Soft Mongoose

I came to needle felting by way of making puppets and costumes for various cabaret and theatre shows. My life has been dominated by an obsession with characters and i think that easily bleeds in to the stuff i make. More recently i've turned my attention to creating smaller and smaller works and seeing how much life and expression i can put into these little creatures.

The needle felting process is bizarre. You're creating something from the inside out, trusting your ability to encourage forms, faces and scenes out of a tangle of fibres. I am driven to create in this material because of the feeling needle felting gives to the final piece: the innate softness imparted by the texture. The fact you've spent hours and maybe even days putting all this energy into one tiny form gives it another dimension for me. The final creation is a product of an intense focus on such a small piece of matter.