Collection: INTERMINGLING EXPRESSIONS featuring artist DENISE MANDEL
ON VIEW June 2024 - September 2024 in the First Floor Gallery
In modern times, hand weaving is recognized as a skilled craft and artistic genre practiced by those who have time and means to access the required equipment, materials and instruction. However, to our ancestors, weaving was an everyday skill essential to meeting fundamental needs for utilitarian and household items. The original concept of weaving dates back to prehistoric times, with the earliest looms invented about 12,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Many cultures throughout history have contributed important advancements to looms and weaving. The emergence of the power loom in 1784 revolutionized the textile industry, setting in motion the transformation of weaving from an essential household skill to a creative expression of one’s self. In the hands of Denise Mandel, it becomes beautiful and expressive original art.
Mandel’s story as a weaver began at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she earned a BFA in Fiber Arts. While she had never before even seen a loom, she quickly fell in love with weaving and made it her life’s work. She spent a number of years in New Mexico, where she wove fabric to create apparel which she sold through Handwoven Originals, the business she established in Santa Fe. In the late 1980s, Denise was invited by a friend back in St. Louis to create a tapestry installation for his home. As a result, her whole direction changed from garments to “one-of-a-kind” tapestries and rug art. That original tapestry project evolved and expanded into many more commissions, including several liturgical works for the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica. Her work for the St. Louis Archdiocese led to one of Mandel’s crowning achievements, rendering the Papal Coat of Arms tapestry in honor of Pope John Paul II’s visit to St. Louis in 1999.
Denise permanently relocated to her hometown of St. Louis where she has been active as a weaver and weaving instructor. She continues her concentration on weft-faced and tapestry weaving, viewing her unwoven warp as a painter would a blank canvas. Her time in the Southwest infuses her work with a strong Navajo and Hispanic flavor, and gives her a deeper understanding of her forerunners in weaving. Using these forms and techniques. Denise creates wall hangings and other decor, rugs, personal items, and more recently, furniture.
