Welcome to the feltlikeit website! 'Feltlikeit' was set up in 2008 as a label for my own predominantly felt based textile work. I have over 16 years of experience as a practitioner and tutor and have run workshops and courses for all ages and abilities.  

 

Themes, ideas & the creative process 
 

I get inspired by objects and am interested in our relationship to objects, how they are used and the context in which we view them. Sentiment and nostalgia sometimes play a big part in my work, either through a personal attachment to the objects, or a narrative that may be developed. 

 

The visual aesthetic of the objects I work with is really important and with the felt 'shoe' pieces, which are based on my children's first shoes that I had kept as momentos, I was particularly interested in their embellishments and structural parts. These pieces took on a personality and character that evolved into vessels and later developed into a series of Russian doll like figures.   

 

The work based on lace was partly taken from my experience of working at Cecil Higgins Art Gallery where I would frequently see examples of Bedfordshire Lace. The lace work, based on a fragment of found lace, plays with scale and the aesthetic qualities of the original scrap of fabric. I was also partly inspired by the V&A Museum's collection of ironwork and the paper cut-outs of Hans Christian Andersen. The similar aesthetics these all have, albeit on different scales, and the tonal contrasts have all contributed to each pieces development.

 

I often start the creative process with photographs, the objects themselves and sketches. I see this stage as 'ideas research' and it often involves revisiting existing work or developing unresolved pieces. I have a background in fine art painting and particularly enjoy working with charcoal, graphite, inks and oil paint. I always work with the materials that are most appropriate to the imagery and my ideas - sometimes I will explore a theme in different ways.

 

A series of pieces I made that started with a photograph of myself as a child holding an ice-cream evolved in several ways and is still ongoing. The main focus for me was the ice cream I am holding. As I often find it interesting to make relationships between objects and imagery and creating narratives, a chance find of an ornament of a boy with an ice cream became the theme for this particular series of works. The images below show the theme developing as mixed media (laser etched, embroidery and oil paint) pieces as well as felt pieces (laser cut felt with embroidery)

 

Currently I am revisiting a sketchbook of drawings of figurines and glass pieces that I made whilst invigilating at Cecil Higgins Art Gallery. These are being developed into a series of textile pieces under the working title of 'Inside the Gallery - conversation pieces'. I am designing some new pieces and instructions for an exciting e-book venture with 12 other textile artists which should be available from June and I am also developing some new felt kits that will be available to purchase in the shop as well as some new exciting 3D felt figures...

 

       

 

         

 

 

 I hope you enjoy looking at my work - Jo

 

   

 Images of my work, text and videos are protected by a Creative Commons license. Images, text and videos can be used and you can share them with others as long as you credit me, but they can't be changed in any way or used commercially.