Browsed by
Author: kikistextileart

Flowers in a vase: a wetfelted abstract project

Flowers in a vase: a wetfelted abstract project

Comments 16 comments

Hello all!

First of all a recap of my recent activities to give you a background to my most recent piece.

I have been very taken with preparing and then attending my local Art Trail in the first 2 weeks of September: if you remember, my last post was about how I prepared a few new felted items for it, because I wanted to bring a mix of new and old things.

One of the Bourough of Ealing Art Trail banners on a railing at a local park.
It’s quite the event in our local community!

Here is what my stand was looking like at the beginning of the first day of the BEAT (Borough of Ealing Art Trail):

Kiki Peruzzi's stand at the Borough of Ealing Art Trail 2026 is a small table covered in a white cloth. Some scarves are hanging from a small rack on the left, and the items on the table are all small and brightly colored, with some small white framed artworks and other small items. There are small windows above the stand and the walls behind the stand are bare bricks and crumbling mortar.
My small corner. I actually did not bring a lot of items, as I could always get more from home if needed and I did not want to get a very crowded look.

 

A closer look to Kiki's stand at BEAT 2026. At the center of the image, there is the table with many different white framed artworks, two felted bowls holding small felted objects, and some coaster sets in plastic wraps. In the background there is a brick wall and in the upper part of the image there is a window letting bright light come through.
A closer look at the table. You may be able to spot some of the items I was working on the last time that I wrote a post.

 

The left hand side of Kiki's stand at BEAT 2026, with a closer glimpse to some colorful felted scarves, and some small artworks in mixed media and felt.
Here is a closer look at the left hand side.

I have to say, this event is the most fun one among the various exhibitions and events that I participate in with my local art group, the Ealing Art Group: we meet tons of people, and our families and friends are encouraged to pass through. We set up demonstrations of our art in the little yards in front of the hall (weather permitting), to pass the time and  to call passers-by inside (some of us tried also to improvise a little dance routine to catch the attention of people going by, but we felt that it was a bit too much in the end..). And we chat a lot among ourselves, as it is the only time in the year when we actually pass hours together in the same room (the other exhibitions are manned or womaned on a rota as a group, whereas each of us has to take care of their own stand in this one).

Kiki Peruzzi smiles while demonstrating wet felting outside of the Art Trail venue for her local art group. There is a white plastic table set in front of a brick wall decorated with colorful bunting. On the table there are some wool bags in white, teal, grey and pink. There are also a green sprinkler and a plastic container with some water, and on the right there is a small log on top of some white netting and bubble wrap. Kiki is holding some wool in her hands. She is wearing a white sleeveless top and dark blue short trousers.
I had an interesting time demonstrating wet felting while battling the wind and chatting to visitors: you can see it in my please-take-that-shoot-quickly-before-it-all-flies-away smile! I like to think that at least I caught many children’s hearts by giving away wisps of pink and green wool all during my demos!

This year we had a brilliant attendance on the first weekend, weirdly not matched by proportionally higher sales, and usual good attendance on the second weekend: we think that it was because other non-related events were going on in the area during the first weekend, so more people were out and about.

While I was in the middle of this, plenty of new ideas for felting and mixed media pieces were coming to my mind of course: I do not know about you, but that is what happens to me whenever I have no time and I can chat with other creative people and see what they make.

One of the ideas that I thought that I could start on without much fuss was a new wet felted piece about flowers. I need to explain that the artist exhibiting her watercolour pieces right in front of me in the room, and a good friend, is very fond of representational abstract artwork of bright flowers, and I was inspired to make a bright and colourful small piece. What I really set up to make in the end, though, was something quite different.

First of all, I considered that I had bought two canvases 65 x 90 cm (25.6 x 35.5 inches) that I had never used yet, so that a bigger artwork was in order. And, most of all, the base prefelt that I prepared for my artwork was in pewter, as I did not have enough wool of a brighter colour and also, to be totally candid, when I actually got to it, I did not feel like a brighter colour for my base.

So, you just have to take my word for it, my initial idea was of a jolly and quick little flowery piece, but good intentions did not last the first five minutes of actually setting up to make something for real, as it so often happens to me.

I put my chosen canvas on the working table to understand the approximate size of my base felt and started to lay the wool out, from the setting up of the edges to the filling of the area inside them with two layers of Merino wool. In hindsight I maybe should have gone for my usual 3 layers for the base, but as I was laying out the wool to cover the whole area I had started panicking that the project was too big for the time that I had, and so I was trying to cut times where I felt that I could. That resulted in a coverage that was not as good as I wanted for it, also because in the following steps I ended up deciding to not cover all the base with other colours so as to provide another layer on top of it, as I often do instead.

That is how I started:

There is an oval table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap. On it there is the outline in pewter wool of a big rectangle
The size for this new piece was almost at the limits of what I can make on my table when it is closed.
On an oval table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap there is a big rectangular shape almost completely covered in a first vertical layer of wool.
I tend to layout my base layers not very carefully, as it is supposed to just be a support base to the actual piece. This was my first layer.

After laying out the base and lightly wetting and soaping it, I started laying out the colours for the background from the darkest greens and greys to the lightest (light lime green, yellow and light greys and white):

On a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap, there is a work in progress wet felted piece by Kiki Peruzzi. The piece at this stage is a big rectangle in wet pewter wool with a build up of background wisps of wool in dark and lighter green, dark and lighter grey, light yellow and white on it.
I tend to have light coming from the upper right hand in my pieces, it just works this way for me in most cases. It is also true that the table that I work on has light coming from the right naturally anyway, so maybe that is one reason.

I wanted a good contrasting area, so I went for pretty dark hues in my background, but that meant that the whole piece was already fast moving from a jolly uncomplicated colour riot to something more meditative and sober. I also realised that I wanted to not completely cover the pewter, as I was more and more reminded of my recent tondi pieces: it is just not possible to go completely away from your memories, I find.

I laid out my flowers in colours that were very bright and close to each other (two reds, a salmon, an orange and a yellow) and I added touches of darker shades to build their depth a bit, without going for realistic description. I wanted some white flowers to make the composition pop, and I went for some in white Merino wool with a center of natural yellow eri silk fiber, and some in white eri silk fiber with a few touches of bright blue mulberry silk fiber, for the shiny effect of silk that is reminiscent of oil paint shine.

I also realised that I needed some kind of vase or holding shape for my bunch of flowers, but I did not like the idea of a too solid shape when my flowers were just quick brush strokes of colours, so to speak. I went for just the outline of a vase in dark green, that could be variously interpreted and avoids weighting down the composition.

Here is what it looked like before the wetting, it seemed to me well full and with a background on the darker side, because the base in pewter was already wet at this point:

There is a work-in-progress wet felted piece on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap. The piece is rectangular and has a background in pewter, different hues of green and grey, with some yellow and white. The top layer has wisps of wool in bright reds, salmon pink, yellow, orange and white in different directions to expressively suggest flowers in a dark green vase. The upper layer of wool is not wet yet.
My composition before the wetting: the wool always looks more when it is still dry.

Then, I wetted and soaped the whole, and rubbed it gently under the netting. A bit of rubbing by sander followed, and I went on to the rolling very quickly. I do not need to roll it very much for my purposes, but I added a bit of additional rubbing against the bubblewrap in this case.

There is a rectangular wet felt piece that is almost all covered in bubble wrap for rubbing with a sander, on a table covered in white towel and bubble wrap.
Ready for a bit of sander rubbing.
A pewter work-in-progress felt piece is rolled into bubble wrap and rests on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap, ready for the rolling. On the table in the distance there is a glass half full of a clear yellow drink.
And here we go with the rolling, after some rehydration with an Italian favourite soda drink called Cedrata.

After drying it, that is what it looks like:

A wet felted artwork by Kiki Peruzzi is resting on a white canvas. The piece is rectangular, it has a pewter base layer and green and grey, yellow and white background. This abstract piece represents a vase of bright flowers in reds, salmon pink, yellow, orange and white.
This is before the ironing and to test the size of the finished felt on the canvas: it fits nicely as I wanted (I like my canvas to be seen all around the edges).

Because of the rubbing against the bubblewrap, it ended up with the piece developing a bit of movement around the edges, so that I had to iron it a bit to flatten it again after the drying.

I feel that it looks a lot less full than what I wanted, and I am pretty divided about it: do I work on it more or do I call it done? What I am thinking is that this piece would be closer to my idea if I added stitched fabrics in colours similar to the flowers to full up the areas in and around the flowers. I can not really explain well the idea that I have in mind, but I am thinking floating pieces of fabric here, very lightweight and not realistic. I also am very into textural pieces more than flat pieces, so I miss that textural element in this piece, though I understand that it is not what everybody looks for in an artwork, but I am really drawn to textures and 3D elements.

I have asked opinions about it to some of my artist friends during our breaks from the Art Trail work: mostly, they feel that the piece is fine as is, while some agree that I could work on it a bit more. I feel that they do not see in their mind what I could do with it and the right fabrics, because none of them are as familiar with textiles, but it may be that they genuinely do not feel that it will benefit from additions, with some of them mentioning the need to avoid overcrowding the composition.

So, what are my textile friends thinking about it? I can always try something and then unstitch it if I see that it is not going anywhere, but time is at a premium right now in my life, and I have so many UFOs in my pile already!

Let me know your thoughts on it, please.

In the meantime, I will take a bit of rest and relax:

There is a brown and orange Guinea pig sleeping snuggled in a soft cup in light blue and other bright colors, inside a cage with black grids and wood shavings on the bottom.
Repeat with our sweet Pumpkin: “Good nap, everyone!”

Kiki

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Instagram: kiki.textile.art

 

There is a wet felted and stitched bookmark by Kiki Peruzzi. It is an abstract landscape in blues and lilacs, with two plum boats with shiny white stitched sails at the center and right of the bottom part.
Preparing for an Art Trail: earrings, bookmarks and other fast projects

Preparing for an Art Trail: earrings, bookmarks and other fast projects

Comments 13 comments

Hello!

This post will be about a few different projects that I am into: as they are all small and easy projects, maybe you will get inspired to try out your own version of them as well.

I am participating to an Art Trail in my area, it is a big event in our neck of woods: it is my second time and I think that I have a better feel for what I need to prepare for it. That is, small usable felt things, that can be added to what I have left from last year, that I can easily bring to our venue by public transport (I do not have a car, I live in Greater London, UK and using public transport is a sensible choice to avoid traffic and steep charges) and that I can sell for a reasonable price. As it is not a Fine Art Only event, but more of a festival celebrating the creativity of all the people living in our Borough, any craft is encouraged and stalls can also sport a mixture of fine art and craft as mine will be.

Last year I sold a few of my wet felted earrings, so this year I spent a bit of time in making a few more but with needle felting: it was very quick, I enjoyed the needle felting practice, and I feel that I can keep to a low price for them.

Here are the pairs that I have made so far (the flowers on the top rows and the blue hearts) with the ones that I have left from last year:

Eight pairs of colorful felted earrings are displayed on a black board that is held up by a hand
They were really a breeze to make, while I was stewarding for my last group exhibition.

I also wanted to bring the blue loop scarf and the yellow lightweight scarf that were shown in previous posts, as loop scarves were admired last year (though I did not sell them very well, but who knows, maybe this year I will) and I will add to them this new lightweight scarf that I made with the recycled banana yarn used as yarn for decoration:

Part of a salmon light scarf with wavy colored yarn, wet felted by Kiki Peruzzi, is visible on a clothes rack.
I loved the salmon colour and itched to use it.

It was pretty awkward to pair a very small amount of wool with the chunky yarn, it was really an experiment. I thought that maybe the yarn could give the wool a little bit more structure, but I am wary that the yarn will actually be a weak point of stress for the wool, and pull the wool apart quicker. Anyway, it was more work than I expected, as the wool was so thin that the yarn was not well felt in in places, so I had to needle felt the yarn in after drying it, and then cut all the hairy wool sticking out from the places that I had needle felted. I will maybe not do it in the same way another time: I could either go for a thicker wool layout or maybe sandwich the yarn in between two lightweight layers of wool.

I also am trying out an idea that I have seen from a British artist and crafter on Instagram, Maxine Smith  @tillyteadance. She makes those lovely bookmarks in her very colourful style with a mix of wetfelting and machine stitching, with hand embroidered or needle felted details. You can have a glimpse at the process in her posts: she seems to make a full rectangle of wet felted and machine stitched background, then cuts all the bookmarks from that single rectangles with a rotary cutter, adds some details and finishes each bookmark by stitching all the edges.

I thought that I could try my hand at it, and see if it makes the bookmark making more time effective for commercial purposes. And, to be honest, it seemed like fun. My brother had this game when we were little: a lot of scenes on paper strips that you could combine to make an always different composition that told an always changing story. Here, I was picturing something like that, but made of felt.

Of course, I do not have a sewing machine, so my stitching was going to be very limited. I am also much less of a figurative artist than Maxine Smith is, and much less of a cheerful disposition. Here is what I made, with merino wool and a few scraps of a pale blue scarf (possibly silk, I do not know, it was a charity shop find):

Four small rectangles of wet felt that will be background for bookmarks are on a light blue surface. the pieces are in light and darker blues and lilac, with accents of plum here and there to suggest details on a landscape.
Here are my background rectangles cut from the original sheet.

Then I had to make each one meaningful with some stitching (as less as possible) and have them tell a different story each. I also was keen on keeping them as abstract as possible, because I love that opening up of possible meanings.

