Binding Fibers
An extended artist's statement
My mother explains: felting occurs when strands of wool are agitated, causing the barbs on each strand to catch and tighten together. This can be done with a needle or soap and water.
The sun dips behind the western red cedars surrounding a small clearing where my mother’s yurt stands. This is where I first learned to make felt, with my mother at my side and my toddler running naked through the garden. She clutches Salal flowers in her little fists and her giggles inspire me as I create a felted tapestry reminiscent of the beach we played at this morning.
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I pluck the wool fibers, pulling with my fingers clasped flat against my palm, and lay the extracted fibers flat on the table in front of me. I do this until I've formed a fluffy mat of wool. Lifting a garden sprayer, I saturate the mat with hot soapy water and massage it flat as the fibers begin to snare each other. I love the transformative property of the wool; the fibers are loose and singular in the beginning but with agitation they combine together, hooking and pulling until they've become so entwined it's turned them into something else. After I've flattened the mat, I roll it around a pool noodle to form a log. This log is then rolled back and forth repeatedly until the barbs of the wool fibers catch and tighten together, forming a seamless piece of felt fabric.
Roll, roll, roll. I count in my head 1, 2, 3... taking up the beat my mother taught me. This meditative, cathartic process is where I find the time for contemplation, sometimes profound, but not always. Right now I think about the beach, the ocean, the rocking of a boat out on a midnight bay. But the warm water soaking the fibers has turned cold and I feel the dip in temperature as evening settles in, grounding me to the process. I firmly press down on the log bundle as I roll it from wrist to elbow and back again… 58, 59, 60. Finally finished. I unroll the bundle and massage it flat, frothy globs of soap drip down from the table as I inspect the artwork in front of me. There is no doubt in my mind that the lush spray of ivory locks and dappled blue silk intertwined with aqua wool is a work of art.
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The distinction between art and craft has been a point of contention throughout the 21st century and the discourse of traditional gender roles often burdens it. The Fiber Arts Revival of the 1960s and 70s sought to bring fiber art and textiles into the category of fine art. Artists such as Sheila Hicks, Claire Zeisler, Alice Adams, and Lenore Tawney challenged the status quo of male-dominated fine arts by exploring the possibilities within a medium largely ascribed as “women’s work.” In 1979, feminist art pioneer Judy Chicago created The Dinner Party with the goal of confronting the persistent omission of female contributions throughout history. The Dinner Party was one of the first pieces of modern fine art to incorporate fiber arts such as needlepoint and featured 39 table settings dedicated to influential women. Chicago’s art was met with severe criticism for its use of vulvar forms to represent each women’s place at the table, as well as its heavy-handed approach to feminist art. Although the movement was not as successful in liberating fine art from the burden of misogyny as many artists had hoped, it did open the door for fiber arts to be understood outside the context of crafting for home life and functionality.
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Another fiber art revival in the 2010s contributed to female empowerment through crafts, opening the conversation to activism and birthing a new moniker: the craftivist. The act of yarnbombing started by fiber artists Magda Sayeg and Lauren O'Farrell pushed to personalize and reclaim sterile public places. The Pussyhat movement of 2017 saw pink hats in all their glory as a reclamation of the word “pussy” and protest of Trump’s misogyny. Elaborate felt costumes created by Patti Barker carry messages of female empowerment and scorn, such as her Climate Sisters set, Sea Crone, and Dragon Skin. Barker uses textiles as a challenge to speak her truths as well as address social and political issues; her costume Ant Queen, inspired by past political climate, whispers “let women lead us to peace.” All of these fiber artists who have come before me left this legacy of reclaiming fiber as a way to convey and share their frustrations, fears, joys and talent. My goal as an artist is to claim that legacy and learn techniques to communicate through my craft.
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Patti believes:
an artist’s ability to grow resides within their desire to learn new things, techniques, and materials
Patti tells me:
I believe life is all about finding your joy and sharing it. That’s why I teach.
When I surpassed my mothers ability to teach me, she introduced me to the artist Patti Barker. Patti recognized my talent as a fiber artist and has helped nurture my growth, teaching me various techniques for Felting and hand-dying wool. She showed me Nuno felting, which is a technique used to combine a fabric with wool. This creates a beautiful texture from the wool ensnaring the fabric as they merge into each other.
