Article By: Zak Lodhi
Across quiet farms, village markets, fiber studios, and winding streets around the world, Kristin Kleyer Mangum searches for materials the way others search for stories.
Pure Global Fibers. Weathered Wood. Found Stones. Local fragments of culture carried in texture and color. Each discovery, used to create with along the way, eventually carried back to her Scottsdale studio, where it is transformed, stitch by stitch, into sculptural form. Mangum is an internationally celebrated contemporary fiber mixed media artist whose work feels less constructed than grown. Organic in silhouette and deeply tactile, her sculptures echo patterns found in nature.
Her artistic path began in the Midwest, but rigorous study and an expanding worldview shaped it. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and building a career as an art educator, Mangum returned to academia to pursue graduate studies, completing both a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts. It was during this period,
while living in Florence, that fiber fully claimed her attention. Immersed in centuries of artistic tradition, she explored historical weaving methods before discovering the coil technique that would become foundational to her practice. Traditionally used to create vessels, coiling offered both structure and freedom. Rather than replicate conventional forms, Mangum is always pushing her methods and materials outward, allowing them to evolve into something distinctly sculptural. Over the past twenty-five years, that exploration has expanded into a multidisciplinary language. Her works now integrate her hand-built ceramics, woodworking, metalsmithing, painting, and drawing, each element crafted personally. Nothing is outsourced. Every surface carries the imprint of her hand.
“I listen to what the materials want to become.” -Mangum
The process itself is deliberate and intensely physical. Using a needle, her process is a series of wrapping and stitching her pure fibers around cotton core. Guiding each curve through thousands and thousands of stitches. Though the sculptures often appear to contain wire, their strength comes entirely from fiber and tension. Most of her pieces take months to complete, their forms emerging slowly through a dialogue between artist and material.
“I listen to what the materials want to become, giving them a voice” Mangum has explained.
Back in Arizona, additional components begin to take shape. Stoneware ceramic is hand-built and kiln-fired. Glazes are layered to produce unexpected depth and variation. Solid wood is cut, assembled, and finished. Metal is heated, hammered, drilled, and polished until it offers the precise counterpoint to the softness of fiber. Mangum avoids synthetics and adhesives, further channeling the organic feel. She says she approaches construction as a creative puzzle. How can disparate materials be joined while still honoring their individual character? The answer reveals itself through experimentation, patience, and an unwavering commitment to craftsmanship.
And as you can see from her finished work, it’s like nothing else. Some stand independently with quiet authority. Others gather in clustered arrangements that suggest conversation, community, even shared growth. Together, they embody her guiding idea: “A Piece of the World. A Piece of You.” Today, Mangum’s sculptures reside in galleries, corporate collections, and private homes, and have been exhibited at institutions including the Visions Museum of Textile Art in San Diego and Scottsdale Art Week.
Yet despite their growing reach, the work remains grounded in something intimate. Touch. Labor. Presence. In an era increasingly defined by speed and digital distance, Kristin Kleyer Mangum’s sculptures invite the opposite response. Slow down. Look closer. Notice the rhythm of the stitch, the tension of the curve, the harmony between strength and softness. They remind us that the most powerful structures are often built not all at once, but patiently, coil by coil.
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