The Great Gulf Coast Arts Festival starts Friday at Seville Square in Historic Downtown Pensacola. This year’s Invited International Artist is Mandy Bangerter, a textile artist and teacher based in St. Helens on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom. WUWF’s Sandra Averhart caught up with the artist as she was preparing her booth for the weekend event.
Sandra Averhart: We should say that we are talking on Thursday, as everything is, everybody's getting ready.
Mandy Bengerter: I am amazed at the organization here. I arrived at 8:30 this morning, and as each hour goes by, this wonderful village of creativity pops up.
Averhart: Let's get started. Mandy, talk a little bit about what inspired you to become an artist. And do you think you were artistic at an early age?
Bengerter: I've always enjoyed drawing. I would have loved to have gone to art college at 18, but my parents didn't think it was a good plan. So, like most people, I went into business, and then I found myself able to go off to art college in my 40s, as my family was growing up, and I did my three-year degree in my post-grad teaching and was then able to go in as an art teacher at high schools in England.
Averhart: Now what drove you to or inspired you to begin working with fabric? That's what one of the things that you work with, and you work with print photography, painting, hand and machine stitching, and just items that you collect in various ways.
Bengerter: Yeah. When I was at college doing my degree, I did a lot of printmaking, etching, and screen printing, which I loved. When you leave college, somehow all those facilities aren't there on your doorstep. And then one day I saw some work that I really related to and discovered it was machining, which I'd always used a sewing machine to make basic things, a few clothes and curtains. But to be able to use the sewing machine to draw with became a great adventure.
Averhart: How would you describe your work?
Bengerter: I describe it as painting with fabric of all sorts and drawing with stitch. So the drawing becomes the mark-making.
Averhart: And I wanted to ask about your process, how you go about creating your works and whether or not it was the fabric or the stitching or what is it that is your launching point when you start to create?
Bengerter: That's an incredibly difficult question because there isn't one single aspect. It's a combination of all of those things. You're right, all of those things are important, but it's how they come together at the time. And so you may find, I may find a beautiful piece of fabric lying on the beach that's been washed up in a storm. And that may be a starting point for creating peace because that would give me the integrity of making a piece of work of a place with something from the place. And I kind of like that combination.
Averhart: Well, let's pick up on that. The places and people. You say that your images, your pieces tell stories of people and places.
Bengerter: Yep. So I live on this beautiful little island off the south coast of England called the Isle of Wight. Population 140,000. It's tiny, but it's a very creative island. In fact, 50% of the island is an area of outstanding natural beauty. So it's a glorious place to live. Very simple, very lovely, lovely people. And that very much informs how I make my work and why I make my work.
Sandra Averhart: And talk more about this place because you say that it helps you not only in your art, but in other ways too.
Bengerter: Yeah, it's a very interesting community, and the community side of things is very important to my life and the way I work. We have a beautiful little art centre in the town called Ride, where we meet up and I will occasionally do little stitch projects. So people who just wander in join in, do a little bit of stitching to create a community piece of work.
And then there's a fantastic charity on the island called Independent Arts, who deliver creativity to socially isolated people. It's open to anybody, and we'll often do projects where everybody is working in a little workshop, over a cup of tea and some biscuits. And then we can put their work all together to make something quite special when we bring it together.
Averhart: Let's talk about your teaching. How your teaching informs your art. Or maybe the other way, how your art informs your teaching?
Bengerter: To any students out there. Trust me, your teacher learns as much from you as you ever do from them. It's a wonderful two-way process. So in the last few days I've been into several schools, met m lots of fabulous students, and the joy of seeing their creativity and their willingness to create has been fantastic. You've got some great kids out there at school. I was particularly keen that they could create using recycled materials rather than going in with lots of new stuff. So, they were allowed to, or asked to, bring in something, some outgrown clothing at home. Hopefully, all their adult permissions were made. And they brought in these bits, and we started looking at how I layer fabric at the beginning of a composition. And they did exactly the same thing, sometimes individually, sometimes in teams, depending on the school. And everybody created something different when they were working in teams. What was happening was collaboration and conversation, one of the greatest skills. They can leave school with.
Averhart: Can you describe for us one of your pieces, maybe one of your favorite or one that you brought with you?
Bengerter: I brought lots of pieces of work, trying to cover lots of aspects of the things I love. But I particularly bought one section from a community piece that I just finished in the UK before I came out. And that was with this charity. We were making a wildflower meadow. So lots of people contributed their drawings of flowers. They didn't have to be great; they were very simple. Some people have very limited ability. That's not a problem. Never a problem. There was always something they could contribute, and we ended up with a 30-foot-length of textile hanging of this wildflower meadow. And the joy in all of the participants' faces as they looked along and saw their work as part of this great, beautiful thing. So I have one of those, a small piece of that here that everybody can come and see.
Averhart: And you have others that you'll be selling to the public this weekend?
Bengerter: Yeah, there's some of the place where I live, there's some of people because, as an artist, drawing is integral. It's your sort of art gym. So you go off to drawing classes, life drawing classes, because you're always seeking to improve everywhere you look and see.
Averhart: Any thought you want to leave us with?
Bengerter: Oh, you guys are great. You guys have got this beautiful place you live in, and the community here, I have been absolutely blown away by. You are beautiful, all of you.
Averhart: Thank you very much, and I wish you great success this weekend.
Bengerter: Thank you so much, and thank you for coming out today.
Mandy Bengerter is GGAF’s 2026 Invited International Artist. The Arts Fest will be held at Seville Square tomorrow and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visit ggaf.org for more information.
Check out the WUWF Main Stage featuring live music.
