Artist in Residence – Mary Atwood

Mary Atwood is the newest Artist in Residence at the Caroline County Council of Art (CCCA). Funded by the Maryland State Art's Council, the three-month program inspires local artists to create new work and also to connect artists with their community.

Mary creates impressionistic paintings which often have obscure masks hidden in them.
"The paintings start out abstract but then faces show up. I never see the faces", she says, "but when other people look they see the faces.”

Mary comes from a family of artists and two Irish grandmothers, "one who taught me how to hold a cigarette, and the other taught me how to tell a story." Celtic folklore and storytelling are common threads woven through stage performance, written stories and her art.

Mary also creates ceramic masks. She places clay on her own face and then forms the mask with her hands. She was inspired to work with clay after drumming with women on a "Long Dance," which is dancing and drumming from sunset to sunrise.

"I kept thinking about masks after that, and ever since then I've made hundreds of them.”

As a coach and a teacher Mary finds painting and mask making to be therapeutic. "I worked with a woman who couldn't get over the death of her father. After making (a mask) she saw that the mask looked just like her father.”

Mary rarely uses a brush when she paints, instead she uses her hands and a spatula. She says, "A painting always tells me where I am in my own life. It's very meditative."

The theme of the work she will be creating over the three-month residency is "Journey", a reflection on how our journeys are not unlike each other’s. She will be keeping a "process journal" that will be available for people to read.

Mary will be working in the upstairs studio of the Foundry Art Gallery most days and wants to meet and talk with the public. During April she will teach a Mask Making Class and a Painting Class. There will be a public reception and a show on June 13, featuring the work she does over the next three months.

"I am expecting a transformation" Mary says, "I want people to see their own story represented.”