Answering Questions About Creativity: Being a Sentient Sponge

“So…you make weird and mysterious things. How do you decide what to make? How do you come up with original ideas? Who and what inspires you?”

I believe one of the characteristics of creative people is the tendency to notice what they notice-- to take note of the things that stand out and draw their attention. That’s the first step- being curious and engaged. Responding by remembering or writing or sketching or recording or photographing interesting things--whether they’re mundane or exceptional--is the next step. What’s mundane to others may be exceptional to YOU, after all.

images of geometry in plants: citrus fruits, rose hips, a squash, succulents.

A small selection of plant life observed on dog walks, in my garden, or out in the world. Daily life provides forms to imitate, sometimes quite directly.

But creativity truly grows from the act of making connections between all those hoarded snippets of noticing and seeing how they might play out. Creativity is exploring what it would look like or sound like or feel like to recombine or substitute or capture or emphasize things, or simply to recreate something in a particular process or instrument or movement or material, depending on your discipline. For me, materials are a real entry point. Thick industrial felt, for example, is quite mundane and theoretically boring, yet it can be cut into patterns and stitched together to embody a sense of fullness, solidity, and weight— despite being lightweight.

A sketchbook page showing ideas for organic/geometric forms, paired with completed ‘Holdable’ sculptures made of stitched industrial felt, measuring approximately 3 feet wide each.

It’s like being a sentient sponge as you go through life-- soaking up interesting things without prejudging precisely what you’ll do with them.

So how do I decide what to make to squeeze out the results of the sponging?

I trust my excitement.

By now I have a huge library of ‘interesting things’ in my sketchbooks, in my phone’s camera roll, and in my head. If there’s something that sparks excitement, I trust that it’s something I should address through my materials. 

I recently found this strange citrus fruit while walking my dog, and couldn’t stop looking at its wormy surface pattern. Trying to figure it out (and how light and shadow might communicate and define those structures) inspired one of my still-in-process Objects of Intrigue wool drawings.

Trust in oneself is key to coming up with original ideas. An original idea is by definition something different and new, and it can be intimidating to make something that veers from what already exists, much less show it to the judgment-filled wider world. 

Creativity requires trust because otherwise every new idea would be dismissed before it could come to any fruition. Trust that one’s own curiosity or reaction is worthwhile, even if (or especially if) it’s weird, offbeat, different or unusual. Trust that one’s unique lens of life experiences and accumulated (or newly acquired) skills are enough to start with. Trust that the road is more important than the destination, that uncertain outcomes are the only real certainty. Trust that ‘failures’ are in fact learning experiences. Trust that one’s own satisfaction in exploration is what matters, regardless of outside reactions.

In my own studio practice I’ve spent a lot of years indulging in playful experimentation and learning to trust myself. Twenty-some years in, following my interests and trusting myself have become habits. I know that I respond again and again to certain types of forms found on human and animal bodies and echoed in plant life and even geological features: full, swelling roundness, folds of flesh, sharp, clean edges that morph into smooth planes. There’s some sense of a life force, a potential for movement, or maybe simply a satisfying way my eye travels over such forms that feels valuable and important to me.

The folds of flesh on a snake I photographed at the California Academy of Sciences informed the physical logic of this snaky form I created out of needle felted wool. For me there’s a satisfaction in making something that makes sense to the human observer (at least in its believable physical qualities) regardless of meaning assigned or suggested by the artwork.

But not every experiment results in something wonderful, of course. Artmaking is like a journey where some directions are rewarding and branch into new highways, roads, and paths; but unless they visit my studio, the audience doesn’t necessarily see the dead ends, the cul-de-sacs, and the parking lots (to take another metaphor way too far). Happily there is still plenty to learn from a ‘failed’ experiment. 

I also stand on the shoulders of giants. Like so many other disciplines there are incredible people to learn from, both directly and by observation. There are approaches to mimic or reject, techniques to master or adapt, forms to admire and wish you’d made. Some of the artists who inspire me include Martin Puryear, Eva Hess, Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, Ernesto Neto, and Lee Bontecou. I feel an affiliation with these artists because of the way they’ve manipulated inert materials to make them sing of different stages of life: fresh budding, maturation, and even decay.

Left to right, top row: Martin Puryear “Old Mole”; Louise Bourgeois “Cell XXVI (detail)”; Lee Bontecou, “Untitled 1962”. Left to right, bottom row: Ernesto Neto “The Malmö Experience”; Eva Hesse “Ringaround Arosie”; Georgia O’Keeffe “Shell”

So my weird and mysterious things-- sculpture and drawings-- are a combination and a distillation of the unique experiences and observations of my particular life. These are the squeezings of my sponge. Not everyone will appreciate what I make and some question if it’s even art, and that’s okay. I’m going to keep on soaking it all in anyway.

Why Do My Felting Needles Keep Breaking?

I’m back with another tool use tutorial. If you’ve been needle felting for any length of time you’ve likely broken a needle. Or two. Or a lot more. As strong as these steel tools are, they’re also surprisingly brittle at their tips. Whether that sharp little tip goes flying off into the carpet or embeds itself deep inside your project, a broken needle is frustrating. And there’s no repairing it, it’s a question of replacement. So how can you minimize the destruction of your tools and keep yourself and your surroundings safe from razor-sharp needle tips? First it’s worth taking a closer look at exactly why your felting needle is breaking in the first place.

Keep in mind that the felting needle was designed for a very specific function: to move precisely straight down with its tip sleeving into an awaiting hole several inches away, tangling any fibers in its path. That is to say, in an industrial setting the wool and other fibers fed into a felting machine are supported over a perforated base so the hundreds of felting needles mounted above can travel straight down through the fiber as the machine repeatedly lowers and raises them. Here’s a concept drawing of an industrial machine:

Illustration of an industrial felting machine with multiple needles arranged so their tips will sleeve into holes below.

I often describe the industrial felting machine as a mouth full of teeth chewing—except the glaring problem with that metaphor is that most of the time teeth are grinding and moving sideways—there’s a lot of motion in the jaw. Not true with a felting machine: felting needles are purpose-built to move ONLY up and down. They’re quite strong in that plane of motion—but any sideways pressure to the tip will snap it easily.

The short answer to why your felting needle keeps breaking is that you’re using it wrong. You are not using it like you’re a precise machine. You’re either applying sideways pressure to the tip, or you’re running it into something hard. 


So first of all, don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re NOT a machine! We’re adapting part of an industrial machine to hand use, and the element of chance that happens with hand work of any kind is going to always be a factor with this tool. 


But even given your basic humanity (yay- machine-made things can be so boring)- there are some ways to avoid breakage, and it mostly comes down to attention. Not to say that you’re inattentive when you’re needle felting—you have to be, to avoid stabbing yourself and to get the wool to move how you want it to.  But you have to train yourself to be aware in a few particular ways.


