Fiber Art
I spent this past winter creating a natural dyes library as I find myself returning (after a long hiatus) to dye, textile printing and feltmaking, as expressive media. Creating color with plants is magical because color offers itself to us unconditionally—it feels like nature’s way of loving us.
I’ve also returned to “wet” and “Nuno” felt making—and making forays into working with these different techniques to create wall hangings and physical objects.
Nuno Felting is where you combine silks and wool together to create unusual textures and surfaces. It’s primarily used in to make one-of-a-kind garments, but I’m drawn to making abstract wall pieces and banner type hangings with my Nuno felting.
Living in New Mexico has introduced me to churro wool—a sheep long farmed by the Navajo—which creates a thick, strong, rougher felt. My “wet” felting experiments with this wool have shown me how I can create seriously thick hunks of wool —almost like flexible slabs of clay—that offer their own creative possibilities quite different from the Nuno felting.
Here is a video about my natural dye library as well as samples of my wool and dye experiments below—some finished work and some works in progress.
A Natural Dye Library
Building this natural dye reference library for myself has been intensely gratifying. Dyeing with plants and insects is so much gentler than with synthetic dyes, and the colors have so much more nuance.
Normally, I have an idea for a series of works and then I explore the materials that I think can help me bring my idea into fruition. But this time, the opposite happened—I felt deeply compelled by the materials themselves, even without a plan for them. But of course, ideas are springing forth from my beautiful swatches—some long dormant and some new. I’m so curious to see where it all takes me.
