My Story
Nice to meet you, I'm Bar
Bar Rettel – Wild Art & Craft began with the creation of magical dolls, which I call “Wild Dolls.”
Our family life is not conventional – we live in a bus that travels through nature with our wild and beloved children.
When you live in a small space, everything that enters your home has to be meaningful and precise.
One day, as I watched my little daughter playing, a wish awakened in me – to create something special, magical and personal for her. Something that, despite its small size, would contain an entire world of possibilities. And so the Wild Dolls were born – the beginning of Bar Rettel – Wild Art & Craft.
I started with simple fabric dolls, but something inside me wanted more – dolls that could be shaped, seated, changed and moved. I incorporated copper wires that our children collected from old electrical appliances, and from them I created a flexible skeleton. I added a special beaded head.
Later, I discovered the magic of felting. I fell in love with the process of turning natural wool into a tangible doll – through countless stabs into the unruly wool, creatures were born with their own character, color and life.
I fell in love with this magical material and with the craft of felting – with the ability of wool to be dense, transparent, solid, airy and simple. To express myself in two and in three dimensions. Ideas flooded my mind in abundance, and they still do.
All the creations of Bar Rettel – Wild Art & Craft are made by my hands and my heart, in our little bus, among the sounds of nature and the laughter of my children. Each one carries within it the spirit of freedom, the love of nature, and the magic of a simple and meaningful life.
How a creation is born
Through hearing, seeing and imagination
I hear
I hear the sounds of what I want to create, even before I approach the material.
I see
I see the movement and the colors I want to convey – before the creation and while it takes shape.
I create
My hands pass into the wool the exact presence I sought to create – with intention and meaning.
What drives me
It is important to me that you know: every creation is unique and no two are identical. Even if you order a creation similar to one you have seen, it will be different in the shade of the wool, the position and the movement. This is the essence and magic of handmade work – every creation is one of a kind in the world, just like the person who chooses it.
These are not merely creations – they are part of our life story, of our choice to live differently, to connect with the wild within us and to create something real.
When a creation by Bar Rettel – Wild Art enters your space, it brings with it the nature, freedom and magic it carries – a small but meaningful piece of the private soul within each of us, the part that remembers our deep connection to the earth and to the simplicity of life.
All my life I have worked in the arts – music, singing, writing, composing and playing, classical and modern ballet, and of course visual art. In my twenties I studied healing, and it seems that all of these gather and converge into one point: the moment a creation is born.
I believe that creation has the power to connect and to illuminate. Everything depends on the intention of the creator. Out of a sense of mission and commitment, I create to illuminate – to illuminate our magical connection to the harmonious weave of the universe, of divinity and magic, of the wild and the nature that exist in our world and beyond.
I create for the sake of connection and remembrance – of what we are and who we are as human beings within an eternal weave of forces, hidden or forgotten truths and ancient knowledge that sometimes has no words, only sensations and sounds…
I carry in my heart a blessing for all of us – to decipher the divine aspect and to be part of the rhythm of the universe in its most primal, wild and pure place. I am sure that in such a place we create a Garden of Eden on earth, and I wish all the children of the world to inherit such a Garden of Eden from us.
