažymą augalais paverčia artimu dažančiojo bendravimu su Gamta…
Šias Velykas ir mūsų margučiai buvo numarginti augalais.

VILTE – new name and new logo

2010-03-08T11:22:00.003+02:00

Some of you might have noticed that I’ve changed the name for my “brand” to VILTE.

VILTE was chosen as a “brand” name not just for it’s my name, but for its linguistic similarity to the word “vilt” (in Old Dutch it means “felt”) from which the Old English “felt” was actually derived. Having “felt” encoded in my name, I think it would have been a sin not to use it as a “brand” :)

My website address is also changing to http://www.vilte.net and it is going for a face lift. Very soon you will see a new design and a new concept of presenting my work!

And of course – I have a new logo that has already been noticed by the editor of my favourite eco minded fashion blog ECCO*ECO Abigail Doan who was so kind to put it to ECCO*ECO side bar! Thank you, Abigail!

And one more announcement to make – I have opened my own online store at bigcartel with prices in Euros at http://vilte.bigcartel.com

There won’t be many items listed for now as it’s a test, but anyway, you are very welcome to visit my store there. Payments are accepted via Paypal.

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Kai kurie iš jūsų tikriausiai jau pastebėjote, jog “persikrikštijau’ į VILTE.

Ne tik dėl to, jog tai mano vardas, matyt daugiausiai dėl to, jog VILTE lingvistiškai tokia panaši į senosios olandų kalbos žodį “vilt”, kuris reiškia “veltinį” (būtent iš “vilt” ir yra kilęs angliškas “felt”). Tad jei jau mano varde užkoduotas veltinis, matyt nuodėmė būtų jo nepanaudoti kaip pavadinimo :)

Mano tinklapio adresas taip pat keičiasi į http://www.vilte.net Keisis ir jo išvaizda. Netgi visiškai netrukus.

Atsirado ir mano logotipas, kurį, kaip džiugu paminėti, pastebėjo eko mados blogo redaktorė Abigail Doan ir įtraukė į ECCO*ECO ! Ačiū, Abigail!

Na ir dar viena naujiena – atidaryta mano asmeninė parduotuvėlė tinkle http://vilte.bigcartel.com. Tiesa, tai daugiau eksperimentinis projektas ir pardavimui siūlomų daiktų skaičius bus nedidelis. Kainos pateiktos eurais, apmokėjimai priimami Paypal sistema.

Growing Spring on my skin

2010-03-08T11:07:00.002+02:00

Fragile as the beauty can be. Tender sprouting of Spring on my skin.

And then it comes into bloom. Listen up! I grew Spring on my skin!

Growing Spring on my skin
silk ponge, merino wool
eco dyed with plants

More of my recent works on Flickr

Workshop. Midwest Felting Symposium

2010-03-05T11:28:00.002+02:00

If everything goes as it’s planned I will be teaching in Midwest Felting Symposium in Madison, WI (USA) this Summer – July 21-24, 2010.
I will be teaching:
working with raw wool in nuno felt
nuno felting and surface design – focus on different deapths of texture created by fabric usig several manipulation techniques
creative felt textures – bubbles, beads, craters

You can register for the classes at Midwest Felting Symposium webpage here.

I like it slow

2010-02-25T15:59:00.003+02:00

It was like enlightening – I really don’t like to be pushed! I like it slow…

Slow fashion, slow art, slow cloth… Slow process. Whether it is the process of making or the process of thinking about it.

Any idea is like a baby who grows in his mother’s womb for a certain time until he is let out to the world. (Yet there are brainstorm ideas as well that are brilliant. But this is fast only on conscious level as any enlightening is a result of a long process hidden in the subconsciousness).

I’ve been told many times that my felt items seem to have special aura or soul, story behind them. I guess this comes from being slow with what I do and giving time for that soul of an item grow and develop.

I like taking my time for thinking about felt, sometimes even months or years. And though fast results are tempting I prefer it slow.

