Tag Archives: soft sculpture

Ellen Ripley Puppet for Gallery 1988

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This is the second show I’ve been in at Gallery 1988! I’m pretty stoked on it. The theme this time is “30 Years Later,” an art show based upon films from 1986. It was a hard call, as there were a lot of amazing films on that list, however in the end I went with ALIENS and created an Ellen Ripley puppet. She is an adorable little badass xenomorph expert.

 

Titled “Who’s Snow White?” a line uttered by another badass female character, Vasquez. Little Ripley has her asymmetrical watch, sweet red and white high top Reeboks from the future, and ammunition laden suspenders. Her t-shirt was stained with tea to give her the sweat-stained battle damage look. Her hair is made of a furry yarn that has great volume and texture to it.

Staining a shirt with tea.
Fighting xenomorphs for hours look.

The art show is at Gallery 1988 WEST is March 26, 2016 on Friday from 7-10. The show is on display though April 9th. If you are in Los Angeles, hit it up! Ripley will be for sale through Gallery 1988’s store.

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Gallery 1988’s Flyer for the show.

If you’re into puppets, I got some more cute commissions that will be underway here soon. So keep your eyes peeled for more felty goodness.

You can check out more of my work at https://www.behance.net/tessamorrison

“Frame That TOON!” Art Show

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I’ve been fervently working on a piece for this show which opens Friday, February 26, 2016. More as things develop. I have to finish the piece by tomorrow. Tonight is going to be another all nighter…..

Well, here he is. My piece for “Fame That Toon!” is none other than the Shogun of Sorrow, AKUUUUU! Hopefully I won’t be tossed into a post-apocalyptic future where HIS EVIL IS LAW! 60+ hours of cutting, sewing, and hot gluing later I have a 4-foot tall fiber art replica of everyone’s favorite shape-shifting warlock.

 

Here’s more details on the show.

Pieces will eventually be for sale at the show and on their site here.

Guzu_Frame-That-Toon_Poster

Link Puppet and Promo Video!

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Guzu Gallery’s “High Scores,” a video game themed art show, was the official pre-party for Classic Game Fest. On display from July 24, 2015 – August 31, 2015, High Scores features over 30 artists, including myself. For this show I fabricated a hand-and-rod puppet of everyone’s favorite adventurer, Link! He comes with his shield and can even stand on his own. If you’re interested in purchasing him, he will be for sale eventually here.

Link Puppet
Link Puppet

After finishing him, it became obvious that a play date was in order. So Eric Samaniego, Wright Sulek, and myself made the above promo spot for High Scores. Eric voiced and puppeteered Link, I helped puppeteer, and Wright filmed, operated the boom mic, and gave us directions. We had a blast and it all came together very organically. I wrote the script on a Tuesday, finished the puppet and printed the backdrop on Wednesday, we filmed it on Thursday, and Wright had the edited video finished by that Sunday. This experience has made it all the more apparent I need to work in film.

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Flyer for “High Scores” art show.

HELLBOY Fiber Art Portrait

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This piece was made for the Chogrin curated “Guillermo Del Toro: In Service of Monsters” exhibit at Gallery 1988. I love Guillermo Del Toro’s work and Chogrin curated the 25th Anniversary of Hellboy Art Show a few years back, which looked amazing. I really wanted to be a part of it and I might of cried a little when I missed out on it. So I started composing an email to Chogrin to ask to be in his next show, and then out of the freaking blue he emailed me first!! I hadn’t even sent my draft to him! Crazytown. I found out that the gallery owner at Gallery 1988 is a fan of my work and sent him my info. Yay, networking!

The show was Sept. 11, 2015 at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles. I flew out to the show and stayed with some friends and my brother. I brought some Hellboy comics for Mike Mignola to sign, because he had a piece in the show, unfortunately he couldn’t make it out for personal reasons. HOWEVER, there was one special guest who showed up, Guillermo Del Toro!!! I got to meet the man himself, and he was so sweet. I didn’t get to talk to him much, but I told him I was an artist in the show and he was super sweet, “Oh really? Want to get a picture together in front of your piece?” Durrrrrrr..::brain melts:::…yes…please? They had a cake of the strange metal scarab apparatus from CHRONOS. The inside was red velvet cake! Nom!

MeandGDT

The man himself. And me…cheesin’ so hard.

 

Originally I was going to create the Hellboy with the full horns and the flaming crown, but the technique I choose lent itself to his filed down horns way more. The technique I used for this piece is similar to the Dr. Doom piece I did a few years back. They are made up of little sushi rolls of fabric tiled like a mosaic. It’s a distinct look I came up with one day when I was trying to make some fabric beads.

In process.

Dr. Doom Fiber Portrait

“Le couleur de l’etrangete”

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Here is my piece for “Le couleur de l’etrangete” An Art Show Tribute to the Films of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet at Spoke Art Gallery. The show’s title means “the color of strange.” My fiber art piece is titled “Parapluie” meaning umbrella. Amelie was probably the most popular film to do a piece for this show. I wish I had time to make another piece…I probably would have done something for Alien Resurrection. : D

This show runs May 9th-30th 2015 at 816 Sutter Street San Francisco, CA.

Pieces will be for sale on the site at: http://store.spoke-art.com/

Amelie and her umbrella
Hair Detail
Close-Up
Hand Detail

Stripe from Gremlins!

