Barbara Attwell
Sigil, 2018
Felted wools, silk, wood
66x 32 x 7 "
Attwell’s work is the search for ways that all things wild - clouds, mountains, otters, ourselves - are connected in a delicious and fierce beauty. She strives to awaken the...
Attwell’s work is the search for ways that all things wild - clouds, mountains, otters, ourselves - are connected in a delicious and fierce beauty. She strives to awaken the singularity we have lost with this powerful undercurrent. In today’s culture, alienation and a peculiar poverty of soul are the result of spending more time controlling nature than accepting it. We need to summon our primordial self – the one who stomps on the ground to bring rain, puts ear to ground to listen to rocks shifting, and introduces themselves to trees, knowing that they respond. To awaken this wilder self, she draws on upon beneficial primitive concepts such as in "Sigil" - Celtic for bindings imbued with magic that enable enlightened travel through the forest. Other works ply our atavistic brain using symbols. All center on the wisdom, beauty and plight of wildthings, and paths back to our wild, holy home.
Felting is an intensive art, and she has studied in Ireland with some of their best felters.
Felting is an intensive art, and she has studied in Ireland with some of their best felters.