I’ve been thinking about this tunic for a boy for several months before I started making it. Though the result might look simple, it really had a deeper meaning for me.

And this piece took about 3 months to dye with plants the way I wanted it. Another few months of thinking of using it in felting.

And this neck piece took 2 Summers of constant exposure to the Sun until it was bleached as white as I wanted it!

The bleacher would have done it in a day or so. But it wouldn’t have put any good energy or soul to the cloth…

Though I like being on Etsy, at some point it is out of my comfort zone as there’s so much pressure – list list list, upload, give new works every day if you don’t want to drown in the ocean of all items listed there. And it’s simply not my way of working. I am not baking pancakes… When I feel pressure (and again – it’s not the same thing as having to work for a thrilling project with a deadline that actually mobilizes all your inner processes, insights and effects the actual making with adrenaline), I start to rebel or shut myself inside and feel paralyzed, not being able to do a thing until I cure myself from any thoughts of pressure. Creative ideas are something like a fox and the Little Prince trying to domesticate each other, just a little step towards each other in a day.

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Kartais imi ir suvoki staiga – man tikrai nepatinka spaudimas! Patinka lėtumas…

Lėta mada, menas, lėtos medžiagos… Lėtas procesas. Ne tik lėtas darymo procesas, bet ir lėtas apmąstymo procesas.

Kiekviena idėja yra tarsi vaisius, augantis įsčiose tam tikrą laiką, kol yra paleidžiamas į pasaulį. (Žinoma, yra ir genialių žaibiškų idėjų-nušvitimų. Visgi jos yra greitos tik sąmoningame lygyje. Kiekvienas nušvitimas yra ilgo pasąmoninio proceso rezultatas).

Daug kartų teko girdėti, jog mano veltinio darbai turi ypatingą aurą, sielą, pasislėpusią juose istoriją. Tikriausiai tas jausmas gimsta iš lėtumo tame, ką darau – laiko, per kurį kiekvienas darbas vystosi ir auga.

Man reikia laiko galvojimui apie tai, ką aš darau. Kartais net mėnesių ar metų. Ir nors greiti rezultatai visuomet viliojantys, paprastai renkuosi lėtumą.

Daug mėnesių galvojau apie baltą komunijai skirtą tuniką vienam berniukui prieš pradėdama ją daryti. Nors galutinis rezultatas gali atrodyti paprastas, visgi man jame slypi daug gilesnė prasmė.

Dažymas augalais kartais trunka ir 3 mėnesius, kol išgauni tokius subtilius tonų perėjimus, kokių norisi. Dar keli mėnesiai skiriami apmąstymams, kokiam veltinio objektui skirtas tas medžiagos gabalėlis.

Išbalinti balikliu turbūt galima per parą, tačiau kartais prireikia 2 saulėtų vasarų, kad saulės išbalintas šilkas ir vilna įgytų tą teigiamą energiją, dvasią, kurią, tikiu, sugeria iš saulės…

Buvimas Etsyje labai dviprasmiškas. Man patinka siūlyti savo darbus Etsy-je, tačiau iš kitos pusės nori to ar nenori, patiri spaudimą kelti vis naujus darbus, atnaujinti senus vien tam, kad nepaskęstum Etsy’io pasiūlos jūroje. Tai nėra mano stilius. Aš nekepu blynų… Jusdama spaudimą (nemaišykite to su kokiu nors įkvepiančiu projektu, turinčiu terminus, kuris išties tik mobilizuoja visus vidinius procesus, įžvalgas bei įjungia antrą kvėpavimą dirbant), pradedu maištauti arba užsisklendžiu savyje ir jaučiuosi paralyžuota, negalinti nieko daryti tol, kol neišsilaižau visų minčių apie spaudimą. Kūrybiškos mintys yra kaip lapė ir Mažasis Princas, bandantys prisijaukinti vienas kitą pamažu, po mažą žingsnelį vienas kito link.

