Contextural: feltastic

Monday, March 2, 2009

feltastic

The process of felting is something everyone has experienced, although likely the experience was an unintentional resizing of a sweater. The beauty of a process like felting is that it really has a basic principle that an artist can then further explore different possibilities to make their own work; take for example how the artists Stephanie Metz and Chad Alice Hagen have both taken the process of felting and used different techniques to create to unique styles of work. Metz describes the her process;

To sculpt with wool I use a process called felting, which refers to compressing and matting individual fibers into a united solid mass through use of heat, pressure, moisture, or mechanical means. Most people are familiar with wet felting, in which hot, soapy water is used to shrink knitted or crocheted items into smaller, dense versions. I do not use hot water and soap—instead I use tools adapted from industrial use and work with the dry wool fibers directly.