SOLD OUT!!!! Bush Retreat 2024 with Fiona Duthie

Join us for a magical bush retreat in the middle of the magnificent Jarrah forest of Dwellingup. From Midday Thursday 6th June to 2pm Sunday 9th June the first 24 Feltwest members to book will participate in a fantastic and enriching workshop with the internationally renown Fiona Duthie, who has developed this 3 day workshop just for us. The lucky participants will enjoy fun, fellowship and felting in the beautiful surrounds of Nanga Bush Camp – this will be an event to remember.

Nanga Bush Camp is not a 5 star luxury resort but what it is – is a tranquil hideaway from our regular lives. We have booked the Currawong bunk house that has small bunk rooms with 4 beds. The rooms are positioned around the mezzanine floor that surrounds the incredible open space that we will call home for 3 days. But! At most you will share with 1 other person, and there are more than enough bunks that we all get a lower level one. There are several exterior spaces for gathering and of course all of that beautiful bush.

The main space has a huge fireplace and drum heater to make it toasty warm which will be perfect for sipping mulled wine by. A chef will cater for lunch and dinner in the fully equipped kitchen.

Once you have booked the Materials list for Fiona’s workshop will be sent to you. And full details of the retreat, including directions and what to bring, will come in the beginning of May.

Layers in Design a workshop with Fiona Duthie

Layers in Design explores inks, paints, markers and gold leaf for printing and drawing on cloth and on finished felt, to individualize your felt projects. Through nature observation and creative exercises, we look at where to find inspiration and use it to make your own personalized fabrics through abstraction in colour, forms, text, asemic writing and gestures in markmaking. We’ll paint fabric with colour, black and white and metallics, using paints and inks to create durable, complex cloth designs that can be collaged into dynamic nuno/laminated felt surfaces. 

We’ll make prefelts from these, and discuss ways these can used in many styles of projects, covering design process and composition, reviewing colour theory, contrast and scale.  Participants will complete the workshop with a wide range of printed cloth and handmade nuno prefelts to bring into future projects.

Fiona Duthie is an artist/maker recognized for her dynamic surface design. She explores personal narrative using mainly textiles, focusing on relationships between people and place, and our psychological states and responses. She starts a new piece with the story and creates tactile metaphors in form, material and process to best communicate that narrative.

She first encountered feltmaking in 1996 and it immediately became her medium and passion. Fiona has a full-time studio practice based on Salt Spring Island, BC and has exhibited her work in Canada, the US, New Zealand, the UK and Australia.

Experience level – all

Estimated cost of materials on list $130

Consumables of $35 included in booking price.

If you are eligible you will receive an email at midday Sunday 28th January with instructions.

Bookings open Midday Sunday 4th February.

There will be a waiting list if you miss out. To be eligible to book the retreat you had to be a financial member of Feltwest before Jan 1st of this year. There will not be a membership bundle for the retreat, and joining now will not entitle you to book.