November 2, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 9A
Robin Montero shapes art according to her imagination
whites covered in three-dimen-
sional sand dollars, to delicate
daisies and a geisha mermaid.
She uses a combination of
needle felting and wet felting
in her work. Needle felting is
done by poking strands of wool
fibers through fabric with a
barbed needle; the barbs catch
the fibers and lock them into the
fabric.
Wet felted wool is created
by layering strands of woolen
fibers perpendicular to each
other, soaking them with hot
water, brushing those layers
through a mesh screen until
they are combined and rolling
them in bubble wrap until the
fibers are bonded into a materi-
al, that, after it is air dried, can
be cut and shaped.
Then the fun begins. It’s up
to Montero to decide what she
wants to create and how to do
that.
“This medium is wonderful
because there are no rules, there
are no limitations,” she said.
In the center of the felted
wool waves of one her works,
lying on the felted, beaded
wool sand is a glass bottle with
a message inside.
“My dearly beloved, I can’t
By Nancy McCarthy
Cannon Beach Gazette
Poseidon awaits. His face is
in profile, eyes focused ahead,
his white hair flowing back in
felted woolly waves, outlined
against a black background.
“He’s my favorite,” said
Seaside textile artist Robin
Montero, who nods at the felted
head of the mythological Greek
god of the sea.
“He’s the one that told me I
could do this,” she said. “He’s
the one who gave me the confi-
dence to keep going.”
The bas relief sculpture,
along with several other of
Montero’s wall hangings, all
formed with felted wool, are
on exhibit at the Cannon Beach
History Center & Museum
through November. She also
has a show at SunRose Gallery
in Seaside.
Her innovative pieces re-
flect Montero’s imagination,
skill and experimentation with
a variety of techniques.
Montero, a former profes-
sional theater costume designer,
knows how to work with fabric,
but she had never encountered
felted wool until she “stum-
NANCY MCCARTHY
Wavy felted wool lines in coral and maroon are featured in
Robin Montero’s piece, “Study in Coral.”
bled” across it while talking
to a woman in a fabric shop.
After reading some books, she
thought, “I could do this.”
“When I discovered this, the
very first thing I made was a
sand dollar. And then I wanted
to do something more dimen-
sional. I thought, ‘Well I can
draw faces, so why don’t we try
a face?’ ”
Poseidon hooked her.
“There are so many things
you can do with fiber,” Monte-
ro said.
Her wall hangings range
from multi-hued ocean waves
and beaches in blues, tans and
wait to be with you again,” says
the message, written in Italian.
“Here is the key to my heart.
I will always love you. Love,
Georgio.”
“There is a key in the bot-
tle,” Montero said. “It’s the
skeleton key to my bathroom
door.”
That piece took about 150
hours to create, including sew-
ing individual beads to look
like small rocks among the
sand dollars, which took the
most time.
“But every now and then
when you catch the twinkle —
that’s what it’s all about. It’s
all about the details,” Montero
said.
History center Director
Elaine Trucke asked Montero
to exhibit her work because “I
am a huge fan of felting and
what artists do with it. I was es-
pecially partial to the lamps that
she created.”
Some of Montero’s work,
including Poseidon and his
wife, Amphitrite, look like
Greek or Roman sculptures,
Trucke said.
“But instead of cold stone
you have soft and warm fab-
rics…. Her love of the sea, of
historic art, and even her back-
ground in costume design. It’s
just so different from what most
people are doing with textile.”
But the details present chal-
lenges. When Montero knows
what she wants to do, she usu-
ally develops her own tech-
nique — something that’s not
found in a “how to” book.
In her felted sculpture of
a geisha mermaid on display
at the SunRose Gallery, she
used a variety of methods and
materials. Along with a purple
velvet jacket, sewn of leftover
costume material, the mermaid
wears a skirt of sequined black,
blue and green fabric. Her fins
are layers of silk organza and
metallic threads. The pearl
necklace hanging from a hook
beside her reflects Montero’s
other interest in jewelry design.
Entitled, “Proposal at Sea,”
the piece has a felted wool and
beaded background in blues
and lavenders.
Always thinking of the next
project, Montero keeps a note-
book of ideas, where no bound-
aries restrict her creativity.
“There are no rules,” she
said about her textiles. “That’s
the best part.”
Poet shares a love of language
Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford reads, discusses craft at library
By Erick Bengel
For Coast Weekend
As Oregon’s Poet Lau-
reate, Kim Stafford wants
nothing less than to save the
world.
His means: bringing forth
people’s voices — by “doing
all I can to abolish reticence,
and help people tell their
stories, their feelings, their
dreams and ideas,” he said in
an email exchange with Coast
Weekend.
Stafford visited the Can-
non Beach Library in late Oc-
tober as part of the Northwest
Authors Series.
Stafford, an assistant pro-
fessor at Lewis & Clark Col-
Kim Stafford
lege in Portland, is director
of the college’s Northwest
Writing Institute. His father,
William Stafford, served as
the state’s Poet Laureate from
1975 to 1990, and, before
that, as U.S. Poet Laureate
from 1970 to ’71.
A prolific author of poems,
essays, fiction and nonfic-
tion, Stafford said he prefers
to write about relationships:
“who I am to who I think I
am … who I am to who I was
… who I am to where I am …
who we are to who we might
be,” he said. “Along the way,
images and processes from
the natural world often help
me tell human stories.”
Calling Stafford one of
Oregon’s “most generous lit-
erary teachers,” Gov. Kate
Brown said when she appoint-
ed him last summer: “There
are many ways to serve this
state and among them is clar-
ity of language and passion
of purpose, which may trav-
el from one soul to another
through poetry.”
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