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I was inspired by Patti’s dyeing technique that creates a fluid transition of colors within wool roving. With this technique, a single skein of wool can contain different concentrations of dye and therefore different tones within a hue. Additionally, it can be used to transition one hue to another, sometimes creating a different color altogether. This variation allows for me to create a painting effect with the fiber and enables me to achieve a wider range of colors to work with. Learning to dye my own wool fundamentally changed how I approach my art. I frequently source raw wool, known as fleece, from my hometown Lopez Island, Washington. After being cleaned and combed, I dye it based on current or future projects. I find satisfaction in completing a piece of art that I have worked with my own hands each step of the process.
In 2021, I spent the fall on my patio in California learning from Patti’s online class Felt Memory. I experiment with sculpting the wool by binding it during felting so that when released from its bounds, the shape is retained. In my hands, the vibrant yellow sheet of wool I’m working on is bound tightly around marbles. The hot pink of the mini rubber-bands binding them makes them easier to find and cut out, but at this moment the wet wool looks like some lumpy creature from the bottom of the ocean. When it’s finished, the cavities created by the marbles will form a honeycomb texture. This memory technique has become my favorite for making flowers and beehives.
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My daughter frequently joins me when I felt and the continuation of passing this artform down to another generation is something I cherish. Her favorite part of this process is the unbinding, when she hears the clink clink clink of marbles dropping into a bowl, finally freed and ready to be played with. We both love the honeyed fragrance of the jacaranda trees in California, but when they start dropping their purple flowers into my felting it's time to take a break. I fling one of the sticky flowers at my daughter and she swings one of my tools, a pool noodle, at me. I’m left with no choice but to brandish a second one and challenge her to a duel.
Patti says:
To me, the human connection is the entire point of my work.
I enjoy the ability to connect through felt, as it is a medium where I can express emotions and ideas that I find difficult to communicate otherwise. I'm grateful to Patti Barker and all the women who have come before me to open the conversation for fiber arts to be interpreted on a higher level than “busywork.” My first semester at ODU gave me the opportunity to work on a project outside the scope of anything I'd done before and I was overjoyed at the opportunity to speak in a language I'm fluent in: felt. I was tasked with a creative project that symbolically represented literature we explored over the course of the term; I chose Marita Bonner’s play The Purple Flower. Bonner’s play addresses the racial injustice in America and her purple flower represents the freedom and joys of a life unhindered by bigotry.
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I have learned that the conscious decision to not participate in racism is not enough, that as a white individual it is necessary for me to actively relinquish and work against the structures of racism. I grew up in a community that has a “colorblind” policy, so I didn’t learn to talk about racism in a way that could challenge it. I still feel that I lack the vocabulary to articulate my feelings of outrage, compassion and hope, without fear that I am contributing to the overwhelming tide of microaggressions suffered by people of color. But I have found a voice with felting that allows me to make a connection beyond verbal expression. My project Relinquish the Purple Flower: a Tribute to Marita Bonner allows me to speak to these heavy emotional subjects without the burden of words.
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Bonner’s play is a stark criticism of racism; in the play, people of color must sacrifice and fight to climb the metaphorical hill in order to possess the Purple Flower. My literature professor Dr. Alison Reed encouraged me to look beyond the symbolism of the play and envision a world where we are not constrained within a system that allows for only one flower to be hoarded or granted on the whim of those who possess it. I thought it would be significant to depict that transformational space where purple flowers are bountiful for all. For this project, while felting I think about The Color Purple. I think about JMW Turner’s painting Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying. I think about Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, and about why the caged bird sings. I think about all the women’s voices silenced by prejudice, like Marita Bonner. And I translate all those thoughts to the project in my hands.
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I roll, roll, roll my drum carder, which is a manual crank machine used to comb wool and combine colors. Although I can accomplish a variety of skin colors with dyeing, I mix colors on the drum carder to achieve as many tones as I can. Using the Nuno felting technique, I combine a rainbow piece of fabric with the purple wool to represent each fully lived life. The fabric is shimmery and draws the eye, but that is not why I chose it. I wanted the rainbow to represent the unique intricacies of each individual life and the freedom we are all entitled to as human beings. I use the memory technique to give the flowers the “memory” of being a closed flower bud, so that when freed from their bounds they can bloom while retaining the structure of a life coming into its own.
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A myriad of purple flowers bloom from open hands.
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I explain:
This piece represents Bonner’s vision, a space without hierarchy, where there is no need for people of color to climb the hill in order to possess the flower of privilege. The purple flowers, the flower-of-life-at-its-fullest, are for all to possess freely.
Relinquish the Purple Flower:
A Tribute to Marita Bonner
Special Recognition Award
Words Matter Exhibition 2023
Virginia Beach Art Center