Felt Sculptures

I recently had photographs taken of my felt sculptures, which turned out great. Waiting Man is the most recent of the sculptures.

NYS Sheep and Wool Festival

Two weekends ago we made the trip up to Rhinebeck, NY for the state Sheep and Wool Festival. We had a beautiful fall day with the leaves changing, crisp cold air, and blue skies. The festival was a fun an interesting experience; unfortunately severe overcrowding made it difficult to enjoy most of the vendors and demonstrations. If you could get to them, the vendors had a wide selection of raw wool, roving, and yarn for sale. I still have more wool to wash then I can handle, but it was pretty to see it all piled up.

After an frustrating attempt to see some vendors and buy a few spinning and carding tools, we gave up, grabbed a beer, and headed to the livestock barns. This was one of the best parts of the festival. I happen to love the smell of a barn, and we loved exploring all the varieties of sheep. We even watched a little of the sheep sheering; a process which I’ve been surprised to learn my city-dwelling friends expect to be painful for the sheep. In reality the sheep are carefully groomed (the contraption to hold them does seem a little uncomfortable, I admit) and end up free of several pounds of wool from their backs. Afterwards, they get a little custom fit jacket to keep them warm. After a hot summer it seems to me it must feel great.

The other activity that we loved was the sheep dog trials. I’ve seen this before in a small arena, but this competition took place in field the size of 2-3 football fields and had the dogs bringing the herd of sheep through obstacles from one end to the other. They were amazing to watch, and once again I feel fascinated as I watch nature and man work together so beautifully.

Over all we had a really great time. A lot of it was just the opportunity to get out of the city and experience some quiet for awhile. I think that part of my draw to sheep, felt, and all of the natural world is that I feel so completely isolated from the it here in New York City. While there are many wonderful things about living here, it also feels quite separate from reality. There are so many aspects of being a human that you simply cannot experience when you are surrounded by concrete, steel, and a population that walks through the streets only looking straight ahead.

Felting: part II

The wool has been gathered, washed, and carded… now it’s time for the felting. This is a practice that goes back thousands of years, and is a beautifully simple process. There is a long tradition of felting in central Asia, and from what I can gather, my process is essentially the same. Basically, all that is needed is warm water, and agitation. Wool will actually felt itself even while still on the sheep’s back, given the chance.

First, I lay a reed mat (purchased in China Town for about $3) on the floor with a piece of plastic tarp underneath to protect the wood floors. The carded pieces of wool are spread thin, and laid out in a single layer across half the mat in a 24″ square. I drizzle a gentle liquid soap over the wool, then lay a second layer going the opposite direction. The soap is repeated after each layer, and all of the wool pieces overlap slightly so there are no holes.

The number of layers depends on the desired thickness; for a solid, sturdy fabric I used 5 layers of wool.

Next, I fold the mat in half over the wool, and roll up tightly. I secure the roll using rubber bands.

I fill the bathtub with about 4″ of hot water, and submerse the wool until it’s soaked through. I like to begin the agitation in the tub by rolling the mat back and forth; I think of it as imitating the wash cycle in a washing machine.

After about 10-15 minutes of agitation in the tub, I drain the excess water and roll it back and forth on the floor using firm pressure.

The total agitation process takes about 30-40 minutes. When finished I unroll the mat, turn the fabric, and repeat the process. This needs to be done at least 4-6 times to make a tight fabric.

Finally, the fabric is finished. I hang it to dry for about 24 hours, and then it’s ready to use. Felt is especially nice to work with because it can be cut, stitched, and molded without having to hem the edges.

And there it is: The mysteries of felt unfolded!

Despite the long and tedious nature of felt-making, I really do love it – its natural process, and its ancient history. To me it represents the simplicity of the things we really need, all of which already exists in nature.

I do love hunting scenes…

Not the kind with guns and macho men holding up their kill by the heels, but the kind where natural predators are hunting their natural prey in their natural habitat. The kind of thing we never see anymore (except on the completely wonderful BBC series Planet Earth).

This isn’t really a new thing for me, but only recently have I started admitting to myself how much I like them. I’m fascinated by this simultaneously brutal and beautiful act; one that essentially hasn’t changed (for animals) since the beginning. Below is a painting by George Catlin that I clearly remember studying as a kid. It was in a Time Life book with the PC title “The Indians”, which despite its somewhat dated content remains one of the most influential collections of images of my early artistic development. I recently found a copy at a used book drive, and have been revisiting all of the old inspiration.

Someone sent me this article from the New York Times recently about the possible end of protection for wolves in Yellowstone, and it had another amazing hunting image.

I don’t exactly know how to explain what it is that I like so much about these images, and about this subject. I know that lately when I think about writing an artist statement (something that describes why you’ve dedicated your whole existence to creating these specific images in less than 300 words- not a problem), my mind goes straight to these images. They sum it up in a way that I just don’t know how to put into words yet- at least not without sounding cheesy and probably a little pretentious. So, this is it: I like the hunt. I like the beauty and the power. I like the stillness that comes immediately before and immediately after death.