Here are the stitched bookmarks as of now:

There is a wet felted and stitched bookmark by Kiki Peruzzi. It is an abstract landscape in blues and lilacs, with two plum boats with shiny white stitched sails at the center and right of the bottom part.
This is the most peaceful, maybe: just two little boats with shiny sails floating on a limitless sea..
This is a wet felted bookmark by Kiki Peruzzi. On the left bottom corner there is a light blue and plum shape resembling a bird, and on the left upper side there is a plum stitched sun.
This is the most disquieting of the four, but it just came out this way, and who knows, maybe someone out there would like a bird (pigeon? bird of prey?no idea) for their bookmark. My husband says that the bird shape is an alien life form under an alien sun: well, who knows, it could be.
There is a wet felted and stitched bookmark by Kiki Peruzzi showing an abstract landscape in different blues and lilac with a lone bush or tree shape in plum at the center left and a small house shape on its right, on what look like gentle hills. A moon stitched in shiny white thread is on the upper right.
This was meant to be an abstract landscape at night, so I stitched a moon in shiny DMC Diamant thread.
A wet felted and stitched bookmark by Kiki Peruzzi featuring an abstract landscape in blue and lilac, with a sun in plum on the upper right side, and shape resembling a solitary person on a path on the right side at the bottom.
This is lonesome or purposeful and dreamy, depending on what you feel it represents.

I have to hand stitch all the edges now, but I need to go and buy some good thread in the right colour at my local shop. I would like it to be pale blue or something like that, and I do not have embroidery thread in that colour.

An issue that I have with them is that they are not stiff. The ones that Maxine Smith shows are properly stiff: I think that part of it is due to the extensive machine stitching, part to the fact that, on second watching, I noticed that she made thicker felt to begin with. I have no idea if she puts some stiff backing or if she uses a PVA glue bath to increase stiffness. Now, I am thinking about what I can do to increase my bookmark stiffness without spending too much time on them. My friends say that they are fine as thickness goes, and I believe a bulkier bookmark is not super easy to use inside a book, so I am not inclined to add felt to them on their back. I maybe will try with the PVA glue bath. Some of my friends also do not see why they should be stiffer, so there you go, I could leave them as they are, and simply display them on a paper backing with a couple of temporary stitches to keep them upright. What do you think?

I have made a couple more small abstract landscapes in unusual colours, similar to those that I have shown in my last post, and I have not added stitched details to them, yet:

A small wet felted abstract landscape with a light green sky with accents of turquoise and white and a white sun, and a reddish ground.
This one has more sky and less ground, and I placed a round piece of silk rods up there on the right to make the sun.
A small wet felted abstract landscape with a reddish ground and turquoise and light green sky.
This one is slightly more square and has more ground/sea/whatever than sky. Or I can always turn it upside down.

Which details would you think for them? I am very undecided.

Another thing that I am preparing is my contribution to the fundraiser for the charity Ealing Food Bank in this edition of the Art Trail. Last year, the artists from the Art Trail were encouraged to donate a small piece on the theme “Home” to be exhibited at a special venue and sold for a homeless charity: it went very well, so this year we are doing it again, for a different charity. The theme this year is “Food for Thought”, of course, but the requirements for entry are the same: it must be a square piece 20cm by 20 cm (about 7.8 inches), and they are going to give us the canvas, if needed.

They are going to provide us the canvas later on, but I have the advantage that I can complete my piece with no canvas at all, and then just stitch my work on the canvas when I will have it.

I started with the idea of a still life with fruits and vegetables on it: I do not know, I think about still lifes a lot these days (see my last post). I was not feeling like making it in wet felt, I do not know, it did not feel like the right thing, I wanted more of a sculptural piece and I went for needle felting.

Firstly, I prepared a wet felted background with some “wool for felting” that I had as a gift from a friend: I have no idea which kind of wool that is, so I seldom use it, but for this it seemed perfect, as it is very natural (I do not think that it is dyed) and in different gradation of natural whites and browns.

A wet felted small square background is on a pale blue surface. The square is in shades of natural white and brown, darker on the right side.
This is the background that I felted.

Then, I decided that I needed a real life reference, so I got out some peppers, an apple and a small bowl. I experimented with adding some green vegetables like cucumber or lettuce, but it was not working well, too big maybe. I wanted some green grapes to drape over the peppers and apple, but I had none in the fridge, so I just simulated it with a small vessel that has long curly locks hanging from it.

There is a small black and white bowl on a light blue sofa. In it there are a yellow and orange pepper, a red apple, and barely visible a green pepper, and there are fuchsia wool locks over all of the vegetables. In the background there are cushions in a chaos.
Yes, I know, it is nothing like green grapes. And sorry about the background chaos of cushions.

Well, then I started making the shapes in core wool, thinking that I was going to cover them with dyed Merino afterwards.

There is a shape in white core wool that is being needle felted on a felting pad while a hand is keeping it steady.
Let’s start from the pepper, as I like the pepper.

Going on with the shapes, I wanted to better visualise how they were going to fit with each other, so I placed them on the background and then loosely needle felted them one to the other.

A white pepper shape made with needle felt out of wool is on a wet felted background in tones of natural white and brown.
White pepper on background.
A white pepper shape and half an apple shape made by needle felting wool are on a wet felted background in natural whites and browns
Pepper and the apple.
Three white shapes of vegetables needle felted in white wool are on a wet felted background in natural whites and browns.
Pepper, apple and hint of second pepper in the background.
There is a light green felting pad in the center, with grapes being needle felted in white wool on it. A hand holding a small tub of needles is on the left side. A bowl with brightly colored peppers and apple is on the upper left side, and shapes os peppers and apple in white wool are on the right upper side over a wet felted background in browns and natural whites.
Making grapes while thinking “What a brilliant idea, so fast to make!” or something like, if you get my irony and already know the nice words.

The grapes were a bit more time consuming, but when I saw the whole together I started thinking that I liked the whole as it was, white and almost ghostly. I feel that it is clear what the shapes are, even without colour, when seen in person. The photos get a bit confusing, to be honest.

A felted piece by Kiki Peruzzi is held up by a hand. It features white organic needle felted shapes of fruits and vegetables on a natural white and brown wet felted background.
I admit that it is unusual, as still life, a bit ghostly maybe, but that was the point of still lifes, to play with the concept of life and death by hinting at them. It is better in person than in photos, though, as the sculptural quality of the piece does not show well on camera.

So, in the end, I needle felted it all to the background and I will call it something like “I miss you”, because it made me think about a friend who recently passed away: she was a keen grower of vegetables in her allotment, and also still lifes are supposed to hint about life and death, and she passed away way too young, way too early, a typical theme for still lifes.

Another friend gave me the idea of felting coasters: it is maybe weird, but I am not one of the tons of people using coasters, so I had never really thought about making some, but it is actually quite fast and fun to make them, and it probably makes a lot of commercial sense (we will see if they sell well..).

Here are two sets of four coasters that I made recently:

On a marble-like top table there are two sets of four coasters in felt, they both have a white background and brushes of bright colors: pink and teal, and yellow or lilac depending on the set.
I went for bright cheerful colours this time.

I will go on making a few more pieces for the Art Trail event, there is still time until September, and I hope to finish the ones that need a bit of working on, but this is it for now: I hope that you like what I have made so far.

Kiki

@kiki.textile.art

http://www.kikistextileart.com

An oil painting of white and red roses in a deep green jade vase, in a bronze colored frame
Preparing for a Spring Exhibition: reflecting on memory.

Preparing for a Spring Exhibition: reflecting on memory.

Comments 13 comments

Hello all!

This time I am taking you through my preparations for my local art group Spring exhibition coming next week (wish me luck).

All the entries in our exhibitions have to be original art that had not been shown before in our group’s other exhibitions, so I was looking through the many works that I had not shown and I had almost decided on a few older works. And then I found 4 small round canvases that just called to me to be used and changed my mind!

Of course, I just needed to make something new and untested, that I was not even sure was going to work at all, because, as you all know, I am the queen of planning ahead and keeping to schedules, making samples, never doing more work that I can help and all of that.

I saw those round canvases and thought about tondo works in art, and that got me thinking about traditional artworks and oil paintings. It made me think about being in my home country, Italy, and getting to be surrounded by old artworks for most of my life (my parents like art and we used to be regulars at museums as well).  It got me thinking about art that one remembers and that becomes meaningful to you because it is linked to your upbringing and to your memories, and the art itself becomes tangled into homesickness and a lot of complicated feelings.

Tondi are not very common in art in general, and I find that they get your attention in a particular way because of that. There must be a reason why the artist has chosen that particular circular shape for their work, if only to show off that they could.

There are a few oil paintings of still lifes that are in my parents’ house to this day and that I remember from childhood. One of them also has a frame that makes it be a tondo, so that it came to my mind thinking about round artworks: I decided that I wanted to make some felt pieces that would be in a dialogue through time and across art forms with those still lifes, a way to talk about perception, memories and emotional impact of art in our lives.

So, I asked my family to send me pictures of those artworks as reference, and here they are:

A small oil painting of a white and blue vase of white and plum flowers with hints of yellow on a brown and green background in a dark brown wooden frame. The shadows in the painting are all wrong.
Yes, yes, I know, the shadows are all wrong.

 

An oil painting of flowers on a dark brown background, in a golden square frame that is cut to have a circular opening for the canvas.
This is a tondo made by having a clever opening in the frame.

 

An oil painting of white and red roses in a deep green jade vase, in a bronze colored frame
This is so very early-twentieth-century.

 

An oil painting of flowers with a dark brown background, in a simple golden frame.
My eye is always drawn to the two most intense coloured flowers, that tulip up there and the centred gerbera or whatever that is.

The four paintings are very different and from different authors in different times, so I had to treat each one differently, though I wanted the underlying theme to be one and the same. My aim, as I said, was not to make a realistic copy of the original oil paintings, but to reinterpret them through emotion and memory. The different medium and the different shape of the canvas were both a clear way to keep an unambiguous distance from the originals, and the circular shape is also to be a recurring element unifying my still lifes.

I started from preparing a surface, a background to felt on. I wanted my background to help me set the tone of each single tondo, so I looked very attentively at the photos to try and find a background theme colour for each one, and I prepared 4 circular backgrounds in the size that I needed by using a bubblewrap circle as guide of size while laying out my wool for wet felting. I like my artworks to be noticeably smaller than the canvas or board that I fix them onto, so I went for a bubblewrap circle that was the same size than the canvas, knowing that the wool will shrink and the final result be smaller than that.

Four circles of wet prefelt in different colors are on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap
It was easy to work on the four backgrounds all together and get them ready all at the same time.

For the actual works I needed to mix my own colours, as the shop bought ones were not adequately close to the paintings. I do not have a machine for that, I have to card my colours by hand in small quantities, but luckily I did not need big amounts of special colours.

I not only prepared carded wool for, mainly, the parts that I wanted flat, such as background areas, but I also wet felted small pieces of prefelt in different mixed colours for the parts that I wanted to pop out of the surface, such as the flowers themselves, as flowers are what I look at, get emotionally attached and remember more of a still life painting.

Kiki's hand is holding some green wool over a hand carder where some brown wool is already.
I had to mix everything slowly.

 

Three small amounts of carded wool in different brown green shades are on a white sheet of paper on a grey blue fabric
Some of the resulting carded wool.

It took ages to get enough of the wool mixed and ready both for the carded wool and for the prefelts, but I was very glad to have it done before actual working on the pieces, as it let me work in the way that I like best and find more natural: by adding colours and shapes in “big strokes” regardless of the small details and just following my emotions. I like to be in the flow, and not having to stop in the middle of it to mix up my colours (which I sometimes have to do) for a couple of hours, or, worse, realise that I needed prefelts that I have not prepared in advance.

Once everything was ready, I worked on the first two of the paintings and managed them together in one go, that is what it means to have a background and your wool and prefelts already prepped and waiting for you. I completed the layout and the rubbing on each of them, rubbing in the prefelt bits particularly, before putting them together and rolling them together at the same time, cutting on the total rolling time.

The first one is this:

An abstract wet felt artwork by Kiki Peruzzi in a tondo shape. There are white and pale pink flower shapes, and two bigger red flower shapes in the centre of the composition, on a dark brown background.
Do you recognise the memory?

And here is the second one:

A wet felt abstract artwork by Kiki Peruzzi depicting red and white roses on a grey background
This one is pretty recognisable, I think.

On a second round in a different day I managed to complete the other two pieces:

A wet felt abstract artwork by Kiki Peruzzi. There are many white and yellow and red small shapes on a brown and green background
Well..

 

A wet felt abstract artwork by Kiki Peruzzi. A white and blue vase holding many small white and peach flowers with touches of yellow is very recognizable on a brown and mustard background.
This is the last one, and I quite liked how it came out.

I really am not enthusiastic about the third piece: I feel that it is just a jumble. That probably comes from the fact that I always thought that the original oil painting was a bit aimless, without any actual dramatic focus to draw my eye, but it might just be me. It could be that I could give it purpose with a bit of stitching to make some flowers pop up more, but I did not feel like doing it right now, so I decided to put that piece aside for now and only exhibit the other three on this occasion.

They are not much rolled, I stopped very soon, so they are not very strong felt, barely prefelt actually, but I like how they are and their feeling of immediacy. I like the fact that they have a tension between flat background bits and more 3D elements, and that the dynamic between flat and textural bits is very different from that of the originals (I mean the pieces that seem to stick out, be 3D or pop out in the paintings): what is meaningful and sticks out for me and got stuck in my memory of the paintings is not necessarily the actual focus of the original painting, and that is fine, because that is what it means when you look at art in real life. Each one of us gets from it different bits, and what is emotion and feeling for one person may be not that important for another.

At our exhibition this time each artist is supposed to choose their art to fit a wall space of 1.30 m of width by 1 m of height (4.2 feet by 3.2 feet) leaving at least 10 cm (4″) between works. My three tondi are actually pretty small and I felt that I could add to them two bigger old works that are also about memory and fit nicely in the space underneath them.

Three small circle artworks of still lifes and two bigger rectangular artworks of abstract landscapes on a wooden floor
More or less like this.

There is the chance to add unframed works in a communal browser, they must be wrapped and clearly labelled. One can also bring up to 20 cards for sale, also wrapped and labelled.

