Spartanburg Day School

An ancient art form takes on a contemporary life at Spartanburg Day School this fall as “FELT: Functional Beauty,” a solo exhibition by South Carolina fiber artist and educator Cecilia Ho, is now on display in the Mildred Harrison Dent Fine Arts Center Gallery through Oct. 15.

The exhibition showcases Ho’s distinctive approach to felting, an ancient textile process that transforms natural wool fibers into fabric without traditional weaving or stitching. Through nuno felting, Ho combines wool and silk chiffon to create lightweight works that blur the boundaries between fine art and functional design.

“FELT: Functional Beauty” demonstrates the versatility of the medium through wool works ranging from 12-by-12-inch pieces to a monumental 10-by-10-foot installation.

During the exhibition, Ho will also lead an artist residency with Spartanburg Day School fourth-grade students, giving them an opportunity to explore felting techniques and create their own fiber works. The students’ work will be displayed alongside Ho’s exhibition for a public reception from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6, in the Mildred Harrison Dent Fine Arts Center Gallery.

A Greenville-based artist, Ho draws much of her inspiration from South Carolina’s varied landscapes, from the mountains to the coast. She has lived in the state for more than 12 years and has made teaching an important part of her artistic practice.

Born in Hong Kong into a family of designers, Ho is a self-taught fiber artist whose background also includes time spent near sheep farms in Nova Scotia, Canada. After moving to South Carolina in 2013, she expanded her work from functional winter wear into wool paintings and nuno-felted scarves, using fiber to create effects reminiscent of painterly brushstrokes.

Ho’s work has earned recognition throughout the region. Her honors include the Metropolitan Arts Council’s Flat Out Under Pressure Committee Award in 2018 and the SEW-Eurodrive Minority Teaching Artist Fellow Award in 2020. Her work has appeared in TOWN Magazine and has been featured at Artisphere’s Artists of the Upstate and the 2026 ArtFields Festival.

Ho is also a South Carolina Arts Commission Verified Teaching Artist. She has taught at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts since 2015 and Furman University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute since 2019. Through SmartARTS Greenville, she has incorporated felting into K-12 education, using fiber arts to help students explore South Carolina history, including indigo dyeing, sweetgrass weaving and Underground Railroad quilts.

The exhibition at Spartanburg Day School is being funded in part by the Metropolitan Arts Council with support from the City of Greenville, BMW Manufacturing Co., SEW-EURODRIVE and the South Carolina Arts Commission.

To learn more about the SDS community, visit SpartanburgDaySchool.org.