The thought process: I started thinking about creating “Into the Forest” some years ago when I created a miniature felted work. Into the Field captured my imagination and desire to offer an “experience” to the viewer. In this work I hope to invite you into the forest at Centralia (actually located on Thunder Bay Road) on the edge of Lake Erie between Ridgeway and Fort Erie. Fall offers the perfect time to experience a living forest. Aside from the forest itself, this pathway runs right through a natural beaver dam which can be seen once the foliage has died back for the winter.

Going through my resources recently, I pulled out work that I had woven many years ago and decided to repurpose rather than store. A handspun, dark brown woven piece with macrame textures seemed a likely candidate. I had in mind what I could do with the twisted macrame itself. All was disassembled, washed and dried outside while the summer lingered into early October.

Preparing the base: As I normally do, the foundation layer and composition is worked first with fleece/wool. I had recently bought new supplies from the Fibre Garden in Jordan Village, ready to go. I always card my fibres to enable a control over the way I lay them in. The term “attenuating” comes from my spinning vocabulary, which basically means “drawing out the fibres from the supply using your hands/fingers. The dark brown area which needed to become “sky” had to be covered to enable the illusion of blue sky. It took 3 layers of white, then the mixed and graduated blue mix with silk to create this portion of the work.

The first fibres are “tacked” down using the single felting needle, then worked in using a 5-in-one tool made by the Ashford spinning company. It’s a lethal tool that has to be used with utmost concentration and care; but was the one needed to penetrate not only the laid in fibres, and the cotton warp of the underlying weaving.

Now comes the fun part: My macramed cut-offs would serve nicely as trees and branches, but the colours were not exactly in keeping with the lighter bark of the maples and poplars. I prepared some dark and light grey fleece to wrap the cordage, trying a couple of methods before finding that attenuating the carded roving, wrapping and rolling by hand was almost sufficient to cause the fleece to cling. In some spots I used the felting needle for extra “hold.” (The final stage will be hand stitched to hold all fibres in place.)

Next the cordage would go to the sink where hot water and soap and more vigorous rolling between the palms help it cling even more – not 100% but that, I thought, would give the trunks and branches a more natural look and create shadows as well. They were very wet and the inner core was a sisal that soaked up water. I tried the salad spinner and it worked! Lots of excess water came away and they the cords were left out in the sun to dry – nothing like a hot early October when you need it. This session ended by roughly laying out where the trees would go.

Hand stitching all in place: Now a lot of needling to secure the trunks and branches, and to start adding background trees and undergrowth. Textures of the undergrowth and the dappled sunlight through branches is now a challenge. I’m working with images taken during the summer, but am envisioning a fall canopy of colour – very carefully muted – I don’t want a garish fall scene.

I am going back to the woodland walk from time to time to update my photographs. Colours are slowly turning. This has been a prolonged and dry fall with no real cold snaps overnight to turn the colours, as yet.

I am reading a fascinating book by German researcher Peter Wohlleben titled “The Power of Trees.” Did you know that yellow leaves are the result of chlorophyl being withdrawn by the plant to store for winter? Red colour is produced by the trees and pumped into the leaves. It’s not exactly known why, but one hypothesis is that the red acts as “camouflage” against insects that lay their eggs in the bark of trees, only to result in damage during the next season. Insects do not have receptors to see the colour red, which may cause the tree to become camouflaged and protected against these insects. Early brown leaf fall is either a result of stress from a dry summer and early fall or the abundance of sugar and no need to carry leaves into the late fall. Prolonged green foliage gives the tree more time to produce and store sugar for winter hibernation/dormancy.

Preparing the fall colours: This is a good time to prepare some felted swatches to use for the fall canopy. Wool is blended in the carding process and laid out on the sponge felting block. A blended silk layer is overlayed and lightly needle felted. From there is goes to the kitchen sink where the swatch is placed on a dish cloth. Boiling water and dish soap are combined then agitated in the rolled cloth. I am not trying to produce an even felt, but rather something that will be distressed through pulling and separating to give the appearance of foliage.

November 6: I have been busy working on the project adding foliage, adjusting and bringing the sensory aspects of the walk in the woods to life. It’s not until the work is viewed in a vertical orientation that it’s possible to get a real assessment of how it’s working.

