Minutiae within the landscape 

Lynn Comley, also known as UpandDownDale in the feltmaking world

For me, making felt usually starts with a well-remembered walk with my little dog, Bramble. I live on the North Yorkshire coast in the UK. North Yorkshire is the largest county in England, yet also one of the least populated areas in our country, with some of the most diverse countryside in the United Kingdom. A short distance from my home the landscape varies dramatically; from towering chalk cliffs that are home to thousands of sea birds, to dense forests, moorland, gentle rolling hills, and valleys and farmland. It is big sheep grazing country here too. 

Walking in nature is exciting, uplifting, and my source of inspiration, especially during the four distinct seasons. Heading out every day, there is always something interesting to see. Hedgerows come alive with wildflowers during spring and early summer, much anticipated after the long winter months. Forests turn golden in the autumn time, and raging seas batter our coastline during the winter months. The cycle continues uninterrupted yet always distinctly different, anticipated, and inspirational.

Wherever I walk, whether high on the hills, amongst deciduous trees or on the edge of the sea within the spray zone, I encounter mosses and lichens. Their ability to grow and thrive in a range of environments where most other plants or organisms could not, fascinates me. Mosses and lichens tend to be dismissed as insignificant, not worthy, or showy enough, but on closer inspection (which can involve getting dirty knees!), they are simply beautiful, and I love encountering an exquisite group of them and observing the forms, colours, and textures.  I take numerous photographs for reference, and it is from my walks and images that inspiration comes for much of my current textured felt and embroidered work. 

Living close to so many sheep I wonder if there was a subconscious decision to become a feltmaker as it certainly did not feel like it was a conscious one when wet felting first appeared on my radar. I have a curious nature, a strong interest in process and how things are made; yet I don’t try every creative process I encounter. And so, without a background in textiles, what was it that drew me to feltmaking, a completely new medium for me? 

After a short introductory course to learn the basics, I was addicted, and lots of experimentation ensued.  Straight away I could see the possibilities to create a beautiful, handcrafted piece of cloth. It was tactile, soft to handle and after some practice I was able to create interesting textures.  I love how wool encapsulates other natural fibres, changing and enhancing their form during the wet stage, unifying fibres, like an artistic symbiosis.  With each stage of construction being completely different, the whole process from start to finish keeps me engaged. The first time I added stitch to felt there was no turning back.    

I am now nine years into my art practice. Working with natural wools, touching, feeling, and nurturing the fibres intrinsically feels part of who I am, what I do. Wet felting is part of my daily life; I cannot imagine ever embroidering on commercially produced cotton or linen fabric again. Hand stitching into a crafted piece of felt of my own making feels special, the properties of wool make stitching exciting. Whether using hand painted wool yarns or natural silk threads, the needle passes effortlessly through the compacted fibres. Stitches can be skimmed gently just under the surface, creating an illusion of depth of field. Or they can be heavily machine stitched creating strong furrowed lines. The variety of stitch techniques and mark making possibilities using a needle hold endless possibilities and in turn this creates interesting textures in the work, holding the eye.  The thickness of felt means an entire project can be embroidered without leaving a single stitch mark on the reverse of the work, which is great if you want to create a wall hanging or a three-dimensional object. 

I primarily work with Merino or Blue Faced Leicester wool fibre. I also combine silk and wool during the dry stage, then let the water, soap and friction create a natural flow, an organic movement in the work to obtain subtle textures and tones, little areas of interest. I then adapt my stitched design to leave those little areas of silk exposed. I only work with natural threads or wool yarn to compliment the felt. A lovely lady in Scotland hand dyes wool for me and another lady in Yorkshire dyes my silk threads. Occasionally I use dyed cotton thread, when a specific colour is required, although it’s not always easy to obtain exact colour matches with hand dying.

I limit the variety of stitches in each piece of work. My larger moss and lichen studies typically have two kinds of stitch. Bullion knot and fly stitch are my favourites, and I change the thickness of thread and length of stitch to create a more harmonious cohesive feel. 

My aim is not to achieve an exact replica or facsimile. Instead, I love the freedom that the wet felting technique gives to create abstract, free form embroideries.  

