Tea has always enjoyed expressing herself artistically, and felting wool has completely changed her life. After a successful career in London, the creative woman from Zagreb dedicated herself to her true love - dolls, i.e. felting wool and making various toys that delight many children and adults throughout Croatia, but also around the world
Tea de Both was born in Zagreb, Croatia. She graduated from the High School of Applied Arts, majoring in arranger/decorator in 1984. In 1989, she went to London and enrolled in puppetry at the City and Guilds of London Institute. The school lasted two years and covered all the main branches of puppetry and toy making. From wooden puzzles, jumping jacks dolls, mobiles, teddy bears, to marionettes. She exhibited and sold her works at Greenwich and Camden Market, presented them several times in art bars and cafes, and had orders to make puppets by photography. At the same time, she worked as a production coordinator in publishing companies and had a longer career at Hachette Children's Books. After 20 years of living in London, she returned to Zagreb where she discovered making wool creations, which gave her new possibilities for artistic expression. Thanks to the Ozana Association, where she volunteered in 2012 helping their protégés in exchange for learning about wool and felting, she gained a great knowledge of this technique that now provides her with countless opportunities for creative creation and expression combined with previously acquired skills and experience. Since 2014, she has been participating in the Wool Festival in Lubenice on Cres, and since then she has been living there every summer and creating wool creations in the Museum of Sheep Breeding. She deals with the technique of wet and dry felting, makes masks, hand puppets, wool sculptures of pets, mobiles, 3D paintings and various figures made of unspun wool. She has been a member of the Croatian Association of Freelance Artists (HZSU) since 2023 and ULUPUH (Croatian Association of Fine Artists of Applied Arts)
Group exhibitions
International mask exhibition, Krapina 2025
International mask exhibition, Krapina 2024
Apartman ULUPUH 2024
Recycled, ULUPUH 2024
Art-eco / Nismo sami, ULUPUH 2024
Licitar, ULUPUH 2024
Art-Eco Zeleni kotač ravnoteže, ULUPUH 2023
International mask exhibition, Krapina 2022
Stravinsky, ULUPUH 2021,
13th International Visual Art award, Ex-Tempore Karneval Ptuj, Slovenia 2021
Faces of Extinction 2020, International community art project /online exhibition
Art eco/Forest, ULUPUH 2020
Synesthesia, ULUPUH 2020
