Meet Maria Wickwire | Figurative Sculptor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maria Wickwire and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maria, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I have apparently lived by the philosophy of “Jump off the cliff and build your parachute on the way down.” When I discovered clay at age 45, I fell in love and felt like I had won the lottery in midlife. I haven’t been able to stop myself exploring and learning what the clay wants to say as it channels through my hands. Based on nothing in particular (ie Art School, gallery representation, sales, etc), I just declared myself a sculptor and proceeded forward.

My work has found its audience and I now have many opportunities to exhibit. For me, the main thing is the process of discovery with each new piece or body of work. Currently, I’m learning about bronze casting, as a ceramic public art piece I created was badly damaged by vandalism. I repaired her and she is being cast in bronze, with the cracks made visible by adding gold, as in the Japanese Kintsugi tradition of repairing broken pieces with gold. I hope that her message will evolve from expressing compassion for the life experience residing in all of us to expressing hope for a deep healing of our fractured society and respect for the scars we have accumulated.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Finding myself where I am today is a dream come true! I wanted to be an artist ever since third grade, but chose a safer career path, which also turned out to be a good place to gather experience and exercise my creativity. I continued creating art through writing poetry and discovering sculpture, but always had to keep it a bit on the back burner while I pursued my teaching career. I’m grateful to be older and wiser and still strong and healthy so that I can pursue my dream.

Getting to where I am today has been mostly a reflection of my gratitude for the way Life seems to line up for you when you’re doing what you are meant to do. What I’ve learned is that it’s best to share generously so that all our boats can float. One also needs to be able to learn from critique and to stand strong enough in oneself to approach galleries for representation. There is no Gallery Fairy who will fly into your studio and offer you a show! Everything you make will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s OK. If you put your heart into what you create, your audience will be attracted by your energy and will find you.

My sculptures tell archetypal stories of women and women’s experience. I do not start out with a concept in mind, but discover what I’m doing through doing it, just as I did when writing poetry. I listen to the figures as they emerge and tell me what they want to be and then I continue to listen do discover the stories they are trying to tell.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I am privileged to live in the Skagit Valley, a beautiful part of the Pacific Northwest. The valley is famous for our surrounding mountain ranges, the Olympics to the west and the Cascades to the east. We are closer to Canada than to Seattle and welcome visitors every April for our annual Tulip Festival.

If my best friend came to visit, we would enjoy every opportunity to sip a delicious morning latte at Ristretto in Mount Vernon. I might take her to see the magical fields of daffodils and tulips, to hike on one of the many nearby mountain trails, perhaps to whale watch in the Puget Sound, to visit the special town of Edison and to see all the art at the Smith and Vallee Gallery located there. We would spend some time hanging out on our deck, watching the eagles and water birds over the lake I live on, or maybe driving out to view the dramatic flocks of snow geese and trumpeter swans that spend time in the valley during their migration. We might hunt for Chantrelles in the woods, too, during mushroom season.

We might go shopping in one of the nearby towns of La Conner, Snohomish, Anacortes or Mount Vernon. We would definitely have oysters at the Conway Pub and a Millionairess pizza at District Brewing in Mount Vernon. In summer, we would go to one of the outdoor concerts on the waterfront in any of these small towns and we’d be sure to take in the 3rd of July Fireworks show put on by the big Lake Fire Department!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I always want to honor my mentor, Francisco Salgado, who taught me the proportions of the figure and encouraged me, by role modeling and advising, to take risks and just do whatever came into my head. He introduced me to his many successful sculptor friends and showed me that my work held up with theirs and could be taken seriously. Whenever I come up against a challenge, I think, “What would Francisco do?” I will be forever grateful to him for choosing me to mentor and for all he has done to inspire me!

I also want to shout out to poets, William and Kim Stafford, with whom I studied writing and from whom I learned to trust the process of keeping my pen moving (and my hands in clay), getting out of my own way and letting the creative muse take over. As Elizabeth Gilbert pointed out in her book, Big Magic, the muse really does only come to the artist who is working!

Website: www.mariawickwire.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariawickwirestudio/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-wickwire-41b58310/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MariaWickwireStudio

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpAW_PNV04IkCrEKB7tNy6g

Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mariawickwire/_created/

Image Credits
Francisco Salgado