Repurposing "The Beast"

One of our international Felt Making teachers said, "A felted piece is never done until it is sold". How true!

Some years back, several guild members who showed together as the Art Felt Collaborative installed a large felted art piece in the Art Gallery in Salmon Art in a show called "Surfacing".

Individual pieces with lots of surface design were felted into a new large installation which was laid out in the centre of the gallery. The namesake piece, also called "Surfacing", represented the layers of ocean as one moved from the depths to the surface. However, despite its formal name, our group always referred to it as "the Beast": it was huge, a bit unruly to felt and always seemed alive with its protrusions and undulating surface.

This year we decided to repurpose the beast, something that felt lends itself to nicely. We snipped the individual chunks apart reverting them back to their unattached entities

The irregular shaped sections are now off to interact with the imagination of primary school kids.

The kids select a felted "story workshop mat" and add small items of wood, material, etc. to create a story. They then orally share their story with a classmate and then write it down, all exercises in building literacy.

So, the Beast has moved from Surfacing in the Salmon Arm Art Gallery to surfacing rich ideas in the minds of students. Perhaps there will be other iterations since a felted piece is never done until it is sold!

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Diane

Fibre Artist