making

Craft traverses intimate and collective memory alike. Layered with centuries of intuition and practical experimentation, hand-crafted textiles provoke haptic recollection of our material histories and generate possibilities for our material futures. Claudy Jongstra has mastered the ancient technique of felting - a process of binding raw fibers into cloth through a combination of water and friction - from which she has originated a distinct new language in nonwoven textiles. In contrast to the homogeneous surface of most felts, Jongstra's felts explode with raw, organic texture and painterly strokes of fiber.
The scope and richness of pigments visible in Jongstra’s artworks demonstrate the diverse potential of natural dye processes. When botanics are distilled into pigment, raw materials reveal their inner vitality in vibrant color. Each landscape across the globe bears native pigment plants that form distinct local palettes. At Studio Claudy Jongstra, plants from diverse origins - indigo, madder, cochineal, brazilwood - are transformed into global botanical color palettes that radiate across cultures and geographies.