"It is the colour and texture of the fibres that I delight in touching. This may sound a little kooky... but I form a kind of relationship with the materials as I am handling them. They speak to me. A vision of the final piece forms in my mind, it is as if the materials are telling me what they want to become. I am simply the interpreter... the medium they pass through. The creative process is quite fascinating - I never knnow what I am going to create when I set out to make something, it is more of an intuitive thing. I often look at the piece when it is finished and can't quite believe that it came from me!"
There is a small risk that when you walk into my studio, you may get lost in a pile of half-cut garments, loose wool fibres, over-spilling sewing baskets, clothes racks, pinned garments, draped manikins and stacked canvasses.
In fact, I have had several clients ask me how I can work in a studio this messy….and my response is….I can’t if its not.
This is the hot-pot of creativity that generates the hand-made stuff I love to make, and fortunately, people seem to love to own.
Having taught a hectic schedule of felt-making workshops from my studio for several years, I recently decided to limit the number of workshops on offer in order to reclaim the space as my own, so I can create the sort of things that I like to wear, or hang on my wall, or off my body.
Whilst I am passionate about teaching, it comes with certain restrictions, like having to teach workshops on how to make things that I feel other people would like to make. Whilst still a creative process, I found myself yearning to get back into designing and playing with natural fibres, where I am in my happiest state of being.
Cutting, wrapping, twisting, pinning, painting, felting, layering……I enjoy working across several different mediums, sometimes working them all in together, sometimes focusing in on just one.
Due to the unstructured way in which I work and the many natural, hand-crafted and recycled materials in which I use, each item created in the studio tends to be one-of-a-kind, if not, one of a small-run. Sometimes I‘ll get on a roll, and almost become addicted to a particular thing, and keep making it until I exhaust myself of it. Other creations, will be a labour of love, totally unique and individual.
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©2009 Mali Design



