Felted Hat class with Zsofia Marx

Back in the fall, I took a felted hat class with master artist, Zsofia Marx. She is a Hungarian feltmaker who lives and works in Amsterdam. She makes the most beautiful, sculptural and feminine felted hats. You can find her work on her website and over on Instagram.

Studying with Zsofia was an opportunity afforded by the Coronavirus. Many artists and makers have turned to online education as an opportunity to teach AND also to connect. Whle the creative life is often a solitary life, making things during this past year has been more lonely than the usual because there have been fewer opportunities to meet up in real life. So, I really welcomed taking another class in 2020. (I also took Fiona Duthie's Ink on Cloth in the Summer. You can read about that online class on my blog, HERE. I just registered for her Fibre + Paper Online class that starts in March!) 

I won't share any technical details of what we learned because that is not respecting the authorship and all of the work that a teacher invests in when she shares her knowledge. But, I can share with you what I made - all of the color choices were mine! 

Below is my first hat. It is not quite the shape that I tried to achieve. My goal was to 'copy' the shape that Zsofia carefully demonstrated to us. Using special techniques, she sculpts her hats after they are felted.

Here's the second felted hat. You can see that I laid out my colors more evenly compared to the first one. But again, I found that I was unable to match what was in my mind's eye AND in front of me via Zoom. (Note: this was not due to the teacher, but instead rests with me trying to master these new methods).

Lastly, with the third hat we were encouraged to find/create our own shape. Interestingly, I found this much, MUCH easier compared to trying to recreate Zsofia's sculptural shapes. And perhaps because of the ease, this purple hat flows beautifully. As you can see, my skill at creating a smoother, ombre color flow also improved!