I do not have handmade cards to sell at the moment, but I decided to give a go at preparing a few smaller works to go in the browser, as it is always nice to try out things on a small version, make a study or a sample of it, before going bigger. It is also nice to be able to offer things in different styles and colours and sizes if possible.

So, I felted three small works that are actually studies of composition and colour combinations. They also were felted in a very particular day, when I had had very bad personal news, and I felt a bit reckless and a bit weird to be honest, and I needed to be working on some art with no particular planning other than “let’s make some different landscapes”. I got to use some of the fibers that Helene gifted me, so thank you, Helene, it was fun to use them!

I managed to get them all done together in a similar way to the tondi, by prefelting each one on the same day and then rolling them all together.

Three small abstract artworks are wet and in progress on a white towel on a table
I used the almost the same colours, but in different combinations.

After drying them, I added small stitched details to help the landscapes being visualised, as I used such non-conventional colours for them.

An abstract wet felt landscape by Kiki Peruzzi. The ground is in shades of plum and wine red, with a single lone bare tree on the left. The sky is in lines of yellow, light green and turquoise with some white accents and a deeper yellow sun on the right.
This is ‘Dartmoor’.
A wet felt abstract landscape by Kiki Peruzzi. There is a plum and turquoise tall mass on the right side, and turquoise and green on its left. The sky is yellow and there are some stitched birds in plum flying to the left.
This is ‘Cornwall’
A small abstract wet felt landscape by Kiki Peruzzi. The ground is in different shades of yellow with plum details. There are two hand stitched bare bushes, one on the lower right and one on the upper left side of the ground, in green and turquoise. The sky is in turquoise and light green and white.
This is ‘Norfolk’

So, I really hope to have made you curious about our Spring Exhibition during the last week of May, and I honestly can not wait to have a look at all my fellow artists’ artworks: I always have to be very careful and not bring my credit cards, as some of our local artists’ works are stunning and my flat does not have empty walls or empty flat surfaces any more.

If you happen to be in West London during that week, come and have a look with your own eyes!

Flyer for the Ealing Art Group's Spring Exhibition 2026.
Please, come along!

Kiki

@kiki.textile.art

http://www.kikistextileart.com

 

 

 

A nuno felted loop scarf in royal blue and rainbow colors is on a grey surface
Trying out recycled banana fiber: an easy loop scarf project

Trying out recycled banana fiber: an easy loop scarf project

Comments 20 comments

Hello all!

As you probably know, I firmly fall in the camp of the recycling fans: I love a good chance to use bits of recycled fabric, yarn or fiber, found objects and so on, often to surprising effects. Mostly the surprise is a good one, eh. My drawers and charity shops (or thrift shops, if you want) bargain baskets are source of plenty of materials to use in a creative way, and there is a particular satisfaction in using pre-loved materials and giving them a whole new life.

Some time ago I have bought 3 skeins of multicoloured recycled banana chunky yarn from Oxfam charity shop thinking that I was going to felt it into something and give that something a bit of jazz, much in the same way that I use recycled sari silk fiber. My idea is to use it by teasing the fiber away, but future experiments could involve using the yarn as is, as embellishment and to try maybe a bit of creative weaving with it, who knows.

Here they are:

Three skeins of colorful chunky yarn are displayed with their labels saying that it is a recycled banana yarn sourced by Oxfam. The top one is mainly bright pink, the middle one is mainly white and the bottom one is mainly red blue yellow
The Banana fiber yarns: they are colourful and shiny, they instantly grabbed my attention. They were a tad expensive, but I will have plenty of fiber to use, they will last me a long time.

I like the fact that they are not solid colours, as I can see them combine well with different palettes, without much thought about colourways on my part: when you are unsure about which colours to use together, a ready made mix of colours that you can already see is pleasant will hugely help you decide!

I have chosen to go for felting a loop scarf/cowl because it is a simple and fast type of project that I have already had success with. I have measurements that are fine for me, and I only had to find my rectangular resist that must be somewhere in there, maybe in the first drawer..or no, maybe in the second drawer..or no, maybe in the bubblewrap bag..or likely on the projects shelf..or..(do you think that I can blame the future guinea pigs or is it a bit too much?)

You know what, let’s forget the previous resist, I have my measurements in my project notebook (thanks God!) and I can just cut a new one from a piece of bubblewrap, of which I have an ever multiplying pile (they are possibly breeding in there, I started with just a couple pieces a few years ago, I do not know, they talk about rabbits but they are nothing to bubblewrap).

Here, so, my resist is a plain rectangle, 17 inches by 15 inches or 43 cm x 38 cm. The shrinkage was not supposed to be huge. I was aiming for a lightweight type of soft scarf with only 2 light layers of Merino wool.

A light blue bubble wrap rectangle is on a table covered by a white towel and clear bubblewrap.
My resist was in pale blue, so I guess you can see it, just barely.

I started by choosing my banana yarn, the reddish one that they have called Rainbow, then adding to it matching silk fabric from charity shop silk scarves, and I went on choosing the Merino wool colours to match and complement the other fibers. I toyed with the idea of a white background but I really did not have enough white Merino wool (I need to restock it), and I felt that a royal blue would make all the other colours pop out. So it was royal blue background, and coral, white and eggshell for the Merino wool accents.

There is the banana yarn in rainbow and there are small bags of Merino wool in royal blue and coral and white and eggshell. There are also two silk scarves in various colors, particularly red and blue and brown and yellow and pink.
Spotting similarities among different bunches of textiles is a lot of fun.

I was ready to start with a first layer of banana fiber: I teased it out by unraveling the yarn, and laying it in a clouds layout, trying to keep all the colours as mixed and varied as possible. I covered the whole resist, taking care of leaving maybe 1cm of free resist at the top and bottom (as the cowl needs a hole for my head!), and of going a bit out of the resist when covering left and right sides, to ensure that the design will run smoothly all around my cowl.

There is a hand pulling on a chunky multicolored yarn in the foreground, and a wooden floor in the background
Pulling at the yarn to release the fiber.
In the foreground there is a hand with a small piece of multi stranded yarn in it. in the background there is a clear blue bubble wrap.
The yarn was made of many small strands in different colours.
There is a rectangle covered in small strands of yarn in many different colors on a bubble wrap.
The effect is good and my first side is all covered.

When I was done with it on the first side, I decided for a thin layer of the royal blue Merino on top of the banana fiber before turning it to the other side, as I was afraid that the banana fiber would not stay put if I just wet it and turned the resist, as it was loosely laid out. That is not ideal, as I then had to carefully tease away the banana fiber from the Merino thin layer on the other side when I turned the resist, so by any means if you have a different design where you have a first uninterrupted layer, just wet it and turn the resist to the other side before adding a second layer. The right way to do it is to have the wet fabrics layer as first layer, I suppose, so that it is easier to turn: well, I just wanted to try out the banana fiber (shoulder shrugging), I have been waiting months to have the right chance, so that is what I used first! The felting police was nowhere in sight, so I guess I will get away with it, if there are no snitches here to make trouble.

I started from the edges all around, and then covered the whole resist with a first thin horizontal layer of Merino wool.

A rectangle shape is covered in rainbow fiber and in blue wool on three of the four edges.
Starting from the edges with the Merino wool.
A rectangle of rainbow fiber is almost completely covered in royal blue Merino wool fiber, and a hand holding more blue wool fiber is in the foreground.
First layer of Merino almost done

I put on it a net curtain fabric, wet and lightly soaped it, then carefully lifted the net away and turned the whole to the other side.

A green hand sprinkler can be seen emerging from the top of the image. At the center of the image there is a rectangle of blue wool under a netting, and it is becoming wet.
Wetting the side after putting netting over it.
There is a rectangle of colored fiber and some blue wool and colored fiber is sticking out from the sides of a rectangle of bubble wrap that is over the fiber.
The view from the other side, after folding the banana fiber coming from the first side.

As I said, I had to separate the banana fiber from the Merino where I had to fold it on the resist at the sides. Then I covered the resist with a layer of banana fiber, making sure that some would go also on the bits from the first side left and right, so as to make it seem a smooth continuum. You can not really see the layer of fiber on this second side of the resist on my photo, but it is there!

After laying out the rainbow banana fiber on the second side, I folded on it the blue Merino wool fiber that was along the left and right edges
Folding of the Merino wool over the left and side edges, over the first layer of banana fiber

Then, I folded over it the Merino sticking out from the left and right edges and went on covering the rest of the resist with a thin horizontal layer of Merino, exactly as I had done on the other side, but without doubling up on left and right edges, to avoid having two thicker areas at the sides.

After wetting and soaping it, I turned the whole again to the first side of the resist. I tidied up the upper and bottom edges with my fingers, pushing the wool fibers to form a neater edge. I do not care much about very straight edges, personally, but if you prefer them you can always cut your top and bottom edges with scissors and then seal them by rubbing them, towards the end of the felting process.

At this point I added a second thin Merino wool layer, vertical layer, and repeated the wetting and light soaping with a bit of pressure on the net to make the soaped water pass through the wool and fibers, but still no actual rubbing. I flipped it to the other side and laid out the second layer there, repeating all steps.

A rectangle of royal blue Merino wool that is wet, on a white towel covered in bubble wrap.
Two Merino wool layers done.

After flipping it again to the first side, I repeated the tidying of top and bottom edges.

Time for the silk scarves fabric and the embellishments! Firstly I added accents with coral, white and eggshell Merino Wool. Then, I cut out my 2 chosen fabrics in irregular pieces and placed them on the wool alternating the 2 designs. I made sure to overlap the side edges of the resist, so that the design could run in a smooth way all around the scarf. I usually take a photo of my design at this point, so that I can use it as reference for the other side and not go on completely differently once I turn to the second side (It happened, yes).

A rectangle of wet blue wool is covered in a design of pieces of silk fabric and wisps of Merino wool in coral white and eggshell colors.
It looks like total chaos but it will turn out one single felt, I promise.

After turning my cowl again, folding the fabric and wool overlapping the left and right edges, and completing the second side as well by following the same steps as the first, it was time to go back to the first side, net it again and put a little bit more soap on it to start rubbing properly. The aim is to have the silk bits be grabbed into the wool fibers.

A rectangle of wet nuno prefelt with pieces of silk fabrics in different colors on a blue background.
Wet and soaped.

I did that for both sides, and then something not related to felting happened and I had to stop everything. Nothing dramatic, I just had to go out in a bit of a rush, and one thing that I love about felting is that you CAN stop, put some bubblewrap on it and leave it there, and then come back to it after a few hours and all is fine. Not only fine, the soaped water has probably better seeped into the wool fibers, so it can go quicker after the pause.

When I got back home, I got out my sander, checked that all the prefelt was fully wet and soaped, covered it with bubble wrap and used the sander to make sure that all the fabric was securely rubbed in. One of the silks in particular was slower than the other in getting felted in, so I had to work on it a bit more.

After being sure that all the fabric was securely attached, I rolled the cowl, still with the resist inside it, for a few times in all directions. I did not insist too much on the rolling, though, as I like to manipulate my prefelt to take it to the felt stage and be able to keep a close eye on how much it is shrinking. Well, to be honest, I do not enjoy rolling as much as rubbing and kneading and throwing and so on, so I find a lot of excuses to cut the rolling short!

A piece of prefelt is being rolled on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap.
I did my rolling, and I have proof of it!

Thus, after a bit of perfunctory rolling so the rolling gods be appeased, I took the cowl from the resist and took care of the left and right edge by opening up my cowl, folding it in a different way so that the edges were now resting in the middle, putting a hand inside the cowl and rubbing the edges on the bubblewrap underneath. I will agree that this is a bit yuk! in colder months, as you have your arm inside a cold wet thing, but it is very quickly done if you have taken care not to overlap too much wool and fabric at the side edges. You may have to open up a little bit the wool (very gently) if you have pinched together a small amount of wool at those edges, but a bit of energetic rubbing will help smooth it all to nothing.

An arm is inside a large wet prefelt tube and rubbing it on clear bubble wrap.
yuk! but needs doing.
A hand is rubbing a blue wet felt onto a bubble wrap.
This is fun!

After that, it was all swishing the cowl on the bubblewrap in different directions, gently kneading it and a bit of gentler throwing, keeping an eye on the forming of more and more wrinkles on the silk and on the shrinkage. I may have overdone it a bit, as the cowl ended up slightly tighter than what I wanted, but still a good comfy size when I tried it on after the drying.

The wet finished loop scarf is on its pale blue resist, showing the difference in size among the two.
I do not know if you can spot the light blue resist behind the wet scarf, it shows the shrinkage that I obtained.

I rinsed it with clean water, and put it to dry on a rack close to a radiator.

Here it is: I hope that you like the effect of the banana fiber as I do! it felted so easily that it was comparable to silk or other plant based fibers that I have tried (mint and rose), and I definitely liked to work with it as fiber, as it was easier than silk fiber to lay out, due to it being less fine and less prone to flying away at a wrong breath.

A finished and dry wet felted loop scarf with rainbow fiber over a royal blue background is resting on a grey surface.
Side A
A side of a nuno felted loop cowl in blue, red , yellow, pink and white, on a grey surface
Side B
A person that is cropped out of the photo is wearing a nuno felted loop scarf in blue and rainbow colors by Kiki Peruzzi
How it looks like when you put it on.
Kiki Peruzzi is wearing her nuno felted loop scarf on her hair.
You can also wear it on your hair, very comfy, warm and soft, keeps your ears all warm if you like.

I also made a normal cobweb scarf with the smallest amount of yellow Merino wool and the pinkish banana yarn, just to try a very bright combination of colours:

In the foreground there is a tall oblong white paper lamp with a bright yellow and pink scarf wrapped around it with a knot.
Two bright colours for this cobweb scarf, daring a little bit more than my usual. It was fun to use this recycled banana fiber!

Now the only banana yarn that I have not used yet is the white one, so that will be the next one to try.

Do you also have an irresistible new upcycling material to try out?

