I had been an able-bodied, fit feltmaker for many years before I had major surgery on both shoulders and had to adapt to being unable to continue with the physical demands of feltmaking in the same way as before. My hands were slowly becoming more arthritic at the same time.
Although I tried other ways to channel my creative drive, I always returned to expressing myself in felt. As I wasn’t prepared to compromise on my integrity as an artist, I had to find a way, even though it might be unconventional.
How To Finally Create The Life Of Your Dreams By Turning Shit Into Sugar by George Baker is an inspirational book and was designed with a simple goal in mind. I was determined to continue and develop my art in felt and the following quotes helped:
“take life’s adversities and turn them to your advantage.”
“This is your lot. There’s nothing you can do about it. Might as well suck it up and carry on.”
I found inspiration from an empathetic tutor and my fellow students who suggested ways in which I could continue. I experimented by making smaller pieces but as they always grew, I had to find ways to continue as me and develop techniques and ways of layering and joining smaller felts/half-felts to create the larger pieces I always seemed to make. Another aspect of my personality I had to adjust was to slow down and take my time making a piece of felt. In fact, I found that it helped the felting process. By leaving a wetted-out piece overnight the fibres expanded and the scales on them opened fully making the bonding of the fibres easier. The felting fairies had been at work overnight! I began to plan the stages over a period of days rather than hours and I became more immersed in the pieces and really enjoyed making them.
I needed to represent myself as an artist even though my abilities had changed. I wanted to look forward positively and was determined to find a way to create my work and be happy with it.
This all led on to using different tools to help me create the felts. More in the next blog next week.
By Maggy Lightfoot