N289-Mechanoreception

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storm-window

ghost-head

Locks

What-Remains

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Between-the-Lines-clothes-pins-SM-2022

Snipped-Screen

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LEARNING

2023 Face to Face Workshops…
Belgium & Switzerland in October!

ONLINE & ONPOINT! COURSEWORK
Course 1 & 2 dates for 2024 listed!

Exhibitions & Purchasing

Pieces marked with an “*” in the WORKS galleries of this site are available for purchase. Send an email to Lisa Klakulak through the contact link with your interest.

Receive STRONGFELT News

An archive of newsletters can be sourced on the INTRIGUE blog of this site offering insights into Klakulak’s artistic practice. Subscribe to the STRONGFELT MAILING LIST & follow STRONGFELT on Facebook or Instagram to receive the most current news!

StrongFelt Recent Work

As a life long thrifter, (haha and exaggerator) ok

As a life long thrifter, (haha and exaggerator) ok maybe since 15 years of age, starting with Value Village in Metro Detroit, I have become quite skilled at moving through masses of fabrics with my eyes and hands focused on my desired finds.

As far as clothing myself, it’s all about natural fibers (so much more challenging these days), particular hues, broad and interesting necklines and cuts. Thrifting provides decades of styles/cuts and I find it the best way to fit a particular body vs what’s hot and be pumped out for consumption in the moment. Not particularly keen on being fed a look, I also began my fiber exploits by altering my finds. #thriftingadvocate

When I was beginning to explore wet felting and came across the notion of felting through another substrate (I think this was seeing Jorie’s work in Fiber Arts back in 2003?! @joiraetex) my thrifter mindset kicked in hard. With wet felting through layers and the greatest variant being how much fiber is allowed through it, (by how much wool is used/area and the agitators choice of water temp, amount of soap and type of movement, of course), the substrate structure as a means for fiber allowance and blocking came into focus.

This idea of only being able to felt through translucent fabrics (of course its easiest and can also allow tooooo much fiber through) and a focus on silks is a mindset I have worked to counter in my own work and teaching in Fabric Fusion. I scour 2nd hand for unique finds and yes, scour them before and during the felting.

Excited for a texture party of patterning through differential shrinkage on a 2D plane and stitched alterations! Vrouw Wolle in Essen, Belgium October 10-12, 2023.
@vrouwwolle is that last seat still open?

#strongfelt #fabricfinds #fabricfusion #structuraltextiles #differentialshrinkage #wetfelting #feltedfabrics #feltingthroughfabrics #textureplay #textureresists #2ndhandclothes #thrifter

Getting closer to connecting with all of you who w

Getting closer to connecting with all of you who will be participating in my upcoming workshops in Belgium and Switzerland. A little teaser for my Solid Form Clasps & Closures workshop October 27-29! This time next week I’ll be boarding a ✈️

I’ve blocked off these last weeks of time for revisiting my syllabi as I pack up studies, etc for each workshop topic. Currently I’m delving into my approaches to fabric fusion with wool and free-motion stitching in relation, particularly, to patterning.This is one of my favorite parts of teaching…applying new thought/perspectives since the last time for this next time. I’ll get to posting some (the rest, of course, is for participants) of what I’ve been preparing, but social media falls to the side when I am on 💯 in my studio. See y’all soon!

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#felt #wetfelting #feltworkshops #feltsecure #connections #keepingitjuicy
@vrouwwolle @filzszene

These tiny beauties just passed through my hands a

These tiny beauties just passed through my hands as I coalesce my samples for four workshops on different topics in Europe during the month of October. Wet felted solid form findings to fit your designs ever so perfectly! These techniques will be covered in the Solid Form Techniques: Clasp and Closures workshop October 27-29 in Switzerland. @filzszene

The link in my bio to my teaching schedule has all the details for these upcoming courses as well as the dates I will be running my Online & Onpoint! 10 week courses this winter and spring 2024. Spend some time on the website…there’s a lot of information and inspiration to be discovered rather than waiting for a snippet of STRONGFELT to cross your feed. AND while there, sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t to receive my end of 2023 news with my 2024 schedule.

