Artist: Sheila Thompson of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Interview 75: Sheila exhibited in the major 2012 World of Threads Festival exhibition De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) at Joshua Creek Heritage Art Centre in Oakville, Ontario.
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Interviews published by Gareth Bate & Dawne Rudman.
Biography
Sheila Thompson is a Toronto-based felt artist, researcher, and at heart a biogeographer. Sheila was trained as a tropical plant biogeographer/ecologist (Ph.D. 1984), and in 2004 she began her self-guided journey to express herself artistically in fibre art. In the intervening years she worked at IBM in market intelligence. Her art carries her back to her days as a scientist and evokes memories of the fields and foothills in Canada, Africa and the Caribbean where she worked.
Sheila’s medium is fine wool and silk felt created using the wet felting method exclusively. She has developed a distinct original style through extensive experimentation that draws on her scientific interpretation of landscapes as layers of pattern, process, landform and habitat. The use of strong colours, intricate surface detail, silk finishes and the incorporation of unusual organic materials, paper and Japanese fibres are characteristic of her work. She creates abstract landscapes of fields and foothills, urban landscapes of bus stops and sidewalks, 3-D middens and explorations of the many styles of writing using bark and quills.
Her work is mainly in private collections in Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and the United States.
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Artist: Sheila Thompson, photo: Felicity Somerset |
Tell us about your work?
My work is not hard to explain to fellow fibre or felt artists, although to the community at large it is something of a mystery. I use the wet felting method to create art while simultaneously creating a textile – felt. I draw heavily on my past experience as a tropical plant geographer in the Caribbean and Africa to inform my subject matter and approach. My knowledge of habitats and plants, patterns and process guides my hand as I layer wool roving, silk, myriad fibres and organic materials to create my feltings. From a distance my work looks like painting and has happily surprised many a visitor who suddenly realizes they are looking at a piece of textile art.
I am something of a purist in making my art. I want to be able to produce the final art piece without sewing, gluing or doing other post production enhancements – this can be challenging when working with large pieces of bark or heavier objects.
My work frequently explores the boundaries or interfaces between different physical spaces – earth / sky, land / water, forest / prairie, geologic boundaries, climatic gradations and so on. I also explore how to bring alive other places that we often take for granted – for example, the bus stop, the sidewalks downtown, or the weedy field in a vacant lot. I often use an aerial perspective because I think the aerial perspective is very revealing of broader relationships between things.
I created a line of middens (the ancient kitchen garbage dump) in 2010. These minor landscape features are hard to find, yet hold a wealth of information about past civilizations. I imagined what these little landscapes might look like.
I am experimenting now with ways to incorporate overt analytic elements printed on textile or paper, as well as making ever-larger pieces, without having to rent a camel for the felting part.
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Remnants of Grassland, 2012, 48Hx24Wx3D inches mounted on silk covered canvas. Merino wool, silk roving, linen paper yarn, Tsumugi silk yarn, papyrus, silk rope, spun wool and silk fibres, embedded organics – cherry bark, silk wrapped jasmine dragon pearl tea leaves. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting, photo: Steven Crainford
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From where do you get your inspiration?
I spent many years walking through all manner of vegetation trying to figure out what factors influence the distribution of plants. My landscapes are imperfect memories of places I have visited, explored, studied. I draw inspiration from my geographic and ecological research and travel in Africa, the Caribbean and Canada.
I am fascinated by the patterns of colour and form you see from airplanes and satellites. My geographic and then business research took me around the world, so I have had many opportunities to see different landscapes from the air. I like to create abstract landscapes that are subtle, soothing and places to reflect. I often take the pattern of macro-topography and shrink it to become the micro-topography of a small surface.
Fibres themselves are inspirational. Japan's organic fibre and textiles in particular have so many beautiful textures to drawn from and show such invention with silk, linen, unusual papers and subtle colours. Weedy fields come alive with rows of silks, linens and cocoons. Western Canada foothills carry the essence of canola crops and hay in their silk lines; the shadows of clouds are sensed from the dark of alpaca wool.