Looking at the work critically I can see that the pathway is too narrow in the foreground. Leaves have been roughly placed to get a feel for their dynamic. Too much yellow and too much of the same size at the moment. I have also placed a temporary bough across the path at “head height” to see if it’s going to work. Perhaps? I’m thinking that this branch will be a more vibrant colour to set foreground apart from background.

Hours of stitching gives me time to reflect and think more about what the feltwork needs to bring components into the correct perspective and the deeper significance of the work. Peter Wohlleben’s “The Power of Trees” is truly an eye-opening revelation in its natural and political research, but so too is David Suzuki’s “Nature of Things” documentary on logging practices of Old Growth forests of the west coast (Canada). Forests have the remarkable power to help heal our climate crisis, and us as humans if we’d just give them a chance. Fall is the perfect time to embrace what we have of these living organisms. I have inserted a photo of the place that has inspired this work in progress.

November 14: During the last week I have been thinking more about the foreground and widening the pathway. As I’ve spent many hours stitching down the mid and background areas, I left the foreground so that I could pull out the fibres if I so decided. Out they came and were turned into more pathway to lead the eye into the image. I think however, that even more of the foreground could become pathway. The shadows on the pathway tend to give the illusion of “mounding” on the left now that I’ve added more shadow. I’m going to correct this visually.

My main branch feature was laid in and stitched down. Some branches and finer stems were added to hold the leaves. I had collected some small maple leaves from our own front lawn tree to press and use as “patterns.” A good idea, but in time the crispy points began to break away. I resorted to replicating with study paper before they were completely broken. Looking at photographs that I had previously taken of red, fall maples, I see that the brighter colours recess to pink-orange and yellow into the background. Diminishing size will also create this illusion of perspective. What I don’t want however, is a pattern-like effect. Some leaves will be overlaid and even partial forms will be used. I’ll also distress and roll the edges to give a more natural effect.

Last images taken today that will give me more guidance in my fine tuning. I think I will pull the pathway even wider in the foreground and help “level” the shadows so as not to give the illusion of the steeped left edge. Some of the very close leaves on the path will be larger and more obvious in shape as well. I have lots of prefelt swatches to work with.

Fine leaf stems have yet to be added, then all needs to be stitched down on this branch, as well as the foreground area. Once the image is fairly complete, I will begin work on the backing. There will be an interfacing to correct and pull the work into a right-angled shape and give consistency to the vertical and horizontal dimensions. The final backing comes once all is complete.

Work is now completed and sold.

Snow-laden branches have been a fascination and source of inspiration for some years. Standing under a bower or cathedral formation, has been a compelling inspiration in many recent works. I started work on this needle felted work after gaining permission to use Anita Payne’s photograph from early December, 2023, based on a walk that she and her group took in Perth County.

Before I started, I had been thinking about spirals and Fibonacci’s sequence (13th century Italian mathematician) which is a universal and mathematical calculation of spirals from the smallest unfurling fern frond, an unborn fetus to the universe itself – truly a wonder of nature. Here is the unfolding of Snow Bower:

The centre is the “tunnel” or eye of the spiral. The way the light filters through, inviting the hiker or “viewer” into the work, and from there, using the spiral sequence, the layout of trunks and branches begins to take shape.

I am using felt-covered ropes left over from the previous project “Into the Forest” and adding more that have been newly hand spun. All will have to be hand-stitched to the base (a white baby’s acrylic blanket found at one of my favourite charity store). Before beginning the composition I had needle felted the entire surface with a mixture of white wool and acrylic fibres.

I wanted to add the 2 photos taken on a January walk through our local Friendship Trail. When going through my album to choose studio shots of the process, I almost didn’t see these images as something else.

Below: Once the trunks and branches are in place (although more will need to be added), I am able to add snow. My first layer is made from a mixture of viscose and acrylic fibres blended together. Viscose is made from bamboo and provides a wonderful luster. Later I will add cultivated silk which has an even brighter property. In these photos I am showing not only the building of snow, but the deepening of the forest perspective background by using finer handspun yarns.

I especially love working on the foreground trying to give the viewer a feeling that the branches are reaching forward as if they are wanting to be touched. This thickening of snow can be achieved by pre-felting and cutting the white felt, which is then needle felted to the surface.

I pondered whether or not to add actual colour to the work. I loved the grey tones which reflected the greyness of the day that the photograph was taken. However, I also wanted to add a some coolness and warmth (contrasts) through the use of colour. Mixed blues and some yellow is now embedded in the highlights of the work. From a distance it’s not even noticeable but there all the same.

