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Artist creates Musikfest's first-ever poster made entirely out of fiber art
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Every year, ArtsQuest chooses an artist to create the new Musikfest poster.
This year, for the first time ever, it's made entirely out of fiber art.
Artist Mallory Zondag has been a fiber artist and art educator working with ArtsQuest since 2017. But the last thing she expected was to be asked to make the 2025 Musikfest poster.
Get to Know Fiber Artist Mallory Zondag
The Lehigh Valley native is the artist behind the 2025 Musikfest poster.
A festival that’s been on the Lehigh Valley’s summer calendar for more than 40 years doesn’t have a lot of firsts yet to achieve. First one-million-attendee year, first fried Oreo (or Twinkie or pickle or mac and cheese), first comedian on the main stage—it’s all been done. And yet, Musikfest racked up a notable never-happened-before when it enlisted artist Mallory Zondag to work her magic on the 2025 poster. Zondag’s creation represents the first time the fiber arts have been given their time to shine on what has become the visual embodiment of the fest that out-fests them all in Bethlehem.
Mallory Zondag
Acadia National Park
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.
zygote quarterly Issue 34
Mallory Zondag is a Mixed Media Fiber artist and artist educator. Her work explores our tenuous relationship with the continuous growth and decay of the natural world and humanity’s place within those cycles using hand felted wool, wax, fibers, fabrics and objects both found and recycled. Our collective fascination and repulsion towards natural processes, from blooming flowers to blooming molds, pushes her to sculpt moments of grotesque beauty, investigating this duality through the meditative and hands-on practices of wet felting, weaving, sculpting and stitching.
A Look Back: Artist-in-Residence Mallory Zondag
Fiber artist Mallory Zondag ends her yearlong-plus residency at the Art Museum on November 28, 2021, with the closing of her installation Cocooned in Art Ways Interactive Family Gallery. The work, says Mallory, explored the theme, “when we work together as a society and help one another, the world becomes more colorful and full of life!” Here is her look back at her residency, which included both in-person and virtual workshops.