Homage to Pat

This felt piece is made, without armature using needle-felting techniques and hand made sheets of prior wet-felted wool. The form takes shape with the concept of working “from the outside-in.” My dear friend, Pat, passed in April of 2021 and was one of the founding members of the Silvermine Nine art group. This piece was made in her memory from wool fleece that she gave me some time ago. That wool forms the core of the piece with very dense needlefelting..

This 2021 piece is fully finished and led to the current singular focus to create this new website as a digital retrospective of my work.  My goal is to present all new work in this first of 24 galleries.

The visual and structural back of the piece helped to create the no-armature framework in which I had lots of needle-felting work time to gather myself. This method allowed me to work in a stream-of-conscious approach to take refuge in the repetitive work of the felting needles and fibers, color, texture, and shapes. Other non-fiber materials found a home in this felt and continued the path for exclamation points of expression.

Generally I do not think any art needs explanation and should become what it is in the eye of the beholder. If that is the case for you, just study the piece on as it is presented in the photographs. The precise photographs are the work of one of my new friends, Dianna Nelson. (No relation to Pat.)

A celebration of Pat’s life happened in June 2021, meeting at the neighbor’s farm across the street from Pat’s home of 41 years. The new homeowners were very gracious to allow our small group this mourning in reverence of a life. We shared varied stories and sprinkled some ashes at that property. I wiped the residue of those sweet leavings with a small moist towel and folded it back into the wrapper. Months later I incorporated that into the ash repository box placed in a private fenced plot on the shoulder of this piece. Very deeply felt. Much of the wool emotional core-of-strength in this piece came from working the fleece that Pat had given me from her prior spinning and weaving days.

This incomplete fence guards passersby of barbs piercing the hillside, perhaps falling rocks. Pat challenged us with lively toe-to-toe conversations on life, critiques, and art. I wonder what her impression of this piece would bring. I often drove Pat to the meetings and along the way, much conversation ensued. I can still hear her lilting question comment to much of my ramblings, “Oh, really?” I wonder what she would think of this piece. It does not resemble her in any way.