Neeltje Westerlund

T here was something almost reverent about the way Neeltje Westerlund smoothed her hand across the surface of a soft, felted landscape she is finishing on commission for a patron. The tender appreciation she showed for the piece is not surprising.

Painting on felt When Westerlund is not spending time with family, including her mother and daughters Esme and Nona, other loved ones, her dog Alice or at her job at the hospital scheduling visiting nurses, Westerlund prefers to be at her craft. She has been known to work up to a dozen hours at a stretch to satisfy her passion for her art.

"For more than my own pleasure, I have to do it," she said recently in her home studio, that pretty much expands to any room in the house. "It is a serious, core part of me. I can and have felted for twelve hours straight. I become quite mesmerized."

Westerlund is what is termed an emerging talent in the local arts community, just recently becoming a member of the Artists Association and starting to sell her pieces only a couple of years ago, primarily through her own marketing energy. Though she prefers landscapes and some still lifes and has done watercolors of those subjects, Westerlund has discovered, rather by surprise, that her unique niche is in the fiber art category of felting, first found in felt wall paintings dating to 6,500 B.C.

PHOTOS BY JAKE LANCASTER Neeltje Westerlund Westerlund, a resident for 27 years, comes from an artistic family and has practiced art in many forms since childhood. Essentially self-taught, she learned how to felt last summer with her daughter Nona as her teacher, the young girl having been instructed as a student at The Lighthouse School.

Felting, Westerlund explained, is a form of weaving without a loom that can be done in different ways. She prefers the dry/needle technique because it is the most conducive to producing a fiber product resembling a painting. Because the needles used are barbed, it is essential to have a foam-type cushion beneath the actual felted material, and to place the insulating layer on top of a hard surface to avoid sticking oneself with the needles.

The backing for a felted piece can be part of an old woolen scarf or blanket cut to the size of the intended work. The felting wool, which Westerlund buys from "A Child's Dream Come True," is pre-dyed and carded. Westerlund's technique is to take small tufts of wool and place them on her base surface to begin composing a picture. Once she recognizes what she wants to accomplish, the rest is poke, poke, poke with the needle into the backing. If she sees an image she does not like, Westerlund simply pulls out the wool and starts again.

"It is very forgiving," she explained, adding that color upon color may be applied because the wool dyes do not bleed. That allows for an almost watercolor painting result through blending of the shades and also permits her to insert very fine details.

"People really respond to the felting. It's really fun. I love to do them," said Westerlund. "Other than Lighthouse School students and teachers, I don't know anyone else who is felting."

Her inspiration comes from shapes and colors.

"I love skies, I love trees, but I mainly just love repetitive shapes and the shapes in nature," she said. "A cloudy day does not mean no painting for me because I paint a lot from my imagination. A lot comes from dreams, and I've been heavily influenced by beautifully illustrated books read to me as a child. I'm rarely trying to portray what I'm seeing in a realistic sort of way.

"What art is all about for me is what the viewer sees. I'm not hung up on my interpretation of the picture. I love hearing what other people see in my pictures. I love it when people see things that I don't see."

Westerlund has had her work at Nantucket Looms, and at Trillium on Washington Street through the summer. She also has a Web site: oldvelvetgooseartworks. She was recently chosen by the satellitesisters Web site as a featured artist where a direct link can be found to Westerlund's Etsy.com page for purchases or information on her work. I