I never mark the felt with a pen or draw lines to follow later with thread and needle. Instead, I work entirely freehand, deciding on stitch placement at that moment in time while enjoying the tactile fabric between my fingers, the time taken, the connection with the subject. 

You will rarely find me working with big bold colours. Like the mosses and lichens that influence my work, I prefer a natural more muted palette. And I let the lichens have their day; a moment of limelight by using golden tones of ochre, contrasting against the subtle tones of the mosses in dappled woodland shade. Colours from nature, the landscape I interact with daily while on my walks, the places where I am at my happiest and where my pace quickens as I develop new ideas.

Lynn’s moss and lichen studies will form part of a herbaria exhibition ‘Planting Ideas’ at the St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington, the New Forest, Hampshire, UK. The practice of herbaria collections in Europe date back to 1534 and the exhibition, which runs from January to March 2024, is curated by Sherry Doyal. Doyal says, “The stages in making an Herbarium will be used as a narrative to lead the visitor through the galleries and introduce contemporary art practice inspired by science and botany”. For more information, visit www.stbarbe-museum.org.uk.

Felt Magazine December 2023 edition no.30  (published here with permission 16.4.2024 after 3 month embargo)

TextileArtist.org

Discover: Floral textile artists

I was delighted to be interviewed recently by TextileArtist.org for their series of discover articles. It was lovely to be featured alongside 4 other talented textile artists who all incorporate flowers within their work. TextileArtist.org has an excellent database of interesting and informative articles, a go to website for both professional artists and those just beginning their textile journey. 

Pop over and give them a follow!

The article can be read in full by clicking here.  Discover: Floral textile artists

21/11/2022

Surf n’ Turf by Lynn Comley

I am perhaps best known as UpandDownDale in the felt making world, a textile artist living in the UK, surrounded by the rolling North York Moors National Park and the beautiful North Yorkshire coast.

I take most of my inspiration for my felt pieces from my natural surroundings, especially the infinitesimal details found in the beach environment and along the hedgerows near my home. Moss, lichen or limpets and barnacles in a rock pool have influenced my work more recently. I always say that I get as much pleasure out of seeing an exquisite piece of moss on a dry-stone wall or studying the rock pools on my local beach at low tide as I do seeing a beautiful landscape. Nature has the ability to create the most delicate patterns, if we just take the time to look at these details we are often rewarded, nature surrounds us everywhere it can be so uplifting, sometimes we just need to slow down and observe, and let the environment absorb us. 

Upon closer inspection lichens are incredibly subtle and intricate. We have over 1,800 different types of lichen in the UK alone and each one has adapted to its unique environment. I find the sophisticated details, colours and patterns of lichen are like pieces of art in themselves, so I find it interesting to be able to recreate these details in felt form. Did you know that a fresh flourishing of lichen signifies good surrounding air quality? I like focusing on these lichen studies, I feel it allows me to connect and reflect on the vulnerable state of the microenvironment. I also find Eurasian limpets (patella vulgata) particularly fascinating. Their colours range from black all the way to the palest white, each with its own distinctive markings, just like fingerprints or DNA. I fondly like to call these contrasting studies my Surf n’ Turf! 

These elements, whether they be limpets, lichens or the more obvious landscape greatly influence my work, as I like to study the patterns then photograph the details, and use these pictures for reference in my work. I take thousands of photographs, this enables me to remember and reflect on what I have seen. Though intentionally not wanting to replicate an exact facsimile, I prefer to work with the natural flow and movement of the fibres during the felting process and adapt the design accordingly, I hope this makes for a more natural movement with each piece.

I often prefer to use a limited number of stitches in my pieces, allowing the stitching to enhance the felt rather than overwhelm. I frequently use just 2 or 3 different stitches but vary the thickness or texture of the threads, creating more visual interest. I never mark make with a pen, I like the freedom to stitch where I see fit at that moment in time, and this I feel enables me to connect more with the subject matter. Most of the threads I use are hand dyed, natural silks, wool, or linen. I think these types of thread complement the natural fibres I use in my felt work. 