Kiki

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Instagram: @kiki.textile.art

A felted object in orchid, teal, yellow and white wool is on a wooden table. The object seems to hold no particular shape.
Buying boxes? Nossir! (or maybe I should have..): how to salvage a misshapen project.

Buying boxes? Nossir! (or maybe I should have..): how to salvage a misshapen project.

Comments 25 comments

Hello, my creative friends.

Here we are at the start of a new and exciting adventure: making a felt box out of, yes, wool!

You think that I am stating the obvious, felt is oftentimes made of wool and of course you can make felt boxes: just look at the internet and you will see tons of them for sale (mostly made with industrial felt)! But you would not believe how many times I have had to explain those two bits of information to people during the time that I was making my box: yes, I am felting it. Yes, it is made of wool. No, I am not going to sew it (if I possibly can), I am felting it. Yes, I make it by felting wool. W-O-O-L. How, you ask? You can make all sorts of shapes by felting with the right resist..no, I am not going to sew it, I assure you it will come out with the box shape. Well, hopefully.

To be sure, a box is just another type of wet felt vessel made with a resist, and yes, of course you can make it by sewing the single felted flat sides and a flat bottom together, but…sewing, where is the fun in that? (total respect to people who like sewing, eh, it is just not me)

Long story medium-short, we decided that we needed to organise our living room in a better way, changing bits of furniture and generally trying to sort out the chaos, also because we are in the process of adopting guinea pigs (oh, my! let’s see) and we need the space for an indoor cage. So, we are plus bookshelves and minus an office desk with drawers, and we need some kind of storage box that fits the shelves and, crucial, does not seem something that you find in your shed. Unfortunately, the size of our shelves is not standard, and a standard storage box will not fit, either because too small or too big. So I thought, let’s have a box that is good to look at and the maximum size that will fit in there, let’s make it ourselves!

(well, I would not want you to think that I normally talk to myself with that royal We. It is clear to any who know me that all that was just me and me thinking “What, 30 pounds for that soulless box that does not even fit properly? no way, I can make one better than that and spend less!” or something of the sort)

A white sheet of paper with measurements for two boxes, a bigger one and a smaller one.
The size of the bookshelves that we have comes in two flavours, big and small, both somewhat non standard, so I originally thought about making a smaller box as well, and took measurements for both. All measurements are in centimeters.
Calculations for a 40 per cent increase on a piece of paper.
I arbitrarily added a 40 % increase on all sides, and did the same also for the height of the lid (all other measurements being the same for lid and box, of course)

To start, I prepared my resist for the bottom of the box: this involved a bit of sewing, namely attaching together the various bits of bubble wrap in the shape of a very floppy box without a top, as I will make a lid to fit it (some time in the far future). It does not show well in photo, but here it is:

A bubble wrap resist is on a floor
Here is the resist seen with the bottom part prominent (naughty).
A resist made of bubble wrap is on a brownish floor with a rug.
And here is the resist bottom down: very floppy, you can not really tell that this is a box shape.

I hate hand sewing on bubble wrap, the plastic just clings firmly to your needle and it is worse than sewing sewing, in my opinion, so let’s not dwell on it.

I did not have as much wool as I needed, so I ordered some from World of Wool. I wanted to try out something different from my usual Merino, as I needed something coarser that could be hard wearing and stand a bit stiffer, because the box is not small and will be full of quite a few things that are on the heavier side, such as tape and packing tape, some cables, and so on. Unfortunately, I am not used to coarser wool, the room was in a chaos and I did not have time for much research on our brilliant Blog or Forum (yes, it is lame. Let’s say, it is not the best excuse for not doing my homework that I have ever found, I’ll admit, but if you give me a bit more time I can say that the guinea pigs have eaten my research), anyway, ahem, later on our wise felt experts from the FFS Forum have determined that apparently I picked the wrong wool.

Well, you know, it can happen to anyone if they skip research and sampling. Well, yes, I also skipped making samples, because, let me think, the guinea pigs ate my sample? OK, maybe not. I’ll get better, pinky promise.

Anyway, I got my generic “English wool” from World of Wool, and yes, it was a bit coarser than Merino but still quite soft..in hindsight I may have been suspicious when it felt so soft, I do not know. Actually, that is a mix of different breeds’ wool, some that may actually be quite good for stiffer felt and some that are not, although they are coarser than Merino. Perfectly fine felting with it for all sorts of uses, but , a word to the wise, do not use it to make big boxes, eh.

A label reading: White 56's English Top, Size 100g, Quantity 6, Total 600g.
Here it is, the challenging wool.

So, I got on my white horse and started felting on my resist straight away with a lot of good will. I assumed that the coarser wool would need less layers to obtain the same felt (do not ask, pre-christmas chaos guinea pigs mind fugue hobblegobble chicachicacha) and I decided on 4 good layers.

Here are a few photos of my felting the first box:

A rectangle of laid out white wool just sprinkled with water, on a bubble wrap.
Starting from the bottom, that was the biggest area.
A work in progress of wet felt in white wool is on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap. There is a smaller rectangle covered in a small layer of wool resting over a bigger rectangle covered in white plastic sheets.
First layer on a short side. I took care to cover each already worked on part with a layer of plastic (I used plastic bin bags) as I learned from Lena Archibold’s advice on how to work with a book resist.
Folds wrapped in bubble wrap open over a rectangular shape wrapped in white plastic sheets.
Figuring out how to fold the different sides to get an even result was a bit puzzling at first, I spent some time opening and closing folds, it must have looked weird from outside!
A rectangle of wool pre felt has a layer of Merino wool on top. The Merino wool is half rectangle in orchid color, and bright yellow and teal on the other half rectangle, overlapping a bit the orchid color.
Yes, we are at the fun part of the 5th layer, when I could use dyed Merino wool for the wow effect!
Another rectangular side of the box. There is a rectangle of laid out Merino wool, half the rectangle is teal and half is orchid color, and the two colors overlap a bit.
Here is another side. I actually decorated both four sides, but forgot to take photos of the two smaller. Anyway, it is the same colours for all the sides, only different layout.
A smaller rectangle of wet and soaped Merino wool, with the upper part in teal, a small central line in yellow and a bigger area in orchid color, all slightly overlapping each other.
This is one of the small sides, all wet and soaped, being worked on.
A roll of pre felt is on a wooden table, covered with a white towel and a plastic bubble wrap.
And here we are at the rolling stage. I also used throwing and variously manipulating the shape.

Wait, let’s see if you were attentive: have you noticed that I said “first box”?

Exactly: here is how it stood after drying, that is to say not at all:

A felted object in orchid, teal, yellow and white wool is on a wooden table. The object seems to hold no particular shape.
No words, really.

It took more or less a day to felt, and a few days to dry. I liked the colours (a last layer of Merino wool, the 5th, to do that), and the shape ended up exactly the right size, but it would not stand, and I thought that it was because the layers were just not enough. I had enough wool to start a new one doubling the layers, so I went back to it using the same resist and the same type of wool (not my cleverest day, fine).

A big bag of white wool is being weighted on a scale on a wooden table.
I weighted the remaining wool and I found out that I only had used about 150 grams of it, so I had still about 450 grams to try again.

The steps were the same, only more layers, so I will not show more pics of it, only the final result when the box had dried:

A felted box with the sides slightly collapsing is on a grey sofa.
One side..
A felted box with a side in yellow and teal is on a grey sofa. The sides of the box are collapsing in.
..the other side. I did not decorate the small sides this time, but left them natural white, as they are not going to be seen when the box is in the bookshelf.

It was better, but still the sides were not holding up.

At that point, it was definitely time for my felting fairy godmothers to intervene: I asked the classic “Help, what did I do wrong?” on the Felting and Fiber Studio Forum and, thank goodness, got kind replies that explained the generic English wool issue as probable cause (so, no, adding more layers was likely not going to cure that, in case I still had not clicked on to that) and gave me very good advice on what I could try next to avoid throwing the 2 boxes into the scrap pile and to salvage them.

The suggestions were:

– to try and stiffen the sides or corners with machine or hand stitching

– to try and put a wire armature inside the felt or stitch it on the inside of the box

– to use PVA glue to stiffen the felt

– to stitch the two boxes together one inside the other, and maybe also

– to add some stiff padding, sandwiching it in between the two boxes.

Or possibly to try a combination of the above suggestions until the aim was reached. Which is exactly what I did, apart from the PVA glue and the stitching, both left as last resort, the glue because I was not fancying working with glue with such a big object, and the stitching because I do not have a sewing machine and it takes ages to stitch by hand.

What worked? well, clearly not one thing only, I had to go on trying to the last, but in the end I have a workable box and we are already using it, even though there is no lid yet.

First, I added thick wire to the inside of the box corners, with a few stitches. The felt was not thick enough to insert the wire into it, that would have been better. Sadly, it did not solve the issue totally.

Then, I stitched in place the first box (the thinner one) into the second box, leaving the upper edges open for putting in some padding if required. It was better still, but not there yet.

Lastly, I started looking for padding. Floor underlayer was suggested as good for that job, but when I went to look at my local DIY builders warehouse I did not find the exact type and thickness that I needed, and I came home empty handed. The same research online left me with too many choices, some of them a bit on the expensive side because with a required minimum purchase limit that was also way too high for my storage capability (What, 20 meters rolls minimum?? I do not live in Versailles palace!)

Luckily, as I told you, we were changing some pieces of furniture and it so happens that some had polystyrene sheets in their packaging: initially, I did not want to use that for a few reasons (it breaks easily, it is not going to be washable, it can disperse plastic bits in the environment in time..), but in the end it was there and I could use it instead of chucking it in the garbage bin, so it is kept out of the dump for a little while more. And it was free for me, and readily available.

So, I cut it to size with a knife (bits of polystyrene everywhere, not my idea of fun but the kids where jumping up and down like it was going to be disco party in a minute) and inserted it in the pockets in between the two boxes, and then a quick blanket stitching all around the upper edges did the job. In time I may unstitch it and change the padding, if I will feel so inclined and will have the time.

And here it is, my box done!

(the bottom part, at least)

A felt basket or box without lid, full of miscellaneous objects, on a grey sofa.
That is one side..
A felted basket or box without lid, and full of objects, on a grey sofa.
..and that is the other. Already full of stuff.

Now, for the lid, we will see. Who knows, it might be ready in time for my next blog post..only, don’t hold your breath for it, guinea pigs may be coming and all of that (how did I manage with my lazy excuses before them is a wonder, my friends!)

I hope that you liked my adventures, feel free to leave me a comment, as long as you do not ask me about hand stitching the whole box or preparing resists by hand stitching bubble wrap together, any other thing is totally fine.

Best wishes!

Kiki

@kiki.textile.art

http://www.kikistextileart.com

An oval table is covered in small amounts of bright Merino wool in different colors
A few smaller projects

A few smaller projects

Comments 12 comments

Hello all!

I have been trying out a few smaller projects instead of bigger ones lately, also because I have a few work-in-progress things that I would like ideally and probably in another shiny life to bring to conclusion, so you could say that I am saving myself for them and very predictably not getting much done with them anyway, always hoping for the magic time and place, you know, for THE BIG PROJECT..so much so that I may have forgotten what they were all about in the first place, very likely!

Anyway, some of my little projects may be of inspiration for the approaching seasonal marathon..you know, I am referring to Christmas and the various little crafty things that we are always involved in when it comes to this dreaded and waited for period!

I have been experimenting with wetfelting locks onto Merino and with differential shrinkage in a few small pieces, four small decorative vessels and one pouch that I have not finished with a zip yet (because sewing, you know, I hate sewing):

Three small felted vessels in dark blue and bright locks are on a round wooden table with a card in front of each of them. A black laptop is in the background
Three of my small experiments with the same theme of dark blue Merino and bright locks going on. BFL tangerine locks for the left one, Teeswater locks for the other two.
A small bright pink felted vase with ridges close to the bottom and white rose fiber close to the lip, on a blue patterned cushion, with a wooden background
In this one I tried to have ridges close to the bottom by adding layers of wool: you can see them but they were a bit of a disappointment as wow factor, and I liked the vertical or slanted ridges that I managed on the other three vessels a lot better.
A small felted pouch with a blue background and bright pink decorative locks all over it on a wooden surface
This is the small pouch that I need to finish with a zip: I think I will maybe give it to my daughter who was briefly obsessed with my small vessel with the pink locks, so this pouch should be a success with her if I ever get around to finish it.

I was in kind of a low mood and I decided that I wanted to do something quick and bright, just to decorate my house and not worrying about it being ‘perfect’: I made myself a colourful wreath, not to celebrate any particular occasion but just because. Anyway, it can be used to welcome any sort of event, I am totally in favour of using it again and again giving it different meanings each time!

I mentioned that I did not want to bother overmuch about making it, so I basically put some Merino wool in different colours on bubblewrap all over the table, roughly flower shaped  and roughly leaf shaped clumps in no particular order, in four greens and four bright flower colours.

An oval table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap, with clumps of wool on it in yellow, red, pink, violet, and different greens.
A colourful project for sure.

Wetting and rubbing and rolling all together was done very quickly, and then I spent some time kneading and throwing and rubbing individual ‘flowers’ or ‘leaves’ or small groups of them. I then cut and shaped the flower petals a little if needed, but mostly kept them as they were.

An oval table with a white towel and bubble wrap on it, and clumps of colorful wool covered by wet netting
Sprinkling with water all together.