Leaf skeletons, barks, lichens, grasses, fruits, tea leaves and nut are also a source of inspiration and become part of the story of the felt. Bark becomes a tree standing against a red silk sky. Leaf skeletons simulate outcrops. Grey termite mound landscapes in Zambia are reborn with bright layers of wool, fibres and jasmine dragon pearl tea leaves wrapped with silk.
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Smoky Hill, 24 H x 24W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, cashmere yarn, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, synthetic yarn, silk rope, alpaca roving, embedded organics – alder leaves. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting, photo: Shawna Eberle |
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Smoky Hill (Detail), 24 H x 24W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, cashmere yarn, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, synthetic yarn, silk rope, alpaca roving, embedded organics – alder leaves. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting, photo: Shawna Eberle |
What specific historic artists have influenced your work?
I think the influences must have been subconscious since I almost avoided looking at art when I was trying to find my own path so as not to be unduly influenced. I love the work of Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris for its capture of light. Gustav Klimt's vibrant colours and patterns are fascinating. I am drawn to the skies in Van Gogh's work and in my youth visited his museum in Amsterdam. Kandinsky's work and analysis of his art is fascinating. I really relate to these ideas of colour.
"The constantly changing grades of tonality and tempo of the sounds wind themselves about us, rise spirally and, suddenly, collapse. Likewise, the movements envelop us by a play of horizontal and vertical lines bending in different directions, as colour patches pile up dissolve into high or low tonalities." (Point and Line to Plane)
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Field: Take a Note, 2011, 36 H x 22W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, cricula silk yarn, cricula cocoons, copper wire, pineapple bark yarn, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, synthetic yarn, knitted synthetic yarn, embedded organics – birch bark and appended African porcupine quill. technique: handmade felt – wet felting, photo: Shawna Eberle |
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Field: Take a Note (Detail), 2011, 36 H x 22W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, cricula silk yarn, cricula cocoons, copper wire, pineapple bark yarn, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, synthetic yarn, knitted synthetic yarn, embedded organics – birch bark and appended African porcupine quill. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting, photo: Shawna Eberle |
What specific contemporary artists have influenced your work?
El Anatsui of Ghana is an inspiration to me rather than an influence. I was well along in my artistic development but now that I have seen his work, I am full of admiration for the way he instills fluidity of motion and intensity of colour and pattern into his metal 'textiles". I identify strongly with his originality and his subjects such as the market installation. He inspires me to figure out how to make enormous pieces and to think about unconventional approaches to art.
His advice below resonates with me.
• Pull from your personal history for inspiration
• Look to your environment for materials and give them the opportunity to be more than just humble fragments
• Travel when you can and bring all your experiences to bear on your work
• Allow for the possibility of chance—something new and wonderful may come of it
(From El Anatsui: When I last wrote to you about Africa – Educator's Guide by Erica Gee, Museum for African Art, New York.)
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Tree in Bloom IV (Detail), 30 H x 9W x 1 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, synthetic yarn, silk rope , embedded organics – dried hydrangea flowers. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting, photo: Rod Trider |
What other fibre artists are you interested in?
I am interested in a lot of quilters and weavers. I admire their stamina as they unfold their visions. I admire the ability to piece together from strands and pieces of scrap a complex pattern.
One of the first felt artists I became familiar with was Japan based Jorie Johnson. I realized how beautiful felt work could be and aspired to continue practicing my skills.
Rosie Godbout's (Quebec) work is also stellar – rich colour combinations, great style.
I love the work of Japanese quilter Yoshiko Jinzenji – so clean, exquisite detail and bursts of colour. I love her scientific approach of engineering the quilt at the very beginning by dying and weaving the fabric for the quilt. Felting is a bit like that – you need to work out how you want the final piece to look like as you layer and make accommodations for mixing colours and establishing textures. If I weren't a felter, I would take up quilting!
