Feeling the Felt at The Cooper Hewitt Museum

On the advice of a friend, a textile designer no less, I visited the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum this weekend. I had never been to this gem at 91st and 5th ave, an outpost of The Smithsonian housed in an Andrew Carnegie mansion. What a treat ! Visit www.cooperhewitt.org to plan your visit.

The Fashioning Felt exhibit shows both ancient and new techniques for making textiles into art, sculpture, furniture, jewelry, and of course clothing. I have long had a love of this fabric, using it for my line of children’s handbags. It’s tactile sense is both comforting and sensual to me. This exhibit fully explores all felt has offer.

This is artist Janice Arnold’s palace yurt, created as a place for contemplation and celebration. At the end of the exhibit is a remarkable video that shows the artist and her team hand making all the ceiling panels.The panels are made of wool, mohair, silk and line.

I love these modern colorful “spot rugs” by Majken Mann and Nynne Fearch for Mossimo. And these sculptural “stones” by Pernelle Fagerlund are fun “textile furniture” by a very talented lady. Look how fun they look in front of this chair (also made of felt).

This fairytale piece is called “The Slice” uncut roll and slice and looks like a woodland dream, by Lene Frantzen.

One of the largest pieces is the amazing wooly wall called “Inner Moods” by Cloudy  Jongstra. This wool is from the artist’s own flock, an endangered species, and is dyed with healing plants and herbs. This piece is supposed to be a healing , tactile piece of sculpture. It reminds me of a character from “Where the Wild Things Are” and also a den from the 70′s – healing indeed !

I would have shared more pictures but they are not allowed in the gallery. A kind security guard told me this after I had taken these – sorry Cooper Hewitt. Let this be a tease…get to the show. At the end of the exhibit are films about the process and pieces of felt that you can touch . I have to admit to being the most interested in touching the work…I”m like a curious child I guess.

Take a couple of hours to see this beautiful mansion and have a relaxing seat outside in the lovely park setting. There’s also an exhibit that has some amazing designers (Ted Muehling, Isaac Mizrahi, and Kate Spade to name a few) that are using sustainable materials. My favorite is the bamboo “Living Forest”  by artist Ezri Tarazi- truly inspirational.