The theme immediately suggested the ages of man. I did my usual mind map to explore other ideas but in the end came back to my original thought.
I researched the ages of man. I was familiar with the Shakespearean speak from As You Like It:
All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts
His acts being seven ages….
I was surprised to find that the ages of man is a theme that runs through many cultures although these are mainly societal ages rather than focused on the individuals span on earth. In his writings the Greeks poet Hesoid’s defined five ages (golden, silver, bronze, heroic, iron) and the roman poet Ovid four (golden, silver, bronze, Iron); Hindu and Vedic writings make reference to four ages termed: Satya (Golden), Treta (Silver), Dwapara (Bronze) and Kali (Iron). In Aztec culture they also have creation myths of five suns in which the present world was preceded by four other cycles of creation and destruction.
I felt that the four metals of the ages provided an interesting palette but I wasn’t getting any ideas for images. I considered an abstract colour based piece but felt unsure about where to take that. Its an idea to follow up some time! I returned to the personal and started looking at how the ages of man had been portrayed in art. I found many wonderful examples of the seven ages of men and women but also five and three (plus death).
I’ve been doing a lot of work with silhouettes and outlines mainly using printing techniques. I also did a mosaic felting workshop with Heather Belcher last year which was great fun. I used one of the technique learned to make a felt carpet which was one of the pieces for my diploma. I haven’t done much felting since and was keen to find time to do some more. This influenced my decision to do a piece using cut pre-felted ‘sister-felts’.
I decided to use silhouettes of women in the different stages of life. Originally I started with five but found that in silhouette it was difficult to clearly distinguish different ages. Klimt painting three ages of Women shows infancy, motherhood & old age. Although slightly miffed by the implication it happily served my purpose!
I started out by making two pieced of pre-felt using two fine layers of fibres laid in a square. I cut out the silhouettes from each pre felt and swapped the pieces around – volas two pieces of work.
I approached completing the two pieces in different ways. For one I stitched the cut out pieces into the background piece with thick thread, varying both thread and stitch length with each silhouette. For the second piece I did not do any stitching before completing the work.
Both pieces were completed in the same way by laying two layers of fibre on the back of each piece of pre-felt and felting the work.
I was amazed that despite using an even number of layers the pieces have both shrunk more in one direction that the other so the silhouettes are rather foreshortened. In particular the crawling babe seems to be rather frog-like; in retrospect a standing toddler might have worked better. I spent time working to get a nice edge but its still not as neat as I’d like it.
I enjoyed doing this piece and would like to continue with more ideas around this theme when I find time.
Rose | Category: 
