Sewing With Nancy

During the Nancy's Corner interviews, it's my pleasure to introduce you to a variety of fiber and quilting artists. To date, all artists have incorporated fiber, thread, or fabrics in their art pieces. Today, you'll see a new twist to fiber arts with the addition of wood to the supply list. Please welcome Jaana Mattson. Jaana lives and works from her home in Minneapolis and has great works of fiber art. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy. Thank you for having me. You started out not doing fiber art exactly like you're doing today. Give us a little history of how you've evolved. I have a very mixed background. I've always had a passion for craft techniques and building and texture, but I've done everything from stained glass and welding and encaustic, and I did have a background in fibers and hand-dyed quilts and fabrics. But I was in jewelry for ten years and then felt that I needed to find something more artistically satisfying, so this is the technique that I came to. And the technique with the finished result is very organic. As I said, wood to the supply list, and felting wool fiber... luscious. That was the spark that got me really intrigued and the felting-- was the combination with the wood grain and the textures and the grains of the wood up against the wonderful tactility of the fiber. Now, we've done felting on Sewing with Nancy, but this is the PhD of felting. We've done silly little fun projects, but you're working with beautiful hand-dyed wool. Mm-hmm, when I can, I get it from the people who are raising the sheep and doing the processing, but I use it like a painter uses tubes of paint, so it's my palette. And here is your art board. Yes, this kind of demonstrates the stages of developing an image. I start with just white acrylic craft felts pinned to a foam base, and then I start layering and building it up from the background forward. You just take small portions of this? Yeah, I can show you, but it's just taking wisps-- very delicate layers and wisps of color to get the blending that I use. I will use either the multi-needle tool and work that through the larger swathes of color, but more often, I'm using the single felting needle to really manipulate where I'm placing the color as I'm poking it through. So the needle felting process is very simple, and it's just pushing half of those fibers through to the back side, so it's a dry felting. And like we've done on Sewing with Nancy with some landscape quilts, we work a little bit with-- not we-- you work with inspiration. Absolutely. I take many photographs. I'm always inspired by the landscape, driving around the country or in Minnesota. So I have a wall of photographs in my studio that I'm constantly referencing to look at cloud structure and how the light hits the trees and how the fields, you know, flow. I think what's interesting, Jaana, is how if we pan from your left to right, how the shading is added in the sky with the clouds, and you can just see the buildup. You get such depth. And it's really very careful examination of nature-- how the sky lightens towards the horizon, how the richest blue is over your head, how the clouds change shape from above in the sky all the way down to the horizon, so I look at those details, but I also have to build it in order, so I have to put all the clouds in before I can put in the tree line, and I have to put in the undertones before I can put the greens of the field on, so it's building to the surface. Now, we have some finished pieces, which I think is interesting to show from the side angle, the profile, because as much fiber is on the front as-- it's pushed to the back. - Mm-hmm. And what a beautiful piece. And I'm sure you used the single needle a lot in this area. Absolutely. And it's very forgiving too. There's a lot of things you don't see that are covered up there too, so as I work and it's not what I want, I just keep putting it on or taking it off and working it till I'm happy. There are many storm clouds-- could be back there, right? And here's a smaller piece, just a lovely gradation. You work in small pieces but also larger pieces. I do, yes. It's a different challenge, that kind of scale, because to go from this very intricate, meticulous scale to looking at a much broader composition, the eye is-- perceives it differently, and I have to work it differently. And this piece that is about 18"x22" is called... Riverbank in the Storm. - In the storm. I love the reflection, the sense of the water moving slowly, and the energy of the impeding storm light. And you can-- those clouds are-- even though they're really not three-dimensional, they certainly look that way. People always think my work is puffy, and it's not. It's actually a flat surface, but it's all in the color work, yeah. Well, lovely, lovely work of art. And you are an artist with art fairs. I do, yes, I do a lot of art fairs in the summer. I'll be here for Madison Art on the Square. I do art fairs in Minneapolis, where I'm from, and I travel around the country. Well, Jaana, I really appreciate you being with us, and thank you for sharing your fiber art with us, and I know our viewers will appreciate it. - My pleasure. Thank you for having me. - You're welcome. Thank you for joining us on Sewing with Nancy, and I hope you've enjoyed the second program of doodle stitching. We'll be back with our third program on this topic, where I'll show you how to use odds and ends of fabric and thread and various types of stitches. Remember, you can re-watch this program or four seasons of Sewing with Nancy programs online at NancyZieman.com. You can also join us on my blog or other social media platforms. Again, thanks for joining me. Bye for now.