Filzfun, a quarterly felt art magazine #87

A Felted Highway

Each year in August, the Northeast Feltmakers Guild from the New England region in the US hosts a felting competition. The task for 2024 was “Ribbon of Highway”. This is a line of the great song “This Land Is Your Land” by the famous folk singer Woody Guthrie. The objects inspired by that everlasting musical map were presented during a show in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

A Highway Through the Exhibition

The theme of the competition organized by the Northeast Feltmakers Guild had each participant make a stretch of the highway out of a piece of grey gauze.  There were many interpretations – some put the gauze onto felt, where it still was visible, others embedded it in the design so that it seemed almost gone. The finished pieces were to be hung in such a way that the gauze ribbon representing the highway became a single line. Varied techniques were used, some items were needle -, others wet-felted. Some objects were sewn together. Many artists used textured fabrics like lace, while others did bead embroidery. The designs, as well, were most diverse and ranged from still lifes to landscapes.

Jessica Lurker

Cavalieres‘ object “Great Swamp” showed a heron standing in water. This felt artist works extremely detailed and uses many layers of roving in order to achieve depth.

Marcie Ziskind, in her “Moving on, in a Dream State,” presents wave-like objects and lines in bewitching colors. Memory Bradley depicted a trip through the desert in “Desert Drive,” and Josephine Dakers-Brathwaite's art piece “Take me home” led her exactly there.