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B R E A K I N G N E W S A T L E A D E R P O S T.C O M S EC T I O N F
S AT U R DAY, M A R C H 22, 2014
One-of-a-kind treasures hit the wall Handmade wallpaper enjoys revival JULIE BEUN POSTMEDIA NEWS Somewhere in California’s Napa Valley, a guy named Mickey Mantle is in his well-appointed home, admiring wallpaper that was hand painted in Ottawa. Not THE Mickey Mantle — he died in 1995, so wallpaper viewing would be something of a challenge — but the other Mickey Mantle, the guy who managed the development of the Pixar photorealistic software that has been used on almost every visual effects Academy Award-winning film over the past two decades. The wallpaper in question is stunning — a monochromatic rendering of a peacock overlooking vineyards — and it perfectly reflects both Mantle’s sensibilities and the surrounding winecountry environment. And it was all achieved by emails sent back and forth between Mantle and Ottawabased, Russian-educated Moldovan artist Tatiana Mandel. “The biggest challenge is
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‘The biggest challenge is to understand what the client wants,’ says artist Tatiana Mandel, who creates unique, hand-painted wallpaper. to understand what the client wants. I work mostly by email and so the bigger the project, the more challenging it is,” says Mandel. “You can’t look at it like regular wallpaper, because I work directly making something one-of-a-kind for them.” Using special rolls of biodegradable art paper, odourless, low-chemical paints and antifungal glue, Mandel first creates sketches of designs developed to fit accent walls or entire rooms while working with the overall design of the home. From
there, development and painting take six-to-eight weeks before the end result is installed by specialists. If all that sounds unique, it is — but it’s far from new. Handmade wallpaper first made an appearance hundreds of years ago, notably in 1515, when Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I commissioned a massive woodcut print called The Triumphal Arch that took up 192 sheets measuring nearly three metres by three-anda-half metres and was replicated 700 times, then pasted
THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE Of the Regina & Region Home Builder’s Association
up in city halls and palaces. After Henry VIII split with Rome, and the European tapestry trade disappeared, wallpaper became even more popular until Oliver Cromwell’s stick-in-the-mud Puritan government briefly banned it as “too frivolous.” Hand-painted wallpaper continues to be a luxury item, notes Mandel. “Besides being a one-of-a-kind handmade treasure,” she adds, “wall coverings are also a wise economical choice.”
See WALLPAPER, F2
ACTUAL DESIGN DECOR
Smaller hand-painted wallpaper projects such as this piece entitled Garden of Rachel can take up to six weeks to make.
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FEBRUARY TOP PRODUCERS Meet
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