P L E N T Y SUMMER 2019 Plenty Summer 2019-joomag copy | Page 30

Bev’s felting studio, a reimaginged horse barn, is cradled in a nurturing landscape of rolling pastures and big skies. Impres- sions from the colors and textures of the land naturally find their way into Bev’s earthy designs. seemed to make sense: they had plenty of pastureland, and sheep would be less of an undertaking than cattle. They chose to breed sheep for their meat. Unfortunately, their flock was picked off one by one over time. The culprit: a large neighborhood dog. And even after his surreptitious forays on the farm were uncovered and his owners moved away, Bev found raising sheep for meat too difficult to go on. So, they rethought farm reality once again and began instead to raise sheep for their wool. And with that, came Bev’s opportunity to make things. “I was self taught. In the beginning I learned to spin. I had yarn from the wool, so I bought a loom and stared to weave, ” says Bev. Looking around for pos- sible classes to expand her education in the woolly arts was the next step. Most classes involved long drives away from the farm, but one sounded inter- esting and was relatively close by in Poolesville. “A study group there was exploring the art and process of felting, which I knew noth- ing about,“ recalls Bev. “After joining the group, I was smitten.” Her creative fire ignited, Bev became almost 30 PLENTY I SUMMER GROWING 2019 solely focused on nuno felting. It was a wonderfully prag- matic and exciting new medium that allowed her to freely express and experi- ment to her heart’s desire. She had all the elements and operational know- how to take on the artistic enterprise with gusto: the land, her sheep, and her former horse barn turned felting studio, all set up in stations for dyeing wool, painting silk, and creating large fabric constructions. The Design Process Different sheep produce distinct shades of wool, from white to black and all the natu- ral colors between. Bev’s sheep are sheared once a year. The fleece then goes to a mill in Baltimore where they are processed and come back as roving, or the result of card- ing (separating the wool into parallel strands) that, when wet, agitated and rolled, can be worked into flat sheets of wool felt. “In normal wet felting you use soap and water to change the pH, which causes little barbs on the fibers to splay out,” explains Bev. “In nuno felting you lay the wool out onto a natural fabric, like silk. Then you soap, water and agitate it causing the wool to migrate through the open weave of the silk where it locks everything in.” Selecting fabric to merge with the wool is an important part of the design process. Bev upcycles pieces of silk from vintage clothing and buys other pieces that in- trigue her. She often dyes or paints beauti- ful designs on the silk, creates patchworks of brilliant color and textures with the wool and silk, moving and stretching the designs. The process is dynamic, physical and highly intuitive. “Rarely do I lay out a design ahead