Among the myriad delights of the marine world, nudibranchs count among some of the most adorable. There are around 3,000 known species of these often very colorful, textured, soft-bodied animals. Technically part of the mollusc family, they shed their shells as they grow older, so we sometimes refer to them as “sea slugs,” but the name doesn’t exactly live up to their inherent style. For artist Arino Borevich of Wool Creature Lab, however, these unique minuscule beings truly shine in vibrant, felted fiber.
A decade ago, Borevich was working as a cook at a remote biology research station in northern Russia’s White Sea. “I was surrounded by 200 marine biologists and students living and working together on a small island,” she tells Colossal. “That summer changed everything. It was there that I first learned about nudibranchs—these impossibly colorful sea slugs with shapes and patterns that looked like they came from another planet.”
Wool Creature Lab was born when, as a way to pass time and explore her creativity, Borevich felted a few nudibranchs to gift to some of the scientists who were studying them. She started an Etsy shop and Instagram, going with a gut feeling that these little woolen specimens “wanted to exist in the world,” she says. Soon, marine biologists and divers from all over the world began to find her work, some of whom requested particular species, including scientists who had documented certain nudibranchs for the first time.
So far, Borevich has recreated more than 40 different kinds, carefully reimagining real, scientifically described creatures into meticulously crafted fiber versions. She has an ambitious dream to sculpt every one of the thousands of known nudibranchs. “Each sculpture takes six to 12 hours to make, so this might take a while,” she says.
More than two dozen of Borevich’s pieces were on view recently during the Xiamen International Art Festival in China as part of the Ark Farm eco-art exhibition. Support her work on Patreon, where she gives away a handmade nudibranch each month.
