I had only come across this process due to my on-site supervisor talking about it being one of the workshops she had attended at this year’s Expressive Therapies Continuum, however, it was a fun process to be excited about when having supervision and learning a new creative process simultaneously. There were two options for this process, one working with wet felt with direct contact with the hands and the other working with wet felt through the barrier offered by a plastic bag, I did the process involving the plastic sandwich bag. I was given a small selection of wool colors and was encouraged to loosen and pull the fibers from one another. I noticed that the wool’s fibers were fairly interwoven, so it did take a lot of patience to pull the fibers. I then was told to lay the fibers down and create perpendicular crossings and gently fit the puffy sheet of fibers into the plastic bag. A small amount of water and soap was added to the bag and once it was sealed shut, I was instructed to massage the bag to interlace the fibers with one another, creating a cohesive piece of felt. This process was described to me as something “that you cannot overdue, but certainly underdue” (Nolan, personal communication, 2020). I kept working at massaging the bag of wool and eventually I was able to produce something that resembled a piece of fabric.
I had not spoken in depth of what type of population I would use this media for with my supervisor, but we briefly discussed the benefits it might have for someone who might have a visual impairment and how it could still serve as a means of creation for those who might struggle with fine detail. We also discussed how using the plastic bag versus wet felting with direct contact with an individual’s hands would render different sensory responses. If we had a patient that had anxiety, we would use the plastic bag method so as to literally contain the wet, soapy, and fibrous materials while also figuratively containing the anxiety and preventing regression. Similar to using clay, when regression is something that might benefit the needs of the individual, wet felting without the plastic bag and directly coming in contact with the materials can assist in using the bottom-up approach to help understand complex cognitive processes (Elbrecht & Antcliff, 2015).
References:
Elbrecht, C., & Antcliff, L. (2015). Being in touch: Healing developmental and attachment trauma
at the clay field. Children Australia, 40(3), 209.
