Category: Exhibitions

Photos from The Wooly Woods

Posted on by Anna

I’m barely over my jet lag from a return flight from Germany, but I just couldn’t wait to share more photos from The Wooly Woods!

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The Wooly Woods was my brief solo show held last week at smallspace gallery in Berlin, as part of the Pictoplasma Festival’s character walk. Even though it was only up for a few days, the festival (plus some nice local news coverage) brought tons of people to the gallery. I couldn’t be happier with how it went, although it’s bittersweet that I’ve had to part with more than half of the pieces.

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The show is an imaginary woods from a small corner of Mochimochi Land, inhabited by curious creatures called twiggins, who are discovering their environment and the other animals who live in it.

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Magic apple harvesting

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Who’s afraid of snails and slugs?

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Monkeys love this game!

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Let’s conga!

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This branch is where all the couples go to make out.

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Here, wormy worm!

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Shhh…

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Monkey tails have all kinds of uses!

 

Accompanying me on my recent travels was my sister-in-law Jenna, who’s a professional photographer and was nice enough to bring her big fancy camera to Berlin. I’ll post her photos too when I have them!

The Wooly Woods Coming to Berlin April 10-14

Posted on by Anna

I’m thrilled to be returning to Berlin next month with a new show at smallspace in conjunction with the Pictoplasma Festival!

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Here’s the official description:

The Wooly Woods

Fiber artist Anna Hrachovec brings to life a candy-colored forest crawling with curious fauna. Continuing her study of the imaginary realm Mochimochi Land, Anna combines found wood with brightly-hued yarn to create miniature landscapes where snails, butterflies, and birds interact with an exploding population of native wood-dwelling mammals called twiggins. The tiny dramas that play out in the branches are inspired by the fortuitous bends and twists of the wood, leading viewers to notice the beauty in the smallest bits of nature.

The Wooly Woods
April 10-14
smallspace gallery
Brunnenstrasse 178-179
10119 Berlin
noon-8pm
Opening reception: Wednesday, April 10th, 7-9pm

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The concept for the show developed out what I saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in NYC. The number of trees and branches that came down was astounding—in Prospect Park alone (my favorite place in Brooklyn), more than 300 trees came down and more than 1,000 large branches fell. The scene was sad and awe-inspiring in its scale, and still lingers nearly 5 months later.

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I was inspired by this natural destruction to create something playful and magical out of the waste.

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This has been an intense project, with 30 pieces ranging in size from 4 inches to 4 feet, and I can’t wait to share it with the people of Berlin and the Pictoplasma festival-goers.

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I will also be leading a monster-knitting workshop on April 13th!

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Full details are on the Pictoplasma website.

Tangle Wood

Posted on by Anna

My projects have been getting twisted in the very best way lately. Anyone stepping into my bedroom/studio these days has to navigate this colorful mess!

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This knotty bunch of yarn and wood will become a new solo show to open in Berlin for the Pictoplasma festival in April. It’s such a new and whirlwind project that I don’t even have a name for it yet!

More details and updates to come soon…

Gnomes vs Snowmen in Astounding 3D

Posted on by Anna

In my last post I included a photo of the Gnomes vs Snowmen battle that I showed at VK Live last year, which was originally a larger installation at NYC’s gallery hanahou in 2011. if you missed seeing it in person, today I’m bringing it right into your living room or office, with lifelike 3D photos!

Put your red and blue glasses on now.

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Don’t have magic glasses? Well, it’s really worth a look if you can find some! Or just take my word for it that it’s like you’re in the midst of an epic gnome/snowman battle.

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Thank you to Jess Mireau, who also shared 3D photos of my previous Mochimochi Land installation!

You can see non-3D photos of the show at my art website.

Cavey’s American Cousins

Posted on by Anna

UPDATE: The auction has ended, so I can finally reveal the full design! Prints are also available here.

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I’m excited to be a part of the upcoming show Cavey’s American Cousins!

