The Southern Highland Craft Guild presents, The Maker’s Table, a monthly program where Blowing Rock Art & History Museum invites visitors to spend an evening with a master maker while they share the ins and outs of their craft. Free for museum members, $5 for non-members.

In this talk, fiber members Lorraine will cover a brief history of felt making, both wet and needle felting. She will also describe the fibers and tools used to achieve 2D felted landscape pieces and demo her process.

About the Speaker:

Growing up in an artistic family, it was only natural that my sisters and I would keep the family tradition alive. Our mother, Ruth Goldsborough, was an accomplished artist in oil, pastel and carbon pencil and has work in collections all over the world. We each pursued art in a different direction, one doing wood fired pottery, one weaving and myself in needle felting and wet felting. When I moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina in April of 2013 from Pensacola, Florida, we three sisters were again in the same area for the first time in about fifty years. How cool is that!

My venture into needle felting and wet felting came in 1998 when I retired. I took a week-long class at John C Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and the rest is history. I took another class, then another, etc.etc.etc. and finally decided I should try my hand at teaching. I love to share my passion for fiber and felting with students and have been fortunate to teach a class at John C. Campbell every year since 2005. I have also taught classes at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair and workshops in Pensacola and Milton, FL. I have studied with Chad Alice Hagan, Lisa Klakulak, Ayalia Talpai and taken studio classes at Pensacola State College in Pensacola, FL, where I resided prior to moving. My current body of work includes needle and wet felted landscapes ranging in size from 8×10 to 24×36. I use a variety of wool roving in different colors and textures.

I find inspiration in these beautiful mountains for my felted landscapes and am proud that in 2014 my work was juried into the Southern Highland Craft Guild fulfilling a dream of mine for several years.

My work has been exhibited in Number 7 Arts and Crafts Cooperative in Brevard, NC, Blue Morning Gallery in Pensacola, FL and Dragonfly Gallery in Milton, FL. I currently have work available through the Southern Highland Craft Guild online shop, or at their Asheville galleries at the Folk Art Center, Biltmore Village, Tunnel Road, as well as their Blowing Rock gallery at Moses Cone Manor. I have also shown at fine art and craft shows throughout the Southeast, winning several awards.