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Here is the fiber art piece I made for Guzu Gallery’s “Icons of Horror Show: A Haunted Portrait Show & Halloween Party.” Gremlins was one of my favorite scary movies as a kid. Yes, it was also a goofy comedy, but as a kid it was freaky to think about monsters scurrying in the dark sabotaging machinery, cutting power lines, and coming after you. One of the original scripts actually had the gremlins kill Billy’s mom, but instead they had her be a badass killing the gremlins with kitchenware. Think how different that movie would have been with Billy avenging his mom?

Ok, I’m getting sidetracked here, but yeah I made a thing! Looky! He’s approximately 8″X29″ and is made out of foam, felt, and a little wire to make his ears nice, perky, and posable. He will be for sale at the show at $275.00. Interested parties should contact Guzu  about purchasing this fiendish little fellow. 512-454-GUZU (4898)  info@guzugallery.com

If he doesn’t sell at the show, all the art goes up for sale online on November 3 at around Noon CST.

Face detail
Made with felt, foam, and wire. 2014.
Mouth and teeth details
Eyes and brow ridges

Opening reception for Icons of Horror is Friday, Oct. 31st from 7-10 p.m. At 5000 North Lamar Blvd. Austin, TX.

The show is open until Dec. 1st. So if you can’t make it out on opening night, it’s no sweat. It’ll be on display for a while. However, you might wanna show because the first so many people in the door get a free copy of Gore Noir Magazine and there will be a live music performance by dark synth maestro, Xander Harris.

Moth Man! Fabric Art Sculpture

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With the resurgence of Kaiju films there have been several monster themed art shows popping up lately. After receiving invites to partake in a few I decided to make a Moth Man to pay homage to my home state of West Virginia. Here is the resulting soft sculpture after hours of building a wire armature, cutting, and hot gluing fabric.

Moth Man!

Moth Man is featured in Streets of Beige’s online gallery called “THE BIG ASS MONSTER SHOW!” which started May 16th. You can check out the rest of the submissions here: http://www.streetsofbeige.com/2014/05/sob-presents-big-ass-monster-show_16.html

Sweet flyer for the show by Matthew Griffin.

Sweet flyer for the show by Matthew Griffin.

Moth Man will be for sale at another T.B.A. show around September.

I tried to pull from various depictions of the Moth Man. Drawings of him have all sorts of different types of wings (went with standard moth wings instead of webbing or feathery wings to avoid making him look like an owl). He obviously had to have large red eyes, because all sightings of him reported those peepers glaring at people. After adding the mouth and eyes he really came together as opposed to looking like an over-sized grey pine cone. : D

Check out this sweet poster for the Streets of Beige show by Matthew Griffin. I bought a purple variant of it for my apartment.

 

Arch Nemesis Show

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Hero Complex Gallery is curating an art show called “Arch Nemesis”, an art show themed around arch villains. The opening for the show is Friday May 24, 2013. I got wind of this event and immediately started on some fabric art pieces focusing on Marvel villains. I did Magneto’s helmet out of yarn using weaving techniques, Dr. Doom’s mask out of felt and fleece using a technique in the paper craft world known as quilling, and finally made an elaborate mask based on the Green Goblin. They all varied in difficulty of construction and the amount of time to finish.

I learned to read at the age of three with your standard children’s books, but also with  my older brothers comics, well, at least the one’s he’d let me get my greasy little mitts on. I grew up flipping through Omega Men, Billy Bayou, Toxic Avenger, Conan, The What If Series, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Statix, Spiderman, Superman, and Batman. Comic books and graphic novels are my jams. My favorite of the sequential arts.

Anywhos, here are the pieces I made for the show!

First off is the piece entitled “Dr. Loom”.

Mouth close-up.
Eye Detail.
In process.
“Dr. Loom” Finished Piece. 2013. Felt, fleece, wire, hot glue, yarn
Brow and eye detail.

Next is “Magnus Bis Tincto”, which basically translates to “Yarn Magneto.”

Close-up of helmet in process.
Helmet adornment.
Piece in process.
Finished piece. 2013. Yarn, felt, wire, and hot glue

And then we have the Green Goblin called “Green Feltin'” :

2013. Green Goblin inspired fabric art.
Close-up. 2013. wire, felt, hot glue
Close-up of mouth.
Close-up.

“Weapon of Choice” Show

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"The Half-Breed" March 2011. Some of you guys might remember this piece!

It was in the “Quentin VS Coen” Exhibit that toured New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in 2011. I made this piece of fiber art based on Gogo Yubari’s ball and chain weapon in Kill Bill using a combination of knitting, sewing, wet felting, and crochet. It’s going to be in another show coming up January 11-13, 2013 in L.A. at Design Matters. The show is called “Weapon of Choice”, and is themed around weapons in pop culture. If you happen to be in L.A. in January, check out the show!

Click here for the Facebook event. You can also check out the gallery’s site with list of exhibitions here.

New Studio Space!

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My jewelry design project, REfused Designs Studios, has a new home! Here is a picture of the set-up at the new studio space off of Northloop. Its about 400 square feet, wood floors, and one wall is covered in a mirror. The space was used previously as a dance studio where they taught bellydance, pilates, and yoga. I’m sharing the space with painter Pat Taylor. We might be in the West Austin Studio Tour this year. From what I hear it’s the Spring version of the East Austin Studio Tour and it basically encompasses the rest of Austin. I’ll probably use the space for larger fabric sculpture, puppet making, and perhaps some filming. I’ve had an idea for a film project that I really want to do.