Felt you. Felt me

2010-02-08T23:41:00.004+02:00

When I felt, I usually felt something that has been felt by me, that is coming from the inside consciously or not, like blank verse, as well as little games and experiments or I felt something that I felt about the person who has ordered the piece of felt. From a certain point of view you can always feel more comfortable with felting just what you felt coming from your own self. But it’s just one point of view. If you don’t have a privilege of only leting people find things that warm their souls but are truly you, you are finding your ways to feel comfortable in making things that feel like “they", i.e. you take custom orders. Though there must be a healthy balance between things “felt for yourself and felt for others” (different for every artist I believe), there is definetly so much value in felting for others. When a client makes an order, there is invisible connection built between the maker and the receiver. It’s complicated to explain that if you have never tried to experience “the other” in you…

I sense “the other”. Unconsciously I see the world and feel the world through my client’s eyes. I choose colors and materials that are that person. And it seems I can sense how that person moves, talks, how he touches the things I felt… And I felt a part of that person into any piece I make for him. And it usually doesn’t look like something I would felt if I was felting “myself”. Or the colors are not the ones that I would ever pick if I was felting just what I personally feel without any thoughts of anyone else… But…THAT connection with another human being (even in unconscious level) is something like a miracle that opens a world to you. It’s a connection that shows you the places you’ve never been to, makes you meet and know people you’ve never met or knew, it makes you feel being someone you’ve never been or will be… Perhaps that’s why when my client receives his order I usually get a feedback – That’s me!..

colors, style, forms…the story that is in that piece…anything and everything – how could you ever know that??

I don’t know. I just sense.

Nuno felted shawl “Magestic”

Felted collar “Iris Wattii”

Felted fingerless gloves “For the artist”

Into the world of deep relaxation

2010-02-08T22:59:00.002+02:00

It happened a month ago, just never found time for my blog… But I’d like to thank everyone who voted for my rug in Etsy voter and…it was a winner!
There was a short article in Storque (Etsy’s blog) with a wonderful title – Vilte ushers us into a world of deep relaxation (sigh)

And it was interesting to read the comments and find out that this rug in this photo looked like the wave of the ocean coming to the shore for many many readers. I guess it really looks like this, especially when you look at it from a distance…
And there’s definetly something so relaxing in this rug…White color, natural wildness of the raw wool, delicate touch of silk that always bring me in some state of meditation whenever I look at it or touch…

Happy Felted Christmas!

2009-12-23T20:33:00.001+02:00

and..I know my blog has been abandoned and I haven't showed you any of my felts lately. I just know that you know there's a link to my flickr account where you can always check for new updated :) don't you?...

But today I am saying you Happy Felted Christmas! and leaving you alone with some of my latest felt items:

Nuno felted top - Wild pigeon

Scarf - Food for the soul: Christmas pastry

Nuno felted hood scarf - Food for the soul: Nuts, wheat, poppy seeds and honey

Bracelet - Treasures

Nuno felted scarf - Wild bird

p.s. there's more on flickr

My Christmas gift from Etsy community

2009-12-23T19:50:00.000+02:00

I received a wonderful gift from Etsy community - I won New Years Glitz & Glam vote contest on Etsy!

And I decided to issue gift certificates for my etsy shop:

Food for the soul - marking the start of the Christmas Season

2009-12-12T14:09:00.003+02:00

Some shots from hanging our mini exhibition "Food for the soul [Christmas]". Unfortunately I was not there, but...
We are going to prepare a virtual exhibition "Food for the soul", meantime, here is a preview of it:

This is my scarf - traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve pastry served with poppy seed milk

This is my dress - traditional Christmas Eve beverage - oat jelly

Another work by me, Vilte Kazlauskaite, - cape/hood/scarf - traditional Christmas Eve food made from wheet seeds, poppy seeds, nuts and honey

These are felt boots by Daiva Morozova - hot Christmas wine

And I am totally in love with this handbag by Ramune Toleikyte - smoke spiced herring

