My name is Tracy Kochanski and I am a MA-based multi-media visual artist.
I've has been striving to fabricate seemingly living creatures from inanimate materials for almost 30 years.
After obtaining a BFA in illustration from Syracuse University. I decided that instead of drawing and commercial art, I wanted to work in 3 dimensional sculpting. I made my first rocking horse for my then infant daughter, Zosia. This experience guided me onto my path of trying to make lifelike beautiful and whimsical creatures. I've always been intrigued by different sculpting mediums and have spent my adult years exploring and experimenting with a number of them.
My sculpting journey began with my passion for horses.
Encouraged by my daughter's rocking horse and in tribute to my equine muses, I tried my hand at carving full size carousel horses and rocking horses from wood. After a few years, It seemed natural to start doing restoration work on old horses. I was intrigued by how solid and well-built the horses were, they truly were meant to stand the test of time. I learned how to dowel joints and leave hollow cavities to both reduce weight and allow the wood to expand and contract without splitting. I worked on perfecting the time honored techniques of such masters of the carousel as Mueller and Dentzel. About this time I was asked to carve the Hermit Thrush for the Saranac Lake indigenous animal carousel. This was a pinnacle for me. I'd always wanted to have an animal on a working new hand carved wooden carousel. After a number of years spent mastering the craft, and a garage stuffed full of tools and basswood, I started looking for a medium that would allow me to quickly sculpt my ideas and didn't create vast quantities of wood dust and chips.
The discovery of polymer clay opened the door to the world of my imagination allowing the first Dreamlets to be born. The term dreamlet refers to a very brief dream experienced between sleeping and waking. This seemed to perfectly describe the creatures that were populating my imagination and quietly beseeching me to release them. I wanted to make the creatures not only look real, in a fantastical way, but I wanted their movement to be lifelike as well. So I dug into my passion for anatomy and began to experiment with building elaborate armatures.
As time went on many of the Dreamlets evolved into stop motion puppets and pose-able art dolls. In my search for realism I found myself wanting to make soft bodies without visible seams over my armatures. This is how I came to start needle felting. Soon I was making movable creatures with wool bodies and polymer clay heads, hands and feet. But I really wanted them to look more realistic and not have to use paint to color them.
A request by a friend to make four wool portraits of her dogs for Christmas last year started my current exploration of the world of needle felting. Having always loved animals and having had a number of pets myself, pet portraits seemed to satisfy my current passion of sculpting with wool. It also satisfied my desire to make life like creatures. With it's wide range of colors and the ability to easily blend custom colors for fur - no more paint!