Mallory Zondag

"Watch Your Step," wool, upcycled fibers, recycled wool, cotton, thread, wire, soy wax, beeswax, latex paint, tissue, beads

Photos courtesy of Mallory Zondag. Used with permission.

When I arrived in Acadia and began exploring, I was enamored by the incredibly lush and varied growth covering every bit of rock and earth. From the clouds and sprays of Reindeer Lichen that seemed to echo the sea foam crashing on the coast to the plush carpets of Haircap and Broom Forkmoss and even the flat, almost invisible shingled rock shield and cinder lichens that create new patterns in the granite through their density.

These lichens eat rock, creating sand in which moss can find its footing, the moss becomes a nursery for seedlings from blueberry bushes to pine trees. They are the beginning of the forest every Acadia visitor, including myself, falls in love with. What I noticed even more as I began to hike the trails was how the growth stopped at the trail edges, how you could see the paths people traveled most, both on and off the paths, by looking for the absence of layered lichens and mosses on the granite.

"Watch Your Step" is an ode to the forest builders, the soil creators, the tiny organisms underfoot who grow ecosystems from the ground up. It is a call to watch your step and stay on paths, they're there to allow us to enjoy the incredibly diverse and abundant ecosystem and to protect it.

– Mallory Zondag, 2023

Mallory Zondag is a mixed-media fiber artist and artist educator. Her experience with textiles while in art school led her to create both independent and community sculpture through a variety of fiber art mediums. She explores deeply personal and connective universal stories through the meditative and hands-on practices of wet felting, weaving, sculpting, and stitching, seeking to bring the ephemeral into physical being. The growth and decay of the natural world, the duality of discomfort and attraction we feel towards it, and humanity's place within this dichotomy informs her dimensional textures and sculptural pieces.

Zondag’s work has been exhibited at The Banana Factory, Bethlehem, PA; The Allentown Art Museum, PA: The International Biennial of Textile Art Scythia, Ukraine; View Arts and Culture Center, Old Forge, NY; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; Cornell University, Ithica, NY; Towson University, MD; Ceres Gallery, NYC, NY: and Main Street Studio, Ballston Lake, NY. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Acadia National Park, The Allentown Art Museum, and The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY.

Zondag shares her passion for handmade one-of-a-kind textiles through various educational programs and residencies. Many of these programs involve a collaborative element where the entire school works together on a single project. These programs bring an exciting hands-on artistic experience to the students as well as emphasizing community and collaboration through art. As a resident artist in over twenty schools and community organizations she has led her Fiber Living Wall program where hand felted wool living walls are collaboratively created with students of all ages and abilities. The final sculpture finds a permanent home within the school or community space. She has been the recipient of a NY Statewide Capital Regrant for Independent Artists and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for Creative Excellence and Support in Pennsylvania. Her work is in private collections and The Allentown Art Museum. She studied Fashion Design at Pratt Institute (BFA 2016).

Visit her website.

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