Welcome to Fforestfelt,

 

Inspired by the beautiful countryside of West Wales my needle felt sculptures are a homage to this lovely part of the world.

 

The woodlands and forests here are a constant source of inspiration for me, I love to explore them listening to the sounds of nature, while collecting an array of findings, hunting out lichen, feathers, mushrooms, fallen nests. I gather from local farms as much naturally coloured wool for my sculptures so as not to use artificial dyes. Living in rural West Wales has influenced my work greatly, living all my life in London and attending a degree at Camberwell Art College, where I studied painting,  I moved to Wales in 2005 where I was inspired by the beautiful countryside, I moved into a caravan on a remote farm where I saw birds of prey in the wild for the first time and was mesmerised by the beautiful woodlands and mountains. Moved by nature I wanted to try and recreate it and started to needle felt in 2008.
It has brought me much joy, just having the different textures of wool, the natural colours and the smells is to me like being in touch and part of nature.

 

I try to create my sculptures to be as realistic as possible and being fascinated by Victorian taxidermy cabinets, I use this as a starting point for my Bird Houses and Boxes, but where the Victorian style was about cultured, urban people displaying the wild in drawing room settings, mannered, distant and quite cruel, my work is cruelty free with the human eye not distant and appraising but childlike and present, brought to life in magical worlds, scenes frozen in time.