I have explored hand felted wool for almost 25 years and yet there is still something magical that happens each time I return to the studio and begin to lay out a new piece of wool. My earliest works were experiments in controlling shape and color on the surface of the felt. This led to years of learning to give up that control and listen to the color and shape and texture of the felt as I searched for the object it wished to become.The fortunate gift of a Fulbright Grant several years ago took me to New Zealand, where I discovered the strength and flexibility of merino wool. These qualities led to a prolonged study of resist dyeing, which is still a major component of my current work.
While most of my work in the past has been on a very large scale, recent works are becoming more and more intimate in size, often with intense, embellished workings of the surface. Since 1995 I have been exploring ways to use hand-felted wool as a place to hold collections of various objects. This started when a friend, worried about my inability to stay anywhere for more than three years, suggested that a way for me to settle down was to start collecting things. At the time, the thought of owning more objects was horrifying. I wanted to be as unattached as possible. But as soon as I moved to Western North Carolina, I felt that I had truly come home and I did indeed start collecting - teacups, buttons, pottery, stones - and soon had boxes filled with small treasures.
I started wondering about the extended life of these objects, things previously owned by others but now in my hands. And I started wondering about our need to collect in the first place. Is it a way to establish our place in the world by marking our residences? Is it, like our fellow Pack Rat and Bower Bird, a way to attract attention? Is it for beauty, for interest, for the differences between the objects we collect?
I now collect all sorts of small objects: beach stones, small sticks, bottlecaps and wires found on the street, glass beads. I'm attracted to their stories, and to their size, color, shape or texture. I'm moved to protect them by stitching them onto the familiar woolen surface of the felted textile, which provides both a protective surface and a textural contrast. Resist dyeing adds yet another enriching layer of color and line.
While making these pieces - the slow, deliberate steps and processes of felting, dyeing, arranging, stitching - I feel like I'm creating a ritual textile. I feel compelled to create these small stitched and embellished works, not only filling the surface with stitch, line and object, but filling my mind with questions about what their existence means to me. I sense that these objects are creating a kind of protection for me, and at the same time I feel that I am protecting small forms. Some of these pieces even seem like messages and letters to others, written in a deeper than ordinary language.