Meagan Alessio is a Canadian fiber artist who specialises in needle felting. Her work ranges from super realistic mini dog replicas to whimsical sequin covered mer-mals (half mermaid-half mammal), to ethereal resin and fiber wall hangings. Her different bodies of work are uniquely varied but all intrinsically linked by her love of a soft pastel palette and some serious attention to detail!

Speaking to Meagan reminded me of the simple pleasure of creating, which you can often misplace when you’re running a small business. She’s the kind of entrepreneurial creative who can not only turn her hand to any art form but finds pure joy in doing so.

Here, Meagan talks about her process as well as what its like to be a creative with two kids, plus the surreal experience of landing a collaboration with Anthropologie!

Meagan has also created the beautiful hummingbird ornament below as a giveaway in conjunction with The Fiber Studio. The ornament combines needle felting with hand-dyed silks, vintage wools and a bamboo beak. Completely unique and perfect for Christmas! To enter the giveaway, follow Meagan on Instagram here and comment on her post of the hummingbird to let her know you’d like to be considered for the giveaway. The giveaway ends next Thursday 13th December.

For those of us who don’t really know how it works, can you explain the process of needle felting?

Needle felting seriously blew my mind when I first tried it!  The process is quite simple. It involves wool and a single barbed needle.  Wool roving (or batts or top, whichever form it comes in) has microscopic scales on it.  When the barbs of the felting needle pass through the fluffy wool they grab individual fibres and tangle them with other wool fibres. Do this a few hundred times and Voila! You have created felt from wool! It’s very sculptural and intuitive. I love that it doesn’t require much experience to create something out of next to nothing.

 

Your mini dog replicas are adorable! how long does it usually take to complete one?

The tiny pups themselves take about 4-6 hours to create, depending on the breed and the type of fur.  I’m a touch crazy though so I also create a custom rug or blankie, a special toy, and a hand painted storage box for each and every one.  I’ve made everything from a simple rope toy, to a Christmas pickle (that was a first!) to a teeny hand sculpted and painted wine glass to go with the pup’s personalities. Making those special details is something that I think makes my replicas stand out. It adds such a personal connection, but man does it take a long time! All in my dogs take about 7-10 hours.

And that’s before I have an elaborate photo shoot! Like I said, I can get a little carried away.

 

You say that you first started to play around with needle felting when you were pregnant with your first son. You bought a kit from Etsy and it all started from there! How was the transition from hobby crafter to small business owner?

I truly still think of myself as a crafter.  Even if no one bought a single thing I would still be making all of the time – my friends and family have gotten a LOT of handmade gifts over the years!  I feel very restless when I’m not working on a project. If it isn’t fibre related I’m reorganizing a gallery wall or moving around furniture.

I guess the transition for me was more of a natural progression that came from me becoming a mom.  Staying at home with my 2 boys (now 4 and 5 years old) allows me to work on things throughout the day.  I’d never be able to create like this if I was working at a full time job outside my home and had to take out all of my supplies every time I wanted to work on some art.

The nice thing about my art is that it can be done minutes at a time. I don’t have to worry about paint drying or things like that. Some days I get a few hours of work in, some days I get 5 minutes in between school runs and snack requests and wiping butts and breaking up fights over legos.

I wouldn’t trade being able to stay at home with my kids for anything, but I am definitely counting down to when they are both in full time school and I can have some time to really get shit done! I’ve got big dreams for the next few years.

Tell us about your collaboration with Anthropologie – how did it come about? And what does it feel like to see your creations in the shop?

That was such a dream come true.  And totally came out of the blue for me! Their Artist Collaboration team reached out to me via Instagram and asked if I’d be interested in designing a collection for them.  They had seen my creations I’d been posting and thought I would be a good fit for the brand.

I thought I was being punked. I literally said to my husband that I would love to have my creations in a big beautiful store like Anthropologie some day and I few weeks later I got the email.  It’s so cool to see MY signature on a piece in a huge store. I really hope I get the opportunity to do more collaborations in the future.

Any advice for other crafters/artists who would LOVE to collaborate with brands like Anthropologie?

I wish I had more advice about that. My experience was so unexpected so I’m not sure how to replicate it!

Shortly before I got the offer, I had a real artistic crisis and was feeling very uninspired.  I was creating a lot of tapestries at the time and felt like I was just seeing the same sort of designs again and again. Kind of feeling like what’s the point of making something that seems so similar to so many other instagram artists. So I put away my looms and started playing around with my felting supplies again.

