Felt artist Minna White

For most of the last three decades, El Prado artist Minna White has been obsessed with creating functional and fine art with felt she makes exclusively from the wool of Navajo-Churro sheep. It wasn’t exactly in her life plan — but no one could have planned a life that has unfolded like hers.

El Prado, located about two miles north of Taos, is a long way from where White grew up in Rhode Island, where every summer she lived with her family on a racing sailboat off Cape Cod. One of her childhood chores was to row the family poodle, Mitzi, ashore three times a day. Early in her career, she talked her way into a volunteer job at WGBH in Boston, where she later became a documentary filmmaker for PBS, including a long stint with the popular program Nova. She also earned her MBA and, many years later, added a law degree to her credentials.