Residence

Olympia, WA, USA

Place of Birth

Vancouver, WA, USA

Personal Statement

I am driven by a passion for process and the challenge to expand the boundaries of what has existed before in handmade Felt. I strive to bring art and craft together in expression and function that combines to create artistic landscapes of texture and color. In exploring ways to make completely new Felt fabrics, I push the limits of scale, size and balance.,
My inspiration comes from the natural world and from collaboration with raw organic materials. It is my artistic passion to translate this process and art, into modern aesthetics in form, function, visual and architectural applications.
I believe wool Felt connects us with our natural history in a way no other fabric can. Felt is the oldest textile known to humans, yet few are aware that this humble fabric is integral to modern life in our engines, our machines, even our pens! The current high tech world with synthetic surroundings has taken us far from the natural world, and our historic traditions of making things by hand. We are starved for natural textures, fibers, and irregular forms in our surroundings.
When I embarked on my first Felt project in 1999, handmade Felt was an obscure and rarely seen textile. To better understand the historic tradition of Felt, I traveled to Kyrgyzstan to attend the first Int’l Felt Symposium. Working with nomadic tribes making Felt as they had been doing for over 6,000 years instilled in me a deep respect for the value of this ancient art and traditional wisdom in the context of the modern world. Technologies emerge, flourish, become outdated, and even though Felt remains essential to technology, the principles of making it have not changed.
Based on my knowledge of history and process, combined with technical proficiency, curiosity and extreme experimentation, I have developed refined, intricately executed Felt. I am bridging the gap between the industrial Felt world and the hand fabricated Felt world in my Art and Craft.

Artist's Website

www.jafelt.com