Another handbag by Jurgita Migoniene - traditional Christmas Eve pastry in poppy seed milk

Felt slippers by Inga Samusiene - traditional Christmas beverage - cranberry jelly

Felt collar by Aurelija Masiulionyte - Christmas bakery

Handbag by Donata Dumciuviene - freshly baked white Christmas bread

Felt slippers by Inga Samusiene - boiled potatoes served with hemp seeds and salt

Collar and accessories by Vaida Petreikiene - Christmas bread with dried fruits

Scarf and gloves by Aurelija Masiulionyte - cheese - a modern taste of Christmas

Another felt bag by Donata Dumciuviene - freshly baked black bread

Felt cape and shawl by Daiva Morozova - tangerines - its smell is in every home during Christmas Season here long ago since the times of Soviet Union

FOOD FOR THE SOUL. [CHRISTMAS]

2009-11-27T23:19:00.001+02:00

FOOD FOR THE SOUL

[CHRISTMAS]

Felt exhibition

An exhibition of functional felt objects – as a collection of traces of traditional meanings in this modern world of globalization.

At first glance it is just a simple game of eight felt makers - Daiva Morozova, Viltė Kazlauskaitė, Ramunė Toleikytė, Inga Samušienė, Donata Dumčiuvienė, Aurelija Masiulionytė, Jurgita Migonienė, and Vaida Petreikienė. Felters, playing with felt surfaces and colours that remind you of a smoke spiced herring or “kūčiukai” – traditional Lithuanian pastry served with poppy seed milk, or cranberry jelly, or hemp salt with boiled potatoes… A subject of Christmas food and variations of common fashion accessories.

However, after getting deeper into every exhibited object and its story that underlie simple lines of felt, you realize the meaning of collating felt and Christmas food by the felt makers of this exhibition.

Christmas food symbolizes respect and consonance, it is food that unites all living family members and guests from the world beyond – souls of our ancestors. Authors of the exhibition refer to a belief that souls of the ancestors hold onto plants, hair and wool…

Drawing their inspiration from ancient traditional meanings of Christmas food, authors complement it with modern touch of this celebration, symbolically connecting wool as a sacred shelter of souls and blessed food for all living and dead, wind, cold, and bees. Authors of the exhibition, using modern felting techniques, invite us to “feast” and rediscover the meanings of this holly period of time even in such (at first glance) common and casual cosmopolitan fashion accessories – felt objects with special purport.

And a little preview of one of my works for this mini exhibition - eco friendly dress, dyed with plants. It is inspired by traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve food - oat jelly.

“Kalėdzienė”

Funkcinių veltinio objektų paroda – senųjų prasmių pėdsakų kolekcija šiuolaikiniame globalėjančiame pasaulyje.

Iš pirmo žvilgsnio tai tik paprastas aštuonių veltinio meistrių - Daivos Morozovos, Viltės Kazlauskaitės, Ramunės Toleikytės, Ingos Samušienės, Donatos Dumčiuvienės, Aurelijos Masiulionytės, Jurgitos Migonienės, Vaidos Petreikienės žaidimas veltinio paviršiais ir spalvomis – čia primenančiais dūmų skonio silkę, čia kūčiukus, aplipusius aguonos grūdeliais, čia spanguolių kisielių ar kanapinę druską su bulvėmis. Kalėdinio stalo tematika bei įvairios kasdienių aksesuarų stiliaus variacijos.

Ir vis dėlto, įsiklausius į kiekvieną parodos objektą ir istorijas, slypinčias už paprastų veltinio kontūrų, galima suvokti, kodėl autorės parodoje gretina vilną ir Kalėdinį maistą.

Kūčių ir Kalėdų stalas, simbolizuojantis pagarbą ir santarvę, – tai vaišės, apjungiančios ne tik gyvuosius šeimos narius, bet ir svečius iš anapus – protėvių vėles. Autorės remiasi tikėjimu, jog protėvių vėlės linkusios prisilaikyti augaluose, plaukuose ir...vilnose...

