www.texasmonthly.com
by: Dan Soloman
There are few faces quite like Willie Nelson‘s. He’s not just weathered—Willie bears a face that’s lived a whole lot of life. Amazing photographs have captured distinctive details within his face (might we recommend Chris Buck’s portrait on the cover of Willie’s Spirit?), as well as illustrations embodying the famous Texan’s essence (Mark Burkhart’s, for a 2005 issue of Texas Monthly, is a great one). But visual artists haven’t typically tried to depict Willie’s spirit with felt.
Jane Sanders did, though. Austin’s Modern Rocks Gallery contracted the British textile artist to create a felt portrait of Willie using fabric, and what she came up with is a pretty incredible representation of his likeness—including folds and stitching that illustrate the depth of feeling in his face. “Every wrinkle tells a tale,” Sanders says.
Working from photo reference, Sanders created her piece on a sewing machine over two weeks. In the midst of doing so, she familiarized herself with Willie’s persona by ingesting a steady diet of his music (in turn, she discovered a personal affinity for 2012’s Heroes and last year’s Ride Me Back Home). Even though she hadn’t spent much time listening to Willie’s music before taking on the project, she knew his iconic braids, beard, and guitar—and she sought to emphasize his key characteristics through the portrait’s colors and composition. “[He’s] slightly on the left of the frame, gazing into the distance, quietly and thoughtfully, yet the red background makes the picture go ‘Bam!,’ just like Willie,” she says.
Sanders has been making fabric portraits of popular musicians for the past three years, when she decided to combine her love of sewing with her affinity for music. She connected with Modern Rocks via Instagram, and the gallery eventually commissioned her to create a very different kind of felt portrait of another country music icon first—Dolly Parton—to display there. Then she moved on to creating Willie’s portrait. “Dolly is almost doll-like in her beauty,” Sanders says. “Very smooth features to sew and shade, and great fun to add a bit of glitter to. It was just as much fun for me to spend hours sewing Willie’s more lined face—it took twice as much time to sew.”
The pieces will both be on display—and then for sale—at Modern Rocks in Austin later this year. Sanders says that while she was more familiar with Dolly’s music at the onset, the project has made her a Willie diehard. “I think in the UK, country music to most people is Dolly Parton,” she says. “But of course everyone has heard of Willie Nelson and knows what he looks like. In fact, I was more aware of his politics and activism than his music—I admire him for standing up to the establishment on certain things—but this portrait has also made me a dedicated fan of Willie’s music.”