Written by Committee Member Loli Cox

Feltmakers Ireland was honoured to host Deirdre “Dee” Crofts on Sunday, the 9th of February. Dee shared her Felting and Art journey with 30 visitors and members of Feltmakers Ireland.

Dee, a long-time member of Feltmakers and until recently on the Feltmakers Ireland Committee, is a woman with many talents. In addition to feltmaking, Dee works in ceramics, weaving, metalwork, printmaking, plaster castings, knitting and horticulture. Her focus now is on automata – creating sculptures that can move.

So Much to See

Dee brought many art pieces along with her to display and explained the process of creating each piece with passion and precision. A few ‘stand out’ pieces included a ceramic likeness of St. Brigid, which she exhibited with the Liberties Weavers; Dee incorporated felting and weaving into the work. Another was her automata piece of ‘The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly’; here, she created a wind-up toy with gears, causing the old woman to swallow the various characters named in the well-known poem. Finally, her wet felted seagulls illustrated ‘the magic’ of wool; Dee said, “It’s an amazing thing to use sheep fur to create felted art”.

Feltmakers Ireland can’t wait to see what Dee will do next!

“Try out everything because it’s fun … and you have something in the end” – one of the many encouraging words from Dee.

More Work

Some of Dee’s sculptures can be found at the Kildare Gallery – https://thekildaregallery.ie/product-category/sculpture/deirdre-crofts/

Additionally, she exhibits each year at the sculpture installation at Bloom in Phoenix Park- https://www.bordbiabloom.com/sculpture-in-the-park/

In previous years, she exhibited at Sculpture in Context at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin. (It is currently on hiatus but will hopefully return this year). https://sculptureincontext.ie/

Video of Dee’s Talk

Lastly, an unedited video of Deirdre Crofts’ talk with us is on our YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/@feltmakersireland

Sincere apologies in advance for the dodgy camerawork and sound. https://youtu.be/N0S3FjGK2Io

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