Stephanie Metz, Felting Artist Extraordinar!

One can only imagine what type of visionary artistic mind would be able to come up with these extraordinary designs.  I have never seen anything to compare in the world of felting.  This artist is amazing!  I have sculpted throughout the years and can understand the process although I used clay.  Drop by Stephanie’s site and browse through her gallery and read her statement and resume.  I am sure you will find something that is of interest to you.

A part of Stephanie’s Statement:

I sculpt in wool in order to explore and exploit its unique physical and conceptual possibilities.

To create wool sculpture I use a process called felting, which refers to compressing and matting individual fibers into a united solid mass through use of heat, pressure, moisture, or mechanical means. In industrial use, machines compress wool into sheets of felt mechanically by repeatedly plunging beds of sharp, barbed felting needles into loose wool to mat the fibers together. I use the same technique on a smaller scale and work wool with a hand-held felting needle to create three-dimensional solid sculpture. The majority of my felted wool sculpture is self-supporting, however standing figures incorporate a simple wire armature for rigidity.

For me the appeal of wool lies both in pushing its physical possibilities as a sculpting medium and in its suitability for the subject matter that interests me. Felted wool is organic, soft, and pliable, yet strong and hardy—perfect for realistic studies of humans and animals that exemplify those qualities. A firm grounding in realism and an understanding of the form and physiology of living things is the starting point in my sculpture.

In my recent work two branches of investigation have grown out of my thinking about how human beings affect and interpret the natural world. The first is a series of animals that display the results of selective breeding taken to a ridiculous extreme. The attributes that make them useful, marketable, and convenient for human use are blissfully short-sighted and human-centric. Part of my wicked delight in creating such creatures is the awareness that these are not pure science fiction—for example, the proliferation of dog breeds specifically bred for a variety of uses and aesthetics is testimony to the way people very pointedly direct the evolution of species by determining which individuals will pass on their genes.

Visit her site to read more.