Southern Hemisphere Feltmakers Convergence 2015

Fond memories of the great time we had at the 2015 Southern Hemisphere Feltmakers Convergence in Auckland earlier this month.  Fiona Duthie, from Canada, was a very generous tutor who offered well-structured workshops with themes.  Each morning 136 of us gathered in the neighboring Parnell School hall for one of Fiona's workshops.  The first was about ‘’Tactile metaphors’ (inserting our own narratives into our work) and this was followed by ‘Sculptural vessels’, ‘Nuno Inclusions’, ‘Design is fun, not scary’, ‘Composition in feltmaking’ and finally ‘Felting over the edge’.  Fiona was very generous in her approach and each morning was packed full of new ideas for us.  The rest of the day was full of lectures by other Convergence attendees offering their specialties.  I came away with so many new ideas to explore it is going to keep me inspired for years.

For the final dinner we all bought along the ‘sculptural vessel’ we had made in Fiona’s workshop.  These were designed as light sculptures and we lit them with small LED torches.  The tables looked spectacular and it was a tribute to Fiona’s energy throughout the week.