Harmonious Whole
(Spring-Summer 2021)
Industrial pre-felt, embroidery thread (approx 9”x 7” x 5”), McIntosh apple tree
The words “harmonious whole” were stitched into a ribbon of felt, which resembled a length of soft bandage. This was then wound around thin, finger-like branches of the tree and sutured together and into the stems.
This work was made in response to a socially engaged project I facilitated during the pandemic, where I received digital submissions of stories related to treasured textiles. I wanted to expand the intimate exchange I found myself having with the writing that was shared during the project. I had been contemplating what the phrase ‘harmonious whole’ from one submission meant to me in the context of the rural land that I had started inhabiting and learning from. I was compelled to engage with a lone McIntosh apple tree that lives on that land and is estimated by a local arborist to be around 100 years old. For me, felt was the perfect mediator for the interaction with the tree.
I situated the work at the end of a cluster of slim, finger-like branches of the McIntosh tree in the hope that over time they would massage the pre-felt into felt as they moved with the elements. As such, I anticipated that the phrase, which was once legible to an English speaker, would became warped and abstracted. As the pre-felt transformed into felt, legible words would become encoded and transmuted into a borderless communication. The resulting asemic writing is linked to the underlying intent of Woven Stories as a co-creation. Similarly, the process of felting became a co-creation with nature.
I had no other expectation of what would eventuate and detaching from the initial labour of making to becoming a curious observer was as much a part of the process. The following images document some of my observations of the life of the form. Further documentation made at the time can be found @ange.f.mc
