Mechteld Feijtel

(1946)

In 1997 she took a course in sculpting at the ‘Vrije Academie' in Rotterdam, under the leadership of Jan Eikenaar (sculptor and painter).

Soon she started working in her teacher's studio one day a week.

She prefers hard sorts of stone. At first she makes a small design of clay for children. Sometimes she does this in less than not time, and at other times it takes much longer to reach the desired result.

Six years ago she started working in her own studio. In 2001 she got her first exposition in ‘Galerie Artipico' in Schiedam.

Since much of her work goes straightly from the studio to the customer, there is no impressive list of expositions. Mechteld works only by hand. Therefore she makes around 5 to 8 sculptures a year. This is partly due to their size: she makes them as big as possible. At times this means taking away much of the stone before she can even turn the sculpture on the table.

At first she made abstract creations, characterized by simplicity and a matching play of lines. Then she used to polish them until they were as slippery as glass.

Initially she preferred black and white stones in order to keep the viewer's attention to sober design.

Gradually she discovered that sometimes a bit of colour with an occasional deviation, may add something to a sculpture.

Still she does not really know how to go about changing a surface or showing a fracture.

In 2005 her idea of PARTY DRESSES was born.

She took one year to realize this plan. The dresses have one thing in common: the waist (8cmx 8cm ) and length (75cm). Mechteld made 5 dresses in 5 different forms and colours. The result was shown in ‘Atelier de Applehoven' in Hoorn in 2006. During the exposition in ‘Marziart Internationale Galerie' in Hamburg at least 3 of her party dresses are shown.