Wendy with her "Wonder Cabinet on Paws" installation in San Jose

An active member of the fine craft community in the United States for over forty years, Wendy Ellertson has focused on doll making, sculptural leather, fashion design, leather bookbinding and mask making. She is an enthusiastic Board member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, which supports border crossing art. She was born in San Francisco, CA, and holds degrees from Stanford University, Boston College and has studied at the Cleveland Art Institute.  Her home and studio have been located in Roxbury, MA since 1967.

Artistic mission: to encourage perspective, creativity, listening to each others stories and the appreciation of life as an adventure to be savored.

Exhibitions and Activities

Juried Fine Craft Shows:

• American Craft Council shows 1974-present (Juror for 1995 and 2000 shows)
• Paradise City Arts Festival shows 1994-present
• Ann Arbor Street Art Fair - The Original 2007
• CraftBoston, Society of Arts and Crafts sponsor, 2007, 2008
• Santa Fe International Figurative Art , Santa Fe, NM 2003, 2004
• Philadelphia Craft Show, Philadelphia Museum of Art sponsor, 1993 and 1994
• Washington Crafts Expo, Washington DC 1994
• Crafts at the Castle, Boston, MA 1994
• Smithsonian Craft Show, Smithsonian Institution sponsor, 1989 and numerous others

Gallery Group Shows:

• “Fiber & the Book Artist,” Fiber Art Center, Amherst, MA, 2006
• “Grown up Figures,” Fiber Arts Center, Amherst , MA, 2004
• “Figures of Myth and Imagination,” Triple Fire Gallery, Vineyard Haven, MA, 2004
• “Story Tellers,” Art & Soul Gallery, Woodstock, NY, 2002
• “Animals on Parade,” sculpture show, Philinda Art Gallery, Edwards, CO, 2001
• “Humor,” Zenith Gallery, Washington, DC, 1992, 1995
• “Doll Show,” Mindscape Gallery, Evanston, IL, 1994
• “Adult Toy Show,” Mindscape Gallery, Evanston, IL, 1992
• “Body Adornments,” Boulder Center of Visual Arts, Boulder, CO, 1986
• “Barely Wearable,” Brookfield Craft Center, Brookfield, CT, 1984
• “Figures, the fine art of contemporary doll making” Detroit Gallery of Contemporary Crafts, 1984
• “3-Dimensional Art Exhibit for the Visually Impaired,” Louisiana School for the Visually
• Impaired, Baton Rouge, LA 1981, 1982 (piece selected for permanent collection)
• “Art Wearables, Contemporary Leather,” Bodycraft Galleries, Winston-Salem, NC 1978

Museum Shows:

• “Sophisticated Figures: non traditional dolls by contemporary artists: Ohio Craft Museum, 2003
• “Wearable Art for the Collector,” Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, IN, 1985
• “Skin Forms: innovations in Leather,” Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY, 1979

Workshops and Community Projects:

• 2-session Marketing workshop for Visual Artists and Craft Artists, co-leader, sponsored by City of Boston’s Office of Business Development and ACTRoxbury, Fall 2006
• “Heritage Stamps,” “Once upon a Story,” and “Jingling Snowflakes”  First Night Projects, Hawthorne Youth and Community Center, co-facilitator ‘05, ‘06, and ‘07
• “Story Sharing,” Family literacy project , art and literacy coach,  HYCC and Dudley Library ‘07-08 3-D wire exploration Hawthorne Youth and Community Center, Roxbury, MA, Winter 2006
• 3-D cut and fold artist books, Hawthorne Youth and Community Center, Roxbury, MA, Winter 2006
• “Storytelling through Figurative Art,” Santa Fe International Figurative Art Conference, 2004
• “All Souls’ Project,” collaborative artist response to 9/11, Boston MA, 2001
• Volunteer work with Children’s Religious Education at Arlington Street Church, 25+ years

Ellertson’s one-of-a-kind mixed media mythic figures and magical leather books and masks are sold in galleries inside and outside of the United States.  They have been featured in the magazine Contemporary Doll, appeared in American Craft and are included in the Alcove Books '05, '06, and '07 editions of The American Art Collector.

The Winter '07-'08 issue of Art Doll Quarterly contains an 8 page "doll artist profile" on Wendy, her work and philosophy. (See pdf of article attached here.)

Credits:
Photography by: John Polak, Paul Jeremias, Jerry Anthony, George Post, David Eagan and Wendy Ellertson