Page 93 - The Digital Cloth Issue 6

I find this technique a repetitive but rewarding All my work is inspired by my love of nature,
experience, with outcomes that blur the line natural forms and the impact humans are
between craft and art. Originally my work was having on the environment. I aim to do this in a
fairly small, however I have explored many positive way by showing the beauty of what we
different sizes and found working on a large have to lose; I am a passionate animal
scale very satisfying. Some pieces are as big lover and adore the huge variety of life this
as 1m x 1.5m and have taken up to 50 hours to planet supports. My most recent series is
complete. called ‘Accountable’ and it aims to draw you to
Surprisingly, wool is an incredible media that look into the eyes of vulnerable and
allows for a huge range of textural and tonal endangered species and make us question our
outcomes; when working on different subject accountability of their predicament. I am very
matters, I can get skin, fur, glassy eyes, scales lucky to have a daughter, Jasmin, who is a very
and more with just wool. Often, I find that my good and keen wildlife photographer so access
work gets mistaken for oil or acrylic paintings, to my chosen subjects is not difficult. So far in
followed by a fascination with the discovery that the series I have depicted an Amur Leopard,
it is actually 100% fibres. This fuels the passion Orangutan, Tiger, Two-Toed Sloth, Green Turtle,
to continue creating work that offers surprise Humpback Whale and I am now working on a
and stimulates conversation. With each work Javan Gibbon. I use white or black backgrounds
that I make, I continue to hone my craft and to emphasise the emptiness around the
refine the processes that I use. creatures, drawing attention to their loss of

In the studio of

Nicky Heard

My name is Nicky Heard and I describe my Dry felt painting is a unique technique that I
work as dry felt painting. Until September have developed using various needle
2019, I was the full time Head of Art at a felting methods onto a canvas surface. My
secondary school in Hampshire and too use of wool and other fibres enables me to
busy to do much of my own artwork. That all both ‘paint’ and ‘sculpt’ to create perceived
changed when I saw a fantastic colleague and actual texture. Merino, alpaca, sheep,
demonstrating needle felting to a student and and camel wool are all fibres that I use in my
I thought I’d give it a go. 18 months later I am work, alongside silk and bamboo - I always
a self-employed artist and totally obsessed use natural fibres that come from a
with the texture of wool, using it to replicate sustainable source. These are pushed into the
the effects of paint. Although I practise many surface of a canvas using needles with
art disciplines, at the moment I use no media strategically placed barbs that hook them
other than wool. into place - this process can be hard work.