Living wall xi

troy high school 2023

In February of 2023, Troy High School art students from all grades participated in my Fiber Living Wall Program. In one week over 5 sessions, each student learned how to wet felt a multitude of forms. They started by creating flat felted leaves, learning to manipulate the wool into different forms and to create patterns within the leaves. From there they moved into felted flowers, seeing how the flat felt can be transformed into a three dimensional sculpture through hands on agitation and sculpting. Their last project was a felted mushroom, experimenting with felting around wire and learning how two separate pieces of felt can be attached to each through the process of wet felting. Over this one week program the students gained brand new knowledge of a new material, about its roots in ancient human civilization, about wool’s sustainability as a fiber and about the many ways the fiber can be used and manipulated to create art.

The final work now hangs in their school as a reminder of the importance of the natural world in our lives both individually and collectively as well as the awesome power of working together with your community to create something larger than yourself.

A big thank you to the amazing art teachers at Troy High School who helped to set up and facilitate this program, Cindy DiDonna-Nethaway and Rachel Duchnycz