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#whatisfelt #connection
#feltfindings #feltcomponents
#feltjewelry #jewlerymaking #jewelrydesign #feltfine #finecraft #contemporaryfelt #wetfeltingmethods
#feltworkshops
#feltcoursesonline
#onlineandonpoint

Repost from STRONGFELT ;) This image of the cuffed

Repost from STRONGFELT ;)
This image of the cuffed collection of solid form clasp components seems appropriate after the recent post themes of branching/extension, veins/distribution, space/distortion and of course connections. “Blue Reach” illustrates just some of the possibilities of joining basic forms of balls, cords, cones, barrels and hoops that is shared in my Solid Form Felting Techniques Workshop that focuses on Clasps and Closures. Each type of form is constructed with a methodology to allow up and downsizing for ones own designs + graceful means for connecting these forms together to create unique functional mechanisms.

Of course, when connecting multiple protuberances to a 2D plane one must account for the shrinkage of that weight of layout to avoid collision and distortion of forms…unless that’s what you’re going for.

Just one spot left I do believe!
October 27-29, 2023
Solid Form Felting Techniques
at Ucliva, Waltensburg, Switzerland
Host org. @filzszene www.filzszene.ch

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#bluereach #wetfelting #feltform
#feltsolid #feltstrong #feltclasps #feltclosures #feltjewelry #feltfindings
#feltworkshops #filz

These calcified tubes correlate to the bone-like t

These calcified tubes correlate to the bone-like tubes that the thin cords pass through in the neckpiece in my prior post. I lingered longer and looked closer at this large rock exposed during the lowest tide at 2nd Beach, La Push. I later learned these tubes are Balanus crenatus, a species of barnacle that colonize in strong currents and when overcrowded, become distorted to fit the space available. The movement depicted, or lack there of, is a wonderful metaphor for how the movement of individual filaments of wool are restricted in the felting process as they intertwine and move less, but en masse. What is felt is a material process, lived experience and material empathy.

#strongfeltinspiration #materialempathy
#whatisfelt #lackofspace
#barnacles
#balanuscrenatus

This STRONGFELT piece from 2014 came to mind last

This STRONGFELT piece from 2014 came to mind last night as I recalled how it felt to hold the jointed/skeletal movement of the Coralline Algae pictured in my last post. This was from when I first was experimenting with incorporating wire armature to provide a rigid frame to stretch felt skin taute into defined forms. Here in “Configured by Bone” the solid form cords and clasping mechanisms play the role of the soft, strong, flexible tissue between calcified segments in the algae. This was also from a time when photographing work on graduated backgrounds was the thing and honestly, a pain in the ass 😂

Just conferred with my hosts in Switzerland yesterday and there are three seats open in the 3-day course exploring solid form techniques with a particular focus on connecting forms together to make, well, connections, that is clasps and closures.

Oct 27-29, 2023
www.filzszene.ch @filzszene
Join a friend for a 2 hr beauty of a train ride from Zurich to the lodge of Ucliva in Waltensburg 😊

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#feltstrong #felt #wetfelting #feltingsolidforms #feltingclaspsandclosures #finefelt #contemporaryfelt #feltinnovative #feltconnected #connections #joints #claspsandclosures #contemporaryjewelry #jewelrydesigner #fiberart #filz🇨🇭

Another incredible branching visual to follow my l

Another incredible branching visual to follow my last post about the dry preparation of wool fibers before wet felting solid forms. I like my felt strong as in densely intertwined, not necessarily thick or stiff, but well integrated so to form a tight skin that defines the form. Appropriately, I found this gem along the WA state coast where windy wet agitation is more prevalent then the quiet damp conditions of the Hoh rainforest.

Hard like coral, flexibly connected between segments like a skeleton and plant-like in its branching veins.
Anybody know? I found a couple along Rialto Beach.

Fine connections of different diameter cord segments in a single tone so not to distract from the form brings to mind my most recent necklaces of linked cords in the Mechanoreception Series. Seen those?

