Sculptured Fibres

Welcome to our website – this page is about us and our textile art produced by hand in Australia.

My name is Angela Fimmano. I am a textile artist based in Sydney Australia. Working with raw fibres is coming home for me. I come from Dalton Georgia USA – the tufted textile capital of the world. After migrating to Australia, I completed my studies in Dress Design at East Sydney Technical College and worked in the fashion and soft furnishing industries until starting a family. I discovered fibre wet felting at a local community college one-day course on the NSW South Coast a few years ago and am now a fibre hostage! In learning the ancient technique of felting, I have found a medium that is deeply satisfying as well as challenging artistically.

Much of the fibre in my work comes from raw fleece that is hand-picked clean, washed and dried and then carded into fibre batts for use as natural colour or for dyeing by us using natural dyes. My husband Joe - an awarding winning builder and stonemason - assists me with the felting process, constructs our plaster display busts and also provides sources of inspiration as we photograph our surroundings. There is no end to the delight and inspiration we find in creation. One of the techniques we use for the pieces is called Nuno Felting and was developed by Australian textile artist Polly Stirling in the early 1990s. It involves layering animal fibres and open weave fabrics. To begin the felt process the fibres are arranged to complement one another in texture, colour and behaviour with selected cotton or silk accompanying fabrics. Bathing them in warm soapy water to invite them to dance and entangle with each other, the fibres are then surrendered to the felting process to do as they please. The fibre/fabric dynamic in nuno felting – when it works – is fascinating and compelling and difficult to replicate. It is a beautiful process that we are drawn to, in a manufactured, technological world that finds our culture sadly moving further away from these natural processes. Like a fine, fermented fruit or well-aged cheese or fresh baked sourdough bread.....we strive to respect these slow traditions and give them significance in our modern lives. 

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We also hand make and sell our own pure castile soap using only Australian extra virgin olive oil. This is something that we stumbled upon a few years ago when looking for an alternative to using commercial soaps in felting, as they were not kind to our skin after prolonged exposure during the felting process. You can find it at our soap website by clicking this link Olive's Oil Soap

You will note there are no links to social media here – honestly, we just don’t have the time to navigate it, you are welcome to share though. Our pieces take a long to make as we often are processing and colouring them ourselves prior to constructing the finished pieces. Each one is unique and so you can see that we devote our creative time to the pieces rather than promotion. Making individual beautiful sculpted fibre pieces, that give our clients much joy, is our mission. Please click below to subscribe to our blog if you want to be notified when new items become available.