Three new felt sculptures

I had a great time at the opening of the Plush You! show it was great to chat with all of the other artists who were able to attend. Through the end of the month three of my felt sculptures can be found at Schmancy in downtown Seattle. Two of them are pictured here and the third is a Cthulhu figure I’ve posted previously.

This is Jenny Greenteeth, she’s named after a particularly nasty water spirit from English folklore. I think we’ve caught her in a friendly mood though. Jenny is the second doll I’ve made with felted ball joints. The first was a blue cat doll I made for Sadie last winter. I’m really excited with how the joints turned out. Jenny’s arms are fairly posable because the tension of the elastic and the friction of the felt hold the arms in many of the positions they can be moved through. I’ll definitely be continuing my experiments with this technique.

Addrew Learbeast was inspired by Edward Topsell’s etching of the Manticore from “The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents” He isn’t a manticore though, strictly speaking, because he doesn’t have a tail with a sting and I’ve made him a sort of heraldic chimera with a torso and arms where the head should be. His jointed arms were slightly less successful, the joints were a bit looser for some reason. Addrew has mohair locks for hair and that was an interesting experiment as well. I’m excited by the fact that I can wet felt the body and mostly keep the mohair from felting as I do so. There is a fair bit of combing out that happens after the fact of course.

This slightly sad looking fellow is the first of my mini monsters for this year’s Little Things show at the Guardino Gallery. He has magnets in the bottoms of his feet which allow him to defy gravity. I’ll be building him as many little companions as I can by early November. If you’re in Portland I hope you’ll come visit and maybe take a few of them home.