Tag Archives: mushroom

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.

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!

More Lights

New holiday ornaments

I’ll start with the new lights. For the past few years I have created “Solstice Lantern Houses” for the holidays. These little structures have white walls and colorful roofs. I place battery powered tea lights inside each house. The glow from the “candles” shine through the windows and doors, and make the walls softly glow. The balloon lights I purchased for Holly & Mistletoe provide me with an even more versatile light source to play with. I decided to use them to make an ornament sized version of my lantern houses. Another artist sometimes creates little house ornaments, and I thought that the two might be too similar. So, I instead went magical with my design. The result are Elf Cottage Ornaments, They are just the type of fairytale abode you might expect Santa’s helpers to dwell in.

needle felted elf cottage holiday ornamets with balloon lights — Elf Cottages

Each cottage is slightly different. They have multiple window openings to allow light to shine through, and their small size allows me to keep the walls relatively thin. This enables the walls to glow as well. The switch for each balloon light is on the bottom of the house so the light can be turned on and off. The cottages are needle felted wool, with a base of foam core covered in sticky felt. The base is sewn and felted in place.

No Lights on Speedy

needle felted anthropomorphic turtle ornament with holiday package — Speedy

Speedy is my latest one-of-a-kind ornament. As you can see he is a little turtle with a present to deliver. Speedy is needle felted wool with iridescent glass bead eyes. He will be conveying his parcel to its recipient soon.

Some More Fungi

I will drop off a couple of additional mushroom mini-sculptures to HGA later this week. They don’t seem to hang around the gallery long. This week’s offerings are Mush 6 and Morell Wave. Like thier predecessors, they are needle felted wool over a wood (chopstick) core with a natural wood slice base. Each has iridescent glass bead eyes.

needle felted anthropomorphic mushroom mini-sculpture, magenta with orange polka dots — Mush 6

needle felted anthropomorphic morell mushroom mini-sculpture with waving arms — Mush 6

Bee Now And Mini Later.

This week I turned my attention to some smaller “mini” pieces. I think that I mentioned before that HGA will be having another Pop-Up event in May on the Saturday (11th) before Mother’s Day. Though it would be wonderful for visitors to all want to give their moms one of my larger sculpture creations, I am realistic about Mother’s Day gifts. Most mother’s day gifting is in the form of smaller remembrances, flowers, cards, etc. Much like my one-of-a-kind ornaments for the holidays, I sketched up a few smaller sculpture ideas. So far, I have settled on a few anthropomorphic botanicals. I wanted to strike a balance of sweet for mom, but not too “cutesy.”

Meet the Mini Sculpts

From my work table are some small sculptures that would be at home on a book shelf, or desk corner. Meet mini Mush, Morel, and Thistle. They will make their debut at HGA for the Mother’s Day Pop-up. It may be hard to wait for their arrival, but May will be here before you know it. I will be creating a few more of these in the coming weeks, so check back to see them too.

anthropomorphic mushroom figure sculpture , needle felted wool over wire and quilt batting, glass bead eyes, and accents

anthropomorphic morel mushroom figure sculpture, needle felted wool over wire and quilt batting, iridecent bead eyes

Anthropomorphic thistle flower sculpture designed to sit on shelf edge. needle felted wool over wire, glass bead eyes.

Speaking of Gallery Debutants

You met Coronation, my queen bee, a couple of weeks ago. She came into the gallery with me today. She seems to already be making friends. I think that she makes a sunny addition to this front pedestal grouping. There is nothing mini about her presence.

Coronation of Queen Bee (anthropomorphic bee sculpture) at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts — Coronation at HGA

Reminder:

This Sunday at 4pm, HGA will be hosting a performance by Mary Rocap, the singer songwriter who served as a muse for our yearly “It’s All About the Story” show. Me and many of my fellow HGA artists will also be in attendance and can guide you through our inspiration for the visual component of the show.

Update: My piece for the “It’s All About The Story” show, Venus Dances For Herself”, has already sold and gone to her new home. Normally, works in a feature show stay with a red dot until the end, but this was a special birthday purchase, so we let the piece go home with the customer. So, just in case you missed her…

Venus Dances For Herself - anthropomorphic dancing rabbit sculpyure with celestial designs. needle felted wool — Venus Dances For Herself

Wartski Art Dolls and Sculpture

Art dolls and mixed media sculpture