New Growth – Lois Winfield

‘New Growth’ is my response to the theme ‘Celebrating Wool’. Wool is, in my opinion, a wonderful natural, fibre. It keeps us warm, it keeps uscool, it decomposes when no longer required, leaving no trace of its presence on this earth, yet in its decomposition it feeds the soil.
In this piece, wool fibres have been heavily needle-felted into a reclaimed, brushed cotton, ground fabric, creating a tactile, sensual surfacethat almost asks to be touched. Stray fibres peer out from behind the wool yarn embroidery and look to escape the couched recycled materialoutlines. The natural spring in wool fibre means the fibres are never fully controlled and in this piece are allowed to pop out and blend withneighbouring areas.
The wool embroidery is part decoration and part containment with the couched power chord components acting as shepherds herding thefibres into the desired shapes. When this piece reaches the end of its natural life it can, be removed from its frame and in most parts, bereturned to the earth from whence it came. The wool and cotton will decompose leaving just the skeletal outline of recycled materials as proofthat it ever existed in the first place.
Wool fibres and wool felt have been my materials of choice for a number of years but as we see the world filling up and overflowing withwaste fabrics, discarded fashion and furnishings, I have felt drawn to include some form discarded materials into my work.