Mar
27
2010
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‘A woollen line’Venue: Pengenfford.
Time: All Day
‘A woollen line’
On Saturday March 27th I am planning to lay a line of felted sheep's wool, seeded with heather seeds across an area of damaged peat bog above
Pengenfford. The project is an experiment to see if the felt can create a more hospitable environment to encourage re-growth of vegetation and help
stabilise the peat.
I am looking for volunteers to make wool into felt and also create simple pegs to secure it and then on 27th March help to get both the felt and pegs
up onto the mountain where we will install ‘a woollen line’.
I will be running half day felt workshops throughout March both at my studio in the Dyffryn Crawnon and at other venues to be arranged, if you are
interested in helping with any aspect of this project please get in touch
Thank you Pip Woolf,
email gilpip@googlemail.com, tel.01874 730995
Some background
I cannot remember when I first became aware of peat as a material that stores energy; I know as a gardener that it has wonderful water retaining
properties, also that it is cut and burnt for fuel. I have also long understood that peat is slow to form and fast to use.
I also had no idea that where peat occurs in areas of upland Britain it is carrying out both these functions on a massive scale, storing carbon and
water naturally, so that where it is exposed and being eroded this quiet but essential function is being catastrophically lost.
During the hot summer of 1976, in the heart of the Brecon Beacons National Park, fires destroyed an area of blanket bog opposite the ‘Dragon’s Back’.
The loss of bog vegetation left a raw, black, wound on this unique landscape .As an artist who has worked with wool in the past it occurred to me
that wool might offer a healing comfort for the damaged landscape. It is a material that has remarkable properties that enabled it to create the first
ever non-woven textile. Potentially it has much to recommend it as a geo- textile, not least that it is a local resource unlike jute, a material
imported from across the world and currently the textile most frequently used for control of landscape erosion. Presently wool has little economic
value for upland farmers however its use as a conservation textile might help change this situation.
The whiteness of wool and the blackness of peat caught my imagination. What if one could be used to help the other and return the mountain to
green?
I discussed the idea with the British Wool Marketing Board who have agreed to help me with a pilot study by giving me a bale of 350kilos of wool.
Working volunteers I will make this wool into felt incorporating heather seeds collected from the Sugar Loaf. I will also be making simple wooden pegs
and then with the help of pony riders carry both felts and pegs up on to the mountain to install a ‘woollen line.’ Over the growing season I will
monitor the line to see how the felts behave. I am also planning to lay some of the felts on another, fenced area of damaged peat to see how the felt
covering compares in an area where sheep and human activity is restricted.
This project is part funded by Glasu through the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007 - 2013 which is financed by the European Union and the Welsh
Assembly Government'
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