The process at this point involves a spiraling in itself, working between what has been laid in and what the composition demands to add more depth and “reach.” I have laid in the horizontal branch and want to pull the composition forward toward the viewer. I sort out the opinion of my fellow SAQA Niagara pod members to help at this point.

From this point on my work involves fine tuning the composition to bring the branches forward, push others further back. The forward-most tree trunk was also repositioned to be more perpendicular which seemed to work better than when diagonally angled. A week has been spent stitching all in place to not only anchor surface applications but also to enhance texture and form. A few more days has completed the stabilizing backing and then the final backing. A studio photography session completed now. The finished work is the featured at the beginning of this blog.

All-in-all, I estimate about 100 hours of work has gone into this quilt. The finished work now hangs at the Jordan Art Gallery in the village of Jordan, Ontario. If you are interested, please contact me through my website or at ghildebrandartstudio@gmail.com

For some years now I have had in my posession a tapa mat (runner) that was gifted to my father while he was working for the British Government in the Fiji Islands. In 1953, my parents were newly married and expecting their first child (me). December of that year was also the inaugural visit to Suva of the newly crowned Elizabeth II, head of the Commonwealth of which Fiji was then a member. Elizabeth made her way to the podium on this runner. Seventy years later, we lost her and I felt it an appropriate time to refresh this relic. My mother who is part Samoan (and will have bearing in this work) believed the tapa cloth (made from beaten mulberry bark) to be intact; however, inspecting it more closely, the actual top layer had been cut away and removed. What we have, is the poorly made underside which had somewhat deteriorated. I felt it worthy of resurrecting and this better than being tossed at some future date. I tried to retain the very best of the edging that will have a visual prominence in the finished work.

I had a sketchy idea of how this work would incorporate 70 years of heritage and history, meaningful to myself as well as my parents: a challenge to harmonize all into a unified artwork.

I wanted to incorporate one of a series of quilted headstones (photographed at the Fonthill Cemetery) that I had worked on during my convalescence from radiation and chemo. therapy in 2009 (never completed or shown). This component I felt was symbolic of rebirth that would tie into the concept of our monarch now passed and replaced, but at the same time, denoting the ongoing changes to rule by monarchical power throughout the Commonwealth.

A secondary theme is that on my own history having been born in Fiji, schooled in New Zealand and having lived my last almost 50 years in Canada: all countries having been formerly under colonial rule. Layers of traditional design elements would be a way to make this presentation. Metaphorically, I see the overall work as a series of connecting roots entwined through layers beneath the ground with a new life emerging above.

I ordered a roll of mulberry paper, and although from Korea I didn’t think it deterred too much from the authenticity. Polynesian cultures originated from Indonesia (and the Mulberry tree from Asia) The now submerged Pacific coastlands are purported to have been the origins of West Coast Indigenous Canadian cultures. Mulberry paper is made from the same plant that traditional tapa cloth is made from – beaten fibres of mulberry tree bark. The paper is very strong, resilient but also transparent. It can be painted and stitched.

Below I show my underlay incorporating the various elements and modified Fijian design drawn and painted onto the first layer of mulberry paper. My headstone will form the top of this work. You will note the freehand drawn designs (traditional) and bleeding of the butternut dye, but this is a feature that I like as it adds to the natural look and significance of the subject.

Working on a project such as this one is a process: doing, thinking, repeating, undoing. I don’t show the discarded attempts at design and remodification of ideas, all of which involve the cycling of process work. It is akin to life itself.

At this point however, I feel like I’ve discovered the pathway and what I need to do. Doing is actually more relaxing and rewarding than the “thinking” process. Here I’m blocking out the areas with natural soya fibres using my silk fusion process (cellulose paste that bonds fibres into layers) that will be visible around the headstone. I’m also stitching “roots” using cloth that I texturized with pit charcoal and coloured with natural dyes. These have been washed to shrink and add more texture to the forms. There’s a job for any time whether in the studio or sitting and “relaxing.”

I’m really looking forward to creating the first overlay which will have the important Samoan designs. I have many “lava lavas” (wrap around dress cloths commercially produced, likely screen-printed, with ink on fabric) which my Mother has given me over the years. These vary in design, but some of the more complex cloths incorporate both angular and organic lines.

