I’m back! With a longer than average so far recording, prompted by various conversations I’ve been having these past days, and my silence here these past weeks. This is likely my most meandering and explorative recording, which kind of fits the theme …
In this episode I respond to a listener’s message in response to my recording about playfulness (episode 7) and the need for trust that they identify, and I make a link in turn to surrendering into the unknown, and the self-knowledge that can come out of that. I speak specifically about my coming out journey and my queerness, and touch briefly on the experience of fully stepping into my mixed heritage. I mention the notion of Eros (desire) in its broadest sense - as I see it: That spark of inspiration and recognition of something that aligns so deeply, that rings so true, that there simply is no choice but to seek expression of it in the external world, whether that is as art, as coming out, in relationships, or in other ways.
Thank you for the nourishment received from those of you who have engaged with my content, and those of you who have engaged outside of it. I am still finding my way with these recordings, am still learning what I need from them, what they need from me, and how to engage in the conversations that arise as a result. Please bear with me as I fumble my way through, it is very much a part of why I’m doing this, and I trust that one day it will all make sense - for myself as much as for you!
The official bit:
Dutch-Indonesian artist Gladys Paulus (b. 1973) is a visual artist, tutor and coach.
She works at the intersection of fine art and traditional crafts. Her practice is rooted in exploring the ancestral and emotive power of materials. Drawing on her ongoing inquiry into identity and lineage, she uses textiles as vessels of memory, transformation, and quiet resistance. Her work often emerges from slowness, using the tactile language of sheep’s wool and hand-making to honour what has been forgotten, unspoken, marginalised, or repressed, drawing from personal explorations of her own identity as a queer person of mixed heritage, a descendant of refugee migrants, as well as her meditation and embodiment practices.
Felt, with its primal tactility and ancient lineage, allows her to blur boundaries between art and ritual, between object and offering. Felt is thought to predate woven textile, and is intimately linked to our place within the landscape, and to our very survival as a species. The techniques of wet felting have remained the same in essence to this day. In exploring wool’s capacity to hold memory and emotion, Paulus stretches it into new dimensions, creating pieces that do not merely exist as objects but rather as vessels for experience, reflection, and transformation.
Paulus’s works draw parallels between craftsmanship and the contemplative aspects of ritual. She sees her pieces as quiet acts of defiance against the erosion of mystery, beauty and sacredness in modern life. In a world that often prioritizes speed, utility, and superficiality, her practice stands as a reminder of slowness, reverence, and the value of ritual. Felt allows her to forge a space where the distinctions between art, craft, and spirituality blur and become irrelevant. It allows her to merge the sometimes opposing cultural attitudes that have shaped her own identity, while also questioning and reinterpreting them. This is where her work thrives: In the in-between, the belonging and not belonging, the sacred and the profane, the personal and the universal.
A fourth generation artist and maker, Paulus currently lives and works in Somerset (UK). She is a specialist visiting tutor across the UK, Europe, USA and Canada, a former exhibiting member of the 62 Group of textile artists and she is on the Crafts Councils Selected Index of Makers. Her work is represented in the collection of the World Museum (Amsterdam), and private collections in the USA, Canada, Mexico and the UK.
To find out more, visit:
https://www.gladyspaulus.com/
