Community News
'A Woollen line' Project continues....
Tuesday 6th April 2010
Artist Pip Woolf and a team of volunteer helpers achieved a bit of unusual magic on 27th March by installing 300metres of felted wool on Pen Trumau. Another 10m have to be made to put on a control area which will be fenced. So once again Pip is planning to demonstrate felt making at Arts Alive on Saturday 10th April , 2-4.30pm for any enthusiasts who are happy to come along wit their rubber gloves, energy and willingness to help make the remaining felts.
The photograph above was taken by Alison Kidd one of the thirty or more people who came along and helped. It was an extraordinary day (dry but cold in between two extremely wet weather systems. Pip would welcome any help on Saturday.
Pip explains that her interest in the remarkable properties of peat led her as an artist who had worked with wool in the past to consider that wool might offer a healing comfort for the damaged landscape. It is a material that has remarkable properties that enabled it to create the first ever non-woven textile. Potentially it has much to recommend it as a geo- textile, not least that it is a local resource unlike jute, a material imported from across the world and currently the textile most frequently used for control of landscape erosion. Presently wool has little economic value for upland farmers however its use as a conservation textile might help change this situation.
As an artist the whiteness of wool and the blackness of peat caught her imagination and led to the question: “What if one could be used to help the other and return the mountain to green?"
She discussed the idea with the British Wool Marketing Board who agreed to help her with a pilot study by giving her a bale of 350kilos of grey wool. Working with volunteers she made this wool into felt incorporating heather seeds collected from the Sugar Loaf. She has also made simple wooden pegs and with the help of pony riders has carried both felts and pegs up on to the mountain to install a ‘woollen line’ on 27th March. Over the growing season she will monitor the line to see how the felts behave. She is also planning to lay some of the felts on another, fenced area of damaged peat to see how the felt covering compares in an area where sheep and human activity is restricted. This project is part funded by Glasu through the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007 - 2013 which is financed by the European Union and the Welsh Assembly Government'
The photograph above was taken by Alison Kidd one of the thirty or more people who came along and helped. It was an extraordinary day (dry but cold in between two extremely wet weather systems. Pip would welcome any help on Saturday.
Pip explains that her interest in the remarkable properties of peat led her as an artist who had worked with wool in the past to consider that wool might offer a healing comfort for the damaged landscape. It is a material that has remarkable properties that enabled it to create the first ever non-woven textile. Potentially it has much to recommend it as a geo- textile, not least that it is a local resource unlike jute, a material imported from across the world and currently the textile most frequently used for control of landscape erosion. Presently wool has little economic value for upland farmers however its use as a conservation textile might help change this situation.
As an artist the whiteness of wool and the blackness of peat caught her imagination and led to the question: “What if one could be used to help the other and return the mountain to green?"
She discussed the idea with the British Wool Marketing Board who agreed to help her with a pilot study by giving her a bale of 350kilos of grey wool. Working with volunteers she made this wool into felt incorporating heather seeds collected from the Sugar Loaf. She has also made simple wooden pegs and with the help of pony riders has carried both felts and pegs up on to the mountain to install a ‘woollen line’ on 27th March. Over the growing season she will monitor the line to see how the felts behave. She is also planning to lay some of the felts on another, fenced area of damaged peat to see how the felt covering compares in an area where sheep and human activity is restricted. This project is part funded by Glasu through the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007 - 2013 which is financed by the European Union and the Welsh Assembly Government'
Released at 12:34 on 06/04/2010 | Permalink