2019 Favorites

Every year I like to keep track of all of my favorite media from the last 12 months - books, music, movies, whatever. Here’s the rundown on what I consumed & loved this year (in no particular order). Please share your top picks in the comments - I would love recommendations!

MOVIES:

Leave No Trace

A Simple Favor

Light of My Life

Still

Ballad of Buster Scuggs

Triple Frontier

Sugar Mountain

MUSIC (ALBUMS):

“Lover” by Noah Gundersen

“New Age Heroine” by Ours

“From the Fires” by Greta Van Fleet

“Neptune” by Tall Heights

“Distortland” by The Dandy Warhols

“Spirit of the Abyss” by Amarante

“Family of the Year” by “Family of the Year

TV SHOWS:
Chernobyl

Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Shameless

Fed Up

Glow

Handmaid’s Tale

Schitt’s Creek

Making It

(And I’m currently re-watching Sons of Anarchy and Downton Abbey, so those definitely count!)

BOOKS:

“The World Made Straight” by Ron Rash

“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens

“The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin

“How to be a Good Creature” by Sy Montgomery

“Gone Viking” by Helen Russell

“City of Girls” by Elizabeth Gilbert

PODCASTS:

Forever35

Ologies

Dressed

Creature Feature

This Podcast Will Kill You

Rug Hooking at the Folk School

Last week I had the pleasure of returning to the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC for an intro to rug hooking course. This fascinating fiber art form is something I’ve wanted to learn for years, but I was having a hard time finding anyone locally who could teach me (or who had ever heard of rug hooking, for that matter). The history of traditional rug hooking is interesting, and the craft itself is quite remarkable, but I had a very specific reason for wanting to learn this new medium. I knew somehow, some way, I wanted to incorporate this dimensional texture into my existing needle felting work. Even though I could easily envision how I’d combine the two mediums, I had absolutely no idea where to start, so when I saw there was a rug hooking course coming up at the Folk School, I knew the stars had finally aligned and it was time to find out if this idea was possible.

 The Folk School is located in the misty Appalachian mountains, about as far west as you can go and still be in the state of North Carolina. It’s remote, it’s beautiful, and it has a special community that’s been teaching a variety of traditional handicrafts for nearly 100 years. You can learn blacksmithing, chair caning, felt making, book binding, metal smithing, pottery, glass bead making, photography, wood turning, and weaving, just to name a few. The class sizes are small, typically less than 10 students, and you learn by total immersion. By the end of my week, I had put in 40 hours in the fiber art studio! 

The first hour of class, we learned about the tools, materials, and techniques required for rug hooking, and then we were off to hook our first practice piece – a small coaster, using a simple log cabin pattern. Learning to hook a rug seems simple, but it’s not simple at all. After cutting thin strips of wool, you use a hooked hand tool and pull them through the open weave of a piece of fabric. It sounds so basic, but there’s a lot to it. You have to pull the loops through the fabric just so, and space them out enough, but not too much. You can work with a predetermined pattern, but after my first practice piece, I chose to make up my own or work free form. 

By day two, I was hooking away on my first large piece and finally had the chance to try out my idea of combining rug hooking and needle felting, and I’m thrilled to say – IT WORKED! I hooked a landscape, creating a foreground and mountains with little loops of wool, then I needle felted the sky with roving. I absolutely love how the two wool textures look together. I’m comfortable with landscapes, I make them almost daily (in felt), so this seemed liked a good place to start. 

The third day, I tried a more abstract piece, a longer tapestry wall hanging in a pale color palette, still experimenting with mixing roving with the wool “noodles” I was hooking through the linen background fabric. I also learned various ways to finish the pieces, like binding the edges with yarn.  My loops aren’t perfect, my edges aren’t straight, I ran out of wool so the finished piece is about an inch shorter than I had been planning, by I learned so much by the time this one was finished and I’m in love with the irregular pattern and soft earthy colors. 

 Towards the end of the week, I challenged myself to try hooking precise geometric shapes with curves and points, change colors more often, work with smaller scale fabric strips, and switch directions with my loops. I created two more pieces, both using scrap wool and remnants. I also went bold with my color choices and have no regrets about that! 

After my first 40 hours of rug hooking, all in one week, I’m only just starting to understand how it works. I’m a beginner and will be for quite some time, my work is far from perfect, but I’m so happy to be off on this new adventure in a different medium that compliments what I’m already doing. My fiber art is bound to change in the future, and that’s exciting in so many ways.

Check out this short 5 minute video showing highlights of the week, time-lapse footage of my first few hooking projects, and work from the other students in various classes.