Semdamosis įkvėpimo iš senųjų šventinio stalo prasmių, autorės įneša šiuolaikinio švenčių prieskonio, simboliškai apjungia vilną– sakralų vėlių prieglobstį ir šventas vaišes gyviesiems ir mirusiems, vėjui, šalčiui ir bitėms. Naudodamos modernias veltinio technikos galimybes, autorės parodos lankytojus kviečia „vaišintis“, iš naujo atrandant šventojo laikotarpio prasmes net ir tokiuose iš pirmo žvilgsnio kasdieniuose kosmopolitiško stliaus atributuose - savaip įprasmintuose veltinio objektuose.

Felt United exhibition gallery is online!

2009-11-17T11:36:00.002+02:00

Remember International day of felt and Felt United project? Well, finally its gallery is online and you can look at the photos of felt events all over the world here.

Is felt fashionable?

2009-11-15T17:54:00.002+02:00

Felt felt felt...we see and hear this word pretty often right now as felt is living its renaisance to my subjective opinion on these days. But weird enough, some still think that felt is an old fashioned textile or suited only for village people or Russian nation...

Looking for a proof of felt as fashionable in fashion field, one could look at the runways of world famous designers and definetly find felt there:

Calvin Klein, RTW Autumn 2009:

Yohji Yamamoto, RTW Autumn 2009:

Fendi, RTW Autumn 2009:

Stella McCartney, RTW Autumn 2008:

photos via style.com

And if you look even further, you can find such designers as John Galliano , Donna Karan, and Christian Lacroix using felt in their collections long time ago. So perhaps felt is not something that we could call fashionable today - doubted tomorrow. Perhaps felt is permanent - like classics.

Some more example of use of felt in fashion by Dutch designer Alexander van Slobbe in collaboration with Dutch felter Claudy Jongstra:

photos via orson-bodil.com

Fan page on Facebook

2009-10-30T23:50:00.001+02:00

Fan page on Facebook for VILTE created today!

Gourmandis series

2009-10-28T16:08:00.002+02:00

Texture texture again. Sometimes felt texture resembles food so much that you just make a break while felting and go to check your fridge. When I was editing these photos, I must confess I had my mouth watering...

Book cozy "Chocolate sin cake with cookie crumb"

Book cozy "Vanilla & caramel Dobos Torte"

Cowl "Chocolate Angel Food"

Playing with textures

2009-10-28T01:36:00.002+02:00

As I've written before, texture is one of the main characteristics of felt. And it just rocks playing with it!

Scarf "Wine and Magic"

Kerchief "Cornflower Jazz"

Collar "Autumn Tactics"

Collar "Dreams of Jupiter"

Bracelet "Dream Catcher"

Cobweb felt scarf "I will wait for you"

Cobweb felt scarf "Autumn leaves"

Cobweb felt scarf "Put your chains around me"

e c c o * e c o. Beneath the Surface Treatments

2009-10-27T01:00:00.001+02:00

Textile artist Abigail Doan, editor of the ethical fashion and art blog e c c o*e c o, has featured my nuno felt dresses on her blog in an amazing company of designers Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Their tiles clouds are simply amazing!

And here is a full view of my nuno felt dresses - tunics:

Nuno felt dress-tunic "Sky No 9"

Nuno felt dress-tunic "Just Viltelli" (in a little ironic way)

Into the woods series

2009-10-19T17:00:00.002+03:00

Finished some scarfs and collars in modified shibori technique for my 2009 Autumn series "Into the woods". Very organic forms and natural colours bringing you deep into the woods...

