Felt Sculptures

My newest works are sculptures fashioned from felt and natural materials such as thorns, branches, rocks, and bones. Using fiber from sheep, alpaca, and goats, I make and shape the felt into forms inspired by nature — seed pods, cocoons, nests, as well as parts of the human body. Creating these forms allows me to explore what is hidden and what is revealed; what is alive and what is dying away so new life can emerge. At times, these processes are slow and gentle, as in the growth of certain seed pods which, when mature, slowly dry and crack open exposing their seeds for germinating. At other times, these methods  imply a kind of violence, such as when the outer casings must be pierced by a sharp beak or jagged rock to expose the seeds. I work in the place where gentleness and violence converge, where life and death are inseparable, and where nature and spirit meet.

As I work, feel as if I hold in my hands the life cycle of the sheep, alpacas and goats as each is sheared in its proper season, the cycle of countless generations of felt-makers as I repeat with my own body their ancestral motions, of the plants and animals, including our own species, which inspire my vision. My hope is to evoke in the viewer the mystery and the deep connection of all of this and to expand the definition of what is beautiful.