I would like to extend a special thanks to Metropolitan Arts Council (MAC) who made this educational undertaking possible by awarding me a grant to help fund my week at the Folk School plus the investment of the new tools and equipment required to continue to pursue a new dimension in my fiber art. Thank you thank you thank you!

This program is funded in part by the Metropolitan Arts Council which receives support from the City of Greenville, BMW Manufacturing Company, Michelin North America, Inc., SEW Eurodrive and the South Carolina Arts Commission.

The Return of the Animal Portraits

It’s been awhile (I think maybe 2 years???), but I’m finally bringing back my quirky needle felted animal portraits for a limited edition series! These sometimes-realistic and sometimes-ridiculous wall hangings range from bookish bunnies, to cool cats in hats, and my most recent favorite, a professorial beaver in a bowtie. The 3D wool portraits are large enough that I’m able to develop the head shape and facial details pretty well, and adding just the right accessory – a pair of glasses, a pearl necklace, a pipe, or knit cap (my mother-in-law knit some of these for me!) is one of the most pleasing parts of the whole process for me. Sourcing those small scale accessories can be a bit of a treasure hunt, but they sure give the piece personality.

 I’ve been making these felted animal portraits for many years, but only in short bursts, never in a continuous or predictable fashion. I take commissions year round and am always up for a special request, but I’m rarely producing more than 15-20 portraits a year outside of custom orders. That’s extremely limited when I compare to how many hundreds of wool paintings I make in a year, several thousand pendants & earrings, plus dozens and dozens of Christmas ornaments.

Each summer, in preparation for Indie Craft Parade, a major craft fair here in Greenville, SC, I typically make one small collection of the felted portraits, put them all out at the show, and they’re sold out by noon the first day, so there are no remaining pieces to add to my website. I don’t know why I even have a section for these on my site. It’s permanently empty!

Recently, I started to realize customers outside of the Greenville area (or even those in the Greenville area who didn’t attend the show or got there too late) don’t have the opportunity to purchase or even see the animal portraits in person. This year, prior to Indie Craft Parade, I’m trying something a little different in hopes of giving those interested a chance of adding to their collection. I’m going to offer these quirky creatures for sale in a brief pre-sale / flash sale on Instagram so there will be a short chance to snag one before they ever make it to the craft show (or if you’re local, you can purchase in advance and pick up at the show). Plus, I made nearly twice as many as previous years, so hopefully there’s enough to go around this time!

Hope you enjoyed this advanced look at the pieces available. Please follow along on Instagram for details about when they’ll be up for grabs in early September.

 As always, if you don’t see the exact animal you want, or you have something specific in mind, please reach out. I truly love custom orders!

Fiber, Paper, Scissors Exhibition

Photo by Eli Warren

My series of needle felted landscapes from #the100dayproject are on display as part of the “Fiber, Paper, Scissors” exhibit for one more week at Greenville Center for Creative Arts. This is my largest collection to date and it’s in good company with the work of Meredith Piper, Douglas Piper, and Mark Mullfinger through July 24th.

Photo by Jeremy Tufts

Earlier this week I gave an ArtTalk and shared about how I got into needle felted, why I chose to do 100 landscapes in 100 days, and a little about what it was like to work every single day in one medium. I thought I’d do a little recap here while it’s fresh in my mind.

Photo by Jeremy Tufts

HOW IT ALL BEGAN:

Back in the fall of 2009, I was doing a lot of knitting. I had never heard of needle felting. A neighbor in Rockville, MC had recently learned and showed me a quick little demo, and I was hooked. I asked for a needle felting kit for Christmas, and haven’t knit since. I started out with simple 3D projects like ornaments and succulents, then taught myself to sculpt more complex shapes like animal figurines and anatomical hearts. My fairly new business at the time, Once Again Sam, became more than a handmade jewelry business.

A CHANGE IN DIMENSION:

Up until April of 2016, I had only ever worked in 3D. My needle felted had advanced quite a bit since learning, but I never dared to work flat until the #creativesprint challenge that changed it all. I made a tiny little felted landscape in an embroidery hoop, and that little project pushed me in a whole new direction. Working flat, creating landscapes from wool fiber, was the ultimate combination of traditional painting and fiber art.

BEFORE THE CHALLENGE:

I applied for a gallery show at Greenville Center for Creative Arts sometime in 2017. I had been getting a great response from my 2D wool landscapes that were relatively new at the time, and thought a larger-scale show would be a great way to get exposure and push my needle felting to more of a fine art level rather than a handicraft. I was not expecting my gallery proposal to make the cut, since I had previously only shown my work in small-scale short-term shows, but when I got the news, I began planning immediately.