Follow the website link in my bio to the WORKS menu and then ADORN-NECKLACES for a look at those pieces also inspired by beach finds. While there, check out what all has been constructed with Solid Form Techniques and maybe grab one of the last seats in my last workshop of 2024. Details in the TEACHING SCHEDULE 🔝 So much to explore and discover!

October 27-29, 2024
At Ucliva, Waltensburg, Switzerland
www.filzszene.ch @filzszene

#strongfeltinspiration #flexible #connections #links #branches #veins #coral #skeleton #plant #whatisit
#pacificnorthwestfinds #beachfinds

I had driven up the Hoh River Road in WA state to

I had driven up the Hoh River Road in WA state to immerse myself in the moss covered forest. As you can see, the increase in the visual dimension of the branches is huge! As much of that is airspace, an analogy became rather obvious, to me, of the airy preparation of wool fibers to be wet felted into solid forms, such as intersecting cords. The final felted form, or in this case the tree, might be hard to visualize, but the wet felter has to design with this kind of visual compaction in mind and build in space for the shrinkage to make a well integrated piece of felt.

I read that the moss on Big Leaf Maples can get so thick that it decomposes into dirt on the tree and seedlings can plant themselves and begin to grow a new tree 😮

My last workshop in Europe this fall 2024 will be on Solid Form Felting Techniques and is focused on Clasps & Closures. We’ll learn this dry fiber prep process to introduce just the right amount of airspace to wet felt all sorts of forms into dense suede-like felt, while also learning how to connect them to grow new complex forms.

October 27-29, 2024
at Ucliva, Waltensburg, Switzerland
www.filzszene.ch @filzszene

#strongfeltinspiration
#moss #bigleafmaples #hohrainforest
#airspace #felt #processoffelting
#feltskin

In Course 2 of my Online & Onpoint! Felt Jewelry S

In Course 2 of my Online & Onpoint! Felt Jewelry Series focused on the Applications of Partial Felt, several modules are livicated to exploring hollow form beads and pendants, such as the six point jacks-like form bottom right. I love when experiences overlap and fit together like the #dolos I wrote about in my last post. This bead form is the size of the smallest neck vertebrae in that spinal piece, Foundation, I made in 2012.

When I teach Sculpting Hollow Forms: Applications of Partial Felt as a F2F Workshop we work larger, starting off with a resist area 4x larger which of course is a bigger canvas to consider for sizes, number of and spacing of partial felt shapes. There are many different considerations for the sculpting and posturing of a larger vessel so to stand despite gravity such as the number of feet/points it stands on as shown with the bottom of these two larger forms; whereas a pendants walls and bail/hanging system works with gravity. I do my best to differentiate content in my Online courses vs F2F workshops as well as between workshops so that repeat participants are making new strides in their felting explorations.

Maybe that last seat in each course is still available?

Essen, Belgium
Resist-based Pendants Oct 5-8
www.vrouwwolle.be @vrouwwolle

Waltensburg, Switzerland
Sculpting Hollow Form Oct 23-26
www.filzszene.ch @filzszene

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#wool #felt #wetfelting
#feltingworkshops
#feltsculpting #sculptingbyshrinkage
#armature #skeleton #structure
#feltskin #differentialshrinkage #directionalfulling #spacialdesign

I shared the #structure and #movement of this piec

I shared the #structure and #movement of this piece, #Foundation, a few nights back with a couple #fiber #sculptors who were in town. The dense partial #felt creating the #bone like stiffness and weight while the thin #skin of high shrinkage felt made the fluid #connective #tissue. I had thought of this piece when I drove along the #Hoh River that cuts its waters down Mount Olympus into the Pacific because of the #protuberant structures along the roadside used to mitigate erosion (pictured in my last post.) I didn’t know their name or particulars until @humboldt_bay_wool commented with the word, #dolos.

