Felting is an ancient craft, perhaps the oldest textile process in existence. There are a number of prehistoric samples dating back to the Neolithic period. It's a staggering thought that over 8000 years ago man, or most likely woman, was working wool into garments for the family and the wider tribe, and here we are, still using fundamentally the same methods, give or take a few new colours and a refinement or two. Through the Bronze and Iron Ages, when axes and swords were developed to take an ever sharper edge, the humble felt proved not only useful in keeping out the cold and the rain, but provided protection against the new weapons in the shape of shin and arm pads, body armour, tunics, boots and socks that were strong and durable. The garments were made using a process called wet-felting, still in use today. Tufts of wool fibre are pulled by hand and overlapped in horizontal and vertical layers till the required thickness is reached. They are then agitated with hot soapy water and rubbed till the scales of each fibre loosen and start to knit with their neighbours. The work is then rolled to allow the fibres to entangle further till they form a non-woven fabric which strengthens further as it shrinks during the process. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that Babylonians were making soap from fats boiled with ashes around 2800 B.C. As soap is such an essential part of this ancient process, it is interesting to speculate at what point did it first appear in the hands of the early felt makers? Perhaps well before the Babylonians? But that is the thing with felting; while your hands are busy working, you mind is left free to wonder and get inspired. The creative possibilities are endless as you begin to combine colours and textures to produce your own unique pieces. The first time I thought of adding perspective to my work I realised I was painting with wool.
After studying forest sciences at Helsinki University, I left my native Finland in the early eighties and made my home on the west coast of Scotland. Over the years I have turned my hand to all manner of things from winkle picking to porcelain painting to forest surveys and academic translations. But always, looping in and out of these practical threads of my life have been other, more ephemeral strands that have been seeking expression and in the natural medium of wool fibres I have found a way of weaving a web to capture them. Like life mashing and melding the strands of our being into one unique individual, soap, hot water and friction felt wool fibres into a finished piece that takes on a life of its own. In felt making, as in life, there are as many failures - and then some - as there are successes, but when things work out, it seems nothing short of a miracle that, out a few layers of fluff, something inherently strong is born, be it a cobweb slip of a scarf, or a part of body armour dense enough to stop an arrow. It needs skill, a modicum of luck, and a sprinkling of magic. The first can be learned and worked at, the second might follow more and more often as you begin to shorten the odds, but magic can be neither coaxed nor commanded and that is what humbles this felt maker into fingering a fresh batch of wool tops and hoping that maybe this time...please...
Since my childhood in Finland, and now as I explore the extensive forests of Argyll, trees have always been close to my heart. It is the peace and solitude of the woods that provide inspiration for much of my work. I soak up their moods and colours as season follows season and life sprouts and blossoms and glows before subduing into slumber at the close of the year and see how they might be given expression in the natural medium of wool.