THF Haiga Galleries: Felt World — Constructed Haiga of Stella Pierides

Stella Pierides

The Haiku Foundation honors the work of contemporary masters of the dual art of haiga: visual image wedded to haiku. This month’s featured artist is Stella Pierides.

Stella is a British poet and artist of Greek descent. Interweaving the past with the present, her work explores the cultural, social, and psychological layers of our lives.

“Felt World in the title of this Gallery alludes both to the world as experienced through our senses and emotions, in the immediate, embodied understanding of it; and the world of those interested in felting, in transforming mainly wool fibres to the matted material referred to as felt, through a process involving heat, moisture, and pressure.

“To instill a personal, subjective touch to my haiga, I photographed objects painstakingly handcrafted by myself: Felted objects, where felt is meant in the literal sense — textile made of wool, soap, water, and elbow grease; objects made of cement, sand, and water, such as the heads I sculpt and endow with features and expresssions; as well as photographs of places with special meaning to me. I wrote elsewhere: ‘As a result of bringing these sides together, through seeing, touching, handcrafting, imagining, and experiencing, I developed a strong, almost palpable connection to my creations.’”

returning

brushing against coarse grass

and heather

Stella’s work has been translated into several languages and anthologized. Her work for The Haiku Foundation included managing Per Diem (now Haiku of the Day), serving as founding managing editor for Haikupedia, conceiving and coordinating the year-long feature Haiku for Parkinson’s, and serving on the Board of Directors.

Stella has received two Haiku Society of America Merit Book awards for her books Of This World (Red Moon Press, 2017 (48 haibun)) and In the Garden of Absence (Fruit Dove Press, 2012 (haiku)).