Strips of white, brown, beige fleeces from Italian, Austrian or French mountains are worked by hand into a carpet on which to rest. The ripples of material are inviting to the touch, the material guides the senses.
Christine Piel has brought the age-old but forgotten craft of felting into contemporary homes with her unique sculptures, masks and decorative wall hangings. Her pieces are steeped in nature and suggest tales of times passed. Christine has been an independent artisan since 2007. She started with traditional decorative wall surfaces like Tadelakt and Marmorino, and later turned to wool as her medium. As a lighter, natural material, felted wool instills a feeling of softness that she loves. Fascinated by this craft, Christine set out to learn about the preservation of wool and ancient techniques at schools like the Lainamac wool school in France. She has travelled far and wide from the Netherlands to China and Kyrgyzstan to explore the origins of the craft of felting.
Read the full interviewPhoto: ©Christine Piel
Strips of white, brown, beige fleeces from Italian, Austrian or French mountains are worked by hand into a carpet on which to rest. The ripples of material are inviting to the touch, the material guides the senses.
Photo: ©Christine Piel
This red, brown and orange bird-like sculpture was created for a hotel lobby. For Christine Piel, the key words are welcoming, atypical, surprising, cocooning, warm, slow living, nature. She uses natural wool fibres created by slow felting.
Photo: ©Christine Piel
In the series, felted wool becomes a sculpture placed on the ground. The felted wool strips of this oversized green leaf are affixed symmetrically. The interior is filled with coconut fibres giving a certain hold and flexibility to the piece.
Photo: ©Christine Piel
Travel and the Wabi Sabi spirit are inspirations for this carpet of felted wool mixed with jute and cotton fibres. The reds are obtained from a maceration of the textile in ochre and linseed oil, which happens to be a technique used for dyeing boat sails.
Photo: ©Christine Piel
Inspired by African lands, this mask is part of a five-piece collection. The red of the earth is revealed by the natural colour from the cochineal. The wool fibres cross each other in order to give expression and life to the piece.