Stephanie Metz creates one of her needle-felted teddy bear skull sculptures-- in time-lapse. Taken from industrial origins, needle felting is the process of compressing and tangling wool fibers into three-dimensional forms through repetitive hand work with barbed needles. Sculptor Stephanie Metz has been blazing a trail with this unusual medium since she stumbled upon the technique in 2002. Unburdened by any formal training in textiles or preconceptions about craft-based techniques, she turned her traditional sculpture education and curiosity to the unique and unexplored material. Thanks to subject matter and execution, her sculptural use of felted wool makes a marked departure from the more familiar craft-focused, utilitarian, decorative traditions associated with the medium. Stephanie's iconic teddy bear skulls reveal 'unnatural history': believable specimens of the fossil record of manmade creatures. www.stephaniemetz.com
