Aurélia Westray adopts wool felt, a non-woven textile for her works but she modernizes it. This Aurélia Westray textile puts it to the test by mixing it with other materials and adding colors. This felt maker and creator of textile objects creates plays on volumes or graphics in her unique pieces. Aurélia Westray finds her inspiration by listening to her sensations during her walks in nature.
She sets herself challenges which manifest themselves in the textile objects she makes. Cushions, throws or wool paintings, they enhance interiors.
Creation is my escape. It’s a way of telling myself, of making myself happy, of also being aligned with myself. Creation is everywhere. We are all creative. I think it’s in me and I couldn’t live without creation. It’s really something that drives me every day.
– Aurélia Westray, felt maker and textile designer of the Accords Feutrés brand.
“ I had a hard time putting my name to my work because maybe I didn’t feel legitimate enough or not expert enough. With the Accords Feltrés, since it is in the plural, there was this idea of color, a color accord. It seemed obvious to me that I had to use the word felt since by covering with textiles, we are going, as in your studio, to make the space very soft, very comfortable. That’s a bit like Accords Feltrés too: putting yourself in a felt cocoon, in color accords. »
Aurélia Westray, was born in Marseille, in the south of France, from the age of six she lived in Évian-les-Bains, on the shores of Lake Geneva, east of Geneva in Switzerland. After a bachelor’s degree in applied arts, then a BTS in architectural environment, she teaches applied arts. In her personal time, she paints and expresses herself through several mediums, but around fifteen years ago, the need to create became more intense and it was a revelation when she encountered wool felt.
“ I work this material with the hand, with the body, with the eyes », Relates the designer. “ I had a kind of sudden passion and finally found the material I was looking for when I was a student, which was painting with textiles. So, I started at home, in my kitchen, to experiment. The experience was rather conclusive. I wanted to train myself to develop this activity professionally and I was therefore trained at the Lainamac center, in Felletin, in Aubusson, in Creuse, where I was able to rub shoulders with renowned felt makers. Felting is a rare profession because it is very little known. But there, I was able to really learn my skills and discover some pretty fabulous techniques on this material. »
Aurélia Westray, now based in Lyon, works with local wools. In 2019, she launched her brand Accords Feutrés, throws, cushions or wall hangings, her textile objects revisit felted wool.
“ What I try to give to felted wool, which is a bit lacking, is this slightly contemporary side. We often associate this material with beatniks, a material that is scratchy, which is not necessarily noble, which is rather matte. I try to give it a luxurious side, a shiny side and also a sort of refinement. Because wool has something raw, it can be very coarse and I will enhance with my paintings of graphics, silk fibers, textiles, Lyon silks, to give it both this luxurious, unique and also a more graphic, more contemporary appearance, by working on the line. »
“ There are no special tools, apart from having a table that is large enough, tools that will allow you to roll up the felt, so the superposition of layers of wool in a mat. I need very few things, soap and water. Afterwards, it will be the more specific techniques that I acquired precisely in these training courses where we will rather make lace. Working in single layers means that you need skill, a very particular way of laying the wool. There is no particular tool, it is more a creative process that must be put in place and which will give shapes in volume, in hollows, in reserve. »
Aurélia Westray developed a universe around handmade felt using color.
“ My strands of wool are on my work table. It’s like a palette. I have reds, yellows, browns. I’m going to position them on my work surface. Initially, I have French wool, I work with local breeders or breeders who are around the Lyon region. I will first lay down a layer of white like a sheet of white paper, I will put my white wool and then I will apply color in gradients, in patterns, like a painter who would put touches of color on its support, on its canvas. »
To design her textile pieces, Aurélia Westray first lays down the wool fibers, organizes the color gradients, and then moves on to felting. A technique that is both mastered and uncertain with no possible corrections.
“ When I’m going to layer these fibers, even if I know what it’s going to look like, even if I know that certain textiles react in a certain way, there’s still always a bit of tension to say to yourself:did I work at the right scale? Do the colors contrast well with each other? Did I get the graphics I wanted?“There is an element of control and an element of randomness. And often I can’t get back to it. You also have to accept imperfection or sometimes accept that it is not exactly what I had imagined. »
Painting with Aurélia Westray wool feltdoes it by following his instinct, by bringing out the idea and above all by accepting this creative latency.
“ I will immerse myself again in smells, colors, physical sensations and I will gestate in my mind, these sensations. Then, I will write down some sketches on paper which will allow me to define the colors, the colorful atmosphere that I want to obtain. », explains Aurélia Westray. “ There is a sort of maturation, where I go at night, in the evening, in the morning, to think about how I am going to implement if I add volume. And then, I don’t know, one day, there’s a kind of momentum where it’s the day where everything is in place in my head on the sketches and I’m going to start working on a work. It’s quite fast though. It’s a kind of jet. I feel this energy, this spontaneity, it was a jet like that that was thought out. For orders, it’s a little different. Orders, often customers, since it’s very personalized, send me photos. There, I am working on a theme of Reunion Island. People have sent me photos of their interior, of the image they would like me to work on and I will suggest a sort of stylization or an impression of what this landscape inspires me. »
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