For my fortieth birthday last week, my dearest friend from highschool and i planned a special vacation--a retreat to the
Grove Park Inn resort and spa in Asheville, NC. I could wax rhapsodic for pages about the beauty of the mountains, the fascinating history of the inn itself [1], the beautiful Mission style antiques filling every room and hallway and lounge, and the relaxing mineral spring pools in the spa. But, this blog is about craftwork, and the relevant info here is found in the galleries and art studios in the Asheville area.
The
Grovewood Gallery is located on the grounds of the Inn, and features the work of over 500 artists and artisans in its 9000-ft gallery space. The buildings in which the gallery is housed were once the home of the Biltmore Industries' renowned weaving and woodworking facilities, and exhibits about the history of those workshops may be found both in the gallery itself and next door in the Homespun Museum installation.
As you can imagine, there's almost too much to look at--jewelry, furniture, stained glass panels and lamps, sculpture, paintings, pottery, fiber art and other wearables, you name it. One of my favorite artists featured is Ellyn Bernstein, who keeps a farm in Henderson, NC, and uses the wool of her sheep to create wearable art through the nuno felting technique.
Essentially, nuno felting is a variation on the traditional wool felting process in which woven silk serves as an integral part of the finished textile. Because the wool fibers shrink up and the silk fibers do not, the textural nature of the finished piece has a very interesting depth and complexity to it. Ellyn has an excellent overview page of her process
on her website, here. She studied art and design in college and spent 13 years as a successful painter in Charlotte, NC, before embarking on the new focus of farming.
"With this change in my life, my medium changed," Ellyn says. "The sheep that I was now caring for were to be put to work and my felting began." She is involved in all steps of her process, from raising the sheep which provide the wool, to dyeing the fibers she uses to make her creations, creating the garment patterns, felting, sewing, embroidering, hand-finishig, you name it.
What really drew me to Ellyn's display at the Grovewood was a collection of her felt hats. As a milliner, I am always drawn to hats, but often i find in the arts/crafts gallery realm, the stylistic focus of the pieces displayed can be...well, fairly ordinary. The pieces tend to be made from beautiful materials, yes, but show a pedestrian millinery sensibility, and from a fashion standpoint can be utilitarian or even staid. Hand knitted caps, felted bretons and berets, with ornamentation that comes off as rote: a single fabric flower perhaps, a pompom or tassel. Which, fine, everyone wants warm ears in the wintertime but where's the adventure or the spark in a knit toboggan, no matter how cool the yarn from which it is made?
This is where Ellyn's work really leapt off the shelf: her shapes are far more adventurous and contain an element of the glamourous, often peaked and folded into dramatic shapes reminiscent of the svelte cloches, whimsical toques, exotic turbans, and sophisticated bicornes of 1920s millinery.
![](http://i880.photobucket.com/albums/ac9/labricoleuse/Streetwear/photo30.jpg)
Here's the hat of Ellyn's which i purchased.
(Call it a birthday hat, if you will.)
![](http://i880.photobucket.com/albums/ac9/labricoleuse/Streetwear/photo29.jpg)
This back view shows some of the textural and color variations that
Ellyn's nuno felting techique imparts to the hatbody.
![](http://i880.photobucket.com/albums/ac9/labricoleuse/Streetwear/photo31.jpg)
Detail of one area showing some trapunto work she has incorporated into the hatbody,
a sort of structurally integrated garniture. Cool!
![](http://i880.photobucket.com/albums/ac9/labricoleuse/Streetwear/Photoofhat.jpg)
The hat on a real person's head (mine!) for scale and perspective.
I have pinned a large antique brooch to the side, a silver filigree
ibis with amethyst stones. I love it!
Ellyn is a member of the
Southern Highland Craft Guild. You can see more of her hats and all the other types of garments she makes as well on
her website.
[1] The Grove Park counts among its former guests F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and eight presidents of the USA, among many other famous figures of literature, art, music, science, industry, and politics.