The evolution continues. In a two-part previous post I used the word ‘truth’ to reference that core perception that an Artist uses, around which she builds her expressions (i.e. art, and the messages contained therein.) Well, with this latest Interlude, I got to explore the difference between what we would see as the truth of a thing, and what we would see as it’s essence. It’s subtle, (and could easily be merely a point of semantics), but telling in how we lead a viewer into perceiving our creations.
This was a group Interlude, with my friends Pam and Daniele, and Daniele’s daughters, Marion and Emilie. Daniele had seen a book about needle-felting dogs, and since both she and Pam are loving dog moms, we made this our project. None of us had any experience with needle-felting 3D figures, and I’ve had minimal tries at felting onto a surface, so this was sure to be interesting. Going into this, I kept thinking of that old tale of the blind men and the elephant, each man touching a different part of the elephant and therefore having a totally different description of what an elephant is. I knew we each were going to approach this with our own abilities, our own perspectives, and quite possibly have a taste of the blind leading the blind. It was all that and more (!), and we thrived in our goal to have fun.
We started with two books about needle-felting, Fleece Dog and Little Felted Dogs, and plenty of supplies: wool roving, felting needles, foam bases and shaping wires. We also had reference photos of their dogs, Pam’s two current dogs and Daniele’s current dog as well as her former one. Pam and I worked on replicating her dogs, and Daniele and Marion worked on hers and Emilie played at being Prometheus and created a wool-person from scratch. We were focused, and fruitful. Here are a few highlights to our learning curves:
- Despite the small gestures involved in needle-felting, it can be surprisingly impaling to the fingertips when you try to hold your sculpture up to work on it, rather than set it on the foam base. Fortunately, wool is absorbent, and truthfully, we did quite well at being wound-free.
- Felting needles break easily, 3 of our 6 needles met their maker by the end of the day.
- Felting up a big wad of wool goes surprisingly quickly, and is remarkably satisfying to see it go from blob to dog shape. But long skinny bits, like legs and tails, not so easy, not so fun. We learned the fibers can’t all be in one direction, you need crosshairs to make the skinny bits hold their form.
- This was my favorite learning curve; despite all of us being book people and library people, and being prepared by having instruction books on-hand, somehow it didn’t actually occur to us to open up the books we had until we were done with our creations. Which goes to show, sometimes you go with the book learnin’ and sometimes you just dive in and have the experience you’re going to have.
Back to Essence. If we wanted to create a truthful dog image, we would have aimed for photo-realism (just look on etsy and you will see amazingly real-looking dog and animal wool sculptures.) But our skill set at this point wasn’t there. So as we worked, we had to keep making choices as to what level of truth would be told. Were we aiming for personalities of the dog, for breed, for postures of the dog, or for general coloring and shape? It quickly became a matter of finding and sharing the Essence of the dog. As Creators, could we each look into what we made and recognize the dog we know? Is its heart in the right place? Are the legs in the right place? And for our viewers, will they be able to look upon our creations and know to whom, or at least to what, we lovingly refer? Truth and Essence are a bit of a negotiation between what we want to share and what we are capable of sharing. As well as what we want to perceive and what we are capable of perceiving.
Daniele’s dear dog perhaps made the greatest leaps in evolution, from essentially being a banana, to being a seal, to a quadruped mammal, to a bear, to a fox, to a dog, and finally, to being her dog. It was a beautiful transformation, from the unknown into the known, and eventually into the beloved. (And from end to end, because at one point she decided that what she was working on as the head, would make a better tail, so the whole little guy flipped ends.)
Pam’s little darlings are actually larger-sized dogs. We didn’t start with a wire armature for these. They both were in a sitting position, which worked well for us as we soon discovered how hard it was to densify the felted wool for the legs. The dogs really started to become themselves once we added ears and coloring. Pam’s big challenge was the black-on-black of her labrador, so she wisely chose to offset the eyes with a lighter color, and gave him a kicky collar! And look at that happy-to-see-us tail!
Marion mastered her pup (see the smaller dog alongside Daniele’s in the photos above) and so created another fellow, a guinea pig! And, as adorable as the real thing.
Yea! We used community to have some fun and see ourselves as Artists and Creators. And now we know, we have talents that only ever ask to be expanded and explored, we have innate wills to create and a whole world to fill with our creations, and we have the power to imbue our joys in life into a million little things that will keep reflecting that joy back to us. We Are….Success!
All of that, from a willingness to see something heartfelt in a few locks of wool.
thedawnofcreation 