Hisano Takei Felting Artist

A must see! Felting artist Hisano Takei’s exquisite work and it is wearable and creates such an elegant statement.  Be sure to read the Artist Statement to appreciate what her inspiration is.  Hisano has been fascinated with making jewelry since childhood. She loved to draw and paint, but the tangible act of beading and stringing was much more entertaining. The sweet reward of being able to wear the work was enthralling. She was first introduced to jewelry making in metals in high school. The technicality of bending solid piece of metal and enameling on copper led her to take more classes in college and end up transferring to California State University of Long Beach to pursue the art of Metals and Jewelry. Upon her completion of her bachelors, she knew that there were much more than just learning how to manipulate metal.  Hisano moved to New York where she entered the Masters program in Metals at State University of New York at New Paltz. She expected to devote herself solely in metal smithing but to her surprise, she stumbled into another medium: wool. What started as an innocent curiosity engulfed the whole 2 years of her master’s program. Using her jewelry making skills as her backbone, Hisano investigated felting, molding, starching, and other traditional and non-traditional ways of working with wool. She found that there are qualities of wool that are similar to metal.