“Art can succeed by being
beautiful, novel, or meaningful.
Great art does all three!”
Felted Art
About the process of felting
Felting is considered the world's oldest textile art, with existing samples dating back to 6500BC. Most people discover felting the hard way – by accidentally putting a wool sweater into a washing machine. The pieces in this gallery were created by laying out overlapping tufts of long brushed wool fibers of and embellishing with chunks of recycled sweaters, silk, and other found fibers. The loose fleece is then shrunk into fabric with hot water, dish soap, bubble wrap, a pool noodle, and manual friction. A lot of manual friction! A piece may shrink to half its original size and can be pulled and twisted into new shapes along the way.
The Gallery
Solo Exhibitions
Weise Gallery, Baltimore
Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
SEPTEMBER 2023 - January 2023 (Extended)
A 47-piece felted exploration of the interdependent web of life.
The Katz Gallery, Baltimore
Us and Them
SEPTEMBER 2022 - NOVEMBER 2022
A 23-piece felted exploration of the twin viruses of Covid and Racism, inspired by the events of 2020.
Gretchen Brigham Gallery, St. Louis
Earth Wind Water
SEPTEMBER 2017 - NOVEMBER 2017
A 21-piece exhibition of real and imagined organic landscapes including felted fungus, bacteria, lichen, and insects.
New City Gallery, St. Louis
The Invisible Made Visible
FEBRUARY 2016 - APRIL 2016
A 14-piece imagining of fictional felted organisms at micro and macro scale.
Artist Statements
Earth Wind Water
Imagine if the artist had to go to the store to buy her lines in set lengths and colors. And then she made art by laying the lines on a page, hoping that a whiff of wind would not disturb arrangement, or an errant cat. When she was done laying out her lines, she would sprinkle them with hot soapy water and massage them gently until they stuck together. As she rubbed and rolled the bundle with increasing vigor, the piece would shrink and wrinkle. In the end, she would open up her bundle and hope for the best.
This is what it is to make art with hair – sheep’s hair. All of the pieces in this show are made partly or entirely with wool that has been hand-felted. It can be a frustrating medium and I have given up on many pieces that lose their beauty along the way. On the positive side, I can stretch my pieces to fit a frame, mold them into new shapes, throw them in the washing machine, and they will not break if I drop them.
Us and Them
What makes Us us and Them them?
Where do we place the line that separates Us from Them?
Does the line help us or hurt us?
This artwork was done in 2020 when we were in the grip of two major crises - the Covid pandemic and a widespread racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd - two deadly viruses. The virus of racism has raged through the bloodstream of our nation for hundreds of years and continues to spread, reinfecting us over and over. The virus of Covid continues to be harbored within our bodies and within our communities, reinfecting us over and over. How do we draw a line between Us and Them when them is literally a part of us?
Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
Humans see the world as a collection of discreet parts – the apple, the chair, the fish…. In fact, everything is part of an unfathomably complex ecosystem which includes the living and the inanimate. Large ecosystems are comprised of small ecosystems which are made up of smaller ones still, all carefully balanced over millions of years of experimentation. At an atomic level, the boundaries between objects break down entirely. To take any part away affects the whole in ways we cannot begin to understand or predict. While it seemed like the world would be a better place with less mosquitos, it may, in the end, be the demise of the insects that terminates Nature’s grand experiment in self-awareness.
Each of the pieces in this show can stand alone, but together they create a rich landscape, filled with mystery and surprise. Because we overvalue what we can see, I have tried to peer into places we do not see. By combining unpredictable objects and upsetting the sense of scale, I challenge the viewer to hold complexity and paradox… to imagine a world that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Title List
for Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
What Lies Beneath
1. What Lies Beneath: Symbiosis, 2020
2. What Lies Beneath: As Above So Below, 2023
3. What Lies Beneath: The Angry Seed, 2019
4. What Lies Beneath: No Where to Run, No Where to Hide
5. What Lies Beneath: The Rabbit Hole, 2023
6. What Lies Beneath: Ask Me No Secrets, 2023
7. What Lies Beneath: Low Hanging Fruit, 2023
8. The Collective Emerging, 2016
9. The Collective Nascent, 2016
Crash Into Me
10. Crash Into Me: The Hunters and the Hunted, 2020
11. Crash Into Me: Friend or Foe?, 2023
12. Crash Into Me: Occupying Force, 2023
13. Crash Into Me: And Then There Were Two, 2020
14. Crash Into Me: Something Wicked This Way Comes, 2020
15. Crash Into Me: Silent Invader, 2020
16. Crash Into Me: We All Got Game, 2023
17. Crash Into Me: Who Goes There?, 2020
And Then They Came For Me
18. And Then They Came For Me: The Jester, 2016
19. And Then They Came For Me: Mooloolaba, 2016
20. And Then They Came For Me: You Are Being Watched, 2023
21. And Then They Came For Me: Nudi, 2023
22. And Then They Came For Me: Blue Dragons, 2021
23. And Then They Came For Me: Bleach, 2023
24. And Then They Came For Me: What a Difference a Degree Makes, 2019
The Wall
25. The Wall: The Persistence of Life, 2020
26. The Wall: A Delicate Balance, 2023
27. The Wall: The Rocks Have Eyes, 2023
28. The Wall: More Precious Than Gold, 2023
The Fourth Dimension
29. Fourth Dimension: Becoming, 2023
30. Fourth Dimension: Efflorescence, 2023
31. Fourth Dimension: And Then, 2023
32. Fourth Dimension: Dust to Dust, 2023
The Four Elements
33. Four Elements: The Polar Riviera, 2020
34. Four Elements: The Eruption, 2020
35. Four Elements: There’s No Place Like Home, 2023
36. Four Elements: The Wall, 2019
Singles
37. The Dragon, 2019
38. To Boldly Go, 2020
39. Step Into My Office, 2020
40. Release, 2023
41. Fruiting Bodies, 2019
Sculptures
42. Masterfelts: The Last Supper of the Coral Reef, 2022
43. Masterfelts: The Dream of Squid, 2022
44. Masterfelts: Guernica, 2022
45. Masterfelts: The Creation of Nudibranch, 2022
46. Gilled Vessel, 2017
47. Woodsy Vessel, 2019