Barbara Keal’s Animal Felt Hats

Artist Barbara Keal began making things out of felt when she became aware of a ” motley herd of almost wild looking sheep”  that graze on her local nature reserve, Malling Hill. She found sanity and vitality visiting them, they allowed her to rise up and out of the human community of the town, acknowledging her membership of the community of all creatures. As an artist  wanting to express this experience through her work, she began her first felting venture making an enormous dress (with skirts of 120 or so Square feet) from their fleeces