Kiyoshi Mino
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Kiyoshi Mino is a master in the needlefelting technique. He is known for his almost lifelike needle felted animals.
Needle felting is an artform that allows one to sculpt with wool. It involves poking clumps of wool with a barbed needle which catches the fibers and causes them to entangle and hook together. The more you poke the clump of wool the more entangled the fibers get, causing the wool to shrink and increase in density. This is made possible by the fact that wool fibers have microscopic scales that will hook onto other fibers.
“I am a needle felt artist and organic farmer based in Central Illinois.In January 2011 I learned about needle felting at a farmer training program my wife and I attended in Massachusetts. I had never even heard of needle felting prior to the class but I immediately fell in love with it. I loved to draw as a kid but had never tried any form of sculpture before. It was very exciting to me to be able to draw in three dimensions with nothing but a needle and a clump of wool.
I have always loved animals of all kinds and wool is a perfect medium for sculpting them.I am a needle felt artist based in the US. For the last six years my wife and I had been running a small organic farm. We attended a year-long farmer training program before trying to start our own farm and it was there that I first learned about needle felting. I immediately fell in love with it. I loved to draw as a kid but had never tried any form of sculpture before.
It was very exciting to me to be able to draw in three dimensions with nothing but a needle and a clump of wool. I have always loved animals of all kinds and because wool is a type of animal fur itself, it is the perfect medium for realistically sculpting fur and bird feathers. In my work I focus on wild animal species which I try to render as faithfully as possible. I believe that almost all animals have unique personalities and emotional complexity just like humans and my goal when depicting wild animals is to try and convey this idea by capturing these unique personalities.”