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Mireille Delice (Delismé)

About the Artist

Mireille Delice at work on a drapo at Smithsonian Folklife Festival, 2004. (Photograph © Anthony Hart Fisher)
Mireille Delice with a recent flag of "Sirene" at Indigo Arts Gallery, 2011. (Photograph © Anthony Hart Fisher, 2011)
Mireille Delice demonstrates her work to visitors at Smithsonian Folklife Festival, 2004. (Photograph © Anthony Hart Fisher)
Mireille Delice holds a flag memorializing the January 12th, 2010 earthquake, at Indigo Arts Gallery, 2011. (Photograph © Anthony Hart Fisher, 2011)
Mireille Delice at the Santa Fe international folk art market, with friends including curator Suzanne Seriff and volunteer Ali McGraw. July, 2011. (Photograph © Anthony Hart Fisher, 2011)

Mireille Delice (also spelled Delismé) was born in 1965, in Haiti (Biography below adapted from Wikipedia and other sources).

Delisme's career began in 1986, when taught sewing and beading techniques by her cousin, Myrlande Constant .  Soon after, she began working alongside her cousin in Port-au-Prince at a factory embellishing wedding dresses for export. Following the closing of the factory in 1990 due to political and economic issues, Delisme recalls having a dream in which she was visited by the spirits. When relating the dream to her father, an oungan (vodou priest), he interpreted the message to be from the Vodou spirit or lwa Erzulie. Erzulie, the spirit of love, is represented in vodou tradition by a heart, which was the same design symbolized in Delisme's dream. Using beads left over from her time at the factory, the heart symbol visualized in her dream became the sequin design for her first drapo (flag).

Delisme recollects having more than one dream in which spirits visited her. During the third dream, she was delivered the message that, “I did not have to work in the factory, but I could learn to work for myself and earn for my family.” In 1990, having lost her job at the factory in conjunction with the lwa messages, Delisme decided to begin her life as an independent artist at age 25. Delisme continued to master her needlework skills by creating more drapo, finding design inspiration from her dreams and Vodou symbols given to her by her father. Delisme's beadwork incorporates vévé designs that represent traditional Vodou deities and are used to explain divinity and give clarity to life's expressions and meanings. Her flags represent her spirituality and are used for guidance, wisdom, and healing. Her bright color combinations add to the mood and spirit of each piece.  Since becoming an independent artist, Delisme has built an atelier in Haiti. The workshop was constructed to more efficiently assemble the bead-work for her drapo designs. Delisme describes the envisioned designs to a paid artist to be drawn or traced for the drapo and once done, is passed on to be beaded by Delisme herself or one of the seven artists employed at the workshop.

In January 2010, Delisme's hometown was at the epicenter of a massive earthquake. Delisme and her family were among those affected by the earthquakes destruction. “I felt I had to express the disaster in Haiti in my artwork." 

In 2011, Delisme's work Catastrophe du 12 Janvier, a Vodou flag created to depict the crumpled buildings and the bodies of the dead caused by the earthquake, was part of an exhibit at the Museum of International Folk Art titled “The Arts of Survival: Folk Expression in the Face of Natural Disaster.”  The same work was exhibited in Kathmandu, Nepal in Spring, 2022 as part of the  Kathmandu Triennale.  Delisme has displayed and sold her works at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market for several years (2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016).

Region:
La Sirene and Damballa
SKU: MD-0901

Sequins and beads on fabric (29" x 32"),
2009

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon

$ 1,800

La Sirene - Vodou Flag
SKU: MD-0902

Sequins and beads on fabric (29" x 27 1/2"), 2009
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.
Note that the signature is mirrored, because the design was drawn on the back of the base sheet but not corrected for viewing from the front.  

$1,400

La Sirene - Vodou Flag
SKU: MD-2301

(Port-au-Prince)
Sequins and beads on fabric (27” x 21.5”),
c.2022
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$950

SKU: MD1201

Sequins and beads on fabric
(22" x 19 1/2"), c.2011

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$650

La Sirene and Damballa Vodou Banner
SKU: MD-1501

(Port-au-Prince)
Sequins and beads on fabric (19 1/2" x 21 1/2"),
c.2014
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$525

"La Sirene" Vodou Flag
SKU: MD-1303

"La Sirene" Vodou Flag
Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric (17 1/4" x 16 3/4"),
c.2013
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

 

$475

La Sirene - Vodou Flag
SKU: MD-1801

"La Sirene" Vodou Flag
Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric (17" x 17"),
c.2013
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$475

Ayida Wedo (Lady of the Serpents)
SKU: MD-1102

Sequins and beads on fabric
(39 1/2" x 53"), c.2010

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$ 3,200

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
SKU: MD1003

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric (21" x 25"), 2009

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon

$ 475

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
Simbi
SKU: MD-1005

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric (19" x 20 1/2"), 2010

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon

$ 425

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
Catastrophe de 12 Janvier
SKU: MD-1103

Sequins and beads on fabric
(43 1/2" x 45 1/2"), c.2010

This flag is Mireille's response to the ctastrophe of the Jan 12th, 2010 earthquake, in which she lost several family members and her home. It depicts representatives of Haiti's three primary religions - Catholicism, Vodou and Protestant Christianity - praying among the rubble and the dead. Another 'earthquake flag" by Mireille Delice was featured in the profile of her in the Fall/Winter, 2011 issue of Hand/Eye Magazine This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

"Catastrophe de 12 Janvier" was exhibited at the Kathmandu Triennale in Kathmandu, Nepal in February, March 2022.

Price on Request

Product Status: 
ON HOLD
SKU: MD1104

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti) Sequins and beads on fabric (43" x 45"), c.2010 This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$ 3,800

Product Status: 
Sold
Erzulie Dantor - Vodou Flag
SKU: MD-1105

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric (43 1/2" x 43 1/2"), c.2010.
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$3800

Product Status: 
Sold
SKU: MD-0903

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric
(33" x 39"), 2009

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon

$ 1,900

Product Status: 
Sold
Erzulie Mapiang - Vodou Flag
SKU: MD-0801

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti) Sequins and beads on fabric (33" x 30"), c.2005.
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.  This flag is published in Spirits in Sequins: Vodou Flags of Haiti,(2007) by Nancy Josephson, p. 161.

$1800

Product Status: 
Sold
La Sirene at the Water's Edge Vodou Banner
SKU: MD-1502

(Port-au-Prince)
Sequins and beads on fabric (26 1/2" x 28 1/4"),
c.2014
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

 

$950

Product Status: 
Sold
La Sirene
SKU: MD-0905

Sequins and beads on fabric (19" x 23"), 2009
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon

$ 575

Product Status: 
Sold
La Sirene - Vodou Flag
SKU: MD-1101

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti) Sequins and beads on fabric (23" x 24"), c.2011.
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists such as Constant and Simeon.

$550

Product Status: 
Sold
SKU: MD1001

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric (21" x 26 1/2"), 2010
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon

$ 475

Product Status: 
Sold
SKU: MD1301

Sequins and beads on fabric
(16 3/4" x 21 1/2"), c.2013

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$ 450

Product Status: 
Sold
SKU: MD1302

Sequins and beads on fabric (18 1/2" x 17 1/2"), c.2013
This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$ 425

Product Status: 
Sold
SKU: MD1106

Mireille Delice (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
Sequins and beads on fabric (16 1/4" x 20"), c.2011

This flag is extremely densely beaded and sequinned (and thus extremely heavy), in the manner of the artists Constant and Simeon.

$ 350

Product Status: 
Sold