One of seven courses available for the May 12 – 15, 2022 MCA Weekend Workshop @ Haystack
FRICTION & TRANSFORMATION: WET FELTING & FREE WRITING
Instructor: Katherine Ferrier
Haystack Studio: Dye Studio/ Visiting Artist Studio
Enrollment Limit: 8
Materials Fees: $30.00
Level: Beginner
Class Description:
In this workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to savor working with your materials as you learn the basics of wet felting, the process of transforming wispy wool roving into a durable structure using water, soap, and a bit of agitation. We’ll focus first on making a flat piece; an abstract landscape of your own design, upon which we’ll stitch some details with sashiko thread.
Then we’ll advance to making a bowl or vessel using a resist to create a three-dimensional shape. Along the way, we’ll marvel at the many metaphors of how things come into being, how friction helps new forms emerge, and how patience is a practice where transformation is concerned.
Throughout the weekend, we’ll take breaks from the physicality of felting and bring our attention to the page, exploring some guided prompts and meditations. By the end of the weekend, you’ll have a finished stitched landscape, a bowl, and perhaps a bit of writing that just might surprise you.
No previous experience with felting or free writing is necessary. Please bring 2 large, old towels, an apron and/or wear clothes you don’t mind getting a bit wet, a journal and a pen for writing.
Materials:
The instructor will provide all essential materials for each student. Students are asked to provide the following:
– 2 large, old towels
– An apron and/or wear clothes you don’t mind getting a bit wet
– A journal and pen for writing
About the Instructor-
Katherine Ferrier is a queer poet, dancer, maker, teacher, curator, and community organizer based in Rockland, Maine. She has been the Director of the Medomak Fiberarts Retreat, where she also teaches felting, improvisational patchwork, and writing for makers, since 2018. Her work grows out of a deep practice of paying poetic attention to the world and lives in the intersecting communities of movers, makers, writers, and activists. A self-taught quilter, she has improvisationally designed and constructed more than 100 quilts, drawing on her years of study, both formal and independent, of movement, poetics, painting and architecture, among other forms. She regularly teaches and performs throughout the US and abroad, and believes in patchwork as a radical practice of being patient, saying yes, and making space for everyone at the table. Learn more at: katherineferrier.net