Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1534783
Having combined a love of the natural world with the art of needle felting, Susan Beal tells us more about her latest project, sculpting 100 polar birds for Viking expedition ships I have done many different things in my life, but I'm happiest making beautiful things with my hands. For the past eight years I have been making lifelike bird sculptures from sheep's wool and beeswax using the simple process of needle felting. It's like the best aspects of carving, painting, crochet and embroidery rolled into one. Needle felting is low tech and peaceful – no noisy machines, dust or fumes, no expensive, fancy equipment. My dogs Bodi and Tulsi, and cats Elfin and Lili, like to hang out with me while I work. I can hear the calls and songs of birds outside while I sculpt, often the same species that I'm sculpting. adding different coloured wool, or by applying lightfast ink for exceptionally subtle markings and colourations that are difficult to achieve with felting. Much of my inspiration comes from where I live, in the house I grew up in, on a farm in Vermont that has been in my family for four generations. I make my birds in the studio where my father used to paint. I grew up in a creative family, surrounded by my father's oil and acrylic paintings, my mother's quilts, braided rugs, cushions, and curtains and, later on, gifts of handspun sweaters, woven blankets and needlepoint from my two mothers-in-law. WITH ME Needle felting involves using a special needle with tiny barbs along its length that, when poked into wool over and over, felt or compact the fibres. It's akin to sculpture or carving, but instead of removing material as with wood or stone, the wool is compressed and shaped into the desired form, somewhat like with clay, but becoming denser the more it is felted. ink of what happens with cotton candy if you squish it…it's a bit like that. Detailed markings are made by This page: An arctic tern made using sheep's wool and beeswax Why birds? ey're like flying, singing flowers and they lift my heart with their beauty Come fly 92 VIKING