First of all, you need the needle to enter your mass of wool perpendicular to its surface (see the illustration below). That usually means manipulating and turning over the mass of felt you’re working on in concert with the motion and directionality of your tool-holding hand. This is increasingly important as your wool becomes increasingly densely felted as you proceed, because dense felt is firm enough to snap off a needle tip when the needle is plunged in or pulled out at an angle. I often see students trying to shape their felt by somehow turning a corner with the needle, which just plain doesn’t work. 


You need to develop muscle memory of doing it the right way—straight in and out, pushing in and pulling out far enough that the needle comes all the way out before you push it in again instead of dragging it sideways. This takes attention and practice, but you’ll eventually not need to think about it as much. 


Along the same vein, if you are using more than one needle in a multi-needle holder, you need to be sure that ALL of the needles are entering the fiber perpendicular to the surface you want to affect. Think about it: if your multi-needle holder allows you to position your needles ½ an inch apart, but you’re working on a sphere the size of a tennis ball, it’s possible that one of the two needles is not going in perpendicular. Here’s an illustration of what I mean and why that breaks your needle:

illustration of a felting needle holder with two needles being poked into a ball of wool felt; one needle enters straight in, but the other enters at an angle. Captions describe how the needles must enter the wool perpendicular to its surface.

So that means that you should be thoughtful about what I refer to as the ‘footprint’ of your multi-needle tool—the spacing of the needles where they come out of the tool. You need that footprint to work with the size of the object you’re working on. The smaller the sculpture, the smaller the overall footprint of needles:

Illustration of two felting needle tools; one with wide-set needles pokes into a broad sphere; the other with needles much closer together pokes into a small sphere.

Spread your needles out too far from each other when you’re working on something small, and the odds are that at least of your needles will not be going in straight, or will miss the piece entirely and hit something else. Like the tabletop.


Speaking of the tabletop, it’s probably made of a hard material. Breakage also occurs when the needle encounters something hard; with nowhere to go and continued momentum and force, the needle will bend and then snap. This hard, resisting object could be your tabletop, or a wire armature inside your sculpture. With armature wire it can be particularly difficult to avoid felting too close; the wire is, after all, inside the felt. Whether you’re entirely building up wool around said wire or cutting into a nearly finished limb to add in a wire and close the felt back up again, you’re going to probably hit that wire at some point. Again, attention is key- but so is some finesse. 

When you’re felting into something with a known hard element inside, use a single needle so you only have to keep track of one, and use a much lighter, looser grip on the needle holder, so when you DO inevitably get too close to the wire you’ll feel it and remove pressure without that fatal breakage. I do this a lot and, like all of this, it takes practice. I’ve definitely felt the needle flex but then withdrawn it before it breaks. It takes concentration to use delicacy.

Using attention, a single needle and a light touch will help you be aware of where the invisible wire is within your piece, and you can use that mental map to try to felt across or next to the wire from all sides, rather than straight into it. This will require turning over and manipulating your piece so you can work above and below and next to the wire, like this:

illustration of using a single felting needle to poke around the wire inside a bent felt tube, turning the whole thing over to attempt not to poke into the wire while keeping track of it.

I personally favor inserting armature wires AFTER much of the felting has been done; I use a sharp blade to cut a channel into the nearly-finished felt and then only need to patch and felt across that section. Wrapping fiber around wire from the start and then felting all around it just gives you more opportunities to hit the wire and break a needle. I go deeply into this with visuals in my video based master class Sculptural Needle Felting: The Comprehensive Guide (self-promotion alert! But hey, I am VERY proud of it and I’m getting great reviews from students).

My final bit of advice for avoiding breakage: manage your needles well when you’re not actively using them. Don’t let your needle holder go rolling across your desk and onto the floor- I know I’ve broken a few needles that way. Have a system in place to keep your needles and holders, even if that’s just a piece of foam to jam them into. 

Now go forth and be aware of your wickedly sharp but delicate tools. Needle felting is an excellent means to practice self-awareness and creativity at the same time.

If you have any other great advice for NOT breaking your needles, please comment!

Needle Felting: The ONE Thing Nobody Teaches about needle placement

I know, a headline like that sounds like clickbait. But I’ll tell you what it is straight up that no one seems to teach when it comes to needle felting: that the placement and quantity of felting needles in your multi-needle holder makes a HUGE difference to your needle felting.

You may not have come across this yet if you primarily use a single needle. Once you do move into multi-needle tools, you’ll find that many needles too close together don’t penetrate the wool to actually felt. Instead, it’s best to let them act like single needles by spacing them out enough for what you’re working on. There’s more to it than that, and I’ll go into it in depth (and with illustrations) below to explain what I mean. 

four plastic and wooden multi needle handles showing different quantities and spacing of felting needles


First, I’m sharing this because lately I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the information floating around the internet regarding needle felting. With my masterclass video workshop now live, I’m researching all the places to market it to reach my core audience. My students generally range from total beginners to advanced needle felters, but what they have in common is a mix of hope and frustration: seeing the potential of the art form but not knowing how to get the results they want.

If you’re reading this I’m going to assume you understand the basics of how needle felting works. (If not, read this previous blog post on felting needles). Needle felting has its own logic and ‘rules’ of how it works, and it helps to have some guidance to get a handle (pun not intended) on how to effectively and efficiently make what you want. If you’re self taught and paying attention you’ll get there, but it’s nice not to reinvent the wheel.

So as I was looking around online as if I were someone interested in a workshop, I observed that there are a lot of sources to answer the simple straightforward questions, like:

  • Why are my felting needles breaking? You’re applying sideways pressure somehow, make sure to go straight in and out, and don’t try to ‘turn corners’ with the needle. Read more on this topic in this post.

  • Which wool do I use? Coarse wool is easier to build up into 3D forms; I prefer Corriedale or Romney as ‘core’ wool to make shapes out of-- save the fine Merino for surface finishes.

  • How do I make my needle felting smooth? The more dense and firm your object, the easier it is to get a smooth, even finish-- add loose, fluffy wool going every which way as a finish layer, and (sorry to say) do a LOT of shallow poking all over to tack it in.

Those are important issues, especially for beginning needle felters. But there’s a larger question that seems to float around, hard to pin down and thus harder to answer. What it comes down to is:

Why is my needle felting not working like I want? 

This could mean very different things to you depending on where you are in your needle felting journey. If you’re a total beginner, when you pick up a kit or watch a tutorial online and then try it out, there is often a disconnect between how it is ‘supposed’ to work-- how it is described or appears to work-- and the reality of actually poking wool into the shape you desire.