From wikipedia…
First designed by Merrifield and Kruger and used in a breakwater in the 1960’s in South Africa “they work by dissipating, rather than blocking, the energy of waves. Though they are placed into position on top of each other by cranes, over time they tend to get further #entangled as the waves shift them. Their design ensures that they form an #interlocking but porous and slightly flexible wall.” Sounds like a #spine and felt. 😮 Merrifield was inspired by children’s jacks and the name Dolosse derived from Afrikaans words for gambling bones or ox knuckle-joint bones used by traditional healers for divination as well as Dutch words for play oxen as children would play with these bones.

These felt #vertebra gradual get larger toward the sacral bone of the sculpture with the smallest neck vertebrae about the size of the forms we work with in my Resist-based Pendants workshop. Fitting for a neck pendant ;) With that said, this piece had a HUGE resist and there were many considerations in working a larger hollow form such as the thickness of the wall and/or placement of the integrated partial felt #armature in order to support the internal volume.

Four days exploring the Sculpting of Hollow Form with the Application of Partial Felt in the dramatically sculpted terrain of the #graubünden canton of #switzerland. Seems just about the perfect location for this particular #feltworkshop!

October 23-26, 2023
www.filzszene.ch
workshop@filzszene.ch
@filzszene @filzquadrat @grischarte

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#foundation #hollowform #sculpture

You know I was, particularly after studying the si

You know I was, particularly after studying the similarly shaped collection of minuscule egg sacs/ hollow forms pictured in my last post from earlier in the same day. What an amazing visual stacked up along the roadside! I suspect these are to protect the Upper Hoh road structure in response to the fluctuations of the river bed gushing down from Mount Olympus?!

Being prepared to stop in ones intended schedule to take in an unplanned opportunity is a reoccurring lesson I encounter often when both traveling and working in the studio. Yes, I was that car that waved all those in line behind me to pass me when the light turned green for the one way trafffic on the single lane/closure, so I could randomly stop and take photos. Though circumstances didnt allow too much time as I didn’t want to be caught when the traffic from the other direction got their green 🚦 there were three sections like this 😂

After working on such small forms for my Online & Onpoint Felt Jewelry Series and Resist-based Pendant workshop recently, this contrast of size got me pumped for my four day class exploring Sculpting Hollow Form through the Application of Partial Felt, Differential Shrinkage & Perimetral Fulling coming up in Switzerland October 23-26, 2023.
One spot open there. An unplanned opportunity?
www.filzszene.ch

#strongfeltinspiration
#bepreparedtostop #hoh
#form #sculpture #structure
#erosion #concavity #protuberances
#differentialshrinkage #directionalfulling
@filzszene

A familiar gentle jiggle when felting fine skins o

A familiar gentle jiggle when felting fine skins of felt for tiny hollow forms, but what is it? Anybody?! Quite possibly the smallest hollow forms detectable with the naked 👁️ and of course, mother nature is more meticulous and detailed then I 😂

#strongfeltinspiration #hollowform #frequencyofmotion
#thinskin #sensitivetouch #rialtobeach

Making what is seen and also seeing what is made.

Making what is seen and also seeing what is made. After four days of working with inflating hollow form felt, both literally 😉 and through agitating the perimeter of a 2D resisted layout of wool fibers, Giant Kelp’s gas filled bladders drew my eyes in for a closer look.

I adventured to the NW corner and many coastal areas of Washinton State’s Olympic Penninsula after teaching on Whidbey Island and it was all about Rialto Beach for me. Not only amazing sea stacks, but the shoreline interaction with Quileute River and the stone, drift wood and seaweed strewn ledge. The skin-like texture, stages of inflation and soo many bladder “heads” disconnected to reveal sometimes 1” thick vessel walls and then there’s the buoyancy of the hollow form bladders contrasting the solid form rocks.

