July Featured artist - Mae Stoll
July 4, 2023 - July 31, 2023July's Featured artist - Mae Stoll
Originally from the island of Malta, artist Mae Stoll spent most of her adult life in Houston and then Austin, Texas. She remembers doodling constantly as a child, and relishing art classes in high school. Her only other formal art instruction was during a couple of elective drawing and painting classes at the University of Houston while she was pursuing a BA in Psychology and working full time as a NICU registered nurse. A graduate degree from Rice University, corporate and independent business consulting, and then teaching West African style hand percussion followed, and the years flew by.
Mae moved to the Staunton area in mid-2019. Late the following year, after three decades of artistic dormancy, she experienced what she calls an “art awakening.” Here is how she describes it,
“It feels strange to add a whole new dimension to one’s identity this far along life’s path. It was probably the beauty of this valley that first inspired me to buy a cheap set of acrylics and start dabbling. It felt right somehow, so I didn’t stop. I started looking at the world differently, noticing colors, shapes and values and mixing colors in my head! Exactly a year later, I became seduced by soft pastels, so now I dabble in both mediums, in no particular style, from the realistic to the abstract – with inspiration from moods, memories, photographs and the world around me. Sometimes, things flow, and life is good. Other times, the work is exhausting; but somehow, it always feels like it's what I should be doing.”
Mae makes extraordinary wire-wrapped jewelry, too. She says that the wrapping itch also started fairly suddenly, about five years ago. It’s a creative, tactile activity she continues to find satisfying and contemplative. She “loves introducing a pretty stone to some wire and watching what happens!” Mae is particularly drawn to the antiqued look of partially-tarnished copper and silver, and even though that process is quite labor intensive, she feels the finished “heirloom-like" result is well worth it!
She feels fortunate to be able to spend time in activities she loves - painting or gardening in the daylight hours, wrapping jewelry in the evening and in rhythmic bliss with her drumming friends during weekly classes in a beautiful drum-filled studio, just a few miles south of Staunton.
Below is a sample of the show
