hung from the ceilings like waves in places and like stalactites in
others. Included in the installation were ottomans called
Sushi Furni-
ture
made of her white felt wrapped in a black (nori-like) band with
a splash of color in the middle. She also made felted curtains, projec-
tion screens, stage curtains and interior tents to transform the bar
in a whimsical Cirque du Soleil style.
Arnold is essentially self-taught in the art of felting large sheets.
She’d worked in advertising and photography for Nordstrom in the
days before stylists. She eventually left the company to establish
her own business, working as a consultant on store window displays.
In the fall of 1999, Nordstrom requested large garment-inspired
sculptures in fall colors—deep aubergines, mustards and rubies. Ar-
nold was looking for texture and color that seemed “alive,” but was
dissatisfied with the palettes of industrially made felts, so she set
out to learn how to make felts herself. A friend who made small
pieces taught her the process and told her where to source wool,
but then she was on her own. On a trip to New Hampshire, where
she had a crash course in wool, Arnold purchased hundreds of
pounds of fleece dyed in the colors she needed. “I embarked on this
journey of how to make felt, and no one in this country knew how
to make these giant sheets. In this first project I made over 1,200
square yards of handmade felt.”
Arnold is currently experimenting to develop new felt fabrics
for a permanent installation in the New York offices of K PFF,
a firm of consulting structural engineers that was responsible for
installing the wooden frame for the
Palace Turt
at the Cooper-
Hewitt. “When the
k p f f
people saw my fabrics and the pattern
and texture, they were really drawn to that quality because it is a re-
spite from the world they work in,” she says. The pieces will add
color and texture to the office as well as sound abatement for the
5,000 square feet of concrete and glass. The largest piece for
k p f f
will be a qo-by-ll-foot site-specific, highly textured wall covering.
Arnold estimates she’ll make up to 40 samples that incorporate dif-
ferent colored wools and pieces of silk, muslin and burlap before
choosing at least four that will be well suited to the project. “Mis-
takes guide me—materials guide this process,” she says.
While her work is akin to that of Dutch designer Claudy Jongstra
fclaudyiongstra.comj, who uses natural dyes and often wool from
her own sheep, Arnold differs from many other artists working
with felt because of her interest in organic shapes and the fiber’s
natural tendency to form irregular textures. She doesn’t follow the
lineage of artists such as Joan Livingstone, whose resin-fortified
felt sculptures of the 1990s only subtly resembled the fabric’s tex-
ture, or Robert Morris, who was more interested in symmetry
and the draping of industrially produced, uniformly textured felts
in his 1970s works.
Arnold’s ambitious projects reflect her intrepid imagination and
determination to surmount obstacles artistic and logistic while
remaining focused on texture. “We need relief from an organized
sense of the world,” she says. “Life is a balance between organiza-
tion and chaos, and it’s the same with texture. It’s so basic to our
well-being.”
Elizabeth Lopeman is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Portland,
OR, and teaches writing at Portland State University.
Sheet«? of felt bundled
for the “fulling” phase
being dragged by a camel
on the Mongolian plains.
iafelt.com
Forming Felt
Felt may have been made as early as 9,coo
years ago. It’s the oldest textile known to
humans, and the process remains the same,
requiring only wool, moisture and agita-
tion. Textiles are thought to be fragile and
impermanent, but felt is durable and impen-
etrable to moisture and wind. The tight
masses of fibers and the natural lanolin oils
repel rain and snow and can stand up to the
harsh conditions of Central Asia, including
long stretches of below-zero temperatures.
Seventy percent of Mongolians still live in
yurts and make felt. “People are bom in felt,
they live in felt, and they die in felt. They’re
wrapped in felt when they’re buried,” ex-
plains Arnold, who has traveled to Central
Asia on several felting missions.
Like the Mongols and the felt makers of
Kyrgyzstan, Arnold lays out wool fibers in
layered sheets, which she calls lay-ups. She
incorporates other fibers and fabrics to add
texture and then wets the lay-up with warm
water, which encourages shingle-like struc-
tures in the wool fiber to flare, predisposing
them to tangle. A touch of dish soap aids the
process. The sheets are rolled into cylindri-
cal bundles for the “fulling” phase, in which
agitation encourages the fibers to bind.
Central Asians frequently drag rolls behind
horses or camels, or kick them down roads.
Though Arnold initially dragged rolls be-
hind her car and even had her son drag one
behind a bicycle, she now has an electric
roller. She makes the dry lay-ups inside an
old school where she and her husband, an
electronics designer, have studios, and then
carries them outside to wet them and to put
them into the roller. Felts may shrink up to
40 percent during processing.— E.L.
www.journal-plaza.net & www.freedowns.net
fcb/mar 10 american craft 045
