Monthly Archives: November 2024

Black Friday – Last Friday and Pop-Up

Black Friday – Last Friday, First

This Friday is “Black Friday” and It is also the Last Friday Art Walk in Hillsborough. After your Thursday feasting, head down to Hillsborough for extended holiday shopping hours, art, good companly, and maybe a glass of holiday cheer. The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts is all dressed up for the season, and our artist/elves are continuously busy creating amazing hand crafted art. Many of my one-of-a-kind ornaments have already traveled out the door. So, I will continue to work on new designs, and keep refilling my two copper display trees.

Chickadee Ball- needle felted "wool painting" on dryer ball ornament - chickadee w/glass — Chickadee Ball

I will add the “Chickadee Ball’ dryer ball ornament when I go in for the Black Friday – Last Friday festivities from 6-9.

Pop-Up Next Saturday!

Next Saturday, December 7th the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts will host it’s second annual Holiday Pop-Up from 12-4. Tents will go up outside the gallery and by noon, there will be additional offerings by many of our artists for your holiday gift giving. We make a special effort to make these expecially giftable items.

Last year, I introduced my needle felted one-of-a-kind ornaments. As you know, each is an original mini-sculpture. They were so popular, this year I have created all one-of-a-kind (OOAK) ornaments so far. To switch it up for the Pop-Up this year, I decided to create two “Limited Edition” ornaments. Several people asked me if I would make additional copies of “Hanging Lights”, an opossum hanging lights in a ring.

needle felted opossum hanging lights in a ring ornament — Hanging Lights

Well, no, sorry, I do try to keep the one-of-a-kinds one of a kind (he sold rather quickly.) But, that doesn’t mean I can’t do something similar. So, I will be making a batch of single tail hanging opossums for the Pop-Up.

Limited edition opossum ornaments for for HGA Holiday Pop-Up — Limited Edition Opossum

In addition, I am miniturizing my mini-mush sculptures a little bit more, and making them into hanging ornaments.

Limited edition Mini-mush ornaments for for HGA Holiday Pop-Up — Trio of Mini-Mush Ornaments

The opossums, and mini-mush ornaments will be available at HGA starting at the Pop-Up next Saturday, December 7th. I’m not sure what number I will limit these orament batches at (10?12?) It depends how far I get in their creation this week along with a few other items.

I will be at the gallery for both the Last Friday Art walk this week, and the Holiday Pop-Up, hope you can make it out too.

More Needle-Felted Anthropomorphic Holiday Treats!

Needle felted anthropomorphic mouse with chef hat and tray of cookies, holiday ornament — Cookies!

A number of my one-of-a-kind ornaments featuring needle felted anthropomorphic creatures have already moved on to new homes. So, I am busy creating new ones to fill the spaces on my two copper display trees. I dropped off “Cookies!” the mouse cookie chef last evening, and will get “Wrapping Is Easy” the octopus in to HGA soon.

needle felted anthropomorphic octopus holiday ornament — Wrapping Is Easy (with 8 arms)

I dropped off two others, “Battle Ready” the hedgehog and “Not The Christmas Goose You’re Looking For” this past Saturday. You’ll have to stop by the gallery to see them, as I didn’t take the opportunity to take images of those before I brought them in.

Replacement For The Window

I also was occupied creating a replacement for “It’s Snowing” the hanging polar bear sculpture that was displayed in the front window, as he already found a new home too. I still have a selection of bamboo hoops of varying sizes, so I played with the same theme, and created “Star Gazing.” This hanging sculpture features a pair of needle felted anthropomorphic polar bear cubs, swinging on the ring, and looking up at sparkling stars of needle felted wool and glass beads.

needle felted anthropomorphic hanging sculpture. Polar bear cub twins looking at stars — Star Gazing

I recorded some time lapse videos of the process of creating this sculpture. Below is a compilation video of those clips: (*video doesn’t show on email version of post, must view in browser on wartskisculpture.com)

HMaking Star Gazing

Holiday Pop-Up!

Saturday, December 7th from noon to 4pm, the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts will host it’s second annual Holiday Pop-up event. There will be tents set up outside of the gallery with an even larger selection of hand crafted art and fine crafts. Many of the artists take the opportunity to produce even more gift-able items. This event will coincide with that week’s “Sip n’ Shop” event (each Saturday in December before Christmas.) So, it will be a busy festive day with a tent pop-up, gift card drawing, and refreshments. Mark your calendars!

Things To Ornament

A Couple of New One-of-a-Kind Ornaments

needle felted anthropomorphic walrus ornament — Two Front Teeth

Ok, so the biologist in me knows that technically, that tusks are elongated canines not incisors, but I just couldn’t resist. More than occasionally I create work just to amuse myself, and this OOAK (one of a kind) holiday ornament does make me smile. He is, of course, named after the holiday novelty song “All I want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)”. This walrus ornament is needle felted wool with irridecent glass bead eyes, and a blue toque style cap.

needle felted anthropomorphic skunk ornament — Holiday Scented Candle

Holiday Scented Candle is a skunk determined to add pleasing scent to the holiday gathering. She is needle felted wool with black glass bead eyes. She is holding a lit candle (bayberry? pine? cinnamon?) and is wearing a festive purple scarf.

Both of these new ornaments (along with a few more in the works) will be headed to the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts in a day or two. Several of their friends have already found new homes since we installed the holiday show on Tuesday.

Dressed for the Holidays

As I mentioned already, we installed HGA in its holiday finery on Tuesday this week. This is always an interesting gallery hang as so many of us bring in items that are not found in the space at any other time of the year. Two interesting changes visitors will find this year can be found in the very front and very back of the gallery.

