Artist's Statement
After obtaining her degree in Graphic Arts, artist E M McKinstry began her career as an artist for an advertising firm in Southern California. This was back in the days of type setting, literal cut and paste, and four color photo separtion and printing, in other words before computers did all the work. Shortly thereafter she found herself craving a more tactile form of expression. She began creating hand-painted tile murals and opened her own ceramics business in Northern California.
Although she enjoyed doing ceramics, her thirst for knowledge began to grow. She soon realized that her greatest sense of satisfaction was found in learning new techniques and using a varity of new media. She spent the next several years studying watercolor, acrylics, oil painting and work with polymer clay. She began by painting traditional landscapes, portraits, still life and jewelry design, but soon moved on to abstract art, in all it's myriad forms. As soon as she found abstraction as a form of expression, she felt her artistic heart had found a home. The joy of explosive color, layers of texture and pattern began to take over her work, and she has never looked back With this discovery she found that all of her education and experimentation were pointing her in one direction: the exciting world of mixed media. With her new-found focus she found she could incorporate all the things she loved into her work: not only different types of paint and processes, but also various found and made objects, collections gathered from nature, and bits of technology.
Mary's work expresses both the joy she finds in nature, the gratitude she feels for a life that allows her to create such beautiful things and a way in which to share it all with others.