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Journaling the Vines, 2010, 36 H x 22W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, cricula silk yarn, throwster's waste, alpaca fibre, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, synthetic yarn, knitted synthetic yarn, embedded organics – birch bark, grape vine tendrils, hydrangea flowers, cricula cocoons and appended African porcupine quill. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting. photo: Shawna Eberle |
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Journaling the Vines (Detail), 2010, 36 H x 22W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, cricula silk yarn, throwster's waste, alpaca fibre, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, synthetic yarn, knitted synthetic yarn, embedded organics – birch bark, grape vine tendrils, hydrangea flowers, cricula cocoons and appended African porcupine quill. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting. photo: Shawna Eberle |
Why did you choose to go into fibre art?
In the 90s I began to make some children's art pieces, ostensibly for my children's amusement, using commercial felt and many African fabric pieces I had acquired in Zambia and elsewhere. The pictures were of African village scenes depicting family members going about their business of cooking, teaching, fishing, farming, playing music, dancing or crafting.
Commercial wool felt was becoming hard to find and I found limited my vision, so I decided to learn how to make the felt myself and from there evolved my current skills and artistic direction.
Making felt gives me the capacity to explore some of the depth and meaning of my past experiences – with the landscape, with trees, with weeds by reconstructing the layers of the land.
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Lighthouse, 2011, 19 H x 14W x 1 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, alpaca roving, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, embedded, organics – birch bark, hydrangea bark, cherry bark. Technique: Handmade, felt – wet felting. Photo: Rod Trider |
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Detail: Lighthouse, 2011, 19 H x 14W x 1 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, alpaca roving, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, embedded organics – birch bark, hydrangea bark, cherry bark. Technique: Handmade felt – wet felting. Photo: Rod Trider |
What other mediums do you work in, and how does this inform your fibre work?
I really only work with felt from an artistic perspective. Although I know how to sew, dye fibres and all of that I don't want to go too far back in the supply chain to create my own materials. For me the fun is in the design of the piece and in searching for the right fibres, objects and colours to combine.
Which is your favourite fibre medium?
Felt is my favourite medium. I just love the alchemy of the process and the secrets between each layer. I love that you can make felt gossamer thin or thick as a plank. Felt is very versatile - varying the type of wool, fibre and silk gives the final piece a completely different look and feel.
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Toward the Rockies, 2010, 24Hx62Wx1D inches framed. Mounted on silk. Merino wool, silk roving, throwster's waste silk, Tsumugi wrapped silk yarn, alpaca fibre, linen yarn, handspun cricula silk, silk fibre, wool fibre, embedded organics: hemp bark, sweet grass, catalpa pods, cricula cocoons, silk wrapped jasmine dragon pearl tea leaves. Technique: handmade felt-wet felting, photo: Shawna Eberle |
What role do you think fibre art plays in contemporary art?
Fibre art probably is under appreciated in general but deserves to be more prominent. I am fortunate in spending a lot of time at the Textile Museum of Canada where textile rules. Textiles are so linked to our daily lives that fibre art feels accessible, it feels within our ability to create and I think that is really important. Maybe it is that very accessibility that some see as taking away from its value as art and why we have to have the crafter / art debate constantly.
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Desertification, 9/2009, 17.5 H x 27 W x 0.5 D inches, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, linen yarn, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, embedded organics – birch bark, silk wrapped jasmine dragon pearl tea leaves, catalpa pod. Technique: handmade felt – wet felting. photo: Rod Trider |
Can you talk a bit about the commercial viability of fibre art and do you find it more difficult to show and sell your work than non-fibre artists?
Fibre art as fine art is often a tough sell – a niche within a niche. There is too often a dialog about the practicalities of longevity, dust, and cleaning that can get in the way of appreciating the work as art. Note these negatives that don't seem to be part of the discussion painters have!
