Maria Wickwire Palensky

A friend and I spent some time with Maria this weekend, saw her sculptures up close, and came away enchanted, drained, and bemused. Very talented artist, definitely worth keeping an eye on. (You might get a better view of what she does at the Pacific Northwest Sculptors’ site, or hit up Lake Oswego, OR’s Gallery without Walls exhibit…)

Maria works in ceramics, didn’t discover she was a sculptor until fairly late in life, and seems to have emerged as a talented storyteller almost from the moment she formed clay. She primarily does female figures, very expressive and often in the act of merging with plants or animals. 

To me, she depicts women in the midst of profound change, sometimes as victims, sometimes with the patient realization that this step is necessary in achieving a beloved goal. Her Persephone is dying with the autumn and joining the earth, enduring the pain of leaving the sun because, eventually, she will enable the spring.

Right now, we’re futzing around with merging cast glass into one of Maria’s new pieces. It’s exciting to see her awake to glass textures, colors, and the combinations of transparency, translucency and opacity. And it’s exciting for me to see clay as more than a modeling tool. I’ve no idea where this will go, but it’s an awful lot of fun.

Anyway,  if you can, seek out her work and take a look.

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