Workhouse Artist of the Week: Joan Hutten

Sometimes the journey is as important as the destination.  Building W-6 June featured artist Joan R. Hutten says that’s the case with fiber arts.  “If someone asks how long it’s going to take, they’re not going to be a fiber artist,” said Hutten.

Hutten hand-dyes wools and silks in her studio, makes fabrics, then crafts them into scarves, shawls, hats, jewelry and more.  She begins with fleece – the wool shorn from a sheep or other animal -- and cards it if it hasn’t already been prepared. Hand-carding is a traditional method of separating and straightening the wool fibers to prepare them for use in making a textile. Hand-carders are a pair of wooden paddles with wire faces.

To make fiber felt, Hutten lays out the carded fibers in a lattice pattern on a surface like bubble wrap.  She wets the fibers with hot, soapy water, and rolls the bubble wrap into a cylinder.  “I roll the cylinder back and forth hundreds of times to get the little fibers all tangled together,” she said.  “The result is pure felt,” she said.  It’s a lot of work, and Hutten said it was trouble for her shoulders.  “A rolling machine allowed me to continue as a felter,” she said.

Hutten uses Nuno Felting and Needle Felting in her creations.  Nuno means cloth in Japanese, and the technique bonds looses fibers like wool with a sheer fiber like silk.  Nuno felting often incorporates several layers of loose fibers combined to build up color, texture and design elements in the finished fabric.  “It’s very time consuming to get the fleece to work through the silk, but I love the process” said Hutten.

Needle felting, another of the techniques Hutten uses, involves a needle-like tool with barbs on the end.  Needle felting is used for working a fiber into a base fabric, and to make felted shapes.

Each of Hutten's one-of-a-kind creations is given a name.  "I collect words and phrases and save them as possible names for my pieces," she said.  Her current exhibit includes a felt purse named Forest Deep and a Nuno scarf of greens called Walden.  "I once made a big black and pink hat which I titled Not Your Mother's Easter Bonnet," she said.

Hutten grew up in an artistic family.  “I’ve been artistic since I was a kid,” she said.  “Both my mother and brother were weavers, and my brother gave me one of his extra looms to get me started,” she said.

Hutten joined the Workhouse Studio Fiber Arts cooperative about three years ago.  “I love coming to the studio,” she said.  “It used to be when I worked in my basement that I had to walk to the sliding glass doors to see the colors I was working with,” she said.  “The ten members of the Fiber Arts co-op share the studio space, trade materials, and inspire each other,” she said. 

 Hutten is a member of the Waterford Weavers Guild.  She also exhibits at the Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery in the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria.