A TRUE SHEPHERDESS

 

To start a new month, I want to highlight a Catholic textile artist I recently came across.  I happen to live in a part of the world- small thought it may be- where there are many talented women ( and even men) who work in wool, be it spinning (which I used to love to do), weaving, or some aspect of textile art.  I have always been envious of those who can transform raw wool into some beautiful form of art.

HOLLY GUERTIN is a fiber artist and textile designer based outside of Philadelphia with her husband and four sons. She grew up in suburban North Carolina and studied fibers at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

In the Catholic faith, Holly has found a rich language, artistic precedent, and treasure trove of theological concepts to deepen her understanding of wool and sheep and their window to the sacramental worldview.  Her lamb art is so realistic one feels as if they could touch the art and the lambs would hop off.

 When she was a freshman in college at SCAD, she happened upon an open studio event at the fibers department. 

“The artworks and projects I saw in the building were some of the most interesting Iʼd ever seen, and once I saw the variety of careers that were possible with a fibers degree, I changed my major from fashion to fibers and never looked back.

In the fibers program, I learned everything that goes into cloth making (such as knitting, weaving, and felting) and cloth decoration (such as dyeing, screen printing, and embroidery). I never tried a technique I didnʼt like.”

In her sophomore year, she discovered “the power of my hands to transform wool into felt, my eyes were opened to a sacramental worldview. Especially because I was working with wool, a material so steeped in religious and scriptural symbolism, I understood the immense value in the creative act. Suddenly, the work of my hands held meaning!”

Throughout her college years, she was a leader at an all-girls Catholic high school in Savannah for a non-denominational discipleship ministry called Young Life. This ignited her love for ministry. Her exploration of wool in the Fibers program greatly informed her spiritual life.

 Initially, she became a textile designer for women’s clothing brands including Lilly Pulitzer and Marie Oliver. While this experience honed her skills, it also stifled her creative freedom, prompting her to take the bold step into entrepreneurship. Leaving the corporate world behind allowed Holly to channel her energy into creating art that resonates deeply with her values and vision.

She is the fiber arts teacher at Martin Saints Classical High School ( A Chesterton Academy) in East Norriton, PA. “My faith has been intertwined within my artwork from the very beginning. Throughout my life, art has been a way I explore different themes and ideas. By being made in the image of God, his creative power that crafted the universe is woven into our very being. When I am creative, I am participating in the Lordʼs creativity. This cooperation inspires and fuels my work.”

 Holly's most known for her "Sheepskin" series of crocheted artworks, which have been commissioned for SCAD's Permanent Collection and displayed internationally. They are sculptural wall hangings with crocheted domes in a variety of tone, size, and depth resembling the fleece of a sheep freshly shorn. Each dome is filled with raw, virgin wool and is connected to the muslin base using quilting stitches. Each sheepskin calls to mind the redemptive action of Christ, as the Lamb of God, for all of us by taking on our nature (as sheep, see Isaiah 53:6). 

In her work, she explores how cloth reveals what it means to be human. She credits St. John Paul II having a great influence on her artwork and how she understands creativity and beauty. She finds great value in modeling the Benedictine principle of Ora et Labora, “pray and work" to her sons who sometimes enjoy embroidering and felting with their mother.

“The way we view sheep, even today, mirrors our understanding of ourselves. Especially in our increasingly digital and artificial ways of living, I have found wool to be an antidote to our divisive and isolating culture. Wool has revealed our innate human dignity, the value of manual labor, the meaning in material, the beauty in pattern, the sacred in the ordinary, and the power of creativity.”

 Her artwork has been displayed through SCAD’s Permanent Collection in Atlanta, Savannah, Hong Kong, and France, as well as othe parts of the USA.