I often find that its value increases the more you explain the process of its creation and people realize that "painting" with wool or silks requires at least as much skill as painting with paint.
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Freedom Writer, 2011, 14 H x 15.5W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, silk roving, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, embedded organics – birch bark and an appended African porcupine quill. Technique: Handmade felt – wet felting. Photo Rod Trider |
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Detail: Freedom Writer, 2011, 14 H x 15.5W x 3 D inches, Merino wool, silk roving, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, embedded organics – birch bark and an appended African porcupine quill. Technique: Handmade felt – wet felting. Photo Rod Trider |
What is your philosophy about the Art that you create?
I feel a deep connection to place, based on the many hours I spent doing field work and analysis of plant distributions in many different geographies. The natural environment holds so much knowledge and beauty that I am in awe of even the most humble landscapes. My work is about the meeting of two minds – the science and the art. The materials are key elements in conveying the subtle variations of surface form and texture evident in the land and the additions of organic matter and use of natural fibres grounds my work. I am in my mind – felting the land.
I do try to keep a sense of humour about all of this however and am not above felting in a condom wrapper to convey the presence of man.
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Horizon, 2011,30 H x 9W x 1 D inches, Merino wool, silk roving, wrapped Tsumugi silk yarn, cricula silk yarn, linen yarn, synthetic yarn, embedded organics – hemp bark, sweet grass, dried hydrangea flowers. Technique: Handmade felt – wet felting. Photo: Shawna Eberle |
When did you first discover your creative talents?
Although I knew I was creative in my approach to work and academia, sewing or cooking for example, I didn't see myself as able to create art until a few years ago, because I did not have any obvious art skills in the traditional sense e.g. the ability to draw.
Please explain how you developed your own style.
Experiment, experiment, experiment! I learned how to make simple felt first, then kept adding challenges – how thin could it be, what would happen if I used different wool, how can organic materials be included, how can I make the felting process less labourious and so on. I had images in my head but it took some time to be able to become skilled enough to bring them out and to collect all the fibres, colours, bits and pieces of organics to create more complex pieces and to figure out how to create the delicate soft look of the surface.
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Termite Mounds reconceptualized, 2010,36 H x 24W x 3 D inches - framed, Merino wool, throwsters waste silk, silk roving, synthetic yarn, cricula, cocoons, silk yarn, embedded organics – peacock feather, birch bark. Technique: Handmade felt – wet felting. Photo: Shawna Eberle |
How does your early work differ from what you are doing now?
I used to make mainly tree images – mostly trees running to be precise. These depicted fanciful ideas about trees as witnesses to the degradation of the environment – wishing to run away, or protest or assert their role in providing aromatic healing oils or good air. The trees were always on white backgrounds.
My later work is much more colourful overall and I practically never use white except in a wispy mohair cloud. As I became more confident, I not only tried different fibres and organics but I moved onto abstract landscapes in tune with my field experiences. I then started to explore other concepts like the birch bark / African porcupine quill writers' series that used just two main elements. The creation of the middens was an attempt to encapsulate a small landscape element in a small piece of art.
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Midden, 2010, 6Hx6Wx3D inches framed, Merino wool, silk roving, handspun cricula silk, Technique: Handmade felt-wet felting. Photo credit: Shawna Eberle. |
Have you experienced fluctuations in your productivity and how have your expectations changed through the years?
Work pressures mostly drive fluctuations in productivity. Every few months I have a creative surge during which I experiment, read, sketch and think about new ideas and directions. Then I create furiously.
I expect more of myself now than I did in the early years. I try not to disappoint myself, but the outcomes are much more predicable now than they were in the beginning!
What project has given you the most satisfaction and why?