A Musical Baby Quilt…

Just for fun, here is the baby quilt that I recently made for a friend! Tammy and Andrew Duncan are in a band called Frauke, which they started with David Obuchowski of Goes Cube as a side project to their other work. The t-shirts in the quilt are all from bands that Frauke has played with, or from the bands of friends.

Felt Sculpture

For almost a year now I’ve been working with lamb’s wool, which I have been cleaning, carding, and felting in my apartment. I purchased the wool from the Dine’ (Navajo) in Arizona; it is from the Navajo-Churro sheep which they have raised there for hundreds of years. I ordered a sampling of the beautiful natural colors; chocolate brown, white, a peach like color they call red, and a “gray”, which is a dark brown that fades to silver at the tips (seen in the above sculpture).

I have been struggling with what to do with the felt for a long time. The preparation and felting process requires hours of careful work, and I found that once I had my finished product I didn’t want to do anything more to it. It was hard to imagine creating anything more beautiful than the fabric itself.

A few months ago I finally decided the carefully made felt would never be seen by anyone other than me if I didn’t start creating something with it. After a few failed attempts, I came up with the antler and bead sculpture I am posting here. The felt works beautifully as a sculptural material because of the stiffness and durability of the fabric. It is easily manipulated, and assumes all kinds of shapes easily. I found that sewing pieces together, and then hardening the fabric with heavy starch was the best way to create a solid structure.

This is the first sculpture I’ve finished and felt good about. I really like working three-dimensionally; it felt so foreign at first, but the more I play with it the more I feel like its simply an extension of the paintings. As when I paint, I have found that I work best without too firm of a plan. I need to have the materials in my hands, figuring out shapes and processes as I go to make anything that feels natural.

I’m working now on another group of small felt sculptures which resemble crudely formed dolls. After I have a small group of them I want to assemble them in an environment…kind like a diorama I guess! Before long I’ll need to start making more felt; when I do I’m going to post some photos showing how I do it, just for fun.

Sketchbook

I’ve been working on some paintings the last few weeks that are simply going nowhere. Sometimes when it seems like nothing is happening with painting, I decide that its better not to force it and just work on something else. I started this little sketchbook so that I can work on something different for awhile. I’ve had these dry leaves since the fall, and decided to sew them into the sketchbook under sheets of plastic. Thats it. No real reason, they’re just pretty and I felt like it.

Yarrow and Deer

This is one of the first paintings from the new group of work, and so far it is one of my favorites. It uses two of my more recent symbols; yarrow and deer. The yarrow is loosely a symbol of healing, as it is a medicinal plant used by Native Americans to heal cuts and bruises. I think that I’ve been choosing deer as the subject in my paintings simply because their shape seems to have a kind of vulnerability to it. They are relatively easy prey, with a modest speed being their only defense (at least for the females). Sometimes I think of them as nature’s sacrificial animal; easy prey to keep the cycle moving.

This image also has a strong suggestion of violence, which is the first of its kind in this series. To me it turned out that although it is a pretty disturbing image, it has a strange kind of peacefulness to it. This is exactly the kind of contrasting imagery and emotion that I have been seeking to accomplish.

Some Changes and New Work

the Changes…

Over the next few months I’m going to be changing the format for this blog. I’ve started working on a website that will be the new place to see my portfolio, hopefully in a more user-friendly way. It should be up in a few months. I’ve also started a shop on Etsy (seller name: sgpedry) where you can view a few things that I have for sale. I’m going to use this blog as a place to post what I’m working on now, and to talk a little bit about what I’m thinking about and looking at art-wise. For now I plan on making a new post every weekend.

and the New Work!

I’ve started a new series of paintings on watercolor paper that are taking me back to my love of drawing while incorporating what I love about the color and texture of paint. I am working with pen and ink, gouache, some collage, and a variety of other materials. The work I’ve done over the last few years is very loose, with solid colors and many layers of oil paint. My intention for the new work was to keep the atmospheric feeling of the oil paintings, while simplifying the image and adding moments of control and delicate rendering.

The subject of the paintings is difficult for me to pinpoint (as usual). I almost never start a painting with the intention of telling a specific story or evoking one emotion. I might start with a color that’s been on my mind, a photograph I’ve seen, or just the flash of an image from memory. When I look at the blank paper it seems like it just tells me what to do…maybe that sounds a little hokey, but it’s true!

Having said that, now that I’ve made a few paintings I can see a pattern developing. I have some ideas about where they’ve come from me, but I don’t want to restrict their meaning for anyone else just yet. So here are the repeated images and subjects: children, arrows, wolves and other animals, and blood (or something blood-like). I’m also back to using halos a lot, which have always been a powerful symbol for me. I like them not so much for their religious connotations, but for the way they seem to lift their subject out of any real space. I also see it as a protective symbol.

So, here is one of the paintings. There’s no title yet…

Working alone in the studio can be kind of an isolating experience sometimes; I would welcome comments on the paintings that will let me know what you see.

Met Employee Art Show

Here is my painting from the Met’s employee art show in September.

Deer, Yarrow, Cottonwood Tree

Ink, watercolor, fabric and thread