art
handmade felt air plant hangers and holders
ARt
Sometimes arranging the wool takes me days. I take off my glasses and stare at the blurred shades of color that I see, to better imagine how they’ll look “cooked.” When I’m satisfied, I begin dreading and then eventually really felting the fibers.
Feltmaking is situated between painting and sculpture. Even when working in flat formats felt is always three dimensional, and an understanding of the fibers’ movement through space is necessary to achieve accurate colors.
Rendering in this medium is like sculpting in polychrome—the colors mix like metamorphic rock. It is slow. It takes time to move organically, fiber by fiber, tangling ever tighter.
Sculpting with felt is a school in anatomy. I have to sculpt and resculpt a (solid felt) figure thousands of times before the wool forms a memory of my hands.
—Jo Hesse
Photos by John Polak Photography
and Zalina Babaeva