Artist Profile: Maria Amalia Wood
Photo credit: Nicole Hansen
Maria Amalia is a Honduran artist based in Middleton, WI, and enjoys working with textiles, papermaking, and teaching art to K-8 students. Her creative process embraces a personal and socially engaged art practice inspired by the complexities of a life lived between Central America and the Midwestern United States. Maria has an MFA in Design Studies from UW-Madison and a BA in Art from Judson University.
1) Your artistic expression has myriad forms. How does this play out in terms of being a professional artist.
Today some know me as a fiber artist; a mother artist; a woman artist; and a Latin artist. When my K-5 students greet me they say, “Hello amazing Art Teacher!”. All my lived experiences, as well as the people who are part of them, feed my work. I am passionate about the creative process expressed through making, talking, connecting, observing, learning and teaching.
Photo credit: Nicole Hansen
2) Describe what "artistic collaboration" means to you?
In my socially engaged art practice, collaboration happens when the entire process—from start to finish—is a shared experience. I might have the initial idea, but the idea is refined and worked through with someone else. Most of my community art is participatory rather than collaborative in nature. Inviting others to make a mark with thread, pulp-paint or other mediums, fuels my creative process. Yet because it is a participatory experience, I am in control of the final outcome.
3) Explain one or two creative goals you feel you've accomplished this year.
The Madison Public Library invited me to be their inaugural artist-in-residence at Pinney Library. I invited the Madison community to make handmade paper with me and create a large-scale handmade paper horizon inspired by our life journeys. A group of Latina immigrants gathered in my house to help me complete the piece by embroidering it as we shared our life experiences and immigration stories. The piece “Viajes del Horizonte” is now framed and will soon be permanently installed at Pinney Library.
I was also invited by Hand Papermaking to create a collection of more than 120 handmade paper pieces to be included in their highly selective portfolios called “The Language of Color”.
My collection, titled “Montañas del Añil” (Indigo Mountains), is informed by the Honduran mountains that cradled my childhood memories. It is said that in the 17th century, ‘blue’ was the color of western civilization and ‘indigo’ was one the main sources of wealth in Central America. I often wonder why I am so drawn to indigo dye. Perhaps it’s because we all gravitate to blue, or maybe because it tells a story about my personal history.
Photo credit: Nicole Hansen
4) Share 2-3 artists you wish people were more aware of.
I am inspired by the Quilters of Gee’s Bend. Their bold abstract quilts are not only beautiful but also embedded with a rich and deep African American history.
The Arpilleras of South America, once used as a form of protest and activism in Chile, use applique, embroidery and patchwork to tell stories of everyday life.