NEWYORK PUBLIC LIBRARY , Turkish Fine Art of Felt By UMUT ARABUL, 2010 ...
FELT -" In my opinion, the felt is not only a material, an object that is made of wool and turns up after several process by the master. Making felt is a work requiring major effort and patience for real.
Making felt starts with being familiar with the wool since we can not get felt out of any wool and even if we do, the quality won’t be satisfactory. The wool is first carded, then washed and colored with chemical paint or madder at last. The next is up to the master and his team.
What making felt teaches someone is first of all discipline of work. You always work with continuance and rhythm. This rhythm which is only about the felt at first, then starts growing over every part of our daily lives and enriches the peace arising in your innerlife.
During the section of making patterns, the felt teaches a man patience. Beside the excitement of getting closer to the end by placing each piece of wool on the surface, you also experince how you get rewarded in the end after showing patience.
Felt teaches one more thing: creativity.
You discover what is in you and share it with other people. During this, what matters is not if other people like what you do or not but the fact that you can inch open the door for the beautiful things that will come out of your imagination.
As if justifiying a philosopher who once said: “The ones closest to God are artists because they receive inspiration directly from God and carries it to people”, you undertake the mission of a conductor and try to get closeness to the divine one.
While making felt another thing is learned unconsciously: you leave the subject “me” aside and build the bridge of “us” which is teamwork. Classical felt artists used to work collectively with a team of 3-4 people just to make a couple of felts.
They did not make those big felts alone, of course. For the felt, the patterns, tramping and cooking, the brain and energy from not 1 but 3-4 people met. This is what lacks the most in our self-centered culture today. In the final section, the felt creates another realization for the mechanized people who try to obtain everything and rush from one place to another: that they can just slow down and purify the mind.
They call it “meditation” in Eastern philosophy. Making felts, as a powerful meditation, makes you lay your head together with yourself. And I believe that one day, making felts will be used in the means of meditation. Some day, while the colors are dancing, you will join the dance and maybe discover the most mysterious side and the mystical dimension of making felts. And then, the felt will lose its position as just a decorative object and be your way of life.
There is a lot more to write about felt but most importantly, this art, which was once very popular, started getting attention again among people after an age of sagnation. Since there are more and more people who want to discover felt in Australia, North Europe, America and of course Turkey, felt’s area of use expands and its commercial side grows, we are highly hopeful that this art will be transferred to next generations. "
NEWYORK PUBLIC LIBRARY ,
Turkish Fine Art of Felt By UMUT ARABUL, 2010 ...
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