The creative touch
When artist Thérèse Quinlivan moved from the UK to New Zealand in 2006, she thought she would spend her new life sitting on a beach, painting. Instead, she and husband John live in an historic Featherston cottage where Thérèse creates needle felt pictures out of wool, silk and other natural elements. By Katherine Robinson. Photos by Lucia Zanmonti.
“Needle felting is just like painting – but using wool and silk,” says Thérèse. With a background in both creating and teaching art, she has always enjoyed texture in artwork. As a painter working in acrylics, she would add wood, shells or stones to a painting. “I can’t walk along a beach without picking something up.”
She took up needle felting almost literally by accident. Having been taught wet felting – not so portable with its need for space and hot soapy water – she started needle felting when husband John was recovering from concussion. “We couldn’t have bright lights, noise or the TV on, so I would sit beside him and keep an eye on him while I was working on a piece.
“It’s quite a soothing process – really good for relieving stress,” she says.
Initially she made toadstools, and families of fanciful dwarf-like creatures known as ‘norfs’; the needle felted pictures grew from making a birthday card for her mother.
“I wanted to make something different to the usual birthday cards for her. Once I’d made the card, I realised there was no reason why I couldn’t make the pictures much bigger.”
Temptingly tactile needle-felted artwork.
Now she still makes cards, but also multimedia pictures of all sizes that are box-framed to better display their depth. Vibrant with colour, the artworks range from landscapes and seascapes to an impressive ram’s head, framed but without glass. Sitting proud, the ram’s curly fleece is three dimensional, temptingly touchable.
Thérèse is a tad regretful that most customers prefer her artworks framed, protected by glass on top.
“People worry about them getting dusty, but you can just brush it off,” she says.
If the Quinlivan’s pretty cottage looks like something out of a fairytale, then The Magpie’s Nest Workshop Studio is where you’d expect to find the worker elves. Husband John has converted the grain store to provide a workspace and teaching area for Thérèse upstairs in the loft. There are plans for a small gallery and shop downstairs.
Thérèse at work in her studio.
Using New Zealand wool rovings of unspun Romney, merino or Gotland wool she finds her materials suggest the image. Skeins of mossy greens and browns might evoke the Scottish highlands, bright blues hint at the sky, red becomes pohutukawa blossoms in a seascape.
For an art that creates such tactile, soft-textured work, the creative process is relatively violent. Using a felting needle, Therese rapidly prods at the wool laid out before her.
“If you look at wool under a microscope, you’ll see each strand has tiny barbs. The felting needles also have barbs on them – they catch the strands and knit them together. It’s very much a layering process – you can add depth or leave parts of the work slightly proud.
She will then pin the artwork up on the wall, looking at it from a distance.
“When you are working on a piece, you are too close to it. You need to stand back to look at it and see what else needs to be done. I will add things like silk, pieces of material or even bits of twig to add to the work.”
Inspiration often comes from explorations around New Zealand; the couple tour in their mobile home and Thérèse takes photos wherever she goes.
Under her brand name, The Magpie’s Nest, she regularly sells to local markets, and also works to commission. “But I can never do exactly the same artwork twice. Each one is unique.”
Teaching is her other great love, and she draws on years of experience of sharing her art with both children and adults in regular workshops.
For full details of workshops, markets and exhibitions or to commission artwork, see www.themagpiesnest.co.nz or email theresequinlivan@gmail.com
Thérèse is a regular stallholder at fairs and artisan markets in Featherston, Greytown, Carterton, Masterton, Feilding, and Lower Hutt.
