The annual Whangamata Arts exhibition is held in early January, a great time to take advantage of the holiday makers and tourists which flock to the beachside resort each summer.
As a first time entrant, I was the winner of both the Fibre Art Award and the Supreme Award at this year's exhibition, which drew over 80 entries in five categories: Art, Fibre Art, Sculpture, Pottery, and Woodcraft & Carving.
On a whim I had decided to enter a felt jacket in the Fibre Art section. Having won the Williams and Kettle Award at the 2002 Creative Fibre Exhibition, with an original design hand-dyed and hand knitted coat, I knew that to achieve recognition my entry would have to be unique, demonstrate skill with my chosen technique and show attention to detail. So with just an idea in my head, and no experience in felting something that size, I sent off my entry form.
As many people know, there's nothing more motivating than a deadline. Once it was sent, [she had set] my work really began. Up until then I had only been experimenting with various embellishing techniques while felting samples using sliver I had dyed a blue-grey. With helpful comments from my husband and two teenage sons like, 'that one looks like a nipple to me' (a quick rejection of that sample), as well as colour advice from my parents, I finally arrived at a design and method I liked.
For me, December was perhaps not the best time to start such an ambitious project. Family life, the running of a household and my job at the local school working both in the library and with special needs children all took great slices of my time. Then, of course there were Christmas preparations and festivities…
But with that deadline constantly in the back of my mind, I dyed, felted, embellished, made a pattern, cut, pinned, sewed…then pinned and sewed some more. At times I felt a little despondent, as my work in progress didn't always resemble what I had in mind, but I never lost sight of my original idea, and each hour I spent creating got me closer to that vision.
Even after many years of working with fibre I am constantly amazed at the endless creative possibilities it offers. Beginning felting two years ago opened up a whole new world of fibre creativity for me, with each new discovery opening up even more possibilities. I wanted to show some of these qualities in my work. I wanted my jacket to look handmade and not mass-produced, so designed the jacket to show the beautiful raw edges of the felt. I wanted to show layers of felt, so cut clusters of crosses into the felt as I was making it, then sewed another layer of the palest of pink, lavender and silver silk overlaid felt under each cross. During the final stages of the jacket I also sewed small squares of this silk embellished felt among the crosses to add another layer. I wanted a surprise element, so one cluster of crosses with a bright pink silk overlay felt behind them saw to that. And, I wanted it to be comfortably wearable.
My long-suffering family, who are used to wool everywhere, never commented on the dining table constantly covered in pieces of felt, nor complained whenever I asked them what they thought. They didn't mind the state of the family room, with the table tennis table covered in my felt pieces and pins all over the floor. I like to think they, too, had started to see the evolving of my idea.
The end result was just as I had imagined, and I had a sense of satisfaction. I sent it off with a feeling that I had done my best.
And the reward was well worth it.
Juanita Meder lives on a 1 hectare lifestyle block at Pahoia, outside Tauranga, with her husband, two teenage sons, 8 chickens, 1 rooster, two cats and two rats! They grow lots of vegetables and fruit and have 160 macadamia nut trees.
