Felted Teapots return to Pittsburgh
Again, the Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery has included felted teapots in its annual exhibition: Teapots!12. There are 47 artists contributing to the show. In addition to teapots made of glass, there are those made of traditional materials, such as ceramics and metals. Plus, there are teapots made of atypical materials, such as textiles.
This year, there are four artists who work with felted wool. Three of the artists combine felt with other materials to make mixed-media, felted teapots.
Several examples of mixed media feltmaking
Ceramacist Ellen Silberlicht creates raku and porcelain vessels adorned with elaborate, botanically-inspired lids. To learn more about how life’s challenges caused her to combine clay with felt, visit her website – HERE.
Also, artist Pam MacGregor combines hard objects with soft felt. She has created many mixed media, felted teapots, often using found objects in her work. The Morgan Gallery has an extensive page of her work HERE.
Pam MacGregor’s ‘BonE AppeTEA’ which is one of several of her felted teapot on exhibition.
Local artist, Rae Gold is one of the artists who I actually know in the real world; we are both members of the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh! Like the above artists, she came into feltmaking later in her artistic career. Similar to feltmaker Pam MacGregor, she also has an extensive catalog on the gallery’s website.
Lastly, artist Sue Smorthwaite has contributed a felted teapot to the show. As Sue lives in Australia, this makes it an international show. I don’t believe that she was in last year’s exhibition; you can see my review of it HERE.
In addition to sculpture, Sue has created several pieces of impressive wearable art, one of which has a detailed in a ‘how to’ in the excellent Australian magazine Felt, issue #17. Here’s a link to the digital edition of the magazine, which is also available for purchase.
Australian artist, Sue Smorthwaite’s wet felted teapot, ‘Tea Bone.’
If you can’t make it…
The Teapots:12! runs through May 26th, 2018 which I realize is quite soon!
If you can’t make it to Pittsburgh by then, there’s an excellent online catalog of the exhibition, which includes the felted teapots amongst the other media.