Fiber Sculptress Pamela MacGregor of Grand Rapids, Ohio, is spending three months this summer conducting workshops and presenting her art to audiences throughout Europe and Africa. A perfectionist, MacGregor captures fans with a blend of traditional and innovative art using wool felt as her medium.
After a felting class at Miami University, MacGregor claims she was “hooked for life.” Seven years ago, she left a teaching career to design and craft objects made with felt, compacting wool fibers so tightly that they can morph into ceramic-like teapots and whimsical sculptures.
Diverse inspirations
Her felt creations are inspired by African shamans, Dr. Seuss, Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi, and 2,500-year-old Mongolian homebuilding techniques. She also creates collectable, one-of-kind handmade books.
MacGregor’s success has taken on a global perspective, with fans in Ireland clambering to fill her workshops, Australian media writing about her work, and Kenyan women looking to her as an example of empowerment.
As she travels the world teaching her techniques, MacGregor constantly searches for new inspirations and projects. On a trip to Barcelona, she said, she visited Gaudi’s cathedrals and office buildings and noted similarities between her ideal art and his use of natural materials and fanciful lines. In Africa she was inspired to make shaman dolls, including one depicting an angel with delicate wings made from a squirrel’s clavicle.
Age of creativity
MacGregor, well into her fifties when she began her art career, appreciates how “creativity goes on and on into your life. Every day I wake up and I have to make something.”
The woodlands surrounding her farmhouse studio just outside of Grand Rapids, inspire MacGregor to embellish her art with natural materials such as blackberry leaves, animal bones, and pebbles. The felt she uses comes mostly from sheep’s wool, but she once created a teapot from standard poodle hair.
You can see MacGregor’s sculptures at Angelwood Gallery in Grand Rapids until the end of July. Her website, purveycottagestudio.com, includes an online gallery of work, and a schedule of her local workshops.
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-4pm, Sunday, noon-4pm. Angelwood Gallery, 24195 Front St. Grand Rapids, OH. 419-832-0625. angelwoodartgallery.com. Free