By Sue Bergstrom for Valdez City News –
Shana Anderson is probably best known to Valdez locals as the city’s long-time Animal Control Officer. The city dog park is named in her honor and she is still active with the non-profit Friends of the Valdez Animal Shelter. She is also a former instructor at Prince William Sound Community College. But since her retirement in 2012, devoted much of her time to her many artistic interests, including printmaking and oil painting, but primarily fiber art. That’s when she opened her business, Moon Dog Woolies, selling her one-of-a kind wool felted items such as shawls, scarves, wool ‘paintings’ and three- dimensional sculpture. She participated in the textiles invitational, Pushing the Boundaries, in the fall of 2013 as part of Valdez Museum and Historical Archive’s semi-annual community group exhibition series, Celebrating Valdez Artists. From September 19, 2014 through January 4, 2015 she had her own one-woman show, Wild and Wooly, also at the Valdez Museum.
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“To make my feltings I use wool fibers, silk, bamboo and other fibers and three different felting methods. The first is needle felting which I use to create 3-D sculptural objects and also incorporate in my wool paintings to make them reliefs. I use needle felting along with wet felting and nuno felting to create clothing, including shawls, hats, scarves and more. This is my new life after 22 years of chasing dogs, bears and other various critters.”
Felting is an ancient craft, long used for both utilitarian and decorative items. Examples of traditional felting are the yurts of Mongolia and the felted boots, rugs and clothing. ‘Modern’ industrial felting, which was used in making beaver hats, involved the use of a mercury solution, making the product dangerous to both the manufacturer and the wearer. Today the older versions are still in use; wet felting, which involves soaking and compressing wool, hair or other natural fibers and dry felting, which uses a special needle or set of needles to tangle layered fibers together. Dry felting works on types of fibers that wet felting doesn’t and is used for dimensional sculpture and other textile art. Nuno felting was developed by Polly Stirling of New South Wales, Australia in around 1992. This technique bonds loose fiber, usually wool, into a sheer fabric such as silk gauze, creating a lightweight felt. The fibers can be used to apply a decorative design or to cover the fabric completely. Nuno felting often incorporates several layers of loose fibers to build up colors, textures and design elements.
Anderson’s felted art demonstrates the versatility of the art form and her creative flair in the use of color, texture, shape and a combination of methods to make unique and beautiful items.