Felting is a craft that always made me feel like less of an “artist”, because I tend to create cute things, not something that would be hung in a gallery.  But I love it so much and just thought ‘fuck it’. I made a bunch of ridiculous bedazzled mer-mals and had the BEST time doing it!  And its those authentic, silly, whimsical things that caught the eye of Anthro.  So long story, but what I’m trying to say is be yourself, you never know who might be watching!

You’ve moved around quite a lot, how has that influenced your work?

I lived up in Northern Canada (Norman Wells, NWT) as a young chid, and moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when I was 7, so it was one helluva climate change!  I was lucky to go to an international school while in KL, which meant a big fancy school with all the other expat kids and it was hella funded.  So I got to take part in AMAZING art classes as a child there.  I did everything from firing ceramics to stamping batik fabrics, creating sculptures and collaging mixed media self portraits.  The art program at the school was so expansive.  I moved back to Canada when I was 10, and never really had access to anything close to that artistic learning experience for the rest of my childhood, but it sparked so much creativity in me. Ive been making ever since.

Your resin works are fascinating, how did they come about?

For me resin is just so FUN! I have always been obsessed with things encased in water, or under cloches or somehow suspended (I wanted to have Belle’s rose SO BAD as a kid). So playing with resin was a way to make that a reality.  It’s so freeing to pour and experiment with different pigments and see how they react.  Resin is a bit unpredictable and I like it that way. You can’t 100% control the outcome and it’s really relaxing for me to give up that control. What’s NOT relaxing is trying to keep your hellion children out of the freshly poured, insanely messy and impossible to clean up resin, so I don’t get to do as much as I would like!

 

I recently read ‘The Multi-Hyphen Method’ by Emma Gannon, it’s all about a new way of working in the digital age, where workers can design their own multi-faceted career, drawing on their strengths and being their own boss. How are you navigating your way through being a small business owner/crafter/artist and full-time mum? What are the positives/negatives? 

 

I haven’t read that but I’m definitely going to now!

I’m really just doing what works for me in this moment, and it changes day to day.

With kids I don’t think there is a formula for success at being a stay at home mom/artist/entrepreneur.  Every day is different and having too rigid of a schedule would not work for me!

One of my biggest strengths is not really letting the “mom guilt” get to me. I hear people talking about it I so much I sometimes wonder if I’m missing some built in mom gene because I truly don’t feel bad about having time for myself to create. My kids are fed and happy and alive, as long as I check those boxes I think there’s nothing to feel guilty about!

One of the nice things about building your own artistic brand through instagram is that you can disappear for a week when your kids get the flu and it turns out NO ONE CARES! You can control the amount of interaction you want and dial it back when you cant give 100%.  The negative to that is that if you don’t put in the time and work to build a following, it’s a lot harder to find a buyer for your work if you’re only reaching 200 followers.

I try not to get too concerned about the numbers but the reality is that the higher those numbers go the more sales and commissions I’m likely to get. I just try to stay myself as much as possible. Instagram can feel unauthentic at times but I have truly made so many connections through it. I think in the fibre arts community it’s a pretty good place to have a platform. The fibre folk seem much kinder and more supportive than other instagram niches Ive seen!

Where do you see yourself and your artwork 10 years from now?

I would love to pursue some more collaborations with larger companies. Designing mobiles and ornaments and toys on a regular basis would be a dream come true.  I’d also like to get into creating some needle felting kits and tutorials. I would love to be able to share my passion of this craft with others! Ive learned so many techniques over the last 6 years and it amazes me how many tricks and tips there are to creating something with just some wool and a needle.

I would also love to explore some collab ideas that my sister and I have. She’s an amazing artist (@christinerossart on insta!) and we have so many ideas our heads want to explode, but we live in different provinces so its hard to make them come to fruition.  We will make it work someday!

And finally, where can we get hold of your gorgeous work?

You can find a my shop on Etsy  or on Instagram @meaganalessio

I do mainly commission work now so if you don’t see what you are looking for in my shop send me a message. I’m really friendly and I always write back!

IF YOU WANT TO TRY YOUR HAND AT NEEDLE FELTING, YOU CAN BUY THE ORIGINAL NEEDLE FELTING KIT THAT GOT MEAGAN STARTED – CLICK HERE

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

I’ve put together a list of books that might interested you if you liked this post. These are affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase via them, a small percentage of the sale goes to The Fiber Studio. At no extra cost, you help support the blog so I can spend more time writing posts like this one!

If you’d like to sign up to The Fiber Studio email list, you can do so via the contact page