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The Felted Flock Naive Beginnings

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Three years ago the idea for the felted flock arrived to mind during a walk. “you should felt your flock” was the out of the blue statement that popped to mind. The concept of taking wool from the ewes and using the fibre to create a flock and make handmade versions of scenes of daily living with sheep, was very appealing. Using wool and creativity to present a visual of all that takes place with land and animal in order to grow wool seemed relevant enough to share. ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”1697,1682,2862,2795″ onclick=””][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”The idea was immediately exciting to me but also immediately too big and too crazy. I dismissed it. The idea persisted and a year later, when I was feeling very stagnant in my other felting work, I conceded too giving it a try because it was, at the least, a change from what I was doing. In hindsight it’s probably prudent to note that at the beginning there was a woeful lack of what lay ahead, and how much the project would shift itself and me before the end. This lack of knowing what lay ahead certainly contributed to me jumping in willingly. ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”I have been a disciplined task master for a long time. I have the solid habit of getting up early in the morning and doing something I like to do (for me that’s artwork, photography or writing). This served me well with tackling a two year project like the Felted Flock because I didn’t need to form the habit of making time to be creative at the same time that I was trying new creative work. I just needed to tackle learning new work and then keep going. What I didn’t know was how hard the keep going part was going to be.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”At the onset, there were several fingerling ideas of how to visually and artistically share the story of what takes place before the fibre we love ever reaches our hands. Some of these micro scenes have been successful in catching attention but a few of these fingerling ideas did not see the light of day because in the midst of the project my momentum faded.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”3044″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”The workload of artist and of farming are alike in how broad they feel. In both endeavours the work is large with an end that keeps receding. I would lose momentum and then get it back and then lose it again. There were days when I lamented having to do the real work with the real sheep because all I wanted to do was felting. And there were days when I all I wanted to do was spend time with the real sheep because I didn’t want to return to felting. ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”At the start of the project (October 2020) I did not know how to form wool into shape, I was a novice to three dimensional felting and the learning curve is steep. Making the wire armature to proportion was and still is the biggest hurdle. ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”There were so many early mornings sitting at a table felting sheep; whether for twenty minutes or for two hours, whether in artistic bliss or in sheer frustration at yet another throw away. Recently I placed the first and the 121st sheep made side by side and took a photo. ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”3043″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”That photo represents curiosity, refinement, defeat, frustration, persistence, patience, triumph, and growth. All the ways I have been fine tuned right alongside the work. What I never took a photo of is all the characters that landed in the trash.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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At The End of the Felted Flock

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”I have had my head down the last month concentrating on finishing up with the Felted Flock. Every early morning that I sat down at the table to felt yet another sheep I have wondered why I embarked on such a project at all? What made it so appealing that I committed to such an insane idea as needle felting a flock of 143 sheep, seven lambs, six guardian dogs, one stock dog, one fox, two coyotes, nine birds, two shearers and one shepherd, plus several other characters that landed in the trash. It is not an unlikely possibility that all of this work will sit in a storage box, and that outcome begs the question of what all the work was for.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”3035″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”The start of the Felted Flock and all the curiosity and anticipation it had feels so far apart from the just crossed finish line and the mess of emotions I feel now. I am happy to have completed this big project but I still need time to sort it out and decipher what it is that I actually feel about the project and its accomplishment. So many people have fallen in love with it and yet I feel as though I have fallen out of love with it.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”I started the felted flock with a good dollop of enthusiasm. I finished the felted flock with far less of that enthusiasm though. The project took something from me that I can’t articulate right now given how fresh the finish line is, but it has also left me with healthy anticipation of other artworks I might be able to accomplish. Projects I never believed myself capable of given the number of times I have started and then quit them.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”3034″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”I am certain the deeper feelings will surface soon enough and that I will own the accomplishment every way possible. There is the opportunity to set the entire collection on display at the local art gallery in January and perhaps that viewing, along with writing more about the project, will stir the reaction I’m holding in check.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”3033″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Winter With A Pasture Flock

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”On the Canadian prairie the start of winter is marked by the arrival of snow and cold and its end is marked by the cessation of each. The sixteen hour daylight of the summer is now ten hours at best, and the shortest day is still twenty days out. The 25 degree Celsius heat of summer is now minus fifteen with deeper cold yet to come. The northern prairie makes an adjustment of more than 6 hours of daylight and forty degrees of temperature in a six month span. In the normal swing between our summer and our winter we experience what experts would say is an extreme climate change event.
” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”3022″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”By the beginning of winter the market lambs are usually sold, the ewe flock has been brought in for a check over of udders, feet and general health. Crutching is done on animals that needed a rear end cleaned up. Cull ewes marked and necessary treatments given to animals who needed it. Then everyone is returned to pasture as one group (without rams).
” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”Despite having stockpiled forage for grazing we have already shifted into the winter routine of feeding hay to the ewe flock each morning. The stockpile grass will await spring time use. With our minimalist approach to keeping livestock, and because it is often only one person doing the chore work, we aim to keep the chore load to what can be reasonably handled by me on a winter day (if I can handle the chores they won’t be an issue for Allen but the opposite is not always true). ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”3016″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”Hay/forage feed is rolled out on the pasture to the ewe flock each morning, and the guardian dogs are fed. The flock resides, and is fed, on pasture and shelters in an area with adequate tree and bush that with the addition of bedding soon morphs into barn like accommodations. The small group of rams receive a round bale as needed. Four wire panels are placed around the bale to prevent animals from making a mess of it, and a daily portion is pitch forked to this small group. The small group of rams have access to the shearing building for shelter so a regular clean up in the building is needed. That’s done by hand with a good ole’ shovel. Houses for the guardian dogs are situated with the sheep. Each group of animals has access to permanently placed, heated water bowls. In the evening we do a second check on livestock and feed the guardian dogs again. There are no mix mills, no silage, no feed bunks, no feed rations, no conveyors, no grain, no separate groups of animals outside of the rams and the main flock. Outside of the chores for the livestock are the regular tasks of keeping house and farm going; maintaining equipment and water bowls, moving snow, feeding the birds, and walking with the kelpies. ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”3019″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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