Part of the problem is a lack of understanding how long it might realistically take to make fluffy wool pack together enough to take on a cohesive shape. (It takes longer than you’d think to get a piece started, that’s the real leap of faith portion… but if you stick with it long enough it will magically achieve workable mass and get a lot easier). 

Part of it is not knowing how firm and structural a thing ‘should’ be, since density is not easily communicated with words or video. (There is no ‘right’ answer here, but more dense is often easier to work with. If you squeeze your felt between your fingers and it squishes down by half, it’s probably too squishy. Add more wool or keep poking in towards its center, or do both). 

Part of it is that people start by making teeny tiny things small enough to fit in the palm of their hand, which is challenging because there’s just so little wool to move around and shape, and at that scale every little poke can make big changes (or disfigure what you’ve already done). When you’re starting out, aim to make something at least as big as your closed fist. Or bigger!

Once you’ve started to find your way around needle felting (and haven’t been scared off by the time commitment and the occasional vicious self-poking of your fingers) that larger question of ‘things not working like you want’ really starts to come into play. Over my ten years of teaching needle felting I’ve noticed that there’s often a point at which students want to move from using a single needle to using multiples. Sometimes this happens quite early on, sometimes it takes a long while. 

There’s the idea that using a multi-needle tool will speed up the process, which makes a lot of sense since it seems like 5 times as many needles should multiply your poking labor and minimize the time required. But that’s often where a big knowledge gap comes into play-- one that no one seems to talk about and one that causes a lot of frustration. 

So I’ll say it again: the placement and quantity of felting needles in your multi-needle holder makes a HUGE difference to your needle felting. How many needles you use at once and how close together or far apart they are will absolutely impact the way the multi-holder tool works for you.

Several different styles of multi-needle holder handles poked needle-end into a block of foam

In my studio I keep no less than eight multi-needle tools at the ready- that’s my setup, pictured above, with all of them poked into a foam block and ready to use. You could certainly have just one, but even though it’s easy to open up these needle holders and take out or put in more needles, that takes time, and I like to move smoothly between different tools as I need them. Clearly some of them appear to be the same tool-- I have multiple copies of the knobby wooden holder, some of the pink pen-like tool, a plastic one-- but the different configurations of felting needles in them cause them to effectively behave like different tools, useful in different situations. More on that below (and these are the tools I swear by).

Multiple needle holders are great because they can hold lots of needles, and again, you’d think more needles equals faster felting. That’s true- but really only when you’re working on something flat and thin, so all the needles can enter the wool perpendicular to its surface, and the mass of fiber isn’t so thick that it offers much resistance. That’s what these things were designed for, after all— making flat sheets of industrial felt in a big machine, with hundreds of needles near to each other. But I NEVER find myself using ALL of the holes available in my big knobby felting tools because I generally don’t work flat, I work with three-dimensional forms.

If you HAVE tried multiple needles used together in one tool, you’ve probably noticed that if often just doesn’t seem to work very well. Despite all your hopes, you still keep reaching for a single needle for detailed surface work and deep-poking shaping work. For efficiency you dream of using more than one needle at a time… but in reality too many needles too close together can work against you. That’s the resistance you’re feeling when you start using multiple needles and suddenly they don’t seem to be doing anything. Here’s what’s happening:

A lot of needles really close together actually act kind of like a unit-- like a bed of nails, they distribute the pokiness, and none of them poke in very far, they just work together to push the whole mass. When they’re close together, multiple needles are also more likely to be pushing at different parts of the same fiber, which moves all of them instead of making them rub against their neighbors to tangle together and actually felt.


That can be good when you’re working more at the surface, applying color or smoothing things out. But when you’re trying to initially tame loose wool into a cohesive mass it’s more useful to poke deeply into the wool.

When felting needles are spaced farther apart they are able to actually act on the area underneath and surrounding the needle, penetrating the mass of wool, tangling fibers with each other, and really getting some felting done. Here’s where we get to the visuals.

I’ve decided to coin a term for the effective space around each needle tip: introducing “The Circle Of Tangling.” When the Circle of Tangling of any one needle overlaps with another, they don’t penetrate like a single needle anymore, which means they don’t poke in very far. And the Circle of Tangling differs for coarse, medium, and fine needles.  

Here’s a visual breakdown: 

illlustration showing the circle of tangling area affected around different gauges of felting needles

The smaller or finer the needle (with the confusingly higher number gauge size), the closer together you can place the needles and still have them penetrate the wool. 

The bigger or coarser the needle (with the confusingly lower number gauge size), the farther apart they should be if you want them to really poke in.  Another visual:

illustration showing felting needle size vs quantity spacing for effective wool penetration

For a fine, 40 gauge needle the Circle is about ⅛ of an inch or 3mm wide. 

For a medium, 38 gauge needle that Circle expands to about ¼ of an inch, or 6mm wide.

For a coarse 36 gauge needle that Circle grows to about ½ inch or 12 mm wide. 


That means you want your needles to be no closer than a ‘Circle of Tangling’ width away from each other. Here are more pictures, for those of us who are visual creatures:

illustration of spacing between felting needles so circles of tangling do not overlap for most effective use
illustration showing ideal spacing for felting needles of different gauges in multi needle tool handles

Given that reality, it’s pretty handy that most of the readymade multi needle holders out there are already designed with that approximate spacing:

Two different multi-needle holders showing how spaced apart the needles can be

Two different designs of multi-needle holders show that ideal spacing is already designed in; on the small Clover Pen-Style pink tool, designed primarily for fine, detailed work, you can see that the needles are spaced about 1/8” apart. On the larger Colonial Felting Tool 2 you can see that you could choose to use holes about 1/4” apart or far more than that. Don’t think you have to use all the holes all the time.

Here’s the thing: if you use more than one needle but you position them far enough apart that their ‘circles of tangling’ don’t overlap, you can get the effectiveness of a single needle multiplied by the efficiency of more than one needle being used at a time. Read that over again, because I think it’s the most important part of this whole long-winded post.

What does that mean? How does is actually apply to you? Well, take a look at three of my tools:

Knob-like wooden multi needle holders showing needles in different arrangements

See all those unused holes? Those are not wasted space. That space gives me a lot of value. It gives me a lot of options for where to put my needles, which makes them effectively become different tools. I keep one holder with two needles about 1/2” apart, one with two 1/4” apart, and one with a single needle. All of these are holding 38-gauge needles, and when I grab any of these three tools and poke them into the same ball of felt they’ll penetrate into it differently. They’ll give a different feeling of resistance, and poke in deeper or shallower.

