Wool, Water, Weaving

When Sue McFarland holds freshly shorn spring wool from flocks east of the Berkshires, she sees what it will become: vessels, baskets, sculptural forms made using techniques as old as agriculture itself.

Sue came to felting two decades ago, apprenticing with a local feltmaker after years of training in fine arts. The ancient technique -water, heat, agitation transforming loose fibers into dense fabric- became her primary creative language. What drew her wasn't just the craft itself but the cycle it completed: sheep grazing local fields, fleece harvested and transformed, objects made to be used and eventually returned to the earth.

• "I'm  part of completing a natural cycle.  Fields and meadows covering the land provide sheep with natural food.  The sheep grow a coat that is harvested, I take that "harvest" and make a functional, sustainable and aesthetically pleasing object. And at some point that object will outlive its usefulness and degrade back into the earth to provide nutrients for nature to begin its next cycle." Sue McFarland

This is felting as it was practiced for millennia, before industrial carding took over—but it's also something entirely hers. Sue's vessels and baskets are architecturally precise yet organic-shaped as much by her hands as by the water and wool's own tendencies.

In Khiton's spring issue, Sue talks about sustainability, minimalism, and what it means to work in partnership with the land.