McKayla Lange, a 2024 graduate of BGSU’s School of Art, came back to campus Saturday (Feb. 8) from Michigan where she works as an elementary art teacher in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Lange was back on campus to celebrate the dedication of her 2024 BFA Exhibition thesis project, “Organic Symphony.”
The 10 foot-by-eight-foot fabric sculpture was purchased by an anonymous patron of the BFA Exhibition for $5,000. The piece was then donated (again, anonymously) directly to the Division of Art Education at the School of Art for permanent installation. This is unprecedented.
In her remarks, Lange recalled being introduced to fiber techniques of felting with natural wool by a visiting artist-educator from Dayton, Darden Bradshaw in 2021.
Lange experienced an instant connection to the medium. She decided to pursue this inspiration despite the area of fiber arts no longer exists in the BFA curriculum at the School of Art.
Using a Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship grant she explored the processes of dyeing natural wool and the developed an artistic acuity in both wet and needle felting techniques.
When she asked the sculpture faculty if she could pursue this project, they gave her approval. At Saturday’s reception she thanked those faculty, as well as her family and friends who supported her in her ambitious capstone pursuits.
Lange fabricated the underlying molded structure in the sculpture studio. The fiber work was done at her apartment. That included formulating most of the dyes used in the eye-popping kaleidoscopic work.She did this while working full-time student teaching in the Rossford schools where she brought her felting skills into the classroom. She had each of her upper elementary students create small squares based on a life experience.
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