Tag Archives: the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts

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

More to Adorn the Tree

Just in case I haven’t shared enough new one-of-a-kind ornaments to adorn your tree, here are a few more.

anthropomorphic needle felted mouse ballerina ornament to adorn the tree — Sugarplum Mouse

Last year, I created a sugarplum bunny, this year my primary fairy dancer role goes to a mouse. She has a magenta tutu and matching slippers. The skirt of her dance dress has some sparkly spangles, and her neckline and tiara feature cut cystal beads. She is ready to entertain and delight.

needle felted ornament with pair of polar bears teaming up to adorn tree with star — Star Placement

In past years I created batches of polar bears and puffins. They were the first needle felted ornaments I designed. This year I’ve decided to do only one-of-a-kind ornaments, but I had two little polar bear cubs left from last year. So, I decided to team them up into a Star Placement team. I changed them a bit, sewed new eyes, and added toe and foot pads. They have their first star and are ready to go to work. Maybe they can help with your tree.

Perhaps something a bit more exotic?

Anthropomorphic needle felted zebra ornament adorned with a festive polka dot scarf — Festive Print Mixing

Continuing my exploration of animal prints from my feature artist show this year. Festive Print Mixing is a zebra with a colorful contrasting polka dot scarf. She is ready to make a bold impact on any tree.

Anthropomorphic needle felted camel ornament with tree — Overland Tree Delivery

Overland Tree Delivery is a camel on a treck to delliver a tree ready to adorn with all types of its own ornaments. This dromedary requires no GPS, and can deliver enchantment for no extra fee.

Many of these holiday ornaments, and the others I have previously shared will be arriving at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts in a couple weeks. I am also planning on doing a one evening holiday market just prior to the installation of our gallery’s holiday show. I am waiting on the information and promotional materials for that event, and I will pass them along as soon as I get them.

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

Dryer ball

Some Dryer Ball Sculpture For Now

I have shared an ornament or two in the past that started out as a wool dryer ball. So far those acted as more of a canvas onto which I felted a 2D or low relief image. Today, the dryer ball serves as a more sculptural starting point.

They help dry your laundry faster…
They reduce static. …
They help reduce lint. …
They are durable. …
They are environmentally friendly …

However, they can be a bit noisy to use, and they do not impart any scent to your clothing.

three fall pumpkin mini sculptures that began as wool dryer balls — Pumpkin Trio

I have created sculptures that could be used as fall/Halloween items in the past. However, I did not create any of those sculptures specifically for that purpose. This week I finished three mini sculptures that I will be bringing in to the gallery as items for fall. Each started out as a dryer ball.

needle felted pumpkin mini sculpture with mouse inhabitant — Pumpkin House

needle felted pumpkin mini sculpture that began as a wool dryer ball — Pumpkin House

For the Jacko pieces, I reshaped the balls by force and felting. I mixed orange and yellow fibers to give the surface of each texture and variation. The stem curls were achieved by working soapy water (wet felting) into them. These were heat set by winding around chopsticks and toothpicks, and drying with blow dryer.

Pumpkin House started like the other two pieces, but with minimal reshaping of the ball. I added a couple layers of wool to enlarge the sphere a bit. I carved the hole using scissors and an Exacto blade. The interior of the opening I lined with black and brown fiber, and edged with yellow. I sculpted the mouse head and hands, and added them to the opening.

Another For Later

needle felted holiday ornament from dryer ball based on A Christmas Carol — Christmas Past

Dickens described the Ghost of Christmas Past as, “… a strange figure — like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium…”

I’ve seen versions of A Christmas Carol where the ghost’s “supernatural medium” was depicted as flame-like. I use that imagery in this one-of-a-kind ornament. The use of irridecent glass beads for the eyes adds to this effect. As you may expect, this piece will be available when we install the holiday show at HGA in mid November.

Show Ending, and More Holiday Previews

a view of Natural Patterns: Flora and Fauna show at HGA — Natural Patterns: Flora and Fauna

You still have a few days left to check out my feature show with Ellie Snow at The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts! The show officially comes down Sunday (August 25th) after HGA closes at 4pm. It has been a great feature. Some of the items will remain in the general display space of the gallery. Pieces purchased during the show will be on their way to their new homes!