 

Clumps of flat soaped and rubbed wool in different colors on an oval table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap
The soaping and rubbing step done: all clumps of wool are fairly squashed into formless shapes, but luckily I was not looking for accurate.
In the foreground a wooden rolling pin tool by World of Wool is on a few clumps of soaped wool on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap.
I got to use this carved rolling pin tool from World of Wool that I rarely use: this time it was the perfect one for the job of getting a bit more rolling in.
A mass of soaped pieces of prefelt in different bright colors is on a white bubble wrap covered surface, and a rolling pin tool mby World of Wool is in the left corner
I also got to kneading and doing some more energetic manipulation, clumping all the wool together to do it quicker. Actually that is a part that I really enjoy, I find it very therapeutic.
A red plastic tube with a bubble wrap full of darker shapes rolled onto it and fixed with elastic bands is on an oval table covered in a white towel
Some proper rolling of all the pieces together, also to cut on rolling time.
A lot of irregular pieces of bright colored felt are on a table covered in bubble wrap and a white towel, and there is also a wooden rolling pin tool by World of Wool
All nice and rinsed: as you can see, the final shapes were very irregular and not particularly flowerlike.
A clump of felted wool in different bright colors and irregular shapes on a bubble wrap over a white towel
They still look very colourful all clumped together when dry, though.

After washing and drying the lot, I prepared the supporting circular wreath using spare wire from cut flowers that I shaped into a circle. I wrapped a type of plaster tape that I had from the years when my daughter was doing Irish dancing (you know, dancers wrap it around their toes to avoid blisters, you buy it in pharmacy), so that the wool would take hold and also to keep the wire together (it was not a single piece, but pieces in the plural).

Then, I wrapped some core wool around it and needle felted it in place all around the wire, careful not to break needles on the wire. When I was happy with the shape and consistency, I covered the core wool with dark green Merino wool and neddle felted it in place.

An irregular circle of wire taped with a white plaster tape. The small blue box of plaster tape is at the center of the wire and both are on jeans clad legs.
That is how I prepared the wire for my wreath
An irregular circular shape in white core wool is resting on a needle felting blue pad and there is a needle stuck on the pad.
It is very clear where the core wool has been needle felted and where it is still only loosely wrapped around the wire and needs working on.
A circular shape of white core wool is held by a hand onto a green felting pad
The shape is more or less ready for being covered by the next layer
A hand is holding a forest green top of Merino wool to add to the white circular shape that is on the green felting pad.
Adding the forest green Merino and covering the core wool
A forest green ring in needle felted Merino wool is held on a green felting pad
Here is the finished ring.

At last, I was ready for the fun bit of needle felting all the flowers and leaves onto the wreath, alternating colours and making it look as full as possible. That last was tricky, because I maybe needed a bit more flowers and leaves, but I also strategically cut a few of the flowers to obtain smaller ones to fill in the wreath a bit better.

On a green felting pad there are some irregular triangles of violet felt put together to form flower shapes and small spare triangles, small scissors and a felting needle
I cut some of the felt to make it seem more like flower shaped and with the resulting bits I made some new smaller flowers by needle felting the irregular triangles together by their pointy ends.
A hand is holding a felting needle to a pink piece of felt and is poking it to attach it to a forest green circular shape, on a light green felting pad.
I needle felted all the flowers and leaves to the wreath, starting by the big flowers , then the leaves, and adding the smaller flowers and leaves to fill the gaps in the composition.

A loop with a spare ribbon and here it is:

A hand on the left is holding up a felted wreath in many bright colors, in front of a white wall.
Here I had not put the ribbon on it, yet, but there you go, it is done and you can see how it looks like.

I am thinking about making a Christmassy one and an Autumn-colours one with the same devil-may-care approach to accuracy, as it worked quite well for me and it is very relaxing not to actually care about details. Just to have some variety through seasons I may go pon with them, but I am keeping this one permanently on at the moment, regardless of seasons, just because.

Since I have finished the slow stitching blue spiral bowl, I had to find something else for my hands to make while stewarding at our last exhibition with my art group, so I started on this little friend, that will be eventually donated to a kid, either one of mines or someone else’s I haven’t decided:

A hand is holding an unfinished little felted monster with a blue body and red mouth and orange eye stalks and crest. The background is dark grey.
I am not very advanced, but I felted the two eye stalks and its crest on its head. It is complaining that it can not eat anyone yet as he has no teeth, apart from the fact that with no nose and no actual eyes on its eye stalks it would be hard to find preys..

Needle felted in Merino wool, because of the bright colours.

Being aware that creativity needs creativity to spark and flourish (and it was also Leonor’s suggestion to keep your creative juices running, if I am not mistaken), I have also tried my hand a bit at other small projects in different mediums: that is what I have painted yesterday, with an eye to having a few interesting and original Christmas cards ready for when my daughter will come asking me for cards for each of her teacher on the day before the beginning of Christmas holidays (totally not something that we experienced last year, eh, on the evening before, after dinner and everything, when I was thinking only of my bed…):

On a red plastic sheet there are a bigger and a smaller paper sheets covered in small painted squares. The tiny squares are abstracts in different colors
Maybe I can cut them out and make cards with them? I used acrylics, pigment ink pens and oil pastels for the left one, and the same but watercolour instead of oil pastels for the right one. You probably can not tell by this photo, but there are tiny details in ink pen in each square.

I am not sure that all are that good, but there is something satisfying in having a bunch of tiny paintings done in the time that one (at least, me) will take to just think about a bigger painting, and now I can pick and choose if I want.

In the meantime, my felt slippers that I had bought about 1 year ago were just getting full of holes, my toes poking out through them, to the point that I was considering throwing them away: it just seemed such a shame, as the sole is still almost new and they are very comfy and they were a bit on the expensive side when I bought them.

Here is a ‘before’ pic:

A pair of red and grey felt slippers with big holes at their points on a wooden floor
Well worn out, with big gaping holes at the toes

So what I did in half an hour on a slow afternoon was just getting me some wool and needle felting it in place over the holes, attaching it to the ragged edges of the gaps, trying to include into it all the bits of old felted cover that I could still use.

I used a piece of packaging foam as felting pad to use right inside the slipper:

A hand in the foreground is pushing a chunky bit of foam into a red slipper. There is a light brown carpet and wooden flooring in the background
A chunky piece of packing foam can be handy if you stall the husband enough that he does not throw it away immediately
A loosely needle felted roughly round piece of red and grey wool is held in one hand close to the hole in a red and grey slipper
I prepared some loosely prefelted bits to felt into the existing felt of the slippers, by mixing red Merino wool top with some grey carded wool of unknown origin that I got gifted.
A red and grey felted slipper with a mostly grey addition of prefelt to the upper, nicely rounded
It is clear that I just did not plan the colours in advance, just trying different things on one slipper and on the other, if mixing colours on the prefelt to add or felting in first one colour and then adding the next.
One hand is holding a red and grey slipper while another hand is poking it with a felting needle. In the background a grey sofa with felting supplies on it.
It was mostly quite easy to needle felt them, apart when poking close to the sole, when I was afraid I would break a needle, but luckily it did not happen.

The effect was quite good for such a quick fix, even though I had not bothered about actually getting to the same exact colour of the original felted bits: my husband was pretty amazed at the result, that I could repair my slippers so perfectly.

Here are the finished repairs:

A person with white socks and pink trousers who is mostly out of frame is wearing red slippers. in the background a wooden floor and a light brown carpet.
Well, they are uneven and all, but I l felt that I could go on with my life. (I used my daughter to model this ‘after’ pic, as she was eager to try the as-new slippers)

Unfortunately, as you can guess, my quick fix did not stand the test of everyday wear and tear for more than a month or so, so at the moment I am almost at square one. BUT not exactly, as I now know that I can easily fix them, and I have understood that I should have wetfelted them after needle felting the bits in place: it just was not actually felted firmly enough, because I did not have the patience to work on it properly, so my needle felting was only a basic prefelt, almost, and obviously not enough to make it sturdy. So, when I will have to do it again (quite soon), I will be slightly more patient and actually wet felt them, and hopefully my felt will still bond to the original felted bits. One of the reasons that I had decided not to go on wet felting them the first time was that I was unsure if the new bits were going to fall apart and just not bond with the unknown wool of the original bits: I will just to have to try and see.

I suppose one option could be completely redoing the upper bit with a new one, so the issue of bonding unknown wool with mine would not come up, but the sole is tough rubber and I am not sure if I am able to sew it on, plus you know how I hate sewing.

How would you suggest tackling the issue of repairing those slippers?

And on this repair dilemma, I wish you all a good felting time and see you in the next post!

Kiki

@kiki.textile.art

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Open Studios event insights

Open Studios event insights

Comments 9 comments

Hello everybody!

I have recently participated in a big Open Studios event and Art Trail in my area, and, since it was my first one ever as a stall holder/participant artist, I learned a lot from it and I would like to share my experience with you.

Just a short introduction about the event itself: it is the BEAT (Borough of Ealing Art Trail), an event in its 9th edition and growing more each year. It started as a smaller affair involving only a few artists opening their own studios and homes in one day during a September weekend, but today it is both of the first two weekends of September (4 days in total) and involving 66 different venues and about 200+ artists and crafters that live and/or work in the Borough: it is such an amazing celebration of the creativity of all the diverse people living in our area! In past years I loved to go around and explore some of the venues that were closest to me, and this year I was very excited to be part of it.

Some of the studios and houses are quite frankly something to drown yourself in pure envy and you may get offered high class refreshments (champagne and what not!), but there are quite a few ordinary homes and more common types of enticements (maybe a cookie for the kids if you are lucky?). A lot of the creative people also form groups or are already part of one, and band together to rent a space in public venues like church halls, our local theatre, local libraries or community centres, in an Art and Craft Fair kind of spirit that is embraced by us locals with gusto. Demonstrations may happen, and most people just go around it for the fun and vibe of it, and to say hello to friends and acquaintances taking part.

The whole thing runs with the moral support of the local Council, but through the actual work of a small group of volunteers who are also artists themselves, so all the stall holders need to arrange their own venue and get limited practical support, basically getting a packet of advertising prints and booklets, and a few reusable posters and balloons to use as signs (Plus of course the advertising benefits all of the artists involved, because it is done in the whole Borough).

This year the organisers also managed to set up a lovely charity exhibition running on the side, to raise funds for a homelessness charity, Crisis: we were asked to donate a small artwork 20×20 cm on the theme ‘Home’ that they could sell for a fixed price of 50ÂŁ, completely given to charity. Check it here: I think it will run for a few more days online to see if they can sell a few more of the 70+ artworks that were donated by us artists, in different mediums.

Here is my piece, donated for this charity exhibition and sale:

The small artwork is on a square white canvas. the artwork a wet felted irregular square in light blue, grey, violet and some hints of green. On the background a lace yarn in the same colors winds itself into a maze like shape, and at the center of the piece there is a small basic house shape outlined in stitching in blue-grey yarn that helds in place a white fraying piece of silk fabric.
My piece about ‘Home’.

Sadly, it has not been sold yet. (veiled hint, isn’t it?)

First of all, I need to say that I was not on my own, but I choose to participate with my local art group, the Ealing Art Group, for a few reasons: one was to have support from fellow stall holders, because it was my first time, and to get a venue to use together, as I do not have a studio or space in my small flat, that is also not easily accessible for people with mobility issues. Secondarily, to cut costs, as you can share the participation fee and also the cost of renting the venue: this means that you do not have an individual entry in the advertising booklet, just one with your group, but still you will have your individual name in the list of participating artists, good enough for me for starters.

I was quite happy with how this decision of participating with my group instead of alone has come out: yes, sure, I had to find different ways to put my business name out there, but the support and connection that I got from participating with others were what really made a difference to me, and I will be very glad to do it again with the group next year, instead of looking at ways to do it by myself.

Here is how my little corner was looking after set up on the first day:

A corner in an ancient brick outhouse. In it there is a small table and behind it a white kitchen counter. On them there are various small framed artworks and craft things by Kiki Peruzzi
My lot was supposed to be only a small table, but, because I went there early on set up day and helped with the set up, I could get me the place in front of the kitchen counter, and use the counter as additional display space!

Our venue was a listed outhouse building attached to an ancient mansion , Boston Manor House, in one of the parks in our area, very good for footfall if the weather stays nice and people can go around to walk dogs and kiddies! As the building is listed, we were not allowed to put up nails or alter the building walls in any way: I had been told that already by the person in our group who was taking care of organising the venue for us, so I went there prepared with frame holders and small frames that already had their table stand. Plus, talking with some other artist from our group at a previous exhibition, I understood that smaller (and cheaper) items were going to be a better fit for this event than the bigger artworks that I had had in mind to bring, and a selection of craft items in different ranges of prices would be also quite good for this: thus, I decided to bring a variety of smaller things along with one bigger work, and I think that it worked fine for this.

We were 10 from our group, in 2 rooms that were close but not conjoined: 6 in our room and 4 in the other, sharing a small courtyard. My fellow stall holders were all working with different mediums and each one of us has a completely different style: I am the only felter and I was also the only one working in textiles among the 10 exhibiting together (there is another artist who is a weaver in our art group, but she was exhibiting in another venue by herself). That meant that we had very different target audience, so we worked very well all together to cater to different tastes.

Here is a video showing our room and our different styles:

We also decided that we needed to make our venue and ourselves more visible by setting up some tables outside and doing demos on a rolling rota, so that the person outside could invite people to come on in and have a look. Having different mediums was very useful for that, so as to engage different people and send them our collective way. Plus, sketching and felting can withstand different weather conditions: and I can tell you that in London this is a good point, as the weather was very voluble for 3 out of the 4 days, so we had to rush in and out depending on wind and rain presence!

Here is me trying to produce an Instagram friendly video of my second day demo on wet felting, with my daughter’s help:

It was super challenging to wet felt outside, as all the days were particularly windy, so the fiber was flying and I periodically had to run after 100gr bags of wool rolling off the table! I was keeping the bags on the table to attract people by showing bold bright colours, and on the second day I also brought some felted things that I was not selling but just to show what you could do by wet felting, as plenty of people were asking about it the first day. (also, we were not allowed to sell anything outside our venue, so I could only sell the stuff that was inside the building) I partially solved the flying away issue by weighing down all the wool bags and felted objects with stones picked up from the park, and by frequently sprinkling water on the fibers that I was working with in the demo, and getting to the soaping phase as soon as possible!