The process of felt making is really enjoyable and includes three distinct steps. The first stage involves creatively laying out and composing the selected fibres, choosing the colours, and adding accent fibres for texture. Then the process of wet felting can begin. Using water, soap, and a lot of elbow grease, slowly the fibres entangle to form a cloth. After the piece has dried, then the stitching and thread work can begin. The act of stitching always feels like my reward for the physical work that goes into the felt making. The newly created felt is a lovely and unique handmade fabric to stitch into.

I feel privileged to live where I do, by the sea and surrounded by the North Yorkshire Moors. So much of life in the UK and beyond is full of hustle and bustle that it is nice to be able to call such a coastal haven my home. Enjoying walks on the beach and in the surrounding countryside, allows me to search, reflect and discover something new every day, and most of the time this results in the inspiration for another stitched felt piece. 

Lynn is a member of the International Feltmakers Association and the Society for Embroidered Work; promoting and supporting the best in stitched art worldwide.

Lynn’s work is sold internationally through her website.

words | LYNN COMLEY

The beginnings...how I got started.

It was purely by chance that a felt making course was advertised during a visit to an Art and Architecture trail in the Peak District where I used to live. I was looking to learn a new skill one that I could possibly combine along with my love of walking and landscape photography. I was instantly intrigued and curious about the whole process so I enrolled and after learning the various basic techniques I soon became addicted. Felt making is such a lovely process, the ability to produce a piece of fabric that is totally unique and of your own construction is very satisfying. Felt has lovely properties, it can be made thick or very thin, other fabrics such as silk or scrim or thread can be incorporated into it, meaning you are able to produce a myriad of texture and in turn interest. It is soft and a joy to stitch into. The nature of the interlocking wool fibres means it is forgiving with heavy machine embroidery and equally hand stitches can be skimmed just under the surface which adds interest and a different depth or perspective to foliage for example. Felt making is an ancient craft and more recently one which is gaining in popularity as a creative medium. I hope my approach helps to bring a greater acceptance as an artform.  

A few months after starting the felt course, my village art group asked if I would like to exhibit with them at the Derbyshire Open Arts event. So it was a frenzy working to a tight schedule creating sufficient work for the exhibition, then came a new challenge…framing!  Using shop bought ‘ready made frames’ was extremely difficult given the unpredictable shrinkage during the felting process. I then realised the frames had to be bespoke, as trying to get my felt to shrink to a specific size was impossible. I now have a lovely framer that takes care of that for me!

Initially I was terrified of what people might think of my work; the fear of putting yourself out there for all to critique. However I was completely overwhelmed that virtually every picture I made ended up selling! It all seemed to grow from there and my UpandDownDale venture was born. I registered as a business, made my website, joined the lovely creative community on Instagram, then later I added my online shop. 

The following year I applied for Derbyshire Open Arts as an individual artist and exhibited from my home. Having almost 200 visitors over the weekend, it was exhausting but a wonderful experience chatting and explaining the processes to people. Many visitors had not seen felt pictures before, thinking at first they were looking at acrylic or pastel pictures. I sold over thirty pictures which was a massive confidence boost.

My inspiration comes from my surroundings, I love being out in the countryside with my camera, every day is different, there is always something new or interesting to see as the seasons change. I have been fortunate to live in beautiful areas in the country, the Peak District and now the North Yorkshire Coast,  so I take my ideas from my walks and things that interest me along the way. I especially relish a stormy day, the light is often fleeting but at its most dramatic on days like these. I like to try and capture this atmosphere in my work, I rarely produce blue sky day pieces but instead like to encapsulate the mood by accentuating cloud forms with texture and placing strands of silk to replicate light falling on a valley. For my foregrounds I like to stitch wildflowers found in the hedgerow, cow parsley being a favourite, the stitch adds another dimension and gives additional colour to the work.