When I’m just starting in on a piece— let’s say I’m making a ball the size of my fist as a base shape— I’ll use the one on the left with the most spaced-out needles. They can easily poke all the way deeply into the wool I’m trying to tangle into a cohesive blob. At that stage I’m usually adding more wool, turning over the mass, and poking in from all sides. If I added even one more spaced out needle it would still work pretty well, but that’s one more needle to keep track of and not stab myself with, and at that point those needles may be too spread out for the overall size of the thing I’m shaping; one of them might miss entirely or glance off the side, possibly snapping off. And if I tried to use, oh, you know, TWELVE needles, they would barely penetrate at all and would just flatten the whole thing down.

When I’m a little farther in the process I’ll switch to the single needle to start honing the shape (yes, you read that right, a single needle), pushing down any high points and evening things out. When I’m ready to work more at the surface I grab the holder with the two needles 1/4” apart; it’s a good tool for shallower poking as I start to tack on and build up surface details. But then I often grab the single needle tool again(!) on and off throughout the process.

I switch between the different holders with their different configurations of needles quite often as I work on a piece— in response to the feeling of resistance I’m getting, or to poke more deeply or more shallowly. It becomes instinctive, but first you have to make yourself try it and pay attention to what you’re feeling and how things are working (or not working).


It’s surprising to note how differently the tools work and how much you do actually rely on feel as you’re felting. Even with the pen-shaped tool intended for tiny work, it’s remarkable what a difference you feel when using one, two, or three needles in it at a time. I also keep several of those at the ready— see below how I’ve marked dots on their ends with a pen so I can see at a glance how many needles they’re holding? When it comes to detail work I often find that two needles in the pen tool are ideal, because three resist too much and just don’t poke in far enough- by maybe 1/16 of an inch, but hey, that matters if you’re working at a scale small enough to be using this tool.

Speaking of scale, did you see how far apart the needles on those wooden knobby tools are? Can you infer that I’m not working on thumb-sized sculptures when the needles are that spread out? Again I’ll advise working LARGER, especially if you’re starting out, and especially if you want to use more than one needle at a time. You need SPACE. Forget the teeny tiny precious thing. Try something as big as your closed fist, if not bigger. It’s more forgiving and easier, trust me. 

But the bad news is, even with this revelation on spacing out needles to use multiples, you still can’t throw a lot of needles at the problem and felt a lot faster unless you’re working on something bigger, say, head-sized (is it weird to relate everything to body parts?). You will find, I think, that you are working more effectively and efficiently when you’re using a few needles WELL.


As for me, I’m often working with just one or two needles. The effectiveness of the single needle is worth the additional poking, to my mind. Then again, I tend to make pretty firm sculptures (with minimal use of armatures) so it matters to me to have even the core of a piece be pretty structural and dense. I prefer to needle felt pretty deeply.

In conclusion, after 20 years of doing this (and 10 years of teaching it) I see that a lot of frustration in needle felting happens when there's a mismatch between the size, distance, and quantity of needles being used and the goal of the needle felter. So now you know:

If your multiple needles don’t seem to be poking in, try using fewer or moving them further apart. You don’t need to use all the holes in your multi-needle tool.

And when all else fails in a given situation, try using a single needle.

Really understanding how the needles work and trying different gauges and orientations of needles so you know how it feels to use them will really help you be effective AND efficient in your needle felting. You’ve read all the way through this lengthy post, so even if you take nothing else away from it, DO try using one, two, and three needles in different spacing arrangements on the same piece of felt and pay attention to how it feels. I swear it will help you be a better felter.

Want to go over all this and a lot more in video format? My sculptural needle felting masterclass is now available.

Want some guidance on my favorite tools? Check out this page to learn more and get your hands on tools of your own.


I’d love to hear your feedback- leave any questions or comments below.

Felting Needles: What Are They and How Do They Work? Explanations with photos and illustrations.

Needle felting as an art form and creative pastime is getting more and more attention lately, and yet I meet plenty of people who have no idea what it is or how (and why) it works to stab at wool until it takes different shapes. At my Open Studio events I find myself giving ongoing demonstrations to ever-changing wide-eyed audiences… who then look around my studio with renewed awe when they realize how my sculpture has come to be.

Artist demonstrating needle felting to visitors

Demonstrating needle felting to Open Studios visitors. Usually not something I do on my lap for safety reasons since stabbing sharp tools downwards is a key activity.

So if you’re new to needle felting or simply curious, I’m going to give a brief overview of the tool that makes this whole thing possible- with illustrations. 

Felting needles are different from sewing needles or pins: instead of being smooth to pierce through fabric, they have notches cut along their shafts. Those rough notches snag, catch and push fibers they’re poked into, causing them to tangle with their neighbors enough to mat into a mass that has density and form: the nonwoven textile we know as ‘felt.’ 

Closeup view of notches cut in sides of sharp steel felting needle

The tip of a felting needle showing the nearly-invisible notches cut along the shaft.

Wool fibers tangle so well because they are covered in overlapping ‘scales,’ which you can see with the help of a microscope (or a shampoo commercial, or in my illustration below). 

Illustration of overlapping scales on microscopic view of wool fibers

Wool fibers can be smooth (smaller scales) or coarse (larger scales) which affects how easily they mat together as well as how they feel against the skin. That’s a topic we can go into another day. Suffice to say that the notches on felting needles make those scaly fibers grab each other, almost like hook-and-loop fasteners (aka Velcro).  

Two steel felting needles of different lengths

Felting needles were designed for factory machines; they are made of steel, three or four inches long, with a bent over hook at the top for fitting into said machine and a gradually thinner shaft leading down to a VERY sharp tip. The notches are cut only in the bottom inch or so.

View of an industrial felting machine, aka a needlepunch machine: hundreds of felting needles aligned with holes below move up and down, ‘chewing’ and matting the wool fed into the machine. Photo taken at a restored wool mill called Casari Ranch in Valley Ford, California.

In a factory a big machine full of hundreds of these needles works almost like a mouth ‘chewing’ on wool: each needle lines up with a hole below, so as loose, clean wool is fed into the machine the needles move together like jaws up and down to tangle the fibers into a flat sheet of felt. When you look at a piece of industrial felt you’ll see the many hole marks from the needles. The density and thickness of the batch of felt is determined by how much wool is inserted and how long and how much the needles poke into it.

Industrial needlepunch machines have been in use since the mid 1800s, and they’re very good at making flat, even sheets of felt. But what about working in three dimensions? What about using felting needles by hand? Well, that history starts with a couple creative people looking at a tool with fresh eyes. Eleanor and David Stanwood are credited with first taking felting needles in hand to work ‘in the round’ in the 1980s-- here’s an article that details the beginnings. David reached out to me by email a few years ago when I revealed that I got my start from a book by Ayala Talpai;   it turns out he’s the one who handed Ayala her first felting needle when she visited the couple on Martha’s Vinyard! It’s still a fairly small world, especially when it comes to needle felting..

