Welcome to Felter Skelter, your essential guide for needle felting inspiration and ideas!
Needle Felt Sculpture, what is that? This column, previously published in 2013 explains…
This month, I bring you the wonderful work of Lisa Jordan, aka Lil Fish Studios. Lisa uses needle felt sculpture in a number of different ways. Her portfolio is full of needle felted sculptures, wool paintings, and felted stones, all of which evoke the wonder of nature.
Lisa’s needle felt sculptures are like wooly terrariums, perfectly capturing little scenes from the forest floor. I’ve been interested in mushrooms myself lately, so these are my particular favorite. They are so dainty and otherworldly under glass, but they fit right in outside as well, “growing” from the hollow of a tree (last picture above). According to the photo’s caption, this piece wasn’t turning out the way she wanted, so she decided to do something different with it. Aside from the fact that I can see absolutely nothing wrong with this ‘needle felt sculpture mushroom’, I love that she didn’t just toss it and that it ended up being its own installation piece.
Lisa’s work isn’t limited to 3D. She also creates amazing 2D wool “paintings”. Each with their own handmade wood frame, these miniature landscapes are beautiful and tranquil. And on top of all that, they are also wearable, so you can take your little scene with you to contemplate any time!
She also wet-felts these gorgeous felted stones, this is a different technique to the needle felt sculpture. Each one of these pieces has a real stone inside, encased in a wool cocoon that is embroidered with patterns that mimic mosses, lichens, barnacles, vines, and more. My favorites are her most recent stones (last picture above) which feature trapped pebbles. They remind me of organisms living in symbiosis: inseparable, but distinct. Each individual pebble is visible, but connected to the whole in a state of balance and harmony.
Lisa lives in Brainerd, MN and you can find more of her work on her blog, as well as on Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter. If you’re lucky, you might find her felted stones at an Art-o-mat near you!
If you hop on over to her blog, you can also get a peek at the lush environment in which she works. Even a dyed-in-the-wool (hah!) city mouse like me occasionally imagines giving up the steel and concrete of Manhattan to frolic in the forest, and this is exactly what I imagine it would be like, complete with a flock of the cutest chickens I have ever seen.