Some More Holiday Previews

This past week in the studio I created a few more holiday ornaments. This time around they all have the connection of being marine creatures. It all started with an octopus who is ready for a snowball fight. I was recalling one with a santa hat I sculpted last year. This year’s cephalopod ornament is titled “Armed.”

needle felted octopus with snowballs holiday ornament — Armed

“Special Delivery” is a great white shark with a festively wrapped gift for someone special. Don’t worry, he will not bite, he just has a very toothy smile.

needle felted shark with present holiday ornament — Special Delivery

The next holiday sea creature is Deco-lobster. A crustacean who wants to lend a hand, or claw, in decorating the tree. This mini-sculpture features beaded legs, and tiny ornament ball for your tree.

needle felted lobster with ball holiday ornament — Deco-lobster

Jingle Jelly, is a new vrsion of an ornament from last year. This year my jellyfish is executed in seafoam green and aqua. This ornament features sparkily glass beads hand stitched to its top and knotted into its tentacles.

needle felted beaded jellyfish holiday ornament — Jingle Jelly

Last, but not least, is Santa Whale. This ornament sculpture is a humpback whale with a santa hat perched to one side. Though I like each and every one of these ocean dwellers, I must say this one is my favorite of the batch.

needle felted whale with santa hat holiday ornament — Santa Whale

These one-of-a-kind mini-sculpture ornaments and others will be available at HGA starting the third week of November. I will continue to share more as I complete them.

Process

Each year, the gallery produces a video for each artist for feature show promotion. I’m not a fan of these videos personally, but they are useful on social media. I like my work to speak directly to the viewer, not me. I do my part, and film my video. If you follow the gallery on social media, you may have caught mine. If not, you’re not missing anything if you’re a regular reader here and know what I’m creating anyway.

I do like to produce videos that show my process and techniques. I have been trying to improve taking them as I work. It is a challenge, because you have to stop and start while you are working. I tend to get into a flow when I’m sculpting, and then realize that I didn’t stop to film! I did take a step to help myself improve on this by buying a new work lamp that also serves as a ring light and phone clamp.

Chimera Process

I took some video clips while sculpting the last piece I shared with you, Chimera. I edited these little clips into a short video. Watching a process video can answer many of the common questions people ask me about my work. Is there an armature? How to you attach the eyes? How are the different colors and patterns in the wool achieved? In the video you will see that the answers are: yes, sewn in, and by felting different colors of wool to the surface.

Making Chimera

Stop In And See The Show!

Natural Patterns: Flora and Fauna my feature show at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts with painter Ellie Snow is up through August 26th. Stop in and see all my newest work in person. Perhaps you will find that one of my creatures needs to find a new home with you!

Chimera Reinterpreted

Chimera?

chi·me·ra

/kīˈmirə,kəˈmirə/

noun

(in Greek mythology) a fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.
a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.

Similar: illusion, fantasy, delusion, dream, fancy

Illusion, Fantasy, Delusion, Dream, Fancy

I don’t think it is delusional, but certainly a flight of fancy to decide last minute (the week your show is installing) to start an additional piece, that you know will be a challenge. But, that is what I did. When inspiration strikes it is best not to question and just go with it.

I was busy doing all the mundane bookeeping type stuff we have to complete before we bring work into the gallery. This includes pricing, entering inventory, creating labels, etc. Things that are far from creative, but are necessary to present and sell your artwork to the public.

I thought about a sculpture that would bring together muliple animal patterns and elements in a single creature. A chimera. My chimera blends a leopard head with ram horns, a giraffe neck, zebra forelimbs, a tiger torso, a cow hind quarter, bird wings, and a lion’s tail. She is not the fire-breathing three headed Greek beast, but certainly formitable in her own way.

Mythical chimera reinterpretation. Needle felted sculpture combines leopard, ram, giraffe, zebra, tiger, cow and lion and bird — Chimera

Chimera is needle felted wool over a wire and quilt batting armature. Her amber/yellow eyes are glass beads that are sewn in place. I used to fishing line to create her whiskers, and metalic threads to highlight her horns and wings.

If I had thought of her earlier, Chimera may very well have ended up as my feature item for show promotion and advertising. I am pleased with how she took form, and think she will have some admirers when the show installs this coming Monday.

Speaking of Monday, and Next Friday…

I will be installing Natural Patterns: Flora and Fauna with painter Ellie Snow this coming Monday morning. The show runs at The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts through August 25th. The opening reception is next Friday, July 26th from 6-9 pm during Hillsborough’s Last Friday Art Walk. If you are local, I hope that you can make it to the reception.

