I started sewing these felt patches when I wanted some extra goodies to bring to a zine fest with my music comics. To keep with the music theme, I chose to recreate a few well-known historical composer portraits.
(By the way if they’ve caught your eye, Clara Schumann and Ludwig van Beethoven are still available).
Several years later, I revisited felt as a creative outlet during a time when I wasn’t able to write much music. Each little piece took a few hours maximum to make and delivered a quick “win” of having completed something. Working in little themed collections (much like writing variation exercises in music) also took some of the idea-generating struggle out of the mix and got to the creating part faster.
During that time, I was also inspired by the art fundraiser Project Pizza to attempt using food art to raise money for food aid. Through a weeklong tournament bracket on Instagram, people could vote the felt foods through to the championship and were encouraged to donate to a food aid organization. In return, donors received a felt original or sticker replications. Between 2022’s Ice Cream Noveltourney and 2023’s Produceapalooza, we raised almost $350 for two Boston-area food aid organizations.
What next? I hope to keep making these, finding ways to do good with them, and figure out how to transfer that carefree creative mindset back into my music-making.
2022 Ice Cream Noveltourney
2023 Produceapalooza
