This voice note continues the mini series on values, and which ones are the most important to me at this point in my life.
I recorded it from my bed in the French pays Basque (Basque country), overlooking the Pyrenees mountain range separating France from Spain. I sat and watched the trajectory of the morning sun across the mountain range (steaming cup of coffee in hand), and it put me in a contemplative and philosophical mood.
It’s taken me much longer than anticipated to find a quiet moment for recording during my time here in France… It’s been a full, focussed, rich and social few weeks, with little time by myself. But I have now finished teaching at Feutre Formation France, have said my goodbyes, and have arrived at a stunning new location near Oloron Sainte Marie yesterday afternoon. I will be here for a few days of rest, before providing one my students with technical felt making support for one of her performance art projects.
I’m shifting gears today, and am really enjoying some quiet time all by myself, all alone in a stunning stone house, tucked away in a hidden little corner in the foot of the mountains. At times like this I really have to pinch myself… The places my work takes me. I am filled with gratitude this morning. It made me reflect on the value of ‘openness’ - to life in general, to the opportunities that come alone, and to the importance of it for creativity and also in connecting with people. I reflect on how Vipassana meditation has helped me cultivate openness over the years, and draw parallels between it and the creative process, and what I noticed coming up for students during these past workshops.
This recording turned out a bit longer than planned, but it feels good to come back to it as a little space of my own to reflect.
Thanks for being here with me.
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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.
Paulus’s practice often draws 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. Her creative practice weaves together elements of the past with the present, creating works that are both a dialogue with history, and a meditation on her own place within it. She sees the act of making as an act of restoration; to make visible the invisible, and the past that has shaped us. Not simply to venerate it, but to question it, understand its impact on the present, and learn from it.
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.
Her works draws 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. 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/
