Claudy: There was a moment I remember very well; it was like three years ago. There was a school class from Leeuwarden, and I mean, the poorest children from the Netherlands live in that area, and they came over and they were... And their teacher said, "Yeah, hmm, they are bored really quickly."
But that was not true! I was even a bit angry about this teacher, because there [were] these boys, and they started spinning, and they spun the whole day. And then the other girls, they started felting and they made something, and they got proud. And they went home and they said to their parents and their teachers, "Can we do our school outing—" that they have once a year not to this, I don't know, zoo or whatever, but, “—can we go back to this studio?"
My name is Claudy Jongstra, I'm a Mural Artist and I have been working with wool for the last fifteen years.
Claudy:I think my work, represents some kind of experience.
The library in Amsterdam is, especially the entrance hall, is in a sense, a radical project. Because, they allowed the commissioner—the people from the library, allow the audience to touch the work, to make dreadlocks in the work, to knit it, knot it. I mean, everybody, I mean homeless people, or highly educated people, everybody can get in, and enter, and really make physical contact with the work.
I think that's a radical approach, I don't see it as like an artwork, but really inviting people to experience a world they don't know, [that] they don't have any knowledge or access to. So I think in that sense, that's really a radical work because of the use of it.
Claudy: We did a weaving project last year; it's called Moments of Intervention. We just started weaving, using it as a metaphor, and we used role models—teenagers working with other teenagers in situations like deaf girls, or people who are refugees—people who are not connected to our society. And by using weaving and the textile material as a tool to connect, I mean, literally when you have woven material it's like when you do this, it's a connection.
Claudy: The textile itself, working with them, and the materials, I mean everybody feels very naturally attracted to it, and comfortable with it, working with it. It's not something unknown, even [though] maybe you've forgotten about it, but [that’s what’s] so interesting about it; I think it's really in our system and it's the same as with the colours.
They [are] so modest, being there, not showing off, but just showing their vitality in itself. That's the richness, I think. It doesn't need a big step to approach it, so this is really, a very genius tool to work with. So that's [why] I think I love the simplicity of that too.
Claudy: By growing a lot of the plants for colours, and immediately—especially in this landscape we work in—it's a monocultured-shaped landscape, I think. I feel much like, hmm, I have a mission? And the mission is that you also show yourself in the position to be an engaged artist, and how can you do that? There are many ways, by implementing it into your work.
So that's why we started the sheep, working with the sheep. And also with the colours, but also with the dyes. I mean the dyes you can also say it's about sustainability, bringing them back into our world. It's about waste, it's about lost craft—I mean it's not there anymore. A lot of the things we do, the techniques and the craftsmanships are also about things we lose, and things, well, that are not sustainable anymore.
And I think if the work, that's also in a way is a sustainable work, it will endure and [last]. It can hang there for fifty years, you don't get bored because it's there. It belongs.