Scarf "Into the woods. Blueberry"

Collar "Into the woods. Wetland"

Scarf "Into the woods. Moss"

Collar "Into the woods. Juniper"

Felt United

2009-10-06T22:55:00.001+03:00

So it finally happened. First International day of Felt and Felt United project has been completed! Funny, I don't feel like telling a lot about this event. Not because there was something wrong, vice versa - there were so many good, warm things, many mystic signs, lot's of kind hearted conversations, good impressions, feelings, consciousness, insights, lessons to learn and ideas for the future that it feels I just want to keep it inside my heart for a while, hiding and cherishing that little sparkle that makes me feel warm inside...

Yet I will say that the felted Sun we made brightened all the grey sky in there... and I will share lot's of photos of that day.

Photos by Victor Morozov
Photos by Vaida Petreikiene
Photos by Armidas Pronosovas
Photos by Kestutis Migonis
and some of my photos

And the article in Lithunian news site Delfi

Preparation for Felt United

2009-09-29T18:50:00.002+03:00

As you might remember I blogged about international day of felt Felt United once. Finally I can announce what Lithuanian group of felters is going to make and where.

There has been lot's of discussions, many beautiful ideas, many ups and downs until we found IT. Summarizing the long path we walked: Felt United colours for this year yellow-orange-red suggested something warm, like fire, shining and bright like the Sun or stars in the sky. We also wanted to make something very Lithuanian, very Baltic... And show it in a symbolic place...

The answer to all this was - recently reconstructed Baltic Zodiac and the Sun that is going through all the signs during a year. You can read a very interesting article about Baltic Zodiac here and I am going to mention just the names of those signs:

1. Fishes (Pisces)

2. Sheep skin (Aries)

3. Rider (Taurus)

4. Twins (Gemini)

5. Bird of the Moon (Cancer)

6. Bird of the Sun (Leo)

7. Crane (Virgo)

8. Scales of the sky (Libra)

9. Deer with 9 horns (Scorpio)

10. Spearman (Saggitarius)

11. Goat (Capricorn)

12. Horse (Aquarius)

The installation will be made in a symbolic place - Ethnocosmological museum in Moletai, under a big glass dome with an idea that the felt installation is to be seen for people on Earth as well as the whole Universe.

Photos

Photos

There is still a lot of preparation work to be done until the opening of the installation on October 3d at 4pm at Ethnocosmological museum in Moletai but there is a little preview of the sign I was making - sheep's skin - with an idea of mythological golden wool. Dyed with plants of course :)

More details to come!

Photography of sheep shearing day

2009-09-20T00:23:00.002+03:00

Today I have received a link to the photos of our sheep shearing day, photos by professional photographer Victor Morozov. And I just loved how he captured the moments of that day - there is a very warm and kind view on the world in these photos...

These are just a few photos by Victor Morozov, you can see the rest of the photos of that day on Daiva Morozova's blog. Thank you, Daiva & Victor!

Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty

2009-09-18T02:21:00.002+03:00

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home

(Guns 'n' Roses - Paradise City)

I love unusual custom orders. I once loved a boy who loved Guns 'n' Roses. But it's not about that boy nor it is about puting my dress on Axl Rose :) It's about one talented woman who miraculously found me in the ocean of virtual world and even more miraculously decided she wanted me to design a dress for her - a dress for performance in the concert where she would be singing a song Paradise City by Guns 'n' Roses!
I always feel so thankful for my customers for all creative orders they give me! So here she goes..."and the girls are pretty".

Nuno felt outfit - Guns 'n' Roses

The beginnings. Sheep shearing

2009-09-17T23:07:00.001+03:00

It's always interesting to know the beginnings of everything. When holding a piece of felt, do you ever wonder how it was when it still belonged to the sheep and where that sheep came from, how it was sheared? Perhaps not. Unless you are so curious as me. I like looking at things and thinking what it was before and how it became what it became.
I remember when I first bought wool directly from sheep keeper (unprocessed wool) I was so happy he sent me photos of his sheep in the fields and himself shearing the sheep.

So last weekend I had a chance to try to shear the sheep myself in a meeting with several colleagues felters. Hands diving into thick warm oily layers of wool and the wool so beautifully seperating from the sheep. It was really interesting experience, a little touch to the beginnings of felt.

