Needle Felting - Tova Goren

A Therapeutic Process with Evacuees in the "Safe Studio,” Israel, 2024

After the October 7th attack and the subsequent war that broke out in Israel, I worked in the Safe Studio. Set up in hotels and community centers across the country, the "Safe Studios" were designed as therapeutic spaces for evacuees and survivors to participate in art-making and process their emotions and experiences through creative expression.

There were over forty "Safe Studios" activated across Israel, and our role as art therapists involved organizing the art materials and assisting families.

I observed participants as they arrived at the Safe Studio and watched them choose from various available materials. I noticed that several participants chose to work with felt. This triggered me to contemplate felting and its use as a therapeutic means of projection for treating trauma.

Apart from the primacy of the creation process, what stood out was the parallel between the participants' process of coping with their new reality and the different stages of the felting process.

Felting is a technique in which soft and colorful felt fibers are poked repeatedly with a needle on a spongy surface. While it is pleasant and meditative at times, it can also be aggressive.

The long, jagged, sharp needle serves as a sculptural tool. It collects and compresses the woolen fibers, mixes them layer upon layer, and penetrates deeply with a changing movement. Sometimes, the needle breaks, and it can hurt. It can be painful and even cause bleeding.

The needle gathers the woolen fibers into one voluminous chunk—a chunk that has a direction and an idea behind it. It is simultaneously flexible and solid, compressed, fibrous, soft, and pleasant to the touch. The work is created on the sponge base which absorbs the wool with each needle poke.

I observed the studio participants' work process. It began with them choosing the colorful wool fibers; then they stretched them, separated them, rolled them into a chunk, and consolidated them with the needle.

This was a symbolic process, an attempt to shape a chaotic experience.

One participant reached for the pile of woolen fibers, taking a handful of big chunks, which they tried to tear off with vigorous ripping motions. This process of pulling is repeated several times, intensively. The chosen fibers were gathered into a shapeless chunk between the participant's palms. The palms squeezed the material in a pressing movement, with no particular order or direction.

The chunk they created was shapeless and was placed on the spongy surface. They then picked up the chunk with one hand, holding a needle with the other, and poked it with a vigorous, forceful, and rushed movement.

The pace of the pinning and the poking was constantly changing and restless. They interchangeably poked the entire chunk from above and from the sides. Their movement was not methodical and was done with an irregular pattern; the poking itself was intense, in contrast to the wool, which was soft and malleable.

And then….the needle was thrust into the finger, there was pain, panic, blood, crying…an outburst of emotional chaos.

This work process symbolized the participants' emotional experience. They came to the studio after exposure to various "shades" of pain and turbulence. Their pain was compressed into a chunk and converted into a visual container; this container protected their inner world and expressed the strength and energy the creation process enabled them to gain.

Felting allows the creator to organize their emotions by working directly and spontaneously in a process involving pain, although it can also be soft and meditative sometimes. It demonstrates how the chaotic experience manifests itself in the studio work.

The highly sensory experience of touching and moving the organic material provides an outlet for anger and aggression. It converts stress into a tangible artwork with color, texture, imagination, and beauty. The artwork becomes a "comforting object."

Needle felting can be a powerful therapeutic process as it helps individuals understand their reality and difficulty returning to their usual routines. It also allows them to acknowledge the strength and meaning of creativity to gain control and process one's emotional chaos.

Tova goren goto54@gmail.com