#dramabiggerthanmyown
#strongfeltinspiration
#giantkelp #kelpbladders
#hollowform #hollowformfelting
#inflation #rialtobeach #lingerlongerlookcloser

Studies from STRONGFELT’s Resist-based Pendants:

Studies from STRONGFELT’s Resist-based Pendants: Hollow Forms, Dimensional Surfaces and Object Encasement Workshop at Pacific Northwest Art School summer 2023! We kept a good pace and as always, hard to remember to snap photos along the way. 2nd photo is @jenniferpiperarts hollow pendant with a build up of surface shingles graduated in not only color, but size. Reminds me of oyster shells. 3rd photo is @k_felt encased rock with closed barnacles playing nice with the idea of a reveal hole. Those are my water saturated fingers and of course being surrounded on Whidbey Island by the Salish Sea many participants chose to work with encasing shell, but @kdodgedehaven worked her fine felt skin over a metal piece creating a stunningly and rather unique for felt, angular shape that has weight that surprises the senses and hangs nicely.

Not pictured in a detail shot, but still certainly worthy of a shout out are @thetabithaswain blue hollow form top center with a spiral of bridges smartly including the bail in the graduated sizes and the beautifully colored swirling cone top left that @brownrabbitfeltworks made with the incorporation of dense partial felt for some dramatic differential shrinkage. I know @brownrabbitfeltworks posted this piece finished/fulled and hopefully others will too.

It was so nice to be in the presence of these felt enthusiasts for my first domestic F2F workshop since summer 2020 and to get to touch them to demonstrate the pressure applied rather than digging deep for verbalized analogies. Psyched for my upcoming workshops in Europe. Thanks ladies!

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#felt #wetfelting
#feltstudy #feltworkshops
#sculptedbyshrinkage
#fibersculpting #feltskin #feltencasementofobjects
#feltdimension #differentialshrinkage
#feltobjects #feltjewellery #feltdesign
#fiberartsculpture #fiberarts
@pnwas

First imprint of place and structure on my recent

First imprint of place and structure on my recent trip was the six level car rental facility at the Tacoma/Seattle airport with a mighty spiral and an offshoot for each floor. The spiral is also a recognizable feature for anyone who knows Whidbey Island marking the intersection of Highway 20 and Coupeville’s Main Street. The Pacific Northwest Art School is located around the corner where I just taught a four-day workshop exploring the small scale sculpting of hollow form. This was my class demo for a pendant/bell form with protruding planes. Spirals and bridges were definitely a theme of participants’ work for this study.

There’s one more spot for this workshop in Belgium next month at @vrouwwolle and I’ll be back on the island in the fall of 2024 @pnwas! Stay tuned by signing up for my newsletter if you haven’t to be of the first to know dates and workshop topic.

#strongfelt #lisaklakulak
#strongfeltworkshops
#resistbasedpendants
#biggerisntbetter
#smallscalebiglearning
#whidbeyisland
#coupevillespirals
#pedestrianbridge
#spirals #bridges
#structure #form
#felt #wool
#feltform #feltsculpting
#feltjewelry
@brownrabbitfeltworks
@jenniferpiperarts
@thetabithaswain
@k_felt
@kdodgedehaven

Restraint and flow. Oh how I love taking off on an

Restraint and flow. Oh how I love taking off on an adventure from regular patterns, though that is also my pattern 😂! I’m just getting service areas again after an excellent workshop and wandering the wilds of the Olympic Penninsula for a belated birthday adventure. More gorgeous images and insights to come after I make my way eastward.

#stuck #restraint #nets #grid #patterns #openings #flow #watersways #deepknowing #empiricalknowledgeaccordingtoartists

Honored to be invited to spend an hour chatting wi

Honored to be invited to spend an hour chatting with Kathi Grupp of the Handweavers Guild of America about my work next Tuesday, Aug 8, 2023 at 4pm. You can register for the zoom in the link in my instagram bio. Started up during Covid's early days, every Tuesday since there has been someone in the textile field interviewed. Can't virtually attend? HGA's youtube.com/user/hgaweavespindye channel is a library of such episodes and I'll switch up the registration link to the episode link after.