Having secured the gallery show, I decided to apply for a grant from Metropolitan Arts Council to help fund my supplies. I had never written a grant before, so I really wanted to impress the committee with my project idea. The whole idea was to create a large body of work and challenge myself to work larger, try new subject matter, and generally improve my skills, but that doesn’t sound very exciting on paper. That’s where I decided to commit to 100 landscapes in 100 days. It sounded impressive! I had seen other artists go through this challenge and loved seeing daily progress, and knew if I got the grant and posted on social media, I would be held accountable to carry out the project.

Photo by Jeremy Tufts

100 DAYS OF FELTING:

With a gallery show deadline fast approaching, grant money in my pocket, and no excuses, I began the 100 Day Project on February 1, 2019. Every day, I made a needle felted landscape of some place in South Carolina. Some days I didn’t have much time - those days, my work was very small. Other days, I wasn’t pleased with the outcome of my work, but I had to post it on social media anyway, because that’s part of the challenge. There were days when my wrists hurt, but I felted anyway. There were many days where I felted away from my home studio while traveling for work or on vacation, and there was a very special week where I felted at Edisto Beach State Park as the Artist-in-Residence.

Previous to the 100 Day Project, my work mostly featured fields, mountains, and simple marshes. I typically worked 8x10 or smaller. During the 100 Day series I knew I had to push myself to work larger and expand on what subject matter I was willing to tackle. I’m so glad I did! My largest piece in the series is 24x36, which I had to felt standing up because it’s far too large to work on in my lap. I attempted bridges, water towers, and other buildings - all totally new for me, and I love how they turned out. Knowing I had to come up with 100 different landscape scenes, I really had to research and keep my eyes open for inspiration around my home state of South Carolina. It’s so beautiful here, and I loved having an excuse to go visit new places to “get inspiration”.

Photo by Jeremy Tufts

SHOWTIME:
Just a week after completing the series, I delivered all 100 pieces to Greenville Center for Creative Arts and they took care of the amazing installation job. The pieces are hung in chronological order around the gallery, so you can easily follow my needle felting journey that took place this spring. The scenes showcase some of my favorite spots in the state of SC, and I can honestly remember what was going on the day I made each particular piece.

The work of 3 other artists are also in the gallery as part of the Fiber, Paper, Scissors show, and everyone’s work compliments each other’s so beautifully. We were all featured in TOWN Magazine and had the opportunity to share about our work in the article.

POST SHOW PROMOS:

I know many of you are not in the Greenville area and didn’t have the option to come to see the work in person. Several of you have been wanting to get a piece ever since the day I posted it - months ago - and I wasn’t able to sell it to you because it was for the show and the gallery doesn’t ship. Thank you for being so patient! The remaining work from The 100 Day Project (plus a bunch more I’ve been working on this summer) will be live on my website August 1st, and as a special thank you, I’m doing free shipping on all items at www.onceagainsam.com through the end of August. Use this coupon at checkout: FREESHIPPING2019

Thank you for being a part of my 100 Day Project journey!

100 Days, 100 Fibers Exhibition

It’s finished! I can’t believe my 100 day project has come to an end. This was my life for the past three months and I truly can’t wait to see everything hung together in the gallery. The completed series will be on display in the “100 Days, 100 Fibers” exhibit which is part of the “Fiber, Paper, Scissors” show at Greenville Center for Creative Arts. All pieces will be for sale during the exhibition which opens June 7th and runs through July 24th. I hope you will join me at the gallery opening on the 7th - I would love to meet you in person!

My series of needle felted wool landscapes featuring scenes from all over the state of South Carolina was a great excuse to research and in some cases visit all these beautiful places in my new home state. I decided early on I would create 100 pieces of 100 different scenes or landmarks within the state (which would be my largest collection to-date) but when I started thinking through logistics of what’s involved with creating a collection that size, the only way I could think to do this was create one piece a day for 100 days. It turned out to be the perfect challenge for me, it got me working every day even if I didn’t want to, developing my techniques and trying new things, and I can see a huge change in my work since starting the #100dayproject February 1, 2019. It was fun to share a sneak peek of each piece on social media every day and get recommendations from others about what location I should feature next. 

A huge thank you to everyone who followed along on social media, encouraged me and suggested new places to feature. Thank you to GCCA for giving me this incredible opportunity to exhibit my work on a large scale and giving me the excuse I needed to push my needle felting to the next level. Thank you to Metropolitan Arts Council for the grant that helped pay for the massive amount of materials & supplies needed to create this body of work. Thank you to the South Carolina State Park system for inviting me to be Artist-in-Residence in April and giving Edisto Beach State Park a major focus during my 100 day project.

This program is funded in part by the Metropolitan Arts Council which receives support from the City of Greenville, BMW Manufacturing Company, Michelin North America, Inc., SEW Eurodrive and the South Carolina Arts Commission.