Needle-Felted Fiber Art Inspired by the Forest Floor

Har­mo­ny

I start­ed writ­ing a newslet­ter this year! Every Fri­day, I pub­lish Orts: Threads of Cre­ativ­i­ty. Through it, I col­lect and share small snip­pets of cre­ativ­i­ty: embroi­der­ers, tex­tile artists, illus­tra­tors, DIY projects, and how we can make time for our cre­ative endeav­ors. The name was inspired by orts—aka the thread trim­mings you’ll have when embroi­der­ing and sewing.

One facet of Orts is a series called One Per­son, One Project, which explores an artist’s work via a sin­gle project. Fiber artist Amy Read­er cre­ates nature-inspired work that is col­or­ful and joy­ful. Her pieces incor­po­rate nee­dle-felt­ing and oth­er tex­tile art tech­niques. In a recent edi­tion of Orts, she dis­cussed her work hav­ing to do with “moss, lichen, and fun­gi-filled world of the for­est floor,” and what it all means to her. I’m now pub­lish­ing it here. If you’d like to get Orts when it’s pub­lished, sub­scribe here!

Amy has a bustling online com­mu­ni­ty—and a Patre­on—and is one of the artists fea­tured in my upcom­ing book, Threads of Trea­sure: How to make, mend, and find mean­ing through thread. Read more about the book here.

Learn about artist Amy Reader’s fiber artwork inspired by the forest floor.

The project ele­va­tor pitch:

[Amy Read­er] I’m devel­op­ing a col­lec­tion of dimen­sion­al wool paint­ings inspired by mush­rooms, the for­est floor, and the con­nec­tiv­i­ty of nature. My work inter­prets how my brain process­es dif­fer­ent col­ors and tex­tures found in nature and con­nects them to my expe­ri­ence of joy as an autis­tic artist.

What was the inspi­ra­tion for the project?

Last year, I cre­at­ed an entire col­lec­tion of work for a solo exhi­bi­tion; dur­ing that time, I made a trip­tych called The For­est Floor Trio. That series of three was filled with my inter­pre­ta­tion of the dif­fer­ent tex­tures and col­ors of the for­est floor and how they feel to my brain. I remem­ber think­ing to myself after I fin­ished those three that I could make one hun­dred more based on the same idea. How­ev­er, that did not fit in with the plan for that par­tic­u­lar show. Now that I have the time, I’m revis­it­ing the moss, lichen, and fun­gi-filled world of the for­est floor. I’ve long looked to these organ­isms as one com­po­nent of inspi­ra­tion among many. With the work I’m doing now, I’m nar­row­ing in on what is still an incred­i­bly vast, inter­con­nect­ed ecosys­tem that many of us rarely see in our day-to-day lives.

When­ev­er I make a new piece, I scroll through my men­tal index of all of my dif­fer­ent encoun­ters with nature that brought me joy. For me, joy is an intense, vis­cer­al feel­ing that is hard to com­mu­ni­cate in words. Col­ors feel more vibrant, details feel larg­er, and I can hold those moments in my mind’s eye, spin them around, and zoom in on dif­fer­ent parts. I can still hear the birds, feel the moss beneath my feet, and relive these moments. The best way I have to trans­late that mem­o­ry is through my art and aim­ing to cap­ture the tech­ni­col­or sen­sa­tion that is my own experience.

Har­mo­ny (detail)

I used to joke that I felt as though I real­ly belonged in the trees. As I’ve become old­er, I real­ize how much that feels true to me. Because of my autism, the world is typ­i­cal­ly over­whelm­ing to me. It bom­bards all of my sens­es, and it is exhaust­ing to exist in most spaces. In the for­est, I can breathe ful­ly. I feel so deeply con­nect­ed to our nat­ur­al world and have always sought respite there. I’m bring­ing that sense of con­nect­ed­ness into my stu­dio prac­tice through this work.

Sym­pho­ny

Sym­pho­ny (detail)

What mate­ri­als and meth­ods are you using in mak­ing it?

Most of my work right now involves nee­dle felt­ing. I’m enjoy­ing treat­ing wool like I used to treat paint. I also use embroi­dery and bead­ing to add tex­ture and depth to many of my pieces. The major­i­ty of my work is backed on either felt or cot­ton. I’ve been exper­i­ment­ing with build­ing out larg­er shapes with dif­fer­ent infra­struc­tures and using wool felt with rov­ing felt­ed on top to add dimen­sion while retain­ing stability.

What obsta­cles are you fac­ing with the project?

[My hus­band and I] moved cross coun­try from Port­land, OR, to Asheville, NC, at the end of 2023 to be clos­er to our fam­i­lies. I’m final­ly at a place where I do have a func­tion­al stu­dio, but there is still work to be done. I have strug­gled to bal­ance the last 10–15% of unpack­ing with my desire to make new work. That usu­al­ly looks like I can either unpack or make work dur­ing the day, but not both. There are untouched box­es under my table and still in my clos­et. I am also set­tling into a new space and rou­tine, so I am feel­ing how hard it is to be dis­con­nect­ed from my local artist com­mu­ni­ty. Asheville is a beau­ti­ful, vibrant city filled with artists, and it has been hard to moti­vate myself to go out and engage in the com­mu­ni­ty while we are still unpacking.

Eupho­ny

Eupho­ny (detail)

What are you learn­ing from it that will help in future projects?

Fram­ing! I have long strug­gled with the best way to frame my pieces. All of my fiber work until this col­lec­tion has been cir­cu­lar and framed in some sort of wood­en cir­cle. These are the first pieces I’ve framed in con­ven­tion­al rec­tan­gu­lar and square frames. It felt almost ille­gal to my art prac­tice to devi­ate from my beloved cir­cles, but it has been so delight­ful instead. I’ve learned how to make con­ven­tion­al frames work for my dimen­sion­al fiber pieces! I feel like I’m con­tin­u­ing to unlock new ways to show my work in its best light, and I love it.

Aria

Aria (detail)