Yesterday I started the most rewarding part so far: Beginning the top layer of Samoan designs. The paper was fused to a backing (to provide additional strength) before beginning to paint. I envision stitching through the layers then cutting sections of this layer away to expose the Fijian tapa designs below (part of which will be the original cloth) and to enable the “roots” to feed through, binding both layers together.

Above images represent about a week of work, but the overall concept is beginning to come together. Small changes and surprises such as the Maori component looked much more subtle in colour. I didn’t want this part of my heritage to overpower. My father was born in New Zealand and took us back there to live in the early 1960’s. I was schooled in Wellington then left for Auckland in 1972 where I attended Elam School of Fine Arts, within Auckland University and graduated in 1975. I did a year at teachers college in 1976 and left for Canada in 1979. My mother and 4 siblings all remain in NZ, so it is important to me but I don’t feel that the indigenous Maori culture is really part of my heritage. The design I chose and modified, is called Rauru: This shape is similar to the spiral, and it shares a similar meaning to a koru, representing new life, growth, strength and peace.

I needed to go back now to the underlayer representing the Fijian component of the work: the face to the Queen’s runner (on her inaugural visit to Fiji/South Pacific) in December 1953, that was defaced before my father received it as a gift, and representing the place of my birth June 1, 1954. The mulberry paper had been fixed using cellulose paste, but this would not stand the test of time and handling. I needed to sew the triangular designs down. Using my machine was certainly a challenge; however, getting the large runner through the arm of the machine required rolling the cloth and manipulating it in various directions, which softened the mulberry of both the original tapa and the newly overlaid paper – much like a tanned hide might be softened through manipulation. Both layers seemed to be very durable, especially the paper.

Now the overall composition is started to come together. I have worked on the “background” to the headstone by layering/fusing soya fibre directly onto the tapa cloth. My aim was to cover the bold diagonals enough that they didn’t dominate the work, but still have some visibility through the fused fibres.

The headstone that represents both death and rebirth was completed as a series of quilted works during the period of my cancer treatment in 2009. The black areas were worked using firepit charcoal rubbed into the cloth support. Butternut dye was used as well to colour the fabric. This broken headstone was photographed in the Fonthill Cemetery during that period and dates to the late 1800’s when the first British colonists settled the area of Pelham (heartland of Niagara). The rounded headstone form was padded a little more to add dimension, and, as above, is being stitched to the tapa cloth backing.

I could now hang the whole work vertically to assess how is fell and what needed to be done to correct anything, and my list was fairly long!

In the first image I was laying out the first of the “roots” and had cut through the backed layers of the Samoan, mulberry paper design. In this test run I discovered problems that needed to be worked through:

The underlying Fijian design did not stand out as a deeper layer. I darkened this design using willow stich charcoal which both darkened to the more traditional tone of the Fijian designs and tied this component to the headstone which was originally worked with fire pit charcoal.

The “window” cuts needed to be reinforced with stitching: I stitched around these areas by machine and also around the triangular designs, as well as down the edges of the borders (I would later take out the stitching where is showed on the top half of the quilt.

The whole of this layer needed further backing: I used canvas to provide a little more rigidity as well as to strengthen as the support for the roots which would be woven through this layer.

I would need to design some way of lifting the top layer off the underlayer to create a “pocket” through which the underlayer could be seen: I used an offcut of quilted fabric and formed a “sleeve” through which a 1/2 inch dowel could be fitted. At the same time, I had to unpick the bottom edges of the headstone to allow more excess fabric to prevent “pulling” in of the background and to accommodate the inserted roots at the edges.

I also created several more “roots” going down a size for the finishing interwoven layer. I achieved a variety of tones throughout these forms with charcoal, butternut dye, spray bleach and tea bags squeezed over while sitting in the sink.

I the images below I am creating that sleeve, stitching roots to the underside and twisting a knotting the roots and adding a quilt-backing to prevent the ends from showing through. I would stitch these roots together, strategically, to help prevent them from shifting and pulling the Samoan/root layer out of shape.

Not shown is the turning back of edges, backing the entire underside with an interfacing layer, finishing top and bottom of the work. More of my cellulose paste, mixed with a small amount of white glue, was used to further repair some of the original tapa, and to seal cut edges of the canvas and rolled sleeve. I have now to add the final backing with hanging sleeve attached. Photographing will be left until our weather improves and some sunlight comes through my windows.