So to use a felting needle by hand, you need to poke in the direction that you want to shape and compress, almost like squishing clay into shape. You could make a sphere by poking inwards towards the center of the mass of wool from every direction, turning it around evenly as you go. You could make a cylinder shape by rolling the mass of wool like a log as you poke in towards the center. You can make increasingly complex shapes by making simple ones and then joining them together with more wool bridging across. If a piece isn’t dense or firm enough for your purposes you can add more wool and force it into the same amount of space, or else keep poking to compress your form into a smaller and smaller size.

wool human-like shapes showing progression from rough to detailed forms

Samples showing progression from roughly humanoid shapes to increasingly detailed and realistic felt sculptures. Note that component parts have been made separately and then joined together after initial shaping.

It’s both incredibly simple in concept and brain-achingly weird at first. Needle felting has things in common with building forms in clay or riveting metal pieces together- except it’s also totally different to have the actual, physical mass of your material change depending on how much you stab at it.

To get started you can literally just start poking at some wool with a felting needle. But of course then you’ll find that there are different kinds of felting needles out there. What’s the difference between felting needles?  Well, basically they differ in size and shape when you look at them in cross-section.

Illustration of 3 different felting needle tips showing cross section: triangle, star, and spiral.

Above is a drawing showing the most common shapes of felting needles: the triangle needle has three edges that can have notches cut, while the star-shaped needle has four edges, and the spiral needle is like a triangle tip that has been twisted. Arguments can be made that the star- and spiral- shape needles do the job quicker because they have more surfaces that notches can be cut into, and more notches equals faster felting. There are people who swear by each type; I advise trying them all and seeing what feels best for you in different situations.

The size of the needle is referred to as its gauge, and the higher the number, the smaller the gauge and the diameter of the needle. 36-gauge needles are ‘coarse,’  38-gauge is all-purpose, 40-gauge is fine, and 42-gauge is the finest. You would choose a higher gauge needle for details or tiny work, or when working with very fine fiber, and a lower gauge for ‘roughing out’ a form, or when using a coarse fiber. 

Stephanie Metz poking at a human-sized wool sculpture using a wooden tool that holds multiple felting needles

Every single needle in those multi-needle holders I use is a 38-gauge triangle needle. For the size I tend to work in, that’s all I need.

I myself am not at all a felting needle connoisseur when it comes to the needle choice. I’ll admit I use a 38-gauge triangle needle for almost everything; the exception is when I’m working on something very small, and then I use a 40-gauge ‘fine’ needle. I very often use a single needle in my work (more on why in a moment) but even then I put it in a knob-shaped multi-needle holder; I only use one of the holes. That’s because pinching a single needle in your fingers is REALLY rough on your hand and arm, over and above the repetitive arm and wrist motion needle felting requires.

An important aside: I cringe when I see so many videos and photos online of very sophisticated and skilled needle felters working with a single needle pinched between their fingers. Don’t do it! Find a handle tool you like that fits and fills more of your hand and make it easier on your body. Safety is Sexy! Protect your body so you can do this as long as you want, without hurting yourself. 

Don’t just pinch a single felting needle— it’s really hard on your hand, wrist, and arm. Use a handle— there are a wide variety of multi needle tools available (or you can make one yourself).

So there you have it: a quick introduction to felting needles. In my next post I’ll go into great depth about the ONE thing nobody seems to talk about when it comes to needle felting… I know, you can’t wait!

5 different multi-needle holders featuring wooden and plastic handles of different sizes and shapes.

The variety of multi-needle holder tools I use all the time— even with a solo needle, I still want that bigger grip for the handle.

In the meantime, you can find my recommendations and links for multi-needle holders and other felting tools here.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re ready for the iceberg, you can sign up for my in-depth sculptural needle felting video-based class here. 

Please comment or ask any questions below; what else do you want to know about my technique and process?

Pandemic Adjustments: studio life at home during quarantine

Well, these are strange times. I’ve been Sheltering in Place with my family in my San Jose home for about six weeks, which seems as unbelievable as the rest of this. We all have our stories of what this pandemic has meant to us-- we all have our losses and grief and struggles with the unknown and making the best of things- or not. Here’s my brief log for posterity.

I started out scoffing at the thought of this ‘Novel Coronavirus’ really being a big deal, I thought the concept and phrasing of ‘Social Distancing’ was overkill. But then the news kept trickling in and I started to really understand what we would be up against. In some ways it’s all so simple: soap works REALLY well when you use it right ,and getting a visual sense of how and why quarantining and ‘flattening the curve’ works was helpful. I got fully on board with the spirit of social distancing-- the idea that it is an act of caring for the vulnerable in our communities. 

And then Santa Clara University closed its campus, and my exhibition at the campus’ de Saisset Museum was shuttered for the time being. Yes, that exhibition I’d worked on for the past 2.5 years that focused on audiences connecting through the shared experience of touching and handling art in a public setting. That was a blow. Understandable in the context, but a huge disappointment. 

And then my kids’ schools shut down, and the next week we learned that we would be required to shelter in place starting the next day (March 17). So I rushed off to my downtown studio to pick up supplies and works-in-progress and tools, and figured I’d just work from home for a couple of weeks. 

I had a few large stitched ‘Holdable’ sculptures to finish for delivery to an exhibition at Root Division in San Francisco the following week. That was cancelled. When I dropped off that work in SF I was going to pick up a piece from a collector to borrow for a show at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. That was postponed, as were the presentations I was set to give to students at Los Gatos schools. I still needed to order tools for the workshop I’d teach at the California Sculpture Symposium in mid April. That was cancelled. My August teaching gig at Penland School of Arts and Crafts in North Carolina was cancelled. My Artist Talk at the de Saisset Museum and several tours I was going to lead were cancelled with the news that the campus would not re-open before the end of the exhibition. Along with everyone else, my personal life plans were being gutted by the pandemic. 

I grudgingly made masks - a day-long activity- and worked with my kids to sort out their school-from-home reality. I have to give huge kudos to teachers-- they had to scramble to make an already challenging job work in hard circumstances. We’re lucky enough to have the access to technology that allows our kids’ teachers to meet with them and post assignments via computers. ‘Classroom management,’ the wrangling of kids to simply be able to teach, seems infinitely more difficult via a Zoom meeting.  I’m grateful that my kids are generally on board with this whole thing-- we’ve had some yelling fights, don’t get me wrong, but for the most part they’re adapting well to having me help administer their learning. My boys are in 4th and 7th grade, so there’s a lot more independence built in, and I’m negotiating when to step in and when to leave things up to them. 

And the whole time I’ve also been making things in my studio at home. 

