Instructor bio: From wearable art to sound-absorbing wall hangings, exploring the textures and properties of wool and what it can shape into has become Chantal Cardinal’s full time obsession under FELT à la main with LOVE.
After a career as a Fashion Designer and Costumer in the film industry, she was introduced to wet felting techniques where she discovered the endless possibilities of painting with fibres. This opened her up to the breathtaking ways in which material could be molded and shaped to create endless possibilities of artifacts out of wool. An important part of her artistic practice is using local wool and processing it herself from a raw sheep’s fleece that she gets to know by name.
Chantal loves to share her love of wet felting with workshops at community events, online, on location like at Fibreworks Gallery & Studio or at her studio at The Arts Factory in Vancouver.
She has exhibited in BC, the USA, as well as in the UK, and was awarded a Vancity public art commission for the Surrey City Center Branch.
In 2021, a challenging year in more ways that one, she received an AIC grant (Artist in Classroom) where she engaged 200+ kids K-7, over a six month period, in creating Living Walls:From Farm to Felt and connecting the kids to where the medium comes from by processing a raw sheep’s fleece and turning it into art.
She is featured on the cover of the summer issue of the German felting magazine FilzFun 3/22
Workshops instructor:
2015-2022- In Studio Workshop 6 available 5hr workshops to choose from @The Arts Factory
2022 Demonstrating felting @Arts in the Garden, North Vancouver, BC
2022 CREATE Art Festival- Making friendship bowls, Vancouver, BC (3 x 2hrs x 10participants/workshop)
2022 Harmony Arts festival-Soft Sculptural Flower Workshop, West Vancouver, BC
2021-Felt::Feutre Canada Fall workshop Series-developed an online tutorial
2021-Professional Development Day for the Richmond Sd38 -Zoom events (2 x 30participants)
2021-Fibreworks Gallery & Studio-FELT à la main with LOVE Scarf Workshop, Sunshine Coast, BC
2021-CREATE Art Festival- Soft Sculptural Flower Workshop, Vancouver, BC
2019-?WHAT MATTERS! -Artist Talk Demo/Workshop @ GPAG, Gibsons, BC
2019-BC Culture Days-Felted Flower Demo/Workshop
2018-BC Culture Days-3 day event with Le Collectif CB-Gallery Nomade 1.0- making a collective public Art then exhibited during the EastSideCultureCrawl 2018 (see 2:26)
2017-BC Culture Days-open studio Artist talk ‘n Demo
Links of interests (copy and paste link)
L’Atelier Culturel (Artist profile on Radio-Canada)->https://ici.radio-canada.ca/atelier-culturel/artistes-d-ici/artistes-d-ici/document/nouvelles/article/1860954/chantal-cardinal-artiste-feutre-laine-textile-atelier-culturel
Le Collectif event @BC Culture Days (2018)->https://youtu.be/xrsZlZRSTYg
Upcoming 2022
EastSide Culture Crawl- 4 day open studio event- Nov 17th-21st, 2022