White. Again

2009-09-13T22:27:00.001+03:00

Wedding dress - Milk &Roses (dyed in ivory colour using plants)

Shawl - Iceberg. R.Cordes, 1958 (inspired by a kind of white roses, hence the name)

DVD cover for wedding photography

Wedding book of wishes - Pigeon's Milk

PaulaART

2009-09-11T12:02:00.001+03:00

"...because we are also what we have lost." - Amores Perros, Lucha de Gigantes

I am not sure why these words I read in SecretFragileSkies blog made me think about Paula McCullough who is actually not losing but going for a new period in her life, though absolutely unclear, not losing but leting her present life go away and diving into something undiscovered. For her. (You can read more about her story in her blog).

And while geting ready for her new life she is having a sale of her art work on Etsy , though I think we all understand that it is not fair to the artist having to make any sales on art at all... For a very simple reason - it's ART.

And besides many original contemporary clocks that every modern contemporary interiors are crying for she uploaded some mixed media and photography pieces to her Etsy shop.

Art that is usually left unnoticed, art of time, captured by Paula and laminated on fiberboard that all creates a chic object of meditation for a naked wall in some beautiful modern interior...

Paulaart.etsy.com

The Sea

2009-09-10T16:57:00.000+03:00

Nuno felt shawl "The Sea". Silk ponge, merino wool, silk

Here I came to the very edge
where nothing at all needs saying,
everything is absorbed through weather and the sea,
and the moon swam back,
its rays all silvered,
and time and again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
and every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
and everything is blue again like morning

Pablo Neruda, It is Born

Bits of this and that

2009-09-09T10:27:00.001+03:00

My blog has been abandonded for some time. For a very simple reason - I am just caught in a period of my life that has less and less computer life on every day. Strange. Strange for me, because I have been quite a computer addict for the last 10 years. And now I've been more and more in what we call reality, not the virtual world (though this topic might be broadly discussed, don't you think?)

Busy with life, busy with felt, guess I should actually say enjoying life and enjoying felt. Enjoying the Summery weather and accepting the Fall coming. Accepting and appreciating life. I guess it is a little theme of this period of my life now.

Artists from under the bark

2009-08-22T23:03:00.001+03:00

While walking in the country land and rediscovering the plants I never payed attention to before, my sight was caught by a piece of wood from a pile of chumps. Brown shades overflowing each other and..texture - similar signs all over the piece, as if it was some mage's stick from the black Continent...magical signs. And the damnedest thing was that all that art was made by the tiny artists that lived under the bark - bark beetles (Scolytinae)...

Just a thought that something in nature drives those tiny beetles feed moving in a certain scheme - like drawing a silhouette of a branch of conifer seams miraculous... It's like a little touch to a code of life, matrix of life again...

I put that piece of wood into garage... I don't know what I'll make from it yet, but I will...

Colour and texture

2009-08-18T11:50:00.002+03:00

Colour and texture are one of the most important characteristics of textile, as well as it is media of expression, especially in felting. Felting always creates texture, especially when wool is combined with other fibres and fabrics. It might be very subtle or very dramatic.

I always play with colour and texture in my work. As you might have noticed from my felt work, I have two tendencies - bold use of colour and rich texture or a play of overflowing colours reinforced with texture. It's like playing a musical composition on the piano with both hands. In some musical compositions one hand's part reinforces the other's part, creating one overflowing melody. And sometimes there are different parts for different hands that actually being so different in their melodies, interflow in one harmonic musical composition.

Diary "Femme"

Bracelet "Two lives". Eco series "Memories"

Shawl "Terra Incognita"

Book cozy for book series "Two lives". Eco series "Memories" (dyeing with rust)

Shawl "Valley of Poppies"

Collar "Empress of Blueberry dreams". Eco series "Memories"

And it was really pleasant to see that writer Ekaterina Sedia has noticed and evaluated my expression in texture in her blog.

