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Karen Rao - Felt Artist
Website:
We Are Love Festival
Felted Aries Ram Headdress
Dragon Wings Cape
Biography
I hope to give joy to as many appreciative people as possible and to demonstrate the magic of felt making. I strive to create work that is fresh, exciting and memorable. The open mouthed wonderment of customers viewing my animal inspired headdresses at my fairs is a telling success of this as is the commissioning of custom orders and the total trust in my judgement is rewarding.
My wearable art is constantly evolving, a natural progression in the creativity processes helped by the wealth of inspiration within the ancient art of wet felting process.
inspiration
My initial inspiration was my dog, a saluki collie cross who looked like a giant jack russell. I created my first hat based on him. Following this I exhibited at dog shows presenting various dog breed hats and providing pet portrait animal hats. My subject matter moved onto woodland animals and is now evolving again within the insect theme, spured on by the fact that I know of no one else creating these!
medium
I follow the ancient art of felt making by rubbing wool with soap and water to create the stunningly tactile medium of felt. I use this rural craft with natural wools to create dramatic wearable art demonstrating how felt can be used in a fresh and exciting way. Each variety of wool has its own textural quality, and each fleece washed reveals a visual explosion of sun bleached locks both coarse and soft which greatly inspires the work I will create. My recent fleeces come from the beautifully shaggy Hebredien sheep from Ashdown Forest National Park