I live in a coastal town in SE England called Whitstable. As a member of a group called Made in Whitstable (a loose affiliation of local artists & makers) we had a group exhibition coming up with the title of “EDGE” at The Horsebridge – our wonderful local community arts centre. We needed to produce at least one item that fit the Edge brief, however we wanted to interpret it. The rest of our work was entirely up to us.
I could have got away with explaining that practically everything in my wet-felted pictures happens at the water’s edge, and it therefore met the brief. But I was actually quite excited to think through some new and different work. I particularly like working 3D and it feels like a while since I’ve felt really energised by the creative process. So, I thought about what ‘edge’ might mean and I ended up making 3 different interpretations.
Edge 1
For my first piece I pondered the edge of the felt as a focus of a picture.
I decided on a flat background with strips of felt jutting out to show their edges. I’ve made things like this using multiple resists to create flaps that then stand out. I wondered if I could pre-felt some strips before attaching, rather than creating flaps with resists in the lay-out stage.
I selected some home-dyed Corriedale wool I had left over from an old project. Just as I’d decided to use this I noticed how well the colours went with a second-hand silk scarf I’d just bought so I decided to use some of that too.
After I’d laid it out, leaving a fluffy edge to help attach it to the background, I realised I’d made it far too wide. “Oh well”, I thought, “I’ll cut it into strips once it’s prefelted”. I’d intended this to be a test for a more thought-through piece.
I decided to stick with what I’d done and move on to something else: I never made the more thought-through piece.
Edge 2
For my second piece I started to think about the outside edges of a shape. I decided I’d try using a book resist to make a vessel with a large surface area.
I scanned the internet for book resist ideas that didn’t have too many ‘pages’. I alighted on an article Gladys Paulus (a felting hero of mine) had written for DHG comparing bergschaf and merino wools in which she included a 3 page book resist.
https://dhgshop.it/blog/article-compares-carded-wool-bergschaf-and-merino_88.php
I decided I’d use a similar shape using black and white wool but would cut and shape it differently from Gladys’s.
I wanted to use carded batts as they’re much easier to lay out than tops / rovings when navigating complex shapes. I had a good supply of white Norwegian wool batts but was struggling to lay my hands on anything appropriate in black. I found a black merino batt and decided to go with that, though I wasn’t sure how the wools would interact, with the Norwegian being much more coarse than the merino.
The Norwegian wool was slow to felt and the black merino didn’t come through as much as I’d imagined. Interesting, if not surprising. Eventually I ended up with something that looked decidedly anatomical: three lungs was the most polite thing I could think of. I got a lot of comments about the anatomical possibilities of this one!
The vessel is an odd shape so I decided to embrace its oddness and bought some curved screw-in metal studs to add to the top of each segment. Given the brief was ‘edge’, I thought these would add a little extra edginess.
Edge 3
And, finally, I created a vessel using a circular resist that I would stand on its edge. I’d recently bought a carded merino and silk (70% : 30%) batt from World of Wool that I was dying to use – it is deliciously soft and scrumptious to feel.
I laid out the first layer clockwise around the resist, and the second in circles radiating from the centre.
Having wetted the fibre out, I turned it tightly over the resist then set about laying out another two fine layers in the same pattern. Or at least, that’s what I intended. Looking back, I think I got distracted and may have only laid out two layers on one side, as the reverse side feels decidedly thin and soft, despite long and patient fulling. Distracted? When I’m making something I’m finding fun, I tend to add lots of “what if”s and “how about”s instead of sticking to my original plan. See the ‘ooh, shall I add some silk’ for Edge 1. On this occasion my “how about”s included a stripe of mohair tops, a dark circle cut from Edge 2’s offcuts (one on each side) and a strip of curly locks. Fun, but not very scientific.
Anyhoo, here’s Edge 3. It does feel lovely and is very light but I wish I’d paid more attention to the layout. I’m tempted to make something similar with a 6 layer layout.
In the meantime, here’s my exhibition space. I was pleased with the results and had very much enjoyed making three experimental pieces.
Before I leave you, I thought I’d show you a natural phenomenon I saw while I was making my edge pieces. Being lucky enough to live by the coast, I often have a speed walk in the morning by way of exercise and enjoyment. It was a clear and sunny early morning when I noticed some mist rolling in. I saw a puzzling white arc in the sky – sort of like a rainbow except it wasn’t raining. I decided it might be a ‘mistbow’ and looked it up when I got home. Turns out it’s called a ‘fogbow’. It’s unusual as you have to have very specific conditions: enough mist or fog to reflect the sunlight but a low sun behind you which isn’t obscured by the mist / fog. The water droplets in mist are very small so don’t refract the light like raindrops do, they just reflect it. It’s also called a ghost rainbow. I saw this photo while I was uploading the images for this post and thought you might be interested. I’d never even heard of such a thing but I found it really lovely.
