About Me
Well, my journey to drawing wasn’t what you'd call a straight line; there were many unexpected turns. Although I’ve always appreciated the arts, my niche was singing classical music, and I began my college career as an opera major. Back then, if you asked me to choose between singing an aria composed by Puccini in front of an audience or picking up a graphite pencil to compose on paper a drawing of anything, hands down it would have been to sing an aria. You see, singing came from my soul; it was freeing. Singing was unlike my soul crushing experience in junior high art class which tainted my report card with a “D” and only inspired me to drop art altogether as soon as I could. At the time, I didn’t look back and was completely happy with that choice until my High School advisor gave me the grim news - I had to take an art elective to “satisfy graduation requirements.” I was horrified! Junior High Art Class traumatized me and High School art would surely be a repeat of that. Reluctantly, I added art to my schedule and tried to muster up some optimism. I remember vividly the first moments of that art class and first assignment. With not even one optimistic thought in my head I sat frozen while classmates cycled through the motions: sketch, erase, brush off eraser fragments, repeat . The teacher had placed in the middle of each table cluster an object to sketch. It was a simple, brown, paper lunch bag, an object I was quite familiar with. Looking at that paper bag my only thought was, “I’m going to fail this class, I’m never going to graduate!”
The art teacher softly spoke to me, she prompted: “Draw what you see.”
“I can’t draw.” I softly replied.
“Just draw what you see.” She said encouragingly: “Nothing is wrong, it’s your own perspective.”
I explored many mediums in her class and through her encouragement I became less afraid of expressing myself through art. Ms. Schnall’s art class was such a positive experience I decided to sign up for her black and white photography classes too. Equipped with my father’s 35mm Nikon camera, I enthusiastically became a student of photography and fell in love with this form of artistic expression. After reviewing the photos I’d taken for my final project, Ms. Schnall surprised me by asking if I was going to apply to “art school”. Without hesitation I told her that singing was my passion and I was applying to College music programs. Though I would go on to pursue Music and achieve a Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Hartford, Hartt School of Music, this High School Art teacher had impacted my life profoundly. Until the covid pandemic hit our country, singing in sacred settings and photography were my "go-to" artistic outlets. Pre Covid, my art endeavors were drawing Disney characters, shading coloring book pages with my daughters, photography, and scrapbooking the blessings of family life, all the while never imagining I'd create a graphite drawing collection or a website to show them to anyone. There are too many unexpected turns to speak of to bring you to this moment, so I'll choose just one to share that surely also impacted you.
Of all the unexpected turns that changed the course of our lives, surely none of us could have imagined the turn all our lives would take and the emotions we'd experience due to the outbreak of the covid virus pandemic. Modern medicine had made monumental strides in many areas that impact our wellness, a health crisis of that magnitude was not on our radar. I dare say, we all were blissfully unaware of the wake-up call we were about to experience: The crystal-clear realization of all the aspects of our life we simply just took for granted. Pre Covid, we naively thought interacting with our loved ones and practicing our faith in our faith community would always be accessible to us. For most of us, during the darkest days of the pandemic, the internet was the only way we were able to connected with family, friends, and our faith communities, but it was a poor substitution for interacting in person. For me as a Catholic Christian: televised Mass, “spiritual communion”, Rosary devotion and other programming only left me yearning even more to be physically present at Church and receive the Most Blessed Sacrament. Since New York was an epicenter of the Virus and most of my extended family lived on Long Island, I learned what “pray without ceasing” meant. Although praying more came easily to me, worrying less was not so easy. It is from this time almost all the art contained in this website was born. As we were living through the grim reality of global pandemic, the Lord inspired me to pray with pencil in-hand. The first inspiration was to make a personalized Christmas card for that first Christmas of the covid pandemic. Over the years I’d make personalized Christmas Cards using my own photographs of church stained-glass windows. However, I’d not taken any new pictures nor made any pilgrimages to photograph sacred scenes. I wanted to send my relatives and friends a loving message during this bleak time, and I wanted to personalize the art. Singing arias in College, I never could have imagined what living would be like during a pandemic the likes of which hadn't been seen for nearly 100 years. Likewise, once I held the camera, I never imagined I'd put it down, pick up a pencil and use it to try to capture something beautiful to share with others. That first Nativity drawing was both meditation and prayer for me and the rest just continued to flow out of me, filling page after page with my artistic meditations on some of the great mysteries of my Catholic Christian heritage. I hope they give you a glimpse of my love and devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I am just beginning to follow my high school art teacher's directive to "draw what I see" and hope there will be much more to come. The Lord is inspiring me to do so using eyes of faith. Please keep in mind, though I'm a grown adult, in the art world I'm just a newborn. I welcome you to my humble studio and pray:
May the Blessed Virgin Mary pray for you, Our Lord Jesus Christ save you,
and God mercifully bless all the unexpected turns of your life.
Maria