Medusa - a felt sculpture

In April 2010 I posted about a new project I had been working on ...

I had joined a fibre group who experimented with all types of creative fibre methods.

We had been given a challenge with a theme of 'Wild Women'

My mind went immediately to Medusa.

To me she was truly wild, exiled to survive on her own haunted by the writhing of a myriad of snakes which were her hair. I could imagine a felted bust of her tortured face

and snakes of all colours and textures slithering about her, so I set myself to work.

Firstly I found some garden wire to build a basic frame

 

 Then covered the frame with chicken wire.

This allowed me to shape her face

 And I covered the soon-to-be snakes with fabric medical tape

to prevent the fibres slipping away from the wire

 Using corriedale fleece I began to needle felt the shoulders and face

 and refined the facial features

then began preparing the snakes

added some colour to the shoulders

 and face

- I like her best like this

added more shape to the shoulders

and began colouring the snakes

The nights were long

It was my intention for the snakes be the feature

with each one created using different fibre techniques

But I was running out of time.

 I had to forget most of the finishing and textures

and present her as she was.

I think she looked wild and tortured enough