I have a room at the back of the house that we fixed up as a studio when we moved here four years ago-- it has table and counter space, some storage, big windows, and track lighting. And it had been a little cluttered and unused since I usually spend my studio time and energy at my big downtown Alameda Artworks space, necessary for the huge multiple pieces I was making for InTouch. I’ve taken some time to clean, tidy, and reorganize my home studio, and even built a tool hanger along one wall once it really sunk it that I’d be here for a while. It really is a nice space, and the afternoon light through the windows is particularly appreciated.

The biggest change in my studio practice has been that I’ve turned away from large-scale, public works for now. I had thought InTouch would be the launching point for a move in that direction because I really loved engaging my community in both the making and experiencing phases. Now not only does there seem to be a big damper on my efforts to find subsequent venues for InTouch, but it also seems unlikely that people will be willing and eager to touch things in public again soon. Don’t get me wrong, I trust that in general we’ll go back to what’s familiar and feels necessary, and I’d argue that the human urge to experience things through touch falls under that. But I have put big/public/touchable plans on the shelf for now. 


I’ve turned instead back towards smaller, more intimate works using the materials and supplies I have on hand here at my home studio, which includes an embarrassingly large amount of colored wool-- embarrassing since I rarely even use non-naturally-colored wool in my work. We’ll see where this goes. I’ll write about what I’m working on in the next post, but suffice to say I’m keeping myself sane and rather happy by setting myself creative problem-solving challenges. It helps me keep the stress at bay and feels productive and meaningful. Which is enough, right now.

Installation... transporting, placing, and hanging touchable sculptures at the museum

I’ve been installing the work with the fantastic team at the de Saisset Museum. It’s hard to believe the show is nearly up and ready after all this time and work. I have been so pleased that the installation has gone really smoothly. Hanging, placing, and lighting over 70 pieces of art seems like a daunting task, but most of the preparation was done beforehand and not much was left to figure out onsite.

It all started with bagging up and labeling all the work that has been filling my studio and then Tetris-ing up a truck for the short drive to Santa Clara University, just down The Alameda/El Camino from my studio. Three of us were able to get it all packed in about forty minutes, then we had even more helpers at the museum to unload. The trickiest parts of the installation had to do with the ‘support’ items: the steel hanging structure in Gallery 2 for the Hanging Pods and the plexiglass mirrors mounted in Gallery 1 for the Holdables. Luckily that went well too: Chuck Splady and his team from Splady Studios in Oakland fabricated, delivered, and installed the steel structures without a hitch. Chris Sicat, the museum’s Exhibitions Coordinator, has the experience, specialized tools, patience, and cool head to handle just about anything, and he got the big plexiglass mirrors mounted on the wall with help from his team. We all got to unwrap the sculptures onsite, which felt a little like Christmas even though I happened to already know what was inside. It felt great to see them in the big, beautiful galleries. More photos of the finished installation next week, unless you’re able to come by and see/photograph it for yourself starting with this Thursday’s Opening Reception!

'Cat in the Sun' Wool Drawing: a video showing how I complete a drawing made by poking wool through paper

I’ve been working on some small side projects in service to the crowdfunding campaign I’m getting ready to launch. This will be my first such campaign, and I’ve been doing a lot of research on best practices. Often people use crowdfunding to launch new products, so your pledge is a pre-order of that product. I’m seeking funding to finish my InTouch public art exhibition (to pay for the steel hanging structure for the Hanging Pods, and paying studio assistants and studio rent) so I’m offering small thank you gifts. The tricky part is making sure that fulfilling those pledge gifts doesn’t take too much time and energy away from the big project they are meant to make possible.

My solution is to offer cards and prints made from scans of my wool drawings, as well as some experiential thank yous— more on that later. Below is a video of one of the drawings I’m having made into an archival 9x12-inch print. I’m calling it ‘Cat in the Sun’. I only recently learned about ‘ASMR’, and think this may fit right in.

Progress Photos! Documenting the latest wool sculpture, touchable art, and catalog

I’ve been busy over the winter: pushing ever onward with surface finishes on the white wool-covered ‘Hanging Pods’, designing and stitching industrial felt ‘Holdable’ sculptures, hosting an Open Studio event, carving the last of the twelve Hanging Pods, planning the fabrication of the metal structure that will suspend the hanging sculptures, and working on some of the smaller-scale, more sellable work: wool drawings and a unicorn fetal specimen. Click on each image below for a bit more of an explanation.

Helpers Helping: inviting community volunteers into my art studio to help me make touchable fiber sculpture

As the summer draws to a close I am taking a moment to reflect on the progress of my InTouch project. This summer was a busy one for me that included many successful new ventures: the help of studio assistants, hosting volunteer ‘Felting Parties’, and the receipt of a grant! (more on that in the next post). All three contributed to measurable progress on creating the InTouch project.

First of all, if you’ll remember I began with creating the Hanging Pod forms for one of the two gallery spaces. These abstract organically-inspired forms will be hung from a steel structure in the gallery space, allowing visitors to walk among them and feel their surfaces, textures, weight, and ‘squishiness’. Fabrication of the human-sized pieces is a big undertaking: it includes:

  • making small models in order to create 2D patterns

  • laying thin felt over the models to figure out where to demarcate separate pattern pieces

  • digitally tracing and enlarging the patterns

  • cutting out the scaled-up patterns in thick felt

  • hand-stitching the pattern pieces together

  • inserting a cable anchor and stuffing

  • covering the industrial felt forms with white wool, and

  • adding detail and finish through needle felting.

My plan calls for twelve Hanging Pods. Yes, that is a lot of work. Yes, there exist digital programs to create patterns and print them out. No, I do not have the time, funding or desire to sit in front of a computer to learn how to create 3D forms and make their digital patterns-- I learn by hands-on making. I am a sculptor, not a programmer. Moving on.

At the end of May I had five of the Hanging Pods started and partially covered with wool; now, at the end of August, I have eleven of the twelve Hanging Pods stitched, with five of them covered with wool and almost ready for details and another five in the detail finishing phase. In case it doesn’t communicate through my description, that is a FANTASTIC amount of progress. I’m incredibly pleased, and I know that I have a lot of people to thank for that: assistants and volunteers.

