Flat Out Under Pressure 24-Hour Art-Making Competition 2023

I participated in the Flat Out Under Pressure 24-Hour art-making competition this year in Greenville, SC and it was so much fun (a LOT of work, but worth it!). My mixed media fiber art piece included punch needled yarn, rug hooked fabric strips, and needle felted wool fiber. I’ve participate for several years in a row but this is by far the largest piece I’ve attempted for this competition (and I was really pushing my luck to finish on time).

The piece is about 20" in diameter, featuring a scene inspired by Lake Jocassee, here in the upstate of South Carolina. The finish piece, along with all of the incredible work made by 100+ other local artists is now on display at Metropolitan Arts Council in downtown Greenville, SC and will eventually be available on my website.

Hope you enjoy the process video!

Carolina Color Study Exhibition

My very first solo exhibition opens August 8th at Limestone University in Gaffney, SC and I couldn’t be more excited about the collection. The exhibition has been in the works since the fall, but the concept has been in my head for much longer. I’m thrilled to share a sneak peek with you and a little info about the collection!

Every place in this world has a specific color palette. Its unique to the region, created by the wildlife & plants that live there, the water that passes through it, and the makeup of the earth itself. As an aspiring naturalist and lover of the outdoors, I’ve always sought inspiration in my environment, but ever since relocating to South Carolina in 2010, I’ve begun to study it much more closely, through the lens of an artist but also an interior designer.

My background is in the field of commercial interior design, which I pursue in conjunction with my art career, and I’m constantly surrounded by samples and color swatches. These colors and textures give me such joy, whether I’m pulling finishes for a client or creating a mixed media fiber art piece in my studio. The Carolina Color Study Collection is the culmination of my favorite regional landscape views, topography, tonal gradients, and swatches of our regional color palette here in the Carolinas, all created through a mixed media fiber art process that includes needle felted wool fiber, punch needle yarn, and rug hooked fabric strips. 

This opportunity is made possible through the Individual Artist Career Opportunity Grant, a program of South Arts. A HUGE thank you to South Arts for helping with funding the materials & framing needed to create this collection! Checkout this feature on the Your Carolina morning show from August 17th.

I hope you can see the exhibition in person now through September 21st or attend the Artist Talk & opening reception on September 16th, but if you’re not able to make it, the entire series is available for purchase through my website. Pieces will ship AFTER the exhibition closes. If you’re local and prefer to pick up in person, just let me know and I’ll refund your shipping.

Flat Out Under Pressure Art Competition 2022

Every year in Greenville, SC the Metropolitan Arts Council (MAC) hosts an event that brings all the local artists out of the woodwork within this community. 150 artists competed this year, some professional some amateur, all very talented. Between 9 and 11 am on Friday, all artists must get their worksurfaces stamped (you can do up to 5 surfaces but in the end only one piece can be submitted), then you have 24 hours to create a piece of art.

The following morning we all bring our pieces back to MAC in downtown Greenville, and their doors close for most of the day while they install all of the finished pieces inside the gallery for judging. That evening, the party and awards ceremony takes place, and it’s always so impressive to see what others created during the same time period.

This year my piece was a 20x20 mixed media fiber art landscape featuring a farm at dusk and I used needle felted wool roving, punch needled yarn, and rug hooked fabric strips. A piece this size normally takes 3-4 days, but I was able to get it done on time (though it was an extremely full day and yes, my wrists still hurt)!

Hope you enjoy the process video from my 2022 piece, and if you missed my post from 2020, here’s a look back at a past submission to the competition: http://www.sarahmandell.com/blog/flat-out-under-pressure-competition

Mixed Media Collection: July 2021

I can never get enough texture, and ever since I learned rug hooking and punch needle, and how it could compliment my decade of needle felting experience, I’ve been falling in love with the layers, colors, and depth made possible by working with yarn, wool fiber, and fabric, all at once.

These mixed media pieces have been such a joy to make, but dang, they’re slow. I thought needle felting was slow, but it feels like a breeze compared to this! I have only ever had 2 or 3 pieces available at a time in the past, so this summer my goal was to have a substantial collection to offer. 7 pieces may not sound like a lot but it’s weeks and weeks worth of work, plus one of those pieces is 24x36 which is by far my largest mixed media piece to date. I’m so happy to work large!

One other idea I have had floating around in my head was adding embroidery or stitching to these mixed media pieces. That’s the beauty of mixed media - no rules and anything goes! I’m thrilled with how the wild flowers turned out, my very first attempts at hand stitching tiny details with yarn.

Enjoy the new series (now available on the website) and be sure to check out the process video so you can see one of these made from start to finish.

Flat Out Under Pressure Competition

Every year in June the Metropolitan Arts Council hosts the Flat Out Under Pressure competition for local artists. It’s a fun thing the community looks forward to every year. We bring our surfaces to get stamped the morning of the competition, then have 24 hours to complete the work. This year, due to the COVID19 pandemic, the whole thing is virtual. Instead of getting our surfaces officially stamped at the MAC office, we signed and dated the blank piece before starting.

The last 2 years I have summited a needle felted wool landscape, but this year I changed things up just a bit. Since MAC is the whole reason I learned rug hooking last year (thanks to a continuing education grant) I thought it would be cool to show them what I have been doing with my new skills!

This year’s piece includes needle felting, rug hooking, and punch needle techniques. I used over 40 materials and colors, and 8 different tools for the 3 fiber art mediums. It’s SO much fun to combine materials like this! Here’s a look at my progress from yesterday - I took photos every few hours to show how the piece was coming along. It was really slow going at first. I only covered a few inches of my surface in the first few hours, but I kept at it and 12 hours later, I was happy with my finished piece. I did take a few breaks during the day so I think all in all I spent about 10 hours on the 16x16 piece.

The Flat Out Under Pressure exhibition will be virtual this year, and will begin on July 1. The winner of the competition will be announced Monday by noon, and of course all the runner’s up as well (which is also a pretty big deal!). There are quite a few other “winners” and they’ll get a cash prize plus the honor of having their work prominently displayed on one of Greenville’s recycling bins downtown.

My finished piece, plus 2 other test pieces I did prior to try out ideas and see how large I could go for the 24 hour competition, will all be available for purchase soon. I’m so glad I found out I couldn’t finish a 20x20 in the amount of time aloted BEFORE it was the actual competition. That would have been a pretty frustrating thing to learn when it mattered most.

My wrists are sore, but I’m so happy I was able to participate in FOUP2020 this year, even though there will be no big party to announce the winners as before. Even still, this has been a bright spot in my week!