I use my photographs rather than sketches as a starting point for my work and try to imagine being there again in person when deciding on composition, where I want to have the foreground, the mid distance and the horizon (vanishing point). It is surprising how ‘painterly’ laying out a piece of felt can seem. I build up layers of dyed wool considering form, line, colour, space and texture. Using similar principles a watercolour artist would with their paints. Layers of coloured fibres laid more densely create a deeper shade and laying one colour on top of another, as a painter would blend paint.  Sometimes I lay just a few tiny strands of contrasting silk over a particular area emphasising the light, less is often more. Felt making is an unpredictable process! The carefully laid fibres move and react differently during the wet felting process, the whole piece may shrink by up to 30% or even more, but often reveals unexpectedly pleasing details, therefore I adapt my design ideas to each individual piece of felt, each piece I make is unique and virtually impossible to replicate.

Using free motion machine embroidery, hand stitching or both in my work and by adopting  a freestyle approach I consider my sewing is more mark making rather than precise embroidery. Rarely ever drawing guide lines with a pen, instead I prefer to stitch freely, both with the machine and hand stitching but sometimes going completely off piste and letting the way the fibres lay determine where the next stitch will be rather than using my photographs as a reference.  Thread selection is important too, I love to use natural hand dyed threads for hand stitching such as cotton, wool, linen and silk, especially the thick and thin of unevenly hand-spun threads. It all adds to the texture and creates little areas of interest within a picture.

2019 was a big upheaval relocating to Scarborough on the North Yorkshire Coast, back to my roots! I will always have a love for landscape and had expected the transition to include more seascapes, however I have found much of my focus has been on the minutiae of the landscape producing detailed studies of moss and lichens or limpets gathered from my beach walks.  I like the time taken while working on one of these hand stitched studies limiting the variety of stitches I use in each piece of work, often using just two or three stitches (bullion knots and fly stitch are favourites). Using different threads, textures and size of stitch, it makes a nicer balance to the overall piece. The slower pace of hand stitching enables me to connect more with the subject matter. That connection means a lot to me. Nature is a wonderful engineer, the construction, form and mark making can be exquisite; it is worth getting your knees muddy for a closer look!

Most of all I still love experimenting, not everything is successful but I don't mind that and like to take something positive from how it turns out. I often think we learn more by mistakes or happy accidents as I prefer to call them. Stitch has “got me” though, as with photography it makes you tune in to the tiny magical details that nature presents to you. Instead of the 100th of a second it takes to create a photograph the connection you have with interpreting the subject with stitch is a more long lasting one, creating a connection and compassion with the subject. I am convinced this must release endorphins as does a walk in a beautiful uplifting landscape.  Therefore my message to anyone would be to have a go, try a new skill, experiment, if it makes you happy and you can connect with nature during the process then it will be one of the most rewarding things you can do. 

Lynn Comley is the guest today on the Stitchery Stories textile art podcast. Lynn works under the brand name of Up And Down Dale and the name gives us a clue as to the source of her artistic inspiration… the landscape around her!

Lynn has recently relocated from the Derbyshire Peak District to the North Yorkshire coast and has been enjoying several changes not just in her surroundings but in her artistic creations too. Lynn loves working with her handmade felt, with machine embroidery and increasingly, hand embroidery, to make the marks and highlights to her landscapes.

Susan Weeks chats with Lynn about:

• An endless fascination with landscape and the sea
• Inspiring vistas and miniscule worlds
• A newcomer to textile art
• Getting hooked into feltmaking
• Leaping into exhibiting with Derbyshire Open Arts trail
• Moving from hobby to business to meet demand for her work
• From novice stitcher to addicted stitcher 
• It’s not embroidery, it’s mark making with thread
• The delights of thread
• How to recreate inspiring scenes in stitch
• The patterns of the sea on the beach
• Experimenting with collagraph printing and felt
• Choosing Stitchery Stories over the BBC and Nick Knowles 
• The Society For Embroidered Work
• Learning from failures and revisiting them
• The pro’s and con’s of doing commissions
• Go with the flow
• Getting over creative block
• And so much more!

NEWS

In July 2019 I relocated from Parwich in the Peak District National Park back to my hometown of Scarborough on the beautiful North Yorkshire Coast. As the Peak District landscape inspired much of my previous work l am sure the beautiful North York Moors landscape and hedgerow will form the basis for much of my work, along with the occasional coastal scenes!

Please follow me on Instagram to see what I am currently working on!

https://www.instagram.com/upanddowndale/