Wet Felted Witchy Hats

Wet Felting & Other Traditional Seasonal Skills Class Series with Laura Blankenship People have been creating shelter, clothing, and beauty, and singing together while we do it before time began. Come remember some of these traditional ways by dipping your toes into wet felting, singing, and candlemaking. Teen and Adult. Wet Felted Witchy Hats (Requires Previous Wet Felting Experience) Cost: $135 Time and date(s): Saturday & Sunday, 10/24 & 25 from 12:00PM-3:30PM Location: Art Lab Skill level: Intermediate-Advanced Description: This intermediate wet felting class teaches wet felting around a resist to create a large seamless project, in our case, a witch hat just in time for Halloween! Expect several hours of labor intensive standing, rubbing, and rolling wool while your hands are wet with soapy water. Must have previous wet felting experience; exemptions for experience can be requested by contacting the museum. Limit 4 students. Other classes in this series: Wet Felted Witchy Hats (Requires Previous Wet Felting Experience) Saturday and Sunday October 24 and 25, from 12:00PM-3:30PM Easy Expressive Nuno Felted Cloths & Patches (Prereq for Wet Felted Hats) Saturday, November 14, from 1:00PM-4:00PM Wet Felted Handwarmers (Prereq for Wet Felted Hats) Saturday and Sunday, November 21 and 22, from 12:00PM-3:30PM Wacky Elf Hats (Requires Previous Wet Felting Experience) Saturday and Sunday, December 5 and 6, from 1:00PM-4:30PM Tapered Beeswax Candle Making & Community Singing Saturday, December 12, from 3:00PM-5:00PM About the Instructor: Laura Marie Blankenship’s wild, wooly work bridges the gap between the tactile craft of felting and the embodied art of abstract expressionism. Her art is deeply informed by her 8 years as a live music painter, teaching yoga and meditation, and time spent as a wilderness therapy field guide, and answering crisis/suicide hotline calls, with her formal background in Psychology from The College of William and Mary. She was awarded a scholarship and studio assistantship at the Penland School of Craft in 2015, is a frequent instructor of wet felting and needle felting at Earthskills Gatherings throughout the Southeast, and from 2022 to 2025, she served as a full-time public school art teacher. With painting names like “there is nothing that cannot be transformed into joy,” her current studio practice centers create action-painted abstracts that serve as victory cries (and sometimes desperate pleas) for emotional integration and personal transformation. Laura Marie Blankenship lives and works in Damascus, Virginia, where she continues to paint, teach, hike, bike, kayak, share beauty, create connection, and ask for guidance from the trees, trails, and beings in and around the South Holston River.