Mary Beth Blackwell-Chapman
Artist Statement
Cultural Memory, the Power of Story, and the Natural world are recurring themes in her work. Her ceramic sculpture ranges from the human form, animals, forms from Nature, and forms that reflect how we organize and reflect our history, as individuals and as a culture. The process of making art that references Nature, Place, Story, and History, is a way she discovers herself and reflects upon powerful issues that impact our world.
The books she makes use the traditional elements of the book such as the text block, the sewn binding, and the cover, but frequently in a unconventional manner.
She is now beginning to work with cloth fiber as well as paper fiber, making large and small hangings, and sculptural books that sometimes incorporate text and sometimes do not.
Artist Bio
Mary Blackwell-Chapman is a native of – and lives in – Winston-Salem. She earned a BA in English Literature from Goucher College, Baltimore, and received an MA in Film Studies from Northwestern University in Chicago. Blackwell-Chapman studied Studio Art at University of North Carolina in Greensboro, and has attended workshops at Sawtooth