My latest project has been fulfilling and creatively very challenging. I made three large felts that connect me to some of my favourite places and to fond memories of driving with my brother who was a photographer. The Remnants of Grasslands is a memory of Grasslands National Park and the other two Highwood and Fences and Hay are memories of the foothills and mountains south of Calgary where I grew up. I experimented extensively with these pieces in constructing the hills and fields, adding 3-D elements, working out outlining techniques and playing with some different colour combinations. I embedded linen paper, steel threads, barks and new leaf skeletons. I also wanted to see how large a piece I could felt solo.
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Sheila in her garden, wetting down the finished design in preparation for felting |
Tell us about your studio and how you work:
My studio is in our house in one of our upstairs bedrooms. It's only about 9' x 9' but I have tried to make it very organized with everything at hand. I have shelves of organic materials, shoe cubbies full of wool and silk and lots of hooks to hang the wools and fibres that I would use during a given design.
I roughly sketch a fair bit or write down ideas about colours, subjects, and textures in various notebooks. I also try to write down the new things I have learned when making something i.e. how to do a certain texture, mix wools for a certain colour, what colours jar, what techniques might be used to soften a bark, how many times I need to roll the work, what fibres I used for what texture and so on.
I set up my design on a big table, blocking in the larger elements in the first couple of layers and pulling in colours from my stock that work together. I free flow "paint" with the wool, layering and positioning in organic materials and fibres as I go. I build in the geological structure or in a field the contours and ridges. My final touches use fine gossamer layers of silk to give the piece a sheen. I do a fair bit of fiddling at this stage because once it is felted it cannot be undone! I often lay larger pieces on the floor and look at it from my stairs or a chair to check the perspective and overall design since I cannot stand it up at the unfelted stage.
Once I am happy with the design I take the piece to my backyard for felting. I work all year out there as long as the temperature is above -30 C – more for the sake of my hands than the felting. I wet down the piece with hot soapy water – usually smelling of lavender and roll the piece in a bamboo mat several hundred times. I probably break all the felting rules but this works for me. The finishing is rinsing, hanging to dry then steam ironing.
I like to present my work as framed art either stitching it onto cloth covered wood or canvas or attaching it to a silk mat board then it is custom framed. I have also started mounting pieces on stainless steel and in glass boxes.
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Sheila's studio, showing the cubbies that hold her organics, shoe storage boxes holding rovings. On the wall, Bus Stop and a one of her trees. |
How did you initially start showing your work in galleries?
I started showing with the local Toronto Beach Studio Tour in 2006 and due to work time constraints showed few other places until late 2010 when I started to work part-time. I have been in other multi-artist shows such as the Moose Show, One of a Kind Christmas Show 2011 and the Riverdale Art Walk. I am a regular in the Ontario Craft Council Guild shop and have had work in a couple of galleries in Western Canada.
Where do you imagine your work in five years?
I would like to work in a collective with other artists on really large projects for public spaces – to be part of a whole. I am looking into collaborating with a glass or metal artist or ceramist to create more sculptural pieces - again exploring those interface concepts. I hope to be providing art to organizations that work on sustainable development.
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Sheila's studio, showing an assortment of fibres which she uses in the creation of her felts. |
Is there something else you would like us to know about you or your work that we have not covered?
I am a supporter of community based art initiatives. I am committed to organizations that are artist collectives or networks; especially those with a view to helping artists realize their potential. It is very difficult for artists who are self-taught or don't have strong links to art schools to make headway. I think it is important for artists to work together for their common good and to enrich one another's art. To this end I chaired a Toronto studio tour for several years beginning in 2006, participate on the board of a Toronto artist's network, and work on the Volunteer Association of the Textile Museum of Canada.
What interests you about the World of Threads Festival?
The fact of the international nature of the festival in a Canadian setting is a very good stimulus for local fibre artists. I think it's great to have an exhibition of fibre art in a significant city so that many people can see how diverse and beautiful fibre art is and come to appreciate its unique qualities.
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Interviews published by Gareth Bate & Dawne Rudman.