Sealife and Save-the-date

First, the new sealife

I was away from the studio for a week or so. On my travels, I had the occasion to visit the New England Aquarium in Boston for the first time in many (many) years. Having just shared my sea turtle, Yuri, and my re-imagined octopus, I thought more sealife was in order.

My newest sea creature is titled Buoyant.

Needle felted seahorse in seagrass sculpture wool over wire armature with glass bead eyes and embellishments one of several sealife sculptures for Natural Patterns - Flora and Fauna — Buoyant

Buoyant is a brightly colored seahorse floating among some seagrass. The figure is needle felted wool, with glass bead embellishment and some sparkling tulle in its dorsal fin. The seagrass is wet nuno-felted wool on green tulle, that I needle felted over wire.

I like the movement that I was able to achieve in this sculpture. It is a cheery little piece.

Another Rework

I created a tropical reef mobile last year, but I wasn’t completely thrilled with the end product. So. I decided to take the components of that hanging sculpture and separate them. Three individual hanging sculptures are the result of this rework. Meet “Yellow Tang”, “Pink Tailed Trigger”, and “Jelly and Bubbles”.

Needle felted yellow tang hanging sculpture with glass bead embellishments one of several sealife sculptures for Natural Patterns - Flora and Fauna — Yellow Tang

Needle felted pink tailed triggerfish hanging sculpture with glass bead embellishments one of several sealife sculptures for Natural Patterns - Flora and Fauna — Yellow Tang

I am planning on using them in our window display for the feature show, But, I am sitting in the gallery as I write this, and I’m not sure if that will work the way I intended. I see that I’ll have to try it out first.

The two reef fish, are needle felted wool over quilt batting, with glass bead eyes. Glass and crystal beads are used for bubbles. I hand-forged copper wire to create the “wave” that they hang from. The Jelly fish is nuno-felted and needle felted wool on netting. It also features glass seed beads sewn on to the cap and tenticles. Each of the small sealife sculptures can be wall hung, or strung from above as a mobile.

Save – The – Date

We are now in July. That means that my featured show opening is fast approaching. The opening reception for Natural Patterns: Flora and Fauna with painter Ellie Snow is Friday, July 26th from 6-9. I hope to see you there! The show will install in the gallery that Monday, July 22nd. It will run through August 25th. Stop by HGA and check it out.

Invite for "Natural Patterns: Flora and Fauna" at Hillsborough Gallery of Arts featuring mixed media/needle felted animal and sealife sculptures by Lynn Wartski — Natural Patterns: Fora and Fauna

Octopus Escape

Does That Octopus look Familiar?

This little octopus may look familiar, as she is a rework of an earlier piece. You may recall that I created a “teapot” purse sculpture for the Cedar Creek Gallery bi-annual National Teapot Show last year? That functional (purse) – non-functional (teapot) sculpture occupied our HGA window for a month or so. It seems direct late spring North Carolina sun was a bit too much, and the red of the octopus sun bleached a bit. The subtle color difference was undetectable to most, but I knew it was there. The sculpture came back to the studio for some rehab.

Needle felted anthropomorphic octopus sculpture holding a shell on head — Fashion Or Camouflage?

I loved the original sculpture and its nod to the popular documentary My Octopus Teacher, but I didn’t want to just refresh it. I removed the little figure from her perch on top of the teapot/purse, and repositioned her. She needed some (actually a lot) additional suckers for the bottom of several legs. She also needed a color refresh in her faded areas. I accomplished this by overfelting more fiber in those areas. Luckily, I had some of that wool left! Her scallop shell accessory, is an addition inspired by the original MOT doc, and a newer docuseries on National Geographic. In both, you see these intelligent creatures utilize a variety of objects. This octopus now asks the question “Fashion Or Camouflage?”

This new-ish version of this octopus is needle felted wool over quilt batting. She does not have an internal wire armature. Her pose is accomplished by stategic sewing and felting. The eyes are iridecent black glass beads. The scallop shell is needle felted wool over quilt batting.

Fashion Or Camouflage is headed to HGA next month for my feature show.

A Bit More Fluttering

Finished up several more “Flutterbys” last week. Five Flutterbys (these three and the two I shared last week) will have to be the limit. It was starting to feel a bit like production, and that’s where I tend to bow out. I like to keep such items special. They will become available when the show installs on July 22nd.

needle felted wall hanging butterfly/figure sculpture — Flutterby 3

Lynn Wartski Sculpture

Art dolls and mixed media sculpture