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This is a one-night pop-up show featuring custom Caveys, the original character by Holly of A Little Stranger. Holly invited me to create a custom Mochimochi-style Cavey—I bet you can guess where I went with this one…

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That’s right, it’s a gnome-ified Cavey! (The full photo will be revealed soon.) This guy is going to be available via a 7-day eBay auction starting this Saturday, November 3rd, and finishing the night of the show. (See the Hey Cavey website for more info and updates.)

I wish I could make it to the one-night show in LA… I hope some of you who are in the area will turn out next Saturday and represent Mochimochi!

Luv-able & Hug-able Pics

Posted on by Anna

So much is going on this month, but I’m finally getting around to posting a couple of photos from this year’s “Luv-able & Hug-able” plush show at gallery hanahou!

I went to the opening on December 1st, and I was happy to see so many awesome plushes to see, of all types and species! Unfortunately I did not think ahead—I only had my phone with me to take photos with, and that stopped working after just a few shots because I had stupidly filled it up with music and it quickly ran out of space…

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The Cotton Monster “Squidys” hanging from the ceiling tied everything together very nicely!

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Aren’t those foxes by Mimi Kirchner just the coolest? I also loved all the details on the plushes by Them Dollz. You can see my Twiggins hanging out on the back wall!

I couldn’t resist buying a couple of small plushes myself, but I’ll resist posting their photos for now because they’ll probably become Christmas gifts and I don’t want to spoil the surprise…

Lots of the plushes in the show have found homes now, but lots are still available! You can download the PDF catalog at the gallery website. And the show is up through January 6th—definitely worth stopping by in person if you’re in NYC!

Twiggins for Luv-able & Hug-able

Posted on by Anna

Luv-able & Hug-able, the annual holiday plush show held at gallery hanahou in NYC, is opening next week!

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This show really snuck up on me, since I was so focused on Gnomes and Snowmen for most of the fall, but it’s so fun to be able to participate in this group show happening right after my installation!

I did something a little different this year for my pieces—walking through Prospect Park one day, I was inspired to use a bit of nature in combination with yarn… The result is Twiggins!

Rainbow Twiggins are the noisiest variety of this new species, constantly singing their off-key folk tunes.

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Berry Twiggins are quiet but active, bouncing from branch to branch.

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And Citrus Twiggins are mischievous little thieves who have never worked a day in their lives.

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These pieces are meant to be mounted on a wall—hopefully once the show is up I can photograph them that way. I’ve gotten a peek at the other plushes in the show, and there are so many fantastic ones to choose from!

Want a special sneak peek and an opportunity to purchase plush art early? Click on this link, and use the password welovehugging.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Gnomes vs Snowmen Photos

Posted on by Anna

So this is the last week of Gnomes vs Snowmen!

I took some photos of the installation last week, which I’m excited to finally share here. I’m hoping to take better ones before the show ends (this Friday is the last day), but for now here’s a look at some fun bits of the big battle!

WARNING: These photos contain adorable knitted violence and nudity.

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A tragic accident kind of spoils the day, and a pleasant afternoon of naked bathing is rudely interrupted…

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A Snowman awaits his old-timey demise…

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A Gnome gets smothered by his own beard!

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A fallen hero is laid to rest in the cutest way possible…

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Toasted Snowmen smell like revenge…

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An epic snowball fight begins, and quickly ends…

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A normally peaceful house becomes an unwitting arms dealer…

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An angst-filled Snowman strips Gnomes of their non-hat attire and exiles them to Snowberia…

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Santa has had it with the fighting, and unleashes evil robots! (You can just see Santa’s backside in the left side of the photo; he is pulling a lever on his factory.)

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Snomen and Gnomes both do their part to destroy the evil robots…

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Gnomes and Snowmen discover that friendship is almost as fun as fighting!

Soon the two armies will pack up and call a real timeout, but until Friday you can see the installation at gallery hanahou in NYC! A complete show catalog can be downloaded at the gallery website.

Thank you to gallery hanahou, Pictoplasma, and Cascade Yarns for their help making this show happen!