A lot of times I bookmark things and then forget I did it. I should just Pin them but sometimes I Pin things I haven’t written about yet and then get confused – I’m sure you’re sensing a trend here! Anna Gunnarsdottir ended up on a “Stickie” on my desktop but all I had was her name, I didn’t make any other notes. Well today I went back in and realized why I’d flagged her to myself last November!
She calls these pieces “shells” though they nearly look like seed pods to me. I like how several European and Scandinavian artists I’ve looked at recently stage their works – I highly doubt this one lives full time on the beach! I think this is made of felt, though it could be leather or something else too I suppose.
Anna is based in Iceland and has been studying textiles for many years – she has taken schooling in leather handstitching, leather modulation, feltmaking and more. She has even studied at Haystack here in New England!
I love these felt sculptures. They remind me a lot of Michelle Lougee who also makes amazing pod-like works.
These strike me somehow as particularly Icelandic – maybe just cause they look like snowy trees or mountains. What’s neat about Anna is that she uses Icelandic wool, which is much of the same wool I’m using for the Yurt. What seems weird though is that on the Etsy Felting Group’s Blogspot they talk about those fibers being short which is exactly the opposite of what we found when buying the wool for the yurt – the Icelandic hairs were the longest – almost too long in some cases. I digress.
This piece above is actually a lamp where the ball pieces appear more dense and opaque than the rest of it when lit from within.
She also makes larger room constructions as well and I love how random and yet regular they look! Many more pieces of her work can be seen at this awesome site I just came across Fresh Winds.
Tags: 3D, etsy, felting, Iceland, installation, leather, sculpture, textiles