Only one piece completed today and I am not sure it it will make it in the final “show”. I wanted to try Icelandic wolf and tanned fish leather again so this is my second go, it kind of looks like an upside down tie to me.
As I say this may or may not make it. Amanda and I moved all of the pieces to one of the extra bedrooms this morning that up has better light so I could get some good pictures. I also asked her to pull out a pieces that were not adding to the exhibit. This is what it looks like now.
I have 4 pieces on the felting table laid out, now the rolling and rubbing begins. They will add height to the left side and middle of the exhibit. Once all the pieces are in place I will look it over again and see if I agree with the culling that was done, I do tend to get attached to pieces and have to have them included but this time there were only 3 pieces that needed to be included. The 2 corded pieces and my new favourite piece from yesterday. Please let me know what your thoughts are. The final picture will be better than this one, this was to give us an idea of placement.
So if I don’t have much to show you then what was I up to. Amanda and I went to see where all of the wool that Istex purchases from across Iceland is washed. Istex stands for Icelandic Textile Industry, any real Icelandic sweaters are knit from Istex wool. If you are interested this is their website. http://www.istex.is/english/about-us/.
Back to the wool washing place. Local farmers bring their wool in and the rest of the wool from around the country is trucked here. The process starts by going through a matchine that fluffs it, I am pretty sure that is not what the manager who gave us the tour said the machine did that is my version of what it does. Remember we are talking filthy dirty wool full of hay and straw and poop and anything else that sheep might get into. So though the fluffing machine, along a short conveyer belt and into the first wash that is 40C and has just soap and these very gentle large combs that move the wool ever so gently along. The water coming out of those tanks was really disgusting. Then into the next tank that has soap and soda, not sure if something was lost in translation but the soda breaks down the grease in the fleece and finally some clear water to get the soap and soda out. Off to the drying matching that was at 96C and blows the wool through an oven and then along a big pipe into the final machine that packs the wool into bags weighing 350 to 400 kilograms. Pretty heavy wool. All of the wool they have in the washing factory right now are seconds. The wool will not be made into yarn but will be sent to England by ship to be made into carpets. The wioll arrives there in very big bags and from the time a bag is dumped into the first hopper until it is being packed only takes 10 minutes, it was taking much longer today as one of the machines was jammed. It was great fun to see how the cleaning process works on a commercial scale.
I went to the pool and swam and water jogged and sat in the hot pool. As I was minding my own business in the hot pool about 25 or 30 teenagers arrived, I saw their bus leaving. I am not sure if they had been on a school sports trip but it got lots louder with all those raging hormones.
That was my day, thanks for reading.
patmoorestudio 
Hi Pat,
I was going to send you an e-mail, but maybe I’ll just try this little box here.
Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I said I was tempted to fly to Iceland to see you, but that wasn’t really serious because I already had a flight booked for California for June 9th. If I had know about your Iceland trip sooner, I could have stopped in Iceland on the way to California. I couldn’t leave here before May 17th because our choir had a big concert, but I could have gone after the 17th. But to go to Iceland and then fly back to France, and then fly out again to California on June 9th would not have made sense.
I am going to California to pick up the grandchildren for the summer. Will take them to Winnipeg for ten days and then back here for the end of June. I will have them all the month of July, and then in August they go to the Paris grandparents. (Jonathan age 6 1/2 and Sophie age 4, and they have a baby brother nearly 15 months who will be staying in California.)
Anyway, I have just been reading all your posts. I read some at the beginning, then missed out for awhile, so I went back to the beginning and read through the whole lot of them just now. Very interesting. I have about a million questions to ask you. Maybe it would be better to phone you.
I guess right now you are getting ready for your exhibition tomorrow.
So it seems like this felting is somthing like quilting — a big community of people with a passion. Maybe felting is not as big as quilting, as I have not heard much about it until now. Are there a lot of felters in Yellowknife, or just you? Are your felting friends mainly people that you have met taking courses in Red Deer etc?
How did you get interested in sea creature? Do lots of felters do sea creatures, or is that just one branch of felting? Or is it mainly just you? What are some other branches of felting? How original and unique is your work? What I can’t understand is how you got to be such an expert in underwater creatures. Did you start out by scuba diving, or visiting some tropical islands, or did you just get interested in sea creatures and study them up in books, or what?
How legitimate (not the right word) are your creatures? Are they all actual animals, or once you get the hang of it, do you just invent your own creatures that look realistic?
I like those orange tubes that you say are boring to make. At first I didn’t have a clue what you were talking about, but now I get what you mean by cutting them ro reveal the layers below. Haven’t a clue what you mean by “throwing”, though. It sounds like a lot of fussy work preparing the felt (“rolling it 800 times”) and it sounds like it should take ages, but you seem to be able to devote entire days to it without losing enthusiasm. How much time to you devote to it in Yellowknife? Is it a huge treat to be able to devote an entire month to it, or do you spend almost as much time at it in Yellowknife? Are you retired now?
These sculptures must take up a lot of room. How are you going to take them home without them getting crushed in your suitcase? And how do you find room for them at home, or are they mostly on display at exhibitions and things?
I have lots more questions but maybe I will stop here for tonight, and maybe I can phone you one of these days. Good luck with your exhibition tomorrow, and your flight home. I would have liked to be with you on that drive through all those Icelantic hills. I liked that sod house. Sounds like a very interesting country.
Okay, good night!
Love Maggie
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Hi Maggie,
How lovely to receive such a long post from you. I will try and answer all of your questions so you can understand about my felting. I do mostly wet felting, very little needle felting. I started in 2006 thinking I was taking a knit to felt class and found out it was really something called wet felting. I am sure glad I made that mistake. I started to learn more and more about felting and took more classes both in Yellowknife and in the South and have become a felt artist, it is still difficult for me to call myself an artist but if I take a hard look at my work it is art. There are not many felters in Yellowknife but in this internet age I am able to check people’s work on Facebook and through blogs and websites. I have a group of fibre friends who quilt and dye fabric and sew who are also very passionate about their art form so even if I am not surrounded by fellow felters I am surrounded by friends who share a textile passion.
My inspiration for my Under the Sea collection started when I did some felt objects for a friend that were like elongated eggs, I thought they looked a bit like jelly fish and I made a few for myself. I also made some squid like creatures and a tea cozy that looked like a coral. Then I applied to have an exhibit at the museum in Yellowknife and I really had to get making. I made a about 25 starfish and 10 or 12 jelly fish and then I started branching off into objects that are not at all real but just things that live under the sea in my world, completely imaginary. It is fun and I have been on a roll again here making some objects similar to what is in my exhibit in Yellowknife but also making new pieces like the coral tubes and that most wonderful tall piece with all of the cuts. The class I took last year with Marjolein Dallinga is where I learned about the corded 3D sculpture and a class I took with her before I learned about the marbles and I just took that one step further with that tall piece.
I am still working full time so only get to felt evenings and weekends so this has been heavenly for me to have a month devoted to my art. I will look around for another residency in a year or two when I can get time off again. I will probably work for a few more years yet.
My iPad is running out of juice as am I, I will answer the rest of your questions tomorrow and thanks so much for taking the time to read through all of my posts and for asking so many questions. Aren’t you glad you didn’t abolish April 9th!!!!!
Pat
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