12. Research trip to The Netherlands - mark 2.
Late last year when I was researching many different aspects of wool and fibre crafts, I came across a Dutch textile artist called Beatrice Waanders. Her work is beautiful, and I loved the scale of it. When I got in touch with her, she said that there would be a master class available sometime in the spring of 2025 and so I planned my next wool research trip around that. Early May is when our lambs are finding their feet and by the end of the month I usually can go away for a short trip. I have found travelling to the Netherlands, really fascinating for so many different reasons. It has a completely different landscape to Ireland for a start and everything about it visually is completely different. I firmly believe that when you travel. You really need your mind to switch off on the one hand but open up on the other. Visiting somewhere that is very unfamiliar with an unfamiliar language, unfamiliar landscape, architecture and lifestyle has really inspired me both times I have visited the Netherlands. I planned the trip around two different visits.
First to The Hague for a short workshop on wool lighting which was so interesting. Anne is a fantastic tutor, and she has a wonderful little small-scale studio, where she makes beautiful lights from wool that she exports all over the world. Always thinking that The Hague is political, administrative and maybe a not very interesting city, I could not have been more incorrect. A very beautiful, interesting & coastal Dutch city which after the workshop I spent a few hours rambling around. Learning how to do 3 dimensional very fine felt was interesting because you can use all sorts of vessels and containers to mould a piece of wool around into a beautiful 3D shape that you can then use for lots of different things. It can be used decoratively, or you can leave the mould vessel that you've worked with inside so that it is waterproof if you would like to use it as a vase for example.
I then drove across country and stayed in a beautiful town called Amersfoort which is possibly one of the prettiest towns I've ever been in in my life. Absolutely stunning and I really want to go back and visit there again. Every town I rambled through had a series of canals with beautiful boats and beautiful parks and cycle ways. Of course, this is possible because the whole of the middle of the Netherlands is flat. But it's just so unique and different, and the architecture is beautiful.
The next morning, I drove north where an organisation called De Proef is based. This is where Beatrice runs her workshops. Originating from 1884, it was set up as a retreat and nature filled workspace. Consisting of gardens, studios, glasshouses and research labs, it is based in the UNESCO village of Frederiksoord. Set up as a foundation to help people who were struggling in life to find a new direction through connectivity with land and nature, now it is a heritage project based on horticulture, agriculture, education, ecology, art and culture. Having fallen into decline and lack of use, it was spotted by two young product designers based in Amsterdam a few years back.
Seeing it’s potential, the regeneration project was initiated ago by Joshua Kelly from County Laois in Ireland and Kim Van De Belt, both product designers based in the Netherlands. I didn't know this detail before I travelled there, so I got very excited when I met Joshua and Kim. I couldn't believe that he was from somewhere only 40 minutes from my home and here he is in the least well-known part of The Netherlands, having studied Industrial Design also, and now working with a small farm. The full day was spent learning about working with complex wool patterns and long locks taken from the fleeces of wild native Dutch sheep called Drenthe. The setting was so evocative and peaceful, and creating large scale wool piece while looking out at the beautiful gardens and trees was a memorable experience.
Planning my travel route, I decided to travel north across the famous Afsluitdijk – the 32km dyke that connects the region of North Holland to Friesland in eastern Netherlands to get to the airport instead of retracing my steps south. Researching the work of seminal wool and textile artist Claudy Jongstra, I saw that she has a huge piece on permanent display in the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, however when I arrived, to my dismay it was closed, as Mondays are a slow day in terms of museums, galleries and cultural spaces in rural Friesland.
A quick Google search to find something else to do in the locality, led to me discovering that Claudy’s studio was in fact only 15 minutes away, and it seemed there was a bakery there too. Off I went thinking there was a cafe / studio for me to stop off at for a short while on the way to the airport. I soon found myself navigating the tiny streets of a little remote village, to land in the centre of a yard with a cluster of buildings. Spotting bubble wrap (a dead giveaway for felters) through an open door, and lots of beautiful plants drying in the sun, I chatted to a woman briefly about my interest in wool.
Now, Claudy Jongstra is one of the world’s most influential textile and ecological artists who for more than thirty years has been transforming wool, colour and light into monumental installations of stunning organic textures and subtle natural hues. Based in this remote part of rural Friesland, she breeds the native and rare Drenthe Heath sheep for wool. Tending to historic dye gardens, used to craft art that is both deeply ecological and tactile, she is the blueprint for sustainable living and working. Her work connects communities, landscapes, and tradition, appearing at the Venice and São Paulo Architecture Biennales, the TextielMuseum, and the Museum at FIT, and held in collections including MoMA, V&A, and SFMoMA.
In that context, me wandering innocently into what I thought was a studio / cafe / shop but turned out to be her home and large scale workspace was to say naive, and if I had known, there is no way I would have landed in. Speechless to realise where I was standing is an understatement. Her assistant just laughed and invited me in and asked if I would like to meet Claudy, because “she is just out back”. Two minutes later I was being shown around the exhibition space, wool storage room and workspace by Claudy herself – an absolute powerhouse of energy and vision. It was one of those pinch-me moments that was the result of something entirely spontaneous and was just a stroke of luck.
For anyone who knows of the “burnt toast theory” then this was it. That closed museum disappointment had led to an extraordinary meeting with one of the most celebrated wool artists in the world.
I was shortly dispatched to her farm to deliver a package - it is only a couple of km away and Claudy asked if I could drop it off as I would be passing and it would save her a trip. This is where she and her partner Claudia have their stunning little dye plant garden, in the middle of which there is an eventspace with huge bread oven – another passion project and the source of my confusion regarding the bakery. The little flock of Drenthe sheep, an ancient greenhouse, gardens and workshops all housed in historic farm buildings was just so beautiful to see, and I floated out of there wondering had that really just happened.
The journey to Schiphol airport across the massive dyke with views across the sea for miles and miles was spectacular, down the motorway via the gorgeous town of Medemblik. It was a swift one due to the studio visits, for which I got hefty speeding fines two months later, however they were absolutely worth it.
My trip to The Netherlands was again a fabulous experience with so much to be inspired by from these three cutting-edge, contemporary wool artists. I would encourage anyone interested in felting to make a visit - a short flight, easy transport everywhere, beautiful towns and villages, plus a vibrant textiles scene makes the destination a really interesting one.
