Fiber works by David Mooney |
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WhoWhatWhy: Fiber
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Tapestries in the local museum fascinated me as a child. Foreground and background merged into an ireal world where everything was present with equal force. At the same time that the perspective, objects, and landscapes seemed highly conventionalized, faces were those of specific individuals. However, in high school and the beginning years of college my creative interest was directed toward sound and writing. The tapestries floated along the edges. The move into visual arts was largely the result of joining many others in the late 1960s and early 70s in the use of large quantities of hallucinogenic substances. Visual art seemed the most appropriate avenue for expressing these experiences. |
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At the time I was hanging out with my girlfriend in the weaving studio of the local art school. I became a sort of general factotum, helping students set up their looms for projects, winding yarn and the like. This work triggered memories of those old tapestries and I found the direct, tactile, physical, and low-tech qualities of weaving highly attractive. This led to the purchase of a second hand tapestry loom and, eventually, to the development of skills needed to create pictorial works in fiber. From 1973 through 1988 I created a subtantial body of work using conventional and triaxial weaves.
During these years there was a constant tension in the doing of the work, a pull back toward sound that eventually led me to give up fiber. Now, after more than two decades of working in a highly technical medium, I'm returning to fiber. This is partly due to severe hearing loss but is also a reaction to the ever more ubiquitous presence, and intrusion, of electronic devices that seem to push us into an ever tighter present and ever shorter attention spans. Events just happen. They have no context or history. We are so busy recording and communicating, if it can be called that, our experiences that we don't actually have the experience. Or, recording it becomes having it. Weaving is a way to step out of this insanity.
- Marietta Crafts National
- Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio, 1974, 1980
- Weavers’ Guild of Pittsburgh, annual shows
- [various locations], Pittsburgh, 1975 (Harrisville Design Award), 1976, 1979, 1981 (Best use of color), 1982, 1983, 1984 (“Brightest piece without metallic yarn”), 1985, 1986 (LeClerc Award), 1988
- Warp Factor Nine. Invitational exhibit
- Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Allegheny Center Branch, 1976
- Tapestries: Two person show with Maxine Heller
- Undercroft Gallery, Pittsburgh, 1978
- Beaux Arts Designer/Craftsman
- Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, 1979
- Tapestries II: Two person show with Maxine Heller
- Unicorn Gallery, Towson, Maryland, 1979
- Three Rivers Arts Festival
- Pittsburgh, 1980, 1981, 1982 (Honorable Mention), 1984, 1986 (Connections: Works in Fiber)
- Objects
- Exhibit at The Store sponsored by the Carnegie Institute of Art, 1979, tour 1979-1980
- Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Small Show
- [various locations], 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985
- Mannings Annual Handweaver’s Show
- Mannings Handweaving School, East Berlin, Pennsylvania, 1980, 1981, 1982 (2nd prize, fiber manipulation category)
- Tapestries III: Two person show with Maxine Heller
- Gellman Room, Richmond Public Library, Richmond, Virginia, 1982
- Tapestry and Triaxial Weaving: Two person show with Maxine Heller
- H. M. Neal Gallery, Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, 1982
- Celebration of American Crafts
- Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, Connecticut, 1983
- The Figure: New Form/New Function
- Arrowmont Gallery, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, 1983
- Museum Show. Associated Artists of Pittsburgh
- Carnegie Institute of Art, 1983, 1985
- People
- Oxford Center, Pittsburgh, 1984
- Fabric/Wood
- Bird in the Hand Gallery, Sewickly, Pennsylvania, 1985
- Artists’ Response to Technology
- Carnegie Mellon Institute Gallery, Pittsburgh, 1985
- Works in Fiber: Two person show with Maxine Heller
- Velar Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 1985
- Fiber National
- Adams Memorial Gallery, Dunkirk, New York, 1985, 1986, 1987
- Triaxially Braided Works. One person show
- Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Gallery, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, 1986
- Pittsburgh Society Regional
- Pittsburgh Society of Artists, Studio Z, Pittsburgh, 1987
- Wholly Matrimony. Invitational exhibit for married couples in the arts
- Johnstown Art Museum, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1987
- Wichita National
- Wichita Art Association, Wichita, Kansas, 1987
- Contemporary Crafts Exhibition
- Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, 1988
- Kaleidoscope (Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh)
- Spinning Plate Gallery, Pittsburgh, November 5 - 28, 2015
- Pop des Fleurs at the Hermann Museum
- John A. Hermann, Jr. Memeroial Art Museum, Bellevue, PA, March 4 - April 28, 2016
- Threads: A Sampling of Fiber Arts
- Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center, Dowell, MD, March 18 - July 24, 2016
- Awakening (Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh)
- The Artsmiths, Mt. Lebanon, PA, March 5 - April 1, 2017
- 2017 Kate Derum Award Finalist Exhibit
- Australian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne, Australia, August 8 - September 29, 2017
- Blue (Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh Member Show)
- Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA, August 11 - October 29, 2017
- Small Tapestry International 5: Crossroads (American Tapestry Alliance)
- Gallery on the Square, University of North Texas, Denton Texas, August 17 - September 30, 2017; Handforth Gallery, Tacoma Public Library, Tacoma, WA, November 15 - December 30, 2017
- Gender Bender: Women in Wood, Men at the Loom
- Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA, October 21, 2017 - March 11, 2018
- Material: An Exhibition of Original Fiber Artworks from Across the Country
- d'Art Center Harbor Group International Gallery, Norfolk, VA, February 20 - March 29, 2018
- Digislam (online exhbit)
- American Tapestry Alliance, for Convergence 2018, Reno, Nevada, July, 2018
- Old and New Works by Maxine Heller and David Mooney
- Sewickley Public Library, Sewickley, PA, August 12 - September 15, 2018
- Inspired!
- Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh members' show, Harlan Gallery, Seton Hill University, September 23 - October 18, 2018
- Materials Hard + Soft (32 Annual International Contemporary Craft Competition and Exhibition)
- Patterson - Appleton Arts Center, Denton, TX, February 2 - May 4, 2019
- National Juried Fiber Art Exhibition
- Bower Center for the Arts, Bedford, VA, July 9 - August 17, 2019
- "Color Transitions in Triaxial Weaving." Fiberarts. 15:2 (1988), 16.
- "David Mooney’s New Portraits Utilize his Pioneering Triaxial Weave to Create Effective
- Shading." Fiberarts. 15:2 (1988), 17.
- Fiberarts Design Book. New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1980: 43.
- Goodman, Deborah Lerme. "Pictorial Tapestry: A Portfolio of Contemporary Work."
- Fiberarts. 10 (May/June, 1983), 29-35.
- _____. "The Triaxial Weaving of David Mooney." Fiberarts. 13 (May/June, 1986), 34-37.
- Hutchins, Jean, ed. The Fiberarts Design Book II. Asheville, NC: Lark Books, 1983: 24,
- 42.
- Mooney, David R. "Braiding Triaxial Weaves: Enhancements and Design for Artworks."
- Ars Textrina. 5 (June, 1986), 9-31.
- _____. "Handweaving Triaxial Weaves with Braiding Techniques." Ars Textrina. 3 (Fall,
- 1984), 99-124.
- _____. "Triaxial Weaves and Weaving: An Exploration for for Handweavers." Ars
- Textrina. 2 (Spring, 1984), 9-68.
- "Triaxial Weaving." Handwoven. 10 (Nov/Dec, 1989): 58-60.
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"Opaque melodies that would bug most people."
Don "Captain Beefheart" Van Vliet |