Starting in June I hired two studio assistants to help with fabrication: Jordan, a student on summer break from Santa Clara University, was my main full-time helper, and Jessica, a mom from my kids’ school, provided some extra assistance as well. Their tasks included cutting out paper and then thick felt patterns, hand stitching industrial felt pattern pieces together, helping me stuff, wrestle, and sew the forms closed, covering industrial felt with wool, learning and applying some finishing techniques, and managing volunteer events. They also helped me talk through and solve some of the fabrication issues as they arose. Part of the effectiveness of paying people to be in my studio for solid hours every week was that I had to be prepared and use their time and mine efficiently and productively, and commit to a very regular schedule-- which necessitated finding summer camp options for my kids so I could make as much progress as possible. As usual, having outside deadlines always helps me. And having employees helped me even more. As someone who generally prefers to work alone, I had been a little nervous about what it would be like to have someone else in my space all summer… but it proved to be lovely. Jordan and I in particular had a lot of time to talk about life and art, and I think we both enjoyed hearing each others’ perspectives.

Jordan and Jessica helping stuff a stitched sculpture.

Sometimes it takes three to close and stitch a densely packed form.

 

This summer I also tried out another new approach in the studio: holding ‘Felting Parties’ at which volunteers came to my studio to help physically contribute to the making of the work by covering the stitched industrial felt forms with white wool. I trained volunteers in the techniques of needle felting the various pieces and provided them with information on the visual and physical goals I had in mind for each sculpture. Variations in armature (the underlying forms to coat: either stitched industrial felt stuffed with various lightweight filler, or foam rubber, or styrofoam) affected how one would poke at the wool or use more or fewer felting needles in the tools.

I was unsure how Felting Parties would play out-- quickly training and then arming an unknown quantity of newbies with sharp tools to work on my sculpture? But I needn’t have worried. Just like my workshops, felting parties attracted kindred spirits aplenty: enthusiastic helpers who just clicked with each other and the spirit of connection that characterizes this project. I can’t frankly remember where the idea for Felting Parties came from-- all I know is that this project would be impossible without all that help. Over the summer I held seven felting parties, and hosted a total of 38 individual participants, several of whom were repeat attendees. Some had a bit of experience, a few had a lot, but most were totally new to the process. Some were already friends from various parts of my life, others were relatively new friends, or recent visitors to my Open Studios, or people from my mailing list whom I’d previously never met in person. They were a pleasure to work with, every one. We had fantastic conversations about on a huge range of topics, a lot of laughter, and great results. .

Foam: It's Complicated- using styrofoam in sculpture with a conscience

I've completed another video about my process, this time focused on carving Styrofoam: how I do it, and how I deal with the mess. I have to admit I cringe a bit to even be using the stuff-- it's so fakey and bad for the environment and, well, seems so cheapo and lame to use for 'real' sculpture, and as someone who works with fiber I already have an uphill battle on legitimacy of materials in some circles. But, like wool itself, Styrofoam, or 'expanded polystyrene' to use the general and descriptive term, has qualities that just work perfectly for my aims. It is easy and quick to carve, can accept needles poking into it without breaking them, and is extremely lightweight while being somewhat rigid. I make myself feel better about the environmental impact by only using previously used foam, and I keep and use the chunks and bits I carve and sand off to fill other pieces. 

So, hierarchy of noble materials be damned! Use what works for getting your sculpture made. Here's a link to the carving foam video.

A carved model, ready for sanding.

A carved model, ready for sanding.

Giving It Away: why I share my process and techniques

I've gotten some good feedback about the 'patterning' video I posted, along with some questions about how I actually carve Styrofoam (and deal with the resulting mess). I love learning about how other artists do things, so I'm putting together a video addressing that topic as well. But, you may ask, aren't you afraid of giving away your secrets? Well, maybe you're not asking that-- carving Styrofoam doesn't seem like a deep dark mystery. I do get that question a lot about my techniques for felting. In fact when I was just starting out teaching workshops I got that question a lot because the process seemed so novel. 'Aren't you giving away the milk? No one will buy the cow!' If I reveal my process, will I eliminate any market for my teaching and my finished artworks? My answer is a firm no, for a few reasons:

1) I want to work and live in a spirit of openness and generosity. Needle felting is like painting in oil is like throwing pots is like forging metal: a set of techniques and knowledge that you can use to make things. Closely guarding such information seems petty and exhausting. I've benefitted from the generosity of a free exchange of knowlege and techniques among my art community, and I like contributing to it. It would be exhausting and downright depressing to always worry that I've revealed too much and will presently be overtaken by a wave of competitors. I do what I do, you do what you do. Got a cool tip to share? Me, too! Sharing is what makes a community. 

2) It's pretty dang hard to actually copy what I do. In handmade work the hand of the artist really does come through, and someone else trying to duplicate something I've made will necessarily make it look and be different. That's particularly true in the material and subject matter I deal with, which take a lot of time and practice. In any case, copying from existing objects and the works of the masters has long been a way for artists to learn (yeah, yeah, that's some ego on me, 'The Felt Master', but you know what I mean). We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and we each come through life with our own set of experiences and outlook that inform what we contribute to the world in general and our area of expertise.

3) I'm always moving on from what I used to be doing. I learn as I go and take great pleasure in coming up with new questions, answers, and ideas. I'm not particularly interested in revisiting the same thing over and over, which is another way of saying that I feel like I'm on the leading edge of my own practice. My material for the foreseeable future continues to be fiber-based as far as I can tell because I still have a lot of unanswered questions and experiments to follow in various directions. My subject matter and the forms my sculptures take have had some unifying elements that will likely continue one way or another. What I'm saying is I embrace my own artistic change and growth and I'm forging my own path, so I don't feel threatened. It's as simple and complicated as that.

So, expect more behind-the-scenes. And if you have questions, ask me! 

Early prototypes of organic/geometric forms for potential InTouch pieces.

Early prototypes of organic/geometric forms for potential InTouch pieces.

Explaining Myself... how I create patterns for 3D shapes using felt and styrofoam

As an artist I've always been intrigued to learn HOW other people make and do things, so of course I assume there are others like me out there. As I create this new body of work for my InTouch project I'm trying a lot of new processes (or at least scaling up and increasing quantities of known processes) and I want to share some behind-the-scenes parts of that so people can better understand what I'm doing, and perhaps why. To that end I decided to film some short bits here and there to explain what I'm doing, and this marks the first installment. This first video shows a little about the way I am figuring out patterns: starting with a model so I can determine the flat shapes that go together to cover that model in a 'skin'. If you want to see past videos and sign up to get notifications about new ones as I create them, go to my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/StephanieMetzSculpture 

The felt pattern I created over an enlarged foam model; the small clay form on the right was a guide for carving the foam. Note the marks across the pieces so I can realign them later. 

The felt pattern I created over an enlarged foam model; the small clay form on the right was a guide for carving the foam. Note the marks across the pieces so I can realign them later. 

The flattened-out pattern pieces once they have been removed from the foam model.

The flattened-out pattern pieces once they have been removed from the foam model.

