Books

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.

Why do you do it?

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

A Wild Sheep Chase

 

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…

Self taught has got a teacher

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.