Born in Southern California, Mary is influenced by the vividness and openness of the west coast. In her work one can see the colors of earth, water, sand and sky. Before turning her attention to painting, Mary spent many years in various creative environments including fashion, interior design and architecture. Those experiences are reflected in her work through spatial awareness and use of color. Mary’s mixed media paintings include a variety of mediums such as acrylic, pencil and pastels.
Sixth Sense My husband had sixth sense about the fire. On Monday the 4th, he kept telling me that it’s fire weather. He brought it up several times that afternoon. We went for Thai food that night and I remember as we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant I could see the huge glow of the fire just over the Grade. It still seemed so far away. Having grown up in Malibu, I have been through my share of fires. This one seemed no cause for concern. I dismissed Dave’s sixth sense. Ironically it is I who has always had the sixth sense in the family. I paint intuitively often creating my work based on my emotions. I’m a colorist. I love color, experimenting with color palettes that are unexpected and fresh. After the fire came and all hell broke loose, we were left with a black and white landscape. I couldn’t paint at all. All I could see was black and white and thought I can’t paint black and white. I paint in color. I finally realized that if I wanted to get to where I wanted to be, I had to accept where I was and at that moment I started to paint. Black and white and greys with a hint of color. That’s all I could paint, for weeks on end. I painted with the thought that I would never be able to bring color back into my work. The first day I saw blue sky it was like when Dorothy steps into Oz. After weeks and weeks and weeks of grey hazy light and whiteout and dust and ash there was a hint of color. I was ecstatic. It was like coming out of a cocoon. The Thomas Fire left an indelible print in my psyche. In spite of the trials in those weeks, I’ve had to reach deep inside, to find within myself the way to integrate my experience in order to transform and move on and keep creating.