Matrix of Life

2009-08-01T23:49:00.001+03:00

Do you ever get a feeling of coming so close to the matrix, strange scheme of Life that you can not actually understand consciously or describe it in words? Just a feeling of approaching something so majestical and huge, something alive, something pulsating and so precisely concerted?

I've had a heartfelt conversation recently with a man who lost his colleague - she died in the mountains, killed by snowslide, rockfall...

For almost a year she was losing interest in their business and gradually passed all the burden to him as if she knew she was passing and wanted him to adapt to all the load he would have when she is gone.

She had just finished renovating her house and the colour she chose for all her interior...was white. Architects have a prejudice that a man who chooses all white interior has just put a step to the other world, the world of those who have left this Earth. And she built a round partere in her yard that wasn't filled with flowers..it was all filled with stones. Stones killed her in the mountains.

Just before she left to the mountains, she had her renovated house sanctified. And then she left...

On a day she was killed, the man found a poetry book that she left for him as a birthday present. There was a bookmark in it. It was marking a poem that she dedicated for him: "When the morning comes, I will leave...to the kingdom I've never seen... and when I come back, I will tell you how it is" (the words are not precise, just a recollection).

And then a stork flew inside his yard and then flew just beside his windows... And two storks were flying in circles up in the sky when she was being burried..when her body was being returned to the Earth... Storks - as a symbols of life, birth or reincarnation...

Last books she gave for him to read were "When Nietzsche cried" and "Life continues", that meant a message for him "Why cry, life continues..."

There was something in this story and in that man's voice, his trembling hands when he spoke about her that gave me that feeling of approaching some matrix of life... feeling its majesty..without being capable to understand it and put it in words. As well as some very weird shiver inside, drawing parallels with my life - stoping my business, love of white colour, having attraction to the sky...puting stone assemblage in our land...though I am not going to the mountains any time soon. When I told about this weirdness to my sister, she gave me a wise reply - "It was her scenario of passing away. Yours is different".

It all made me think about what we call fate, made me think about living our lives (this, passed and future, as I do believe in reincarnation), about people we meet on our way - why we meet certain people in our lives - souls we already knew in our previous life times and finding them in this life time in one way or another...

One book has been revolving in my mind for the last half a year - "Two lives" by Concordia Antarova. I've read this book when I was a teenager... And after that conversation, I couldn't stop thinking about it again... I bought it for myself and for him - as a present. A book that approaches you even closer to the matrix of Life, soul wanders and the bigest findings...

Still feel like having my fingers on the wrist of Life, sensing its majestical pulsation...

P.S. I've always loved white...but I've always been a witch in my heart who has a connection with the world of Unseen...

Alchemy of plants continues

2009-07-29T00:36:00.002+03:00

I keep on studying plants and their properties. And having dreams of their roots, leaves and blossoms at night, as well as their latin and common names spining in my head while I sleep.

And getting amazed how blind I have been walking on the green grass and seeing just a green grass before when I see hundreds of different species of our green world now...

My experiments with eco / plant dyeing continue

with my nuno felt shawl "Tale of Gold" that has a memory of many kinds of plants - their blossoms and leaves.

and another wild and elegant bracelet from rare Drenthe Heath wool, merino wool, silk (all dyed with plants) and amber - "Desert Kings and Queens"

P.S. Many thanks to all of you for featuring my work again on:

ecco*eco by Abigail Doan

paulaartonetsy by Paula McCullough

blueberryshoes by Hollie Sturgeon

Back from Heaven

2009-07-28T23:56:00.000+03:00

There are certain places in the World where you reconnect with your inner self and mother Nature. Certain places that purify your heart, mind and soul. Places that get into your heart. Places where you feel Majesty of Life.
Places like a top of the Dead Dunes in the Curonian Spit...
Photo by Marius Jovaisa. Kopa Naglių rezervate.

I've been there again. And I can say - I am back from Heaven now...