I must have made an impression for my determined effort, though, because I sold the first little bowl that I wet felted for the demo before it was totally dry, so I can not show it to you (no photos, I am afraid!), but this is my second day produce, in Merino wool with silk rods and eri silk fiber embellishments:

There is a small green bowl on a light brown wooden table. the bowl has embellishments all around in vertical irregular bands, in rust eri silk, natural white eri silk and silk pod rods.
I liked how it came, though some of the visitors were suggesting different combinations of colours!

On the second weekend, I decided to demonstrate needle felting, instead, as it was still very windy and there was a rain forecast for the afternoon, so I needed something where I could control my flying fiber better and pack it up quickly if needed. I decided on a simple Christmas bauble with a core wool inner part, in red merino wool with a sprinkle of Angelina fiber and spiral of violet merino. I think that it came out fine, considering that I was constantly distracted (stabbed myself quite badly at one point, because I was calling out at a potential visitor to encourage him to go in and not paying attention at my hands):

On a blurred background with a wooden table and many small things, there is a hand holding up a red and violet felt Christmas bauble by its violet gauze lace.
Starting early for Christmas!

I noticed and encouraged interest from small kids: I would talk to them, waive bright red wool, entice them to touch it and give a wisp of wool or silk fiber for them to take home, asking them how it felt and if it was soft as a pet’s fur or shiny and smooth. I noticed that more adults were interested when I had my wet felting set up out than with the needle felting: I wonder if it was just random or if it is something about the needle felting that is less appealing or more intimidating. Maybe you also can share your experiences on that.

I think that taking a few small amounts of wool and fiber to this kind of event is very useful (note to self), as people are asking you a lot of curious questions about what you are using to make felt: I heard mentions to yarn, fabric and there were all sorts of puzzled blank stares when I was saying wool fiber and silk fiber, until I would take out a WoW bag and give them a small amount of wool to hold and touch..then more confused questions about how you go from there to that bowl. I mean, that was a proper effort in spreading the word about felting as I could. I am pretty convinced felters would do well to bring wool to show at their events, as most people are far from clear on what wool looks like before becoming yarn and what you can do with it.

Having a group to back me up also meant that I could try to focus on my demos and the persons in front of me, in the sure knowledge that if anyone wanted to buy from my little stall inside someone would come and fetch me, as I would do for them. While plying my wares inside, I knew that someone outside was doing their best to send people our way, so that we all could sell more. We would also pass on favourable comments from visitors and encourage each other during the lulls.

And, of course, chat about our medium, art, families, life and so on. I got to know my fellow group mates a bit more, in a way that just is not possible when you are stewarding for one or two hours maximum at a more sedate exhibition: I had also the chance to see some of them in action working with their chosen medium, and it was very stimulating both learning some of their techniques and explaining them some of mines!

Another good thing coming from sharing a venue with members of your same group was that I had my kids with me (long story) and I was worried about them getting bored, but my fellow stall holders managed to entice my kids into helping with the setting up, putting up balloons and they generally kept them entertained while not playing at the park playground. My daughter also got to try out watercolour painting techniques with one of the watercolour painters, so it is like as if she had a short art course activity for free! My kids were practically begging me to take them to the exhibition again, until we had a spot of heavy rain and their running around was restricted for a while and the place was, to be honest, a bit damp and coldish, so they had to cool down for a bit inside. That was on the afternoon of the last day, and we packed up early because of that (not many people going out and about in a park under heavy rain, not even in London, although we spotted some brave or silly souls still trying to play tennis in the courts…they probably had paid a bucket for the booking? who knows), so all in all it was a success also for my kids.

I managed to sell enough to get back my fee costs, and a bit more, and I felt that it was pretty encouraging as a first time stall holder. I also distributed more than one hundred of my new bookmarks: I had them printed to advertise my business with something different from a business card, and many said that it was a very clever idea and all were very keen to accept them. I guess that I am not the only one having several different books on hold with bookmarks on their bedside table!

Here it is what they look like, front and back:

There are two bookmarks placed horizontally one close to the other. On the first there is a detail image of a wet felted artwork by K Peruzzi in yellow, white and blue. On the other bookmark there are another image of a different artwork by K Peruzzi, written details on how to find other works by her, and a QR code to visit her website
People liked them: one always need a FREE bookmark!

I have had some new accesses to my website straight afterwards, so I guess that they are working in advertising it.

Here are my fellow art trail mates from my room on the last day (missing Bijan who was home with a cold the second weekend):

A group of 5 people is posing together in a room with tables showing their artworks. There is a wooden slanting roof in the background and brick walls
Tired and happy just before packing up. From left to right: me, Peter Filbey, Nava Letchimanan @nava_ml_art , Zara Salazar @zsartillustrations , and Susie Mawani. Missing here Bijan.

Hoping to do it again, maybe with different group members or the same, next year!

If you happen to be close to us in West London, also come and see us of the Ealing Art Group in October at Open Ealing in Dicken’s Yard.

I hope you enjoyed my post, and please leave your comment on your own experiences with this kind of events and being a stall holder.

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Instagram

kiki.textile.art

 

A mannequin head is sporting a bright pink and salmon flowery headress and cowl in sequins
A flowery start to Spring with ‘Flowers’, an exhibition in London, UK – Part 2

A flowery start to Spring with ‘Flowers’, an exhibition in London, UK – Part 2

Comments 17 comments

Here we are with the second part of the exhibition ‘Flowers’ that I have been to in London.

If you have not caught the first part, it is here.

We go back straight to the fashion and textiles section of the exhibition with these garments with glass beads, sequine and tulle decorations:

There are two mannequins with tight fitting outfits with flower motifs on a white raised platform
Sorcha O’Raghallaigh’s take on the theme of Flora.

This can be another take on the traditional very feminine flowery lace clothing:

A photo of a person with their head and upper body covered in black flowery lace, on a white wall
This lace seems a tad oppressive..we can undoubtedly think about the meaning of this Girl in Lace, photo by Kent Baker of a high fashion dress by Alexander McQueen, 1996. I like how the edges of the lace around the shoulders are very organic.

And what about these flowery high end sandals?

A pair of black sandals with long straps full of flower shapes are on a raised platform
Manolo Blahnik’s take on the theme, also 1996.

There was also some artistic experimentation on recycled textiles, such as this on Denim:

On a wooden board supported by a wooden shelf there is a flower artwork made of embroidered denim
Embroidered Denim on tea-stained fabric by Stephanie Comilang. I feel that the mounting on a solid wood board requiring a supporting shelf seems more like a statement of some kind than actual necessity, as it must make it quite a bit heavier and the whole arrangement bulkier, don’t you think?

And for the milliners:

A mannequin head is sporting a bright pink and salmon flowery headress and cowl in sequins
By Sorcha O’Raghallaigh. Sequins, wire and mesh. Not overly practical, but it seems very Lady of Spring kind of look.

And we can not really finish this fashion show without the wedding dress and jewellery:

A white wedding dress with large hood and colorful flowers coming out of the bustier, on a mannequin on a raised platform. The background is a flowery wallpaper in blue.
Daniel Roseberry designed it for Schiaparelli in 2024, with handpainted leather flowers: I can’t imagine it being very comfy, but surely this is not the only consideration on that special day..
A display case with matching earrings and brooch in the shape of a flower
Flower shapes are Italian jewellery brand Bucellati’s own distinctive mark on the jewellery brands landscape.

Going forward, the exhibition also had a wall of stylized flower prints, all pretty similar in concept and disposition, all apparently making references to the famous ‘Flowers’ series by Andy Warhol:

Two prints of stylized flowers in groups of 4 each on a green wall
The original ‘Flowers’ prints by Andy Warhol that have been hugely reproduced and copied/referenced to since their conception in the 60’s. He used an interesting method to come to this design that he later reproduced in hundreds of prints: he took photos by Patricia Caulfield on a magazine, simplified the images by flattening, cropping and amending the contrast, then screen-printed them or painted them on canvas in different colorways.

Something quirkier in mixed media seems like a parody of our flower veneration when it comes to indoor plants: take the exotic but so very common now Phalaenopsis orchid..

There is an upside down vase of pink orchids on a stand. two persons' backs are behind the stand admiring other artworks on the wall behind the upturned vase.
You could surely do something similar in needlefelt, but this is painted bronze, aluminium steel, and epoxy. By Tony Matelli

Another mixed media artwork that used fabric was this one, that I particularly noticed for its use of colour:

A blue log supports various flowers and mushrooms in artificial colors, on a white stand on a platform.
This mixed media artwork has an interesting choice of colours. Wood, grout, fabric, acrylic paint, resin, polymer clay, metal, wire. By Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg

A huge success with kiddies and also adults was this moving structure by William Darrell. The plastic petals were constantly rotating.

A moving installation is in the middle of a room inside a small circular enclosure filled with bark. There are stem-like structures emerging from the bark and supporting moving blade-like petals in different colors. the petals are rotating. In the background there are people looking at other artworks on the walls.
It does not seem much in a photo, its main feature was the moving petals of the flowers.

I post here also this painting because it reminded me of some of Moy Mackay’s artworks in felt, but it is by Vik Muniz in archival paint.

A very colorful painting of a vase of flowers in a black frame.
This is really saturated colours!

And I guess here we come to the very star of the show in my perspective (though by no means to the end of the exhibition, that was huge!): a big immersive installation that I loved, by Rebecca Louise Law, an installation artist based in Wales. It took years of picking up dead flowers and herbs and seed pods, with substantial donations by public parks and private gardens. I can not even imagine the time she must have spent on installing the whole in the gallery, as each dangling strand was carefully tuned in terms of shape and colour: only being inside the room could give an idea of the patient planning of each part.

Some people are exploring an immersive installation of dried flowers and herbs and seed pods dangling from the ceiling.
I could not photograph it in full, as it completely covered the whole room ceiling to floor. There were big arms extending towards different corners of the room, each made of many many single filaments.
Detail of one arm in the installation of dried flowers by Rebecca Louise Law
I can not add too many photos but this may give you a better idea of what I am talking about in terms of individual strands: ridiculous amounts of flowers and herbs just in one of this, all linked with very thin copper wire in long freely moving filaments.

This big installation was about the connection of us humans with the earth, and about meditating on life, death and the space that is between life and death. I found it awe inspiring for the sheer technical challenge of planning and creating it, and I can  not explain the moving feeling that one got by slowly walking in the room and looking up and down at the cascading strands of flowers and herbs with their subtle changes of colours and shapes perfectly paced to create a rhythm in the composition. This aspect could not really come through in my photos, as the variations were too subtle to show well in photos and only being there would do to experience it, unfortunately.

Another artist using real flowers and muted colours, but singularly and to completely different, streamlined effect is Stephen Doherty with this Giclee print:

Giclee print of a single flower in muted pink and black on a white background
By Stephen Doherty.

Interesting was also a small section of the exhibition on the use of flowers in protest, with some photos of historical examples such as this very American one:

Photo of a group of young people offering flowers to uniformed soldiers as part of the anti-Vietnam war protests at the Pentagon in 1967
This was shot in 1967 at the Pentagon by S. Sgt. Albert R. Simpson.

Next was a room about flowers in music, film and literature: the walls were packed with famous album covers and film posters, and display cases were showing books. There are of course hundreds of examples of flowers in any of these fields!

Here I found a nice textile take on the first and most famous fairies books, the ones by Cicely Mary Barker, and I took photos for Leonor (you may remember her post about sewing dolls clothes, if not, read it here):

In the foreground there is a mannequin with a green top and pink skirt and fly-like wings. In the backgrounds there are persons looking at other displays on the walls.
This is Sweet Pea Miniature Costume, created in 2019 (though it feels older to me, due to the muted colours) by Vin Burnham and property of The Frederik Warne and Ladybird Archive.
A wall covered in framed music single covers sporting flowers either in the title or band name or in the picture or both
This is just to give you a rough idea of this room. This is part of the music section.

Following this, there was a room with an interactive installation were weird digital flowers kept being generated by AI in response to people’s movements, becoming by turns luscious alien jungles or more sedated growing stems. It was not very suitable to photos, so we just sat there a while observing and, to be honest but do not tell anybody, gratefully having a rest.

Followed more flowers in various medias, from cut steel to cut paper:

A cut paper composition of dark pink poppies with a white background and a black frame.
By Susan Beech.

I liked this composition of linocut on handmade paper by Grace Gillespie, as it very much linked to the William Morris section that we had already passed in the first half of the exhibition:

A 4 by 3 grid of paper pieces, each printed with flower motifs in bright oranges, reds and pink, with only one blue bird in the upper center piece.
I may find inspiration for printmaking ideas in this..

There was a room on flowers and plants in Science and in Medicine, with botanical drawings and paintings, and also mathematical works inspired by plants and flowers proportions. The room included a Damien Hirst’s work about Valium with spots in the exact shape of daisy seeds, that might be of interested to the more science oriented of us:

A print of dots in different colors forming a circle shape on a white background and with a white frame
Apparently, those are not random dots, but precisely determined. Lambda chromogenic print.

There was also a section on flower gardening and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, that is a venerable institution started in 1913 and whose first poster has been designed in 1935 by Margaret Calkin James. This section explored (a bit superficially) our relationship with flower growing.

A bit incongrously in my opinion, here there were two glass cases with a kind of morbid take on mixed media flowers, and it maybe says something of me that I want to post a photo of it here for you to collectively say Yuck!

In an upturned glass bowl there are flowers made of small animal bones and teeth.
Yep, it’s animal bones and teeth. How nice. By Emma Witter.

At this point fatigue had totally set in, I am afraid, and I could see that this particular artwork got to us out of proportions.

To react to this and perk up, I tried to get a few more photos only of very bright and uplifting artworks after that!

Four very brightly colored paintings of plants and flowers.
Brightly and riotous like those oils by Mimei Thompson in the New Shoots section of the exhibition.

