About the artist:

Born in West Bend, Wisconsin, U.S.A in 1926, Haendel graduated from West Bend High School and studied at the University of Wisconsin and at the University of Seattle in the State of Washington. He lives and works in DeKalb, Illinois, where he is a professor at Northern Illinois University. He has had many individual exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe: the Arras Gallery in New York;the Tweed Museum in Duluth, Minnesota; Ohio State University; Peadbody College, Nashville, Tennessee;and his work is also hung in many public and private collections. "The was Drawing series were done for an exhibition at the Arras Gallery on W. 57th Street in New York City. I had completed a previous show there of Shaped Paper works the used recycled blue denim that spring and they asked if I could have a new show by the fall. The inspiration for this third show came about by watching some of the people in lower Manhattan putting out their was h from the windows of their apartments via wash line that stretched between an opposing building. That thought became the idea for that fall show. All the works were attached to a wash line taht would be displayed about the gallery wall as though it were hanging out to dry. The clothes pins were my lead soldiers. I made sculptured paper reliefs of every dan mondane items found in the wash. I had shirts, socks, shorts, pants, bras, hankies, etc... All attached to a rope line that would unify the works as they went around the room. Each of the works were of a different size and could be mixed up to make the display interesting. Some of the Item frolic in a suggestive windso that the viewer could let his imagination run free. In the case of the hankie, the clothes pins turned into a crown of thorns, while the hankie has a suggested face, making it into a Veronica, the cloth that was used by Veronica to wipe the sweat from Christ, leaving on the cloth the imprint of his face. Other works suggested insects or whatever a mind wanted to suggest. It was a fun show and quite successful. The work was sculptured paper reliefs, rubbed with graphite and also drawn upon with an ebony pencil. Many of the viewers thought at frist that washdrawings meant inks, like watercolor, but no. A bit of humor on my part. There were 20 pieces in all." - Bill Haendel.