Some of the first times I saw my work in print and received acknowledgement for my work was in HGA's journal, Shuttle Spindle Dyepot, and in exhibitions at HGA's national conference, Convergence, Grand Rapids, MI 2006. Grateful for the step up such organizations offer in our lives and delighted to reciprocate by supporting this Textiles & Tea educational offering.

#strongfelt
#lisaklakulakinterview
#hga
#handweaversguildofamerica
#textilesandtea
#whatisfelt
#textiles
#felt
#finecraft
#craftinamerica
@instahga

I was showing a friend my collection of workshop d

I was showing a friend my collection of workshop demos and teaching studies the other day for my upcoming Resist-based Pendants workshops. They asked if I sold them and I responded no, that they were for teaching. To which they said, you could. Well, sure, but these pieces are my reference library. They represent various techniques more or less isolated that I have used to learn what is possible and are crucial in showing student’s and not just telling them how the fiber can be moved. When I make work to sell it is more typically motivated by an idea and results in a body of work were I explore expressing that idea with the techniques.

I’ll have both, these teaching samples and STRONGFELT works of Lisa Klakulak, with me at my upcoming F2F workshops. Enrollment does just that, rolls back and forth, and there are a few spaces that just opened up at the Pacific Northwest Art Center on Whidbey Island August 21-24 and at least one seat open at Vrouw Wolle in Essen, Belgium October 5-8.

Four solid days to learn to encase your chosen object in a thin, high shrinkage skin, means for creating reveal holes to show off that object, the use of different weights of partial felt for surface planes and to embed in the layout to sculpt form through differential shrinkage and directional agitation. AND to top it off, we’ll talk shellac as a stiffener.

#smallobjectsbiglearning
#strongfeltworkshops
#feltworkshops
#feltschooled
#feltF2F
#felt
#fiber3D
#feltedobjects
#feltdimensionalsurfaces
#felthollowform
#feltpendants
#feltjewelrydesign
#contemporaryjewellery
#alternativejewelry
#fiberjewelry
#finecraft
@pnwas #seattlearts #seattlefiberarts #seattleworkshops #whidbeyislandart
@vrouwwolle #viltenstrongfelt

Here is the piece I was working on when I last pos

Here is the piece I was working on when I last posted a reel about the beaded necklace my mom turned up with when visiting me here in Asheville last week. Same maker? Indeed, just a quarter century later.

When encasing objects with beads or felt for functional purposes, my goal was/is to get the thinnest form revealing skin to create a tension hold AND the highest material quality/craftsmanship. A high percentage of shrinkage, somewhere in the 80-90% range, does the job beautifully in felt. I’ve been preparing some examples for my upcoming Resist-based Pendants courses that illustrate ways to frame a larger reveal hole. Its not just aesthetics, it’s about shrinkage! Although these six “tension knobs” also play real nice with and lead your eye into the mesmerizing glass work by @thomasspake.

#strongfelt
#collaboration
#feltandglass
#wetfelting
#pendants
#feltresistbasedpendants
#feltbezel
#feltskin
#tensionhold
#feltencasementofobjects
#feltagitated
#differentialshrinkge
#jewelry
#jewelrydesigner
@pnwas
@vrouwwolle

Mom is visiting. She pulled out a jewelry bag and

Mom is visiting. She pulled out a jewelry bag and this neckpiece of encased cabs, which I don’t remember making! She dates the piece to the years I was living in Taos, NM, the late ‘90’s. While working as the natural dyer for La Lana wools, I was cranking out sculptural beadwork that I sold at two different Cooperative Galleries I was a member of: one, Open Space Gallery on the plaza and then Las Comadres Gallery on Paseo del Norte. This was the beginning of my object encasement done with pressure holds through the accretion of small elements. That I now, like right now in my studio, do with felting high shrinkage skins of wool fiber and which I’ll be teaching in upcoming felting workshops.

#strongfelt
#lisaklakulak
#inthebeginning
#patterns
#cooperativegallery
#openspacegallery
#lascomadresgallery
#taosnewmexico
#fiberart
#beadwork
#beadedjewelry
#glassbeads
#pressure
#accretion
#tension
#enasement

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