Cute-pugs-effect warning here:

Painting of two pugs puppies in front of a flower vase.
The title is also pretty funny if your first language is Italian, as it is ‘Gnocchi’ (in Italian that is a type of potato dumplings with no filling). By Ally McIntyre
Six very colorful circular artworks in a 2 by 3 grid.
I really liked this idea for using screenprint on ply in a different shape that does not need any frame at all. I can totally see how those can work well as points of interest in a room even singly. By Jess Wilson.

And with this I think that I will finish on the brightest note, so here is The End, and I hope that you enjoyed a taste of this big exhibition in London, and that it might inspire you in your creative months ahead!

Kiki

http://www.kikistextileart.com

@kiki.textile.art

A flowery start to Spring with ‘Flowers’, an exhibition in London, UK – Part 1

A flowery start to Spring with ‘Flowers’, an exhibition in London, UK – Part 1

Comments 15 comments

Hello all!

I would like to talk to you about an exhibition I have been to recently: another one, I hear you say, this girl is always going around!

I wish it were even more so, but yes,  I am quite glad to have had the chance to go to a few exhibitions in the past months, as I am a strong believer of being inspired by other artists’ works and I am living in a city that has quite a lot to offer in terms of the arts scene, so why not offering a taste of this experience to you!

This exhibition was ‘Flowers’ at the Saatchi Gallery in London, United Kingdom, and it was about, what else, flowers in Contemporary art (also art inspired by flowers in ancient and past artists’ works!) and who does not love a bit of flowers in their art? I liked this one very much, as I love flowers and there was a bit more attention to textiles than in other exhibitions, though the very bulk of artworks were either oils or photos. Actually, it was fairly big and there was really plenty to see, so I am not complaining.

A navy blue poster with colorful flowers and the title Flowers in capital letters is in front of the corner of a brick building.
Here we are, ready to go into the Saatchi Gallery
On a white background there is a writing all in capital letters: Flowers, with the o letter substituted by a pink flower, and the subtitle Flora in contemporary art and culture.
The writing on the wall.

The works were split up into sections around common themes related to flowers, for instance still-life of flowers or flowers in connection to Medicine or flowers in connection to Science (Maths linked to flowers/plants, Technology inspired by flowers..) or Fashion inspired by flowers or Film posters with a flower theme, and so on.

Sophie Mess’s mural and canvas greeted us as the first paintings in the exhibition: hypertrophic overexpressive and non-apologetic blooms in spray paint that set a general mood of riotous flowery abundance.

A big rectangular canvas depicting flowers in bright orange yellow and pink on a navy blue background, by Sophie Mess
Sophie Mess’s canvas took one wall, whereas her mural run along the first staircase to access the exhibition.

One of the first sections in the exhibition was about still life takes on the flower theme, as a Roots topic for the whole theme…see what they have done here, oh oh, root-plant. Obviously with a twist: here we have Amy Sheldon’s work with pressed flowers arranged in a pattern by the artist on led lighted board. It is a still life, in a sense, but exploding the concept with the arrangement. and the use of real flowers.

A white led lighted rectangle on a black background. The white lighted rectangle is completely filled with small and tiny pressed flowers in muted tones
Amy Sheldon had a couple of works in this exhibition, made with seasonal pressed flowers for a better connection with nature.
Detail of Amy Sheldon's artwork using pressed flowers on a led lighted white board
A detail of the pressed flowers in Amy Sheldon’s work: it has been very hard to choose which one to photograph and show you, as they were all different and individually beautiful. They were all wild flowers picked in early Spring time and remaking a Springtime wild meadow in a way.

A few paintings by old Masters were present in this room:

Painting by Jean Baptiste Bosschaert of a flower vase in a traditional golden frame
An old master take on the Flower theme: a still life by Jean Baptiste Bosschaert (1667-1746)
A still of a flower vase with flowers from a loop film framed in an old style dark brown frame, by Rob and Nick Carter
Another old master’s still life oil painting? Nope, this is a still from a 70-minutes loop film! By rob and Nick Carter

 

An Art Nouveau apinting of a woman surrounded by white lilies, ink on tan silk, by Alphonse Mucha
This is a typical Art Nouveau panel where the woman is almost like a flower herself, a decoration, a pretty thing among pretty things, or you can read it as a flower/Spring goddess, celebration of feminine power and beauty: up to you. By Alphonse Mucha, ink on silk, it was firstly painted as watercolor on paper.

Among other serious paintings, I loved the quirkiest ones, such as this, showing that you can make art with anything at hand:

A framed white envelope with a crayon painting of red and purple flowers on dark background, by Margaret Mellis
Margaret Mellis, crayon on envelope: I can imagine the situation where you will have crayons and a scrap of paper and just start doodling an idea, then getting quite taken by it and ending up with a full blown artwork..oh, pity for the media, how am I going to present it to my agent, oh, well, it was fun. As you can maybe see, the glass was a reflective one: almost none of the works exhibited with a glass in the frame had non-reflective glasses and the glare was awful. It was very hard to get nice photos with limited glare.

Actually, that is not a one-off artwork on the back of an envelope: Margaret Mellis was an English artist who explored mixed media and collage quite extensively in her long life (died aged 95), and she produced many more artworks on the back of envelopes! Well, why not, waste not want not, as they say. (She apparently loved beach combing to pick materials for sculptures as well.)

This modified photo by Mari Mahr is just one of the many that were on display: I would say photography lovers would have find this exhibition quite satisfying. I picked it because it was modified in a way that reminded me of some embroidered photos that I have seen recently, where the artist would use an old portrait photo and especially embroider on the face of the subject.

Black and white photo of a girl in a floral dress with a big flower instead of the head. By Mari Mahr
Mari Mahr wanted to talk about a sense of loss and longing modifying photos of her friend’s daughter, after she had moved far away.

There was a part about Sanderson floral fabrics: I think most of you have seen some of those floral patterned fabrics and never given it a thought, as I had done before this exhibition. They seem something that has always been there, a popular cultural given, fabric with one of those patterns will surely lurk in thousands of lofts, leftover from Auntie, or Granny’s favourite that she left me and I could not bear to throw, or you maybe have a quilt done with scraps of that..do not even try to deny it (“oh, no, not at all, it’s too chintzy for me, too much English rose for my Aunt, you’ve never known her, a tough modern lady my Granny!), I will not ask for confessions, it will remain our cosy secret, let’s just say that as soon as you will see the patterns in my photo and you will recognise it as an old (if a bit worn out) friend. And you can say it aloud, old, because those designs have been created about 160 years ago, firstly for wallpaper and then in time also for textiles by the Sanderson factory: talk about flowers that have become classics.

Floral fabrics of Sanderson's design in different bright or pastel color patterns are folded and displayed one close to the other.
Do you recognise them? When I was a child and teen my bed cover was cotton fabric in one of those designs. Actually, one thing that I did not know and that I find amazing is that I live in an area of Greater London that is very close to the first Sanderson factories that produced those designs: life is weird that way.
Three small advertising examples of the Sanderson business through time are on a white wall
A long tradition of Sanderson products.

There were also other pieces linked to flowers in the house, included a lovely small handpainted side table.

A small painted side table on a raised stage, and other pieces from the Morris group in the background
A small handpainted beauty by two of the group following William Morris’ s ideas, George and Annie Jack. This was used as embroidery table: please, excuse my drooling on the laptop.

And of course some pieces by William Morris:

A William Morris fabric of red tulips on tan background
No fabric section with a floral theme could be complete without William Morris. Block print on cotton.
A picture of the original drawing by William Morris for the tulip fabric shows an abstracted tulip with leaves, in white grey and pale blue
The original drawing by William Morris for the tulip fabric above.
In a glass case on display, two small books on Flower fairies, a floral themed red plate and some floral themes green yellow and brown tiles, by the Morris movement followers.
Some other pieces by the Morris movement.
The printing block for the tulip fabric and three floral tiles by William Morris in a display case
The printing block for the tulip fabric, and a few tiles that look very modern.

Quite interesting to have a look at all those printing blocks and drawings and pieces with abstracted flowers: it just makes me itch for a go at thinking other printing blocks or stamps to use for surface design, with streamlined abstract flowers.  I just have a passion for abstract floral designs and feel you can never go wrong with one and will surely find the right time to use them! Actually, very recently I used the floral design stamp and stencil made when I took Ruth’s brilliant class on surface design to make hand painted wrapping paper to sell at a small market: so, it is all true, surface design is not just for embellishing your textiles, surface design is for life!

And, since I am keen on abstract art, I really enjoyed pieces like these of Gillian Ayers’ that made me wonder how one can make something similar in felt (it must be a lot of fun with those colours):

Two colorful abstract unframed oil paintings of flowers or plants by Gillian Ayres are side by side
Very colourful oil paintings, clearly a strong influence of American Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field painting, according to the label

Or other abstract ones like this very interesting one with its definite choice of colours:

A painting with the background pink and army green and two big red flowers close to each other. By Gary Hume
A bit of an unusual use of the space, with that third lower part almost blocking the sight of the huge flowers, and the oversized flowers all in the upper part of the painting. Gloss paint on aluminium. By Gary Hume
On a pale pink wall, a painting of white abstracted roses on a pale blue background.
Oil on linen for this abstract painting by Alex Katz that feels somehow very classic. And with such simple lines and blocks of colours it would work well as a felt piece with  minimal embroidery, would it not?

But I have also a find for the charity shop hoarders: a cornucopia style sculpture by Ann Carrington, entirely made using kitchen implements and cutlery. I checked, it is.

A cornucopia in metal on a plinth in an exhibition hall.
Made entirely in spoons, forks, butter knives and whisks, sculpture for the charity shop lovers “I am not hoarding, I am collecting for my art project, honest”.
Six colorful screenprint pieces representing abstract flowers
These oversized abstract flowers by Michael Craig-Martin seem also very enticing to me as inspiration for felt pieces. Screenprint on paper. Sorry for the very bad glare on the upper ones.
A big painting of dark blue orchids on black
This one is to show that flowers can be dark on dark and still impressive! Have you ever thought about this combination of colours for flowers? Oil paint and oil stick on linen, metal substrate, exposed linen on the side. By Michelle Jung.

Another screenprint that I found very interesting as inspiration for other medias or functions (wearables or objects or..) is this one by Yayoi Kusama:

A screenprint picture of colorful pink and orange patterned flowers on blue patterned background in a thin black frame with white board, hang on a pale pink wall.
I could see a handbag with this design, or a fabric for a dress, or maybe a scarf or a brooch. An artwork in felt would be quite nice too! How would one make the polka dot patterns in felt, though, or the tiny cracked effect in the background?

And here we finally come to some textile pieces, with these embroidered flowers:

Two textile artworks representing vases of flowers in bright colors on white background
Embroidery silks on cotton calico by Martin Maloney.
An embroidery of a white vase of abstract flowers on a pink clothed table.
Sorry for the weird angles of the photos: I was really having to take them so quickly, as the exhibition was packed. This is ‘Pink Cloth’, 2024. I really like how the embroidery is totally non-realistic while using stitches that have traditionally been used for very realistic rendition of flowers!
An embroidery of a yellow vase of abstract flowers on a grey clothed table
‘Yellow Vase’, 2024 by Martin Maloney.

A textile piece with a wow effect, this one was all made of individual elements in different sizes all connected by streaming yarn dangling from the various bits:

An artwork made of colorful irregular shaped pieces of fabric with tassels dangling down to the floor.
This textile piece by Anne von Freyburg has been inspired by an 18th century still life, so we go full circle back to the beginning of the exhibition! Acrylic ink, synthetic fabric and PVC fabric for the textile painting; fabrics, sequin fabric, hand-embroidery, polyester wadding and hand-dyed tassel fringes on canvas for the tapestry.

I managed to take photos of a couple of the elements in the big cloud of colours:

A detail of a textile artwork by Anne von Freyburg, with a colorful element representing flowers and many dangling tassels all around and partially over it A detail of an element of Anne von Freyburg artwork representing an abstract still life of flowers.

More attention to textiles in other artworks before going to the section dedicated to flowers in fashion:

An oil portrait of a black woman dressed in patterned floral textiles, by Wole Lagunju
I found this oil portrait interesting for the attention to textile details, a modern response to the old Master’s portraits of brocaded ladies colliding with a Judith iconography that feels a bit unsettling. By Wole Lagunju.

And here we are at the fashion show:

A pair of pink Converse trainers covered in pink embroidered flowers.
An example of hand-embroidery changing face to a casual pair of Converse trainers. By Cristina Alcantara of Camomille Creations

There was an area with a big turnable display on creations by the famous Finnish company Marimekko, very popular since the Fifties:

A display showing a floral dress by Finnish company Merimekko, with bold red and white areas and orange and white big abstract flowers
Marimekko style is hardly difficult to spot, with typical bright bold colours and big abstract shapes.
A vertical display showing different Merimekko garments in a room with wooden flooring and green walls. A person is on the right perusing the things on the display.
The display for Marimekko designs held different garments in different patterns and colours.

And here we come to British fashion icons Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood: one with a very abstract idea of flowers, the other with an exuberant use of flowers for contrast. Two very different periods in London, two different ideas of fashion.

Three mannequins with clothes by Mary Quant on a raised platform in the shape of flower petals. in the background there are black flower shapes on the wall.
Mary Quant’s miniskirts in the Fifties, and a long hooded Kaftan in the Seventies, but the abstract flowers remained a motif in her collections throughout her career.
A mannequin with a flowery blazer and two A4 posters advertising Mary Quant creations in London.
Another of Mary Quant’s garments, along with original posters advertising Mary Quant’s fashion.
A display case with a black and white handbag with an oversized flower shape, a pink flower necklace, and magazines advertising Mary Quant's garments
I doubt there is someone out there who has not seen at least once in life the iconic Mary Quant’s flower shape or some item reusing that shape in some way, as it is so effective.
A display case with advertising material for Mary Quant's garments and jewelry, a red-brown tie with yellow and grey flowers, and a set of jewelry with flower shapes
I bet you can find similar jewelry today, that flower shape is simply inescapable.

