Bio
Mical Aloni, born in 1963, began
embroidering at an early age in an agricultural Kibbutz
in northern central Israel. In the Kibbutz girls were
expected to sew and make traditional embroidery. Initially,
Mical did not excel at it until she broke free from
the conventional patterns and started using thread as
paint.
She created her first original needlepoint
at the age of fifteen, a violin cover for her talented
musician boyfriend. During Mical's uncompensated mandatory
two year military service she escaped the brutality
of military life by embroidering. Thread and cloth were
affordable and small enough to hide in her army-issued
Golda purse. From the first day of service she secretly
worked on a magical piece with dragons and fairies that
she completed the day of her honorable discharge.
Aloni graduated from the University
of Tel Aviv with degrees in art history and philosophy.
At twenty five, Aloni moved to the U.S., where she earned
culinary distinction at the Academe de Cuisine in Maryland.
Soon after, she opened a restaurant, Franzi and Nells,
located in Stony Brook on Long Island, NY. She sold
it to move to Taos in 1994. Five years later, Aloni
wrote and illustrated The Art of Cooking by Color.
After moving to Taos, Aloni cooked
and baked to support herself while she embroidered.
Her first exhibit at the Taos Fall Art Festival earned
her a Best of Show, gaining the attention of The Parks
Gallery, which began representing her work in 1998.
In 1999 her work was included in a
prestigious exhibition, 'Realism, PhotoRealism, SuperRealism',
at the Harwood Museum in Taos. That fall, Aloni was
able to quit cooking and baking and support herself
solely through art sales.
In June, 2000, The Parks Gallery presented
her first one-person show, 'Eclipse - New Embroideries.'
The success of her two one-person shows in 2001 was
followed by exposure in Fiber Arts and Stitch Magazine
in early 2002. In addition, The American Craft Museum
in New York has acquired a recent work, the Elf Princess.
Since early 2001, Mical has been collaborating
with Taos' photography artist and husband, Assaf Reznik.
Their unique artwork features under the pseudonym M.A.
Rezoni, and was debuted at the 'Masks and Mysteries'
exhibit at Nomad Gallery in May, 2001.
Aloni was inspired to create her own
individualized style and technique of embroidery. The
results are virtuosic. Her miniature and photo realistic
pieces (the largest is no more than eight inches in
height or width) express light effects ranging from
the transparency of glass and fabric to the shimmering
gossamer surface of butterfly wings. Skin tones are
composites of as many as twenty-five different colors.
She says, "I realized that it was a good thing
to have beauty in the world. We need beauty to survive."
Her most recent work, a twenty-five
piece collection called The Honeymoon Album: Impressions
of Baja California was inspired by her and Reznik's
2002 honeymoon. One of the pieces earned an Award of
Excellence at the 2003 Annual Portraiture Show at the
Millicent Rogers Museum of Taos and three more were
chosen for the prestigious Contemporary Art/Taos at
the Harwood Museum of Art curated by Douglas Dreishpoon,
fine art author and senior curator of The Albright-Knox
Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY.
Her pieces are currently being displayed
in the Hibberd-McGrath Gallery in Breckenridge, CO,
and Thirteen Moons in Santa Fe, NM. A permanent collection
resides at both the Harwood Museum in Taos, NM and The
American Craft Museum in New York, NY.
In August of 2003, Aloni and husband
Reznik opened a studio in Taos, NM where the couple
lives and where she continues to be inspired to perfect
her one-of-a-kind embroidery technique.