HGA Holiday Show Window

Our holiday window is always eye-catching, but this year it features new custom display cubes that allow work to be shown at varying levels. This modular system was designed and fabricated by several of our member artists. Also new in the window is the addition of more lighting that surrounds each window pane. Additionally, we coordinated the work we are highlighting in the windows. You will notice lots of cool white and blue hues in the art. Just behind the art and lights you can see the branches that serve each year as our display of a wide variety of holiday ornament choices. My little fuzzy items can be found on two copper ornament trees. Thank you, Ryann Carey for doing some evening video work!

In our Featured Exhibit room in the back of the gallery you will find our Art of Giving holiday show. The change to this show from previous years is that we’ve hung the art work salon style. This allows for much more work to be displayed, providing our visitors with an even greater variety of choices.

Stop by and check it all out if you can.

The Art of Giving

Each year the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts presents its special holiday show titled “The Art of Giving.” Our member artists create a wonderland of art and fine crafts to provide a wide variety of gift giving choices. Tomorrow, the gallery will be transformed with our work and some lights into this magical art emporium.

For The Art Of Giving

I’ve been working the past few weeks creating new sculptures, and one-of-a-kind ornaments for our holiday installation. Two of the new sculptures are specifically holiday themed. I shared one of them, Holly & Mistletoe, with you a few weeks ago. He was the raccoon with a working lantern who was collecing holly and mistletoe. The second is titled “It’s Snowing!” and features a reclining polar bear inside a bamboo ring who seems fascinated by the falling snow. You can find this hanging sculpture in the window of HGA starting tomorrow.

Needle felted anthropomorphic polar bear hanging sculpture inside bamboo ring, with crystal embellished wool snowflakes. For Art of Giving show — It’s Snowing!

Don’t forget, I am bringing in a varied selection of one-of-a-kind ornaments as well. Each is an original mini-sculpture that can hopefully become a cherished part of your holiday traditions.

Acorn Gift
Bling! mini
Peppermint Cocoa
Festive Print Mixing
Sugarplum Mouse
Star Placement
Jolabokaflod
Overland Tree Delivery
Ornament Transit
Aurora Reflection needle felted wool “painting” on a dryer ball ornament
White Stag
Festive
Musk Elf
Speedy
Elf Cottages
Christmas Past
Deco-lobster
Armed
Jingle Jelly
Special Delivery
Santa Whale
Cardinal Ball
Moose Twilight
Long Scarf
Hockey Bunny
Ski Mouse
Rein-chicken
Snowball Fight
Cozy Chick
Polar Cub Cocoa
Xmas Kisses ornament

Come check out the work of all my artist/owner parners. There will be something to catch everyone’s eye. The opening reception for the Art of Giving show will be the evening of Black Friday, November 29th from 6-9 pm. HGA will also again have a special “Holiday Pop-up” sale on Saturday, December 7th. I will share more infomation on that event in a future post.

graphic for the Art of Giving HGA's annual holiday art show — Art of Giving

Night Market Anyone?

I haven’t done any holiday markets, or fine craft fairs in quite some time. One tends to get a little spoiled being part of a wonderful artist-owned gallery like HGA. But, I will be participating in such a market at Kaleideum Museum in Winston-Salem next Saturday, November 9th from 6-9pm. By day, Kaleideum is a children’s museum, but once a month they host an “After Dark” over 21 event. This month, it is the Night Market. Check out this “After Dark” link for all that is included in the evening’s fun.

graphic for Kaleideum After Dark Night Market 11/9/24 6-9 pm — Kaleideum After Dark “Night Market”

What Is Going To Market?

I will be bringing a selection of my currently available sculptures, and one-of-a-kind holiday items. Many of the holiday items will debut at this market, as we will be installing the gallery holiday show the following week.

Here are a few new things that will be making the trip to Winston-Salem…

mini sculpture tree frog with toad stool hat will debut at night market — Try It On

“Try It On” is the latest of what I sometimes call my minis. He is tree frog with his throat puffed out who is “trying on” a toad stool cap for a hat. Colorful and eye-catching, he sits perched on a natural wood base. He is needle felted wool over a quilt batting core, and has large glass bead eyes. The base is sealed, and “Try” is firmly attached via some glued in toothpick pegs.

Three more one-of-a-kind ornaments emerged from the work table this week. Acorn Gift is a chipmunk with a basket of goodies. Peppermint Cocoa is a mouse dressed for bed with a cup of cocoa and a candy cane. Bling! Mini is a miniture version of a snail I created earlier this year. All are needle felted wool with glass bead eyes and embellishments. Acorn Gift’s acorns are glass beads with felted wool caps.

mini sculpture athropomorphic needle felted chipmunk ornament with basket of acorns going to night market — Acorn Gift

needle felted mouse ornament with candy cane and cocoa going to night market — Acorn Gift

I also had time to work on a couple more mushroom minis. Meet Mush 7 and Mush 8. Both are needle felted wool with glass bead eyes. Each is secured to a natural wood base with a glued in chopstick dowel core.

mini sculpture athropomorphic mushroom will debut at night market — Mush 7

Don’t Forget The Trees!

I have also been busy adding to the inventory of my popular felted holiday trees. These feature needle felted wool and crystal beading. They have the same base and core construction as the mushroom minis. The three shown in this photo are new, and they feature a blend of wool from a dark green recycled sweater, and lighter green roving fiber.

mini sculpture needle felted trees — Holiday Trees

If you want to see everything else that will be at the market, you just may have to make the drive out on Saturday. Hope to see you then!

Wartski Art Dolls and Sculpture

Art dolls and mixed media sculpture