Vivienne Westwood is a different proposition:

A crocheted wedding dress with a simple transparent veil, and platform lace boots by Vivienne Westwood
Crochet is really good for flower effects on wedding dresses.
Two mannequins with Vivienne Westwood clothes, and a flowered wallpaper in the background.
I am not exactly sure when one is supposed to wear the first one (with platform sandals), but I really loved the pure Vivienne Westwood look of the second one with the ballgown size of the skirt and the deadly cute kitten on the t-shirt.
A mannequin wearing a gauze dress with a flower design and a sort of crown of fabric flowers.
This one and the next are not actually her creations, but made for her collection quite recently by Andreas Kronthaler. This one is a bit like how I would think a costume for Flora (goddess of Spring) may look like if you’d need one for a party. (I guess that you can take off the flower crown/headband/whatever while on public transport to get to the party, and then put it back on)
A mannequin with a floral printed cotton velvet suit with pink roses on a black background, and a blue baseball cap
This is also pretty recent, and I would have thought not: does it not feel very 80-90s to you?

I have many more things to show you about this section and the rest of the exhibition, and I feel that this post is already a bit packed with images: I will stop here for now and get back to you with the second part of the exhibition in my next post.

(Plus, it is too late in the night to go on writing, the foxes are screaming outside, and it just feels time to go to bed!)

I hope that you liked the exhibition so far!

 

 

kiki.textile.art

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Caterina Peruzzi is standing in front of a textile piece in green yellow brown and white by Asuncion Molinos Gordo
‘Soil’, an exhibition at Somerset House, London, UK: all about…you guessed, soil!

‘Soil’, an exhibition at Somerset House, London, UK: all about…you guessed, soil!

Comments 14 comments

Hello all!

I have been in a low mood recently, and I wanted to find new inspiration and focus by exploring more art exhibitions, especially since I have become a member of an amateur art group that is local to me, the Ealing Art Group (a link here to the long history of this local art group), in an attempt at making new friends and connections in the arts. The idea was to go to exhibitions together, and it worked for other times, but this time I ended up being on my own: well, since I had already decided to go, I went anyway, and it was actually quite nice to have this afternoon to enjoy an inspiring exhibition!

It was called ‘Soil. The World at Our Feet’ and you can see its poster here.

And inspiring it was: I learned quite a few things about soil, its conservation, its importance, things that are done all over the world to improve soil, things that are done all over the world to destroy it, how people can use it and love it and preserve it, and see it with fresh eyes. The topic was tackled both by artists and by scientific researchers and social activists, and often the three would merge.

A written text white on black background, from the exhibition 'Soil'
An explanation of the wide-ranging approach to the topic ‘Soil’ in this exhibition.

As you can maybe read from this explanation that meets the viewer at the very entry of the exhibition, there was a lot for lovers of the scientific in art and of the beauty of natural phenomena, from the very small of bacteria to the size of the whole Earth, passing through a lot of the rest: I managed to enjoy myself for about three full hours at this exhibition, and could have stayed a bit longer but I was exhausted and had to go back home.

I am not normally very keen about art with a very scientific inspiration, but I must say some of the works were stunning, such as these below by photographer Dr Tim Cockerill in collaboration with microbiologist Dr Elze Hesse: photographic images of bacterial growth on agar plates.

Dr Tim Cockerill in collaboration with microbiologist Dr Elze Hesse: photographic images of bacterial growth on agar plates, on black background
Twenty flowers? Abstract shapes? Twenty alien planets?
Photographic image of a bacterial growth on black background by Dr Tim Cockerill in collaboration with microbiologist Dr Elze Hesse.
One of the bacterial shapes that I liked for its resemblance with a flower.
One reddish bacterial growth on black background by Dr Tim Cockerill in collaboration with microbiologist Dr Elze Hesse
This seems very much like an alien planet to me, in deep space!

Sorry for the bad quality of some of the photos, as unfortunately the whole exhibition had very low lights, especially this part where those photos were. Of course, no flash was allowed.

There was an interesting approach to techniques and media, though it was a bit skewed towards video contributions or works that included video elements, that I personally sometime find a bit too long for an exhibition with so many artworks: some of the videos lasted up to almost 40 minutes, and I certainly could not have stayed at the exhibition long enough to watch them all beginning to end! I only managed the shortest ones.

Some of the videos were combined with installations:

A video installation on a curved curtain, by Wim van Egmond
This one on time lapses images of what happens in soil on curved curtains was by Wim van Egmond.
A Fly Agaric mushroom on grass and leaves, on a black background. Still of a video by Marshmallow Laser Feast with Merlin Sheldrake
This one was of a full cycle of Fly Agaric: fungi are important to soil! By collective Marshmallow Laser Feast with Merlin Sheldrake.

I loved the wide range of techniques, there was nothing old-tradition about them:

An Iron Age sword in a glass display case.
This was the only old-style item on display! Iron Age sword found in Cambridgeshire because preserved for about 2000 years by the soil composition there.

Some artists where interested both in what is made of soil and what is in it, such as ceramist Jo Pearl. I imagine that using clay, that is a type of soil, can focus one on the importance of it, and she also seems quite interested in all the environmental issues: I met her close to her artwork and we had a brief friendly chat about the topic.

Installation of ceramic pieces on black background by Jo Pearl
It is hard to convey the variety of the small dangling ceramic pieces in this big artwork installation by Jo Pearl: I loved to observe each one of them.

Ceramic shapes by Jo Pearl Ceramic shapes by Jo Pearl Ceramic shapes by Jo Pearl Ceramic shapes by Jo Pearl

I was wondering how one would make similar shapes in felt or mixed textiles: I am sure that much fun may be had by pursuing this inspiration, but my time is limited, so maybe one day.. Some of her shapes were also in the Exhibition shop: a temptation!

Ceramic artwork by Jo Pearl, white plants and mushrooms on black background
This ceramic piece by Jo Pearl also was very interesting to me: the use of white for the plants and fungi really is a neat trick that focuses the perception on the shapes. I guess that it would work in felt too..

I liked the use of soil as pigment as well, in this artwork by herman de vries explaining about earth pigments:

Earth pigments displayed by herman de vries
Earth Pigments by herman de vries
Earth Pigments by herman de vries
This was a still from the video where she explains about earth pigments and their use in the whole of human tradition.
A display case showing some earth pigments and paper with marks. By herman de vries
Part of the Earth Pigments installation by herman de vries.
Front cover of a book about paints made using foraged ingredients.
And I found this in the exhibition shop: it seemed quite detailed, so I took a photo to be able to maybe find it again when I will have time to try and make my own paints..

Inorganic matter had its own moment at the exhibition:

Installation made of various pictures of rock strata by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
An installation part photography, part drawing, part writing about rocks and what they can let us imagine or understand about the past. By Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.

But also organic matter was represented, with the idea that soil is or should be a living thing:

A picture of flowers in bright unconventional colors. By Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Flowers as a pollinator would see them. By Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Bronze potatoes in a display case. By Anya Gallaccio
The humble spuds. This artwork is by Anya Gallaccio in bronze cast.

There was a video by pioneer performance and landscape artist Ana Mendieta that I can not show, because photos of it were not allowed, but I liked it: it was called ‘Birth’ and it was in black-and-white. There were two earth mounds in the vague shape of a woman’s vagina, and there were gunpowder explosions or similar coming from the centre enclosed by the mounds. Well, Earth is represented as an earthen goddess by many ancient cultures, so it made a lot of sense to me.

I found the next two works by Lauren Gault less easy to understand, though they were made with materials found in the Isle of Skye that she wanted to represent or linked to it, including a wool blanket that has been restitched by the artist. Some of you may recognise the plastic buckets included in the second piece, apparently very common supplement for sheep rearing..?

In the background there is a wall made of grey concrete blocks, and in the foreground an artwork by Lauren Gault with brown blocks of mineral and a wool blanket.
Carved mineral blocks and a wool moving blanket are part of this piece by Lauren Gault
There are two cut plastic tubs of Lifeline supplement for sheep on a white marble shape over pieces of wool moving blanket. By Lauren Gault
Can you recognise those? Artwork by Lauren Gault.

I really loved these next two pieces: the first was a very organic sculpture made of beeswax on a 150-year-old found walnut tree wood, the second does not seem much to see but its magic was its scent that I loved!

An organic white beeswax shape on an irregular slice of wood in a darker room. Artwork by Marguerite Humeau
By Marguerite Humeau. I loved its simple yet moving linearity, and the use of natural materials.
A brown hanging textile with a yellow g-shaped connection tree. A scented artwork by Fatima Alaiwat
Inoculated printed fabric (with bokashi bran) scented soy wax (with perfumery ingredients and essential oils) by Fatima Alaiwat.

I wished I could stay in front of those two for a long long time. I have always wanted to add scents to my works: is it something that any of you have tried? I wonder what is bokashi bran and how you can use it to inoculate scented soy wax into fabric? Would it work for felt? It just seems a lot of fun to be able to add this new dimension to one’s work! Maybe one day..

This other work was about fiber and how finding new ways to use natural fibers is helping people reshape and restore the environment in their area.

A white hairy low shape is on a platform and a screen on the top left is showing a person on a donkey alone along a countryside path. By Fernando Laposse
An agave fiber (sisal) shape, very fluffy and inviting, is in representation of all the uses in design and art that a people collective is trying to promote, giving new life to traditional handmade local agave processing in Southern Mexico, as explained by an interesting video. The selling of processed agave fiber and furniture or sculptures made with it is funding a regeneration project for soil devastated by damaging agrochemicals. By Fernando Laposse.

Have you tried agave fiber in your work? can it be used in our textile artworks, felted or manipulated? I have never tried it, but maybe now I am curious to know more about it.

There was also a Khayameya patchwork artwork by Asuncion Molinos Gordo, showing the two different types of usage of soil for food production in Egypt, seen as if by satellite: on one hand the many small rectangular shapes of smallholders who grow crops for internal food consumption using the water from the Nile as renewable source. On the other hand, the circular shapes of extensive farming in areas into the desert for international food consumption using non-renewable fossil water through sprinklers.

Part of a three pieces patchwork artwork by Asuncion Molinos Gordo. Two patchwork shapes in white, green, yellow, and black.
These patchworks seem to show how huge those circular farming areas are in comparison to the rectangular fields of smallholders.
Part of artwork by Asuncion Molinos Gordo, a square patchwork with a background of rectangular shapes in green, yellow, brown, and black, and white circular shapes.
Here the white circular shapes seem to want to engulf, to eat up all the tiny rectangles, like not-so-funny Pac-Man shapes.

Another textile work was in fact made of roots! The artist grew the plants to weave naturally into a net and produced an organic fabric of a sort:

A brown and green artwork made of roots growing into a green net is hanging on a wall. By Diana Scherer
I liked how the green-blue of the net shows in between the roots and gives the brown a different personality. The idea was to have a collaboration between man-made and natural. By Diana Scherer.

Two other artworks were exploring the link between cotton crops and exploitation:

A hanging textile in white with colorful embroidery spelling 'Unlearn The Plantation Plot' and white lace. By Annalee Davis
This is on cotton, for obvious reasons linked to the protest message of the artwork. By Annalee Davis
Yellowed paper is painted with red Latex, representing Saccharum officinarum and Queen Ann's lace pattern. By Annalee Davis
This is also by Annalee Davis and is Latex on plantation ledger pages. It represents the roots and shoots of sugar cane, along with a Queen Ann’s lace pattern symbolising cultural exploitation along with the physical one.

There were of course many more artworks, but I want to finish with one that was at the end of the exhibition: ‘Soil Kitchen’ by Something & Son.

A reproduction of kitchen 'Soil Kitchen' by Something & Son, in the background is a big interactive image of the Earth.
The kitchen that you can see from above is very peculiar..
Details of the artwork by Something & Son: a kitchen tap with a rock underneath, a bottle of Slime mould, and other kitchen objects.
All the things that you see are part of making a healthy soil, and not what you would normally find in a kitchen.
There is cracked mud in two pans on a hob, and a rock on a serving plate.
Cooked mud is not good for soil health, though.
A white kitchen towel with a description of ecological groupings of soil organisms.
This innocent-looking kitchen towel was mushroom infused!
A detail of a clear plastic bag full of white kitchen roll paper with the words 'Fungi Super Absorbent' on it
Fungi were very much present in the whole exhibition! Here it is the kitchen roll that is full of them.
A kitchen counter drawer shows different leaves and vegetable matter, and over the counter there is a goat leg with the label 'Carcass'.
Animal and vegetable matter are part of healthy soil.
A kitchen robot holds mud and has a label with 'River' written on it.
And the river acts as mixer!

There were more bits, but you get the general idea. Then, on the other table there were recipes to make your own environmental friendly changes to soil or behaviour.

A recipe to grow Buckwheat, Mustard and Clover is written on a tin plate, with a square of clovers enclosed in plastic at the top left
How to help the right plants thrive in your soil.
On a tin plate there is a recipe to add microorganisms to soil and an image of microorganisms.
How to add microorganisms to your soil to make it healthier.

I hope that you will have some food for thought about our soil (he he, all of this talking about recipes and kitchens..).

On the same day, there was another small exhibition at the Somerset House, that I found fascinating: it was about salt and the Salt Line in the Indian subcontinent. Part of this smaller exhibition was a big outside installation of textiles from salt sacks printed in traditional patterns, representing the Salt Line, a barrier grown of spiky plants by the British to impede the access to a Salt lake to the populace, in order to keep for themselves the sale of salt during Colonial times.

In front of the white buildings of Somerset House, a textile installation made of hanging brown fabric with traditional prints.
Salt Line by Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser.
Brown fabric hangings with printed patterns in black and white.
Some of the patterned fabrics.
Hanging fabrics with dark brown, black and white patterns.
More patterned fabrics. The patterns were traditional, taken from stamps found around the area where the actual Salt Line was grown.

Please, let us know what you thought about it! Cheers.