Progress on a new felt figurative sculpture....

I am excited to share that I am making a new piece for a new gallery in Minneapolis for their inaugural exhibition about motherhood. There is not a lot else I can share about the gallery at this time, but I do have some progress pics! It is so nice to have a big open space again to make things instead of trying to squeeze one in amongst the others! Here is how they start:

with conduit pipe and the anchors.

draping the felt

I figure at this point I have 20-25 hours still of stitching felt, and then I would like to add hooks and eyes. I am thinking the hardware will go from the ground up on the legs and neck. Or maybe the belly. Stay tuned!

Steadily making new work for my June exhibition....

June feels so far away, yet it is not.  I am working on these paper forms in my studio while the weather is still wintery, but hoping to get outside in another week or two to start cutting the styrofoam bases for these shapes.  We are supposed to get another snow this weekend and I am hoping it is the last!  I do enjoy being indoors and stitching on these, and just got caught up on Season 5 of The Americans while doing that, and I bought my pass for Season 6!  It is three episodes in and I am so nervous for what is going to happen to the Jennings family.  I am also very nervous for how all these parts are going to come together into a piece and once the sun starts shining regularly, I should know more.  

I so love the texture of the eyelets layered on one another.  I have backed off to a single stitch to attach them to save time, so they're a little loose.  I kind of like that movement they can make.  

Donkey and a Deer....

are all done!  Except for tails and all the little bits of touch up I still need to do...so, really, not done, but I am getting close.  I have to install my exhibition on June 4, and I think I can see the end.  This little donkey showed up in an earlier post, but has got limbs now.  This happens to be my mom's favorite (she has two donkeys of her own.)

And then this deer is one of my favorites.  I have had the body in my work closet for at least a year, waiting for a time to get finished.  I also am making her a little mirrored vanity and stool...she needs a place to do her makeup.  

Friends. 

Work in progress...

Here is some progress on my Alpaca...I don't know why I have to cram it all onto the computer table...maybe because these two like to take the table.  

The legs next to him are for the donkey and rhino...I have several in progress at the moment.  

A Rhinoceros has taken up residence....

In my studio along with some other little critters.  Sometimes I think my animals can get a little too similar in body shape to my sewing ladies.  I am so glad this guy is a meaty no neck.  And I am just noticing that all my animals lean to the left....maybe because I am right handed?  

Work in progress and...how is it 2017?

Hi there for anyone who has been reading...I have been to Miami, been back, had shingles, given my husband chicken pox, fought with my son's asthma, been making some screen prints and trying to get a lot of my own work done.  So much to report on Miami and all the work I saw, but that will have to be a different post.  Right now, I am just quick trying to get back at this so I am posting one of my new figures.  I have a show in June in Northern Minnesota, and I hope to have a whole family to share.  

This is my new woodpecker.  And I am so in love with him.  I am working on wings and limbs now.  Somehow I need to start planning for these little critters tails though....it would make things so much easier.  I tend to forget they have them.