Repurposed hat felt (original)
Size: 57" x 49"
About the Artists
(Courtesy of Brad & Sundie's website)
We have built a career by challenging ourselves to utilize what most people “look” at as useless and “seeing” the potential of what it could become. Combining our passion of repurposing with our fascination of texture and the need to innovate in the genre has lead us to our most recent body of work, SCULPTURAL FELT.
Working with felt, the oldest textile still in use today, we rescue the remnants trimmed from the brims of high-quality cowboy hats. Brad has found the circular hat-makers felt to be the epitome of a challenge. Although each scrap of felt is small, it is mighty in suppleness, texture and strength. The willingness of the felt to be transformed, both in form and texture when it is layered and nailed to a carved wood substrate makes it a perfect medium for exploring our detailed nature-inspired portraits and abstracts.
When combined with Sundie’s intricately painted layers of hand-cut metal, which truly bare the soul of each portrait, it is hard for the viewer not to reach out and touch to help the brain interpret what the eyes are seeing. Each portrait is then completed by combining it with a background setting Sundie creates of multiple overlays of vintage documents, acrylic paint, charcoal and graphite by building up levels, partially sanding them down, adding more and more depth with each step of the process. It is imperative that the face details and backgrounds have as much depth and dimension as the richly textural felt so the final piece is a cohesive and comprehensive representation of the subject matter.
