A Transformative MFA Program Evolving from Functional Craft

A Transformative MFA Program Evolving from Functional Craft to the Art of Abstract Sculpture Carolann Tebbetts, Fiber Artist

EARLY CRAFT WORK Craft and Decorative Art Prior to MFA Work Needlepunch, Needle-felted Dolls, Wet-felted vessels. Also produced but not pictured: Beaded, wet and needle-felted jewelry and accessories.

EARLY MFA WORK Decorative Art Explorations in the Early stages of the MFA Experimental work in additional hand-dying: Shibori (multiple techniques), lowimmersion, various chemical resist and burn-out techniques and the “parfait” method of production dyeing.

EARLY MFA WORK Decorative Art Explorations in the Early stages of the MFA Nuno felting: A form of “laminated felt using layers of wool and various fabrics along with a variety of natural and man-made fibers.

EARLY MFA WORK Decorative Art Explorations in the Early stages of the MFA Vessels: Pushing the limits of size, investigating new techniques, and experimenting with surface design and 3 dimensional form. Tripod vessel based on work with Andrea Graham

MID MFA WORK The Transition from Functionality to Sculpture Quantum Leap I, 2012, and Quantum Leap II Lumiere, 2012, detail views of opposing sides The Importance of Working with Master Artists: Working with Andrea Graham, and internationally known felt artist was the catalyst that moved me from craft and functional forms to purely sculptural work with a significantly higher level of sophistication.

MID MFA WORK The Fine Art of Sculpture Setting limits and pushing boundaries: The choice to limit the color palette to white allowed me to work more exclusively with form. “Leviathan” Took over 30 hours of studio time to create but was easily the most comprehensive work to date.

MID MFA WORK The Fine Art of Sculpture Setting limits and pushing boundaries: The choice to limit the color palette to white allowed me to work more exclusively with form and the upper limits of quantity and eventually, scale.

LATE MFA WORK The Fine Art of Sculpture Setting limits and pushing boundaries: The choice to limit the color palette to white allowed me to work more exclusively with form and the upper limits of quantity and eventually, scale.

LATE MFA WORK The Fine Art of Sculpture Pillars of Wisdom, FALL 2013 Installation at University of Massachusetts at North Dartmouth

MFA THESIS WORK The Making of a Master Grotesque Pod #1, Spring 2014 An initial experiment that paid off as the start of a series

MFA THESIS WORK The Making of a Master Grotesque Pods Installation, in progress Fall 2014 Each pod, depending on the size, took between 15 and 40 hours to make. In total, the installation had 13 pods. The final pod, the large black and red one, took nearly 60 hours to complete! The installation was written up in the December 2014 Artscope Magazine.

MFA THESIS WORK Grotesque: a Different Kind of Beautiful Grotesque Head, Da Vinci, c. 1500 Hop Frog, Arthur Rackman, 1935 Biomechanoid I, H. R. Giger. 1975 Aesthetics, the principles upon which we base our understanding and judgment of beauty in art and the world around us, is based on a constantly changing set of parameters that pull from our collective psyche as much as from current and historic stylistic considerations. The ugly or grotesque, in that it provides a foil for beauty, becomes equally important in judging the aesthetic value of art and visual culture.

MFA THESIS WORK Grotesque: a Different Kind of Beautiful My hope, and the focus of my work over the past nine months, is to have my thesis installation successfully, efficaciously, merge visual textures and colors, traditionally perceived as ugly and grotesque, with the comfort of forms that are familiar and sublime. Thus, a hybrid art form is created, wonderful in its uniqueness; not ugly, but rather, a different kind of beautiful.