Magiamma

magi@hippocampus.com

I am a sculptor who works with mixed media. I have produced life-size bronzes for commission am a skilled ceramic sculptor. I specialized in bronze casting for both my BFA and my MFA and created mixed media artwork with bronze, clay, marble and wood. I now work by combining ceramics and found objects.

I transitioned to found objects because it became important to me to consume less. As I changed my lifestyle, I changed my art. I began using recycled clay and soon raided my house for my store of collected objects – weathered boxes, bird nests, shells, bits of driftwood, rusted metal pieces. These treasures became my new “pallet.”  I integrate things that I find in nature and “stuff” that society has thrown away, ordinary things that belonged to people at some point, objects made by man.

Although unexpected gifts frequently show up on my doorstep, I continue to pick up treasures on my walks and keep an eye open for discarded junk by the roadside. I can tell when an object will work, will be useful to my art in some way.  I am fascinated by the patina of aged objects and the form they take from long use. Worn and weathered, they bring to the present both the context and memory of the past. As I reuse these objects I give them new life and a new context. The past is remade and yet the past is present.

The content of my work has always been driven by my life as a woman, raising my two daughters alone. My artwork both challenges and celebrates woman’s place in society. As I “volunteered” to live life more simply, the women in my work also began to symbolize the earth’s fragile plight.