Kathy Montan
Artist's Statement
My felt artwork is the culmination of a 30-year love affair with wool. Beginning with a small flock of sheep to provide materials for spinning and weaving and progressing on to felting hats and flowers, I eventually "landed" when I started to do felted wool pictures.
My knowledge of fiber has served me well as I layer and blend colors much like an oil painter would mix paint. Often my inspiration will come from the fiber itself. Some will shout, "I am grass!", while others want to be clouds, mountains or animal fur. From this starting point, the picture evolves. I often have no finished product in mind.
I try to keep a wide variety of fibers on hand. Some I have dyed myself from the fleece of my own sheep and some I have purchased from other hand-dyers. I've even been known to buy fat yarns from yarn shops and untwisted them back into their natural shape. And then there's the natural locks of wool, so handy for making animal fur, tree bark, seaweed or anything else they call out to be!
--Kathy Montan
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