Getting Down to Work: my process of patterning, cutting, and stitching felt for large-scale sculpture

Now that my space is set up enough I'm finally getting some work done on my InTouch project. I've made a lot of tiny test pieces to work out the pattern pieces for the most basic forms, and I've been learning along the way that human error makes for some interesting effects. As much as I draw and test and print out and trace and cut patterns, there's still a lot of variability that comes from, ya know, being a human as I stitch. 

Reexamining small models I made to figure out plans for larger pieces. The twisted piece I'm holding didn't start out that way-- the twist came about from the directionality as I sewed the pattern pieces together. But I like it, so I'm going to recr…

Reexamining small models I made to figure out plans for larger pieces. The twisted piece I'm holding didn't start out that way-- the twist came about from the directionality as I sewed the pattern pieces together. But I like it, so I'm going to recreate the effect in the full-size version.

After ironing the freezer-paper pattern onto 3/8" thick wool,I cut out each piece. Yes, my studio is very cold in the winter.

After ironing the freezer-paper pattern onto 3/8" thick wool,I cut out each piece. Yes, my studio is very cold in the winter.

To go from idea to large-scale piece, I start by making a small felt pattern and stitch it together, trimming, changing, and restitching until I like it. Then I take it apart, trace the felt pattern onto paper, and scan the drawings. Then I digitall…

To go from idea to large-scale piece, I start by making a small felt pattern and stitch it together, trimming, changing, and restitching until I like it. Then I take it apart, trace the felt pattern onto paper, and scan the drawings. Then I digitally trace over the pattern using Adobe Illustrator, scale it up, and print it out. I use the light table to trace the pattern onto freezer paper, which will adhere temporarily to felt when I iron it on. 

Stitching together the large pieces. The bumps you see will actually end up as indentations in the sculpture.

Stitching together the large pieces. The bumps you see will actually end up as indentations in the sculpture.

Corraling Styrofoam: creating a dedicated space in an art studio for messy work

Settling in to my studio has been a gradual process as I prepare the space for the tasks I have planned. I happen to hate cleaning things up, but I love a tidy environment to work in-- so I focus on prevention and try to put systems in place to deal with messes ahead of time. To that end, I knew I would be carving some styrofoam models for larger pieces (don't worry, I'm recycling through repurposing) and want to contain the tiny static-infused bits as much as possible, so I took a note from some home remodeling we did and enclosed a corner of the studio in heavy plastic specifically to work with styrofoam. I still have to vacuum up all the bits when I'm done for the session, but the zippered door and taped-down-to-the-floor plastic walls help me keep the bits from traveling all over. I wear coveralls to work with styrofoam and have to use the shop vac on myself when I'm done, too. But I'm reclaiming the bits to use inside finished stitched pieces, so there's very little waste, and patting myself on the back makes it easier to deal with the cringey mess of EPS.

Dedicated foam-friendly workspace...

Dedicated foam-friendly workspace...

Laying out plastic on the blessedly large floor in order to stick on the zipper door kit-- basically two long zippers with sticky sides you can apply to the plastic, then cut in the center.

Laying out plastic on the blessedly large floor in order to stick on the zipper door kit-- basically two long zippers with sticky sides you can apply to the plastic, then cut in the center.

A view towards the styrofoam carving area in the back left.

A view towards the styrofoam carving area in the back left.

Moving in slowly... preparing a new art studio space for working

I've had possession of my new studio space for about three weeks now, and I'm at the tail end of readying the space for work. A lot of work has happened thus far, just not artmaking. In a way it has felt like those puzzles where you have to shift all the tiles around in order to move one to its real spot, then shift them all again to move the next into place. In my case part of it has been getting and putting up shelving in my back storage area (thanks as always, craigslist) and readjusting the shelves twenty times as I figure out what will go where as I try to find homes for everything-- supplies, tools, packaging materials, finished work-- it doesn't seem like much when I type it out, actually. Hm.

My space is basically a warehouse with a window, so while it is bright and lovely and cool in the summer (I've visited its previous occupant, my dear friend Tricia Stackle, then), it is also quite cold already this far into winter. I installed carpet tiles (Habitat for Humanity ReStore is a great source) this week over the concrete floor to add a bit of insulation and to ease the standing-on-concrete effect. 

Carpet tiles turn out to be pretty easy to install...

Carpet tiles turn out to be pretty easy to install...

Simply place the things down and do some trimming on the last two edges of the room. Ready to move furniture around.

Simply place the things down and do some trimming on the last two edges of the room. Ready to move furniture around.

I've also been playing around with how to lay out the space to use it (and my acquired work surfaces) in the most efficient way-- without dragging everything all over the space. I will confess to being overly nerdy and not totally averse to technology. So I've been using SketchUp to virtually plan out the room-- I drew up simple furniture stand-ins so I could move them around. So. Dang. Satisfying. I can see through walls and defy gravity, too. We'll see how it translates to the Real World.

Google SketchUp rendering of my space, sort of.

Google SketchUp rendering of my space, sort of.

Moving and Growing: Establishing a new studio space for large-scale artmaking

One of the first big challenges prompted by my InTouch project has been my search for a workspace that would accommodate my needs for more room for artmaking, finished art, supplies, and helpers. The solution came at a price-- my dear friends moved out of their large studio to relocate out of state, and offered it to me. It fits the bill perfectly. Located only 20 minutes from my home, the 1,000-square-foot space is part of a complex of artists called The Alameda ArtWorks. The long main room measures 17.5 feet wide by 42 feet long, with a partial wall dividing it into work room/storage room. Another room separated by a door and with its own entrance will be a future photography space/storage space for the work as I finish it, but for now I'm renting it out to another artist. 

Last week I moved out of my space at the School of Visual Philosophy studio where I'd been renting for three years. The dance to move out of one space and into another as its former occupants orchestrated their move out was tricky but successful. But in typical me fashion, I agreed to participate in a studio-complex-wide Open Studios event this weekend, only a week after actually taking possession of the space, which meant all my preparation and set-up would be compressed into an exhaustingly short span of time. I wanted to clean and paint before arranging and unpacking, so I had to call in some kid-friend favors to get a bit more time to get things done. I'm writing this on Thursday night; tomorrow I will unpack the actual artwork and do all the last-minute little things required before Open Studios on Saturday. Below are some photos of the space so far.

The view from the doorway showing the storage area in the back, and main work area.

The view from the doorway showing the storage area in the back, and main work area.

View back towards the main entry doors. Multi-pane door to the left leads into the smaller studio space I'm renting out 

View back towards the main entry doors. Multi-pane door to the left leads into the smaller studio space I'm renting out 

Walls painted.

Walls painted.

View from the doorway towards storage area.

View from the doorway towards storage area.

Set up, save for the tiny issue of actually unpacking and displaying artwork.

Set up, save for the tiny issue of actually unpacking and displaying artwork.