Ruth Black - Community Art and Feltmaking

Community Art
and Feltmaking

Feltmaking is an ideal medium for producing large textile pieces with community groups. It gives people with little or no experience the opportunity to participate in the creative process and gives them the satisfaction of achievement, both in their own activity and the finished piece.

Over the years I have worked on a variety of different projects, for example a primary school class creating a banner with Pictish symbols, a community centre creating a montage of their village and a museum working with local community groups to explore Celtic art.

The stories of how some of these projects progressed are featured in my blog and pdfs of albums relating to them can be accessed by clicking left on "Downloads". Each project is different, but all involve starting with wool fibres which are wet down with soapy water and rubbed through a sheet of bubblewrap to felt the fibres together into a strong fabric. Detail can be added in a variety of ways - inlay cut-outs and needlefelting are the main methods that I use.

There are limitations in size because of the practicalities of reaching to the middle of the piece during the making and handling the wet felt which can be very heavy. The shorter sides should be no more than 120cm, but the length can be up to about 6 metres. The shape need not necessarily be rectangular. In considering dimensions, the location for hanging the finished piece should be taken into consideration. The number of people working on the felt will be limited by the size - up to twelve people at any given time can work on a piece that has finished dimensions of about 1m x 2m.

The project can be done in stages - anything from a half day to several days depending on the size, the number of people and the amount of detail.Please email or telephone to discuss your ideas and find out what is possible.

ruth@ruth-black.co.uk ~ T : 01463 831 567 ~ M : 0777 177 4172

				Making a base layer of felt with a group from Groam House Museum. Needlefelting through stencils to create lettering Below - making sections of coloured half-felt which were subsequently cut out to use as inlay pieces on a large background.
		Community Art and Feltmaking Feltmaking is an ideal medium for producing large textile pieces with community groups. It gives people with little or no experience the opportunity to participate in the creative process and gives them the satisfaction of achievement, both in their own activity and the finished piece. Over the years I have worked on a variety of different projects, for example a primary school class creating a banner with Pictish symbols, a community centre creating a montage of their village and a museum working with local community groups to explore Celtic art. The stories of how some of these projects progressed are featured in my blog and pdfs of albums relating to them can be accessed by clicking left on "Downloads". Each project is different, but all involve starting with wool fibres which are wet down with soapy water and rubbed through a sheet of bubblewrap to felt the fibres together into a strong fabric. Detail can be added in a variety of ways - inlay cut-outs and needlefelting are the main methods that I use. There are limitations in size because of the practicalities of reaching to the middle of the piece during the making and handling the wet felt which can be very heavy. The shorter sides should be no more than 120cm, but the length can be up to about 6 metres. The shape need not necessarily be rectangular. In considering dimensions, the location for hanging the finished piece should be taken into consideration. The number of people working on the felt will be limited by the size - up to twelve people at any given time can work on a piece that has finished dimensions of about 1m x 2m. The project can be done in stages - anything from a half day to several days depending on the size, the number of people and the amount of detail.Please email or telephone to discuss your ideas and find out what is possible. ruth@ruth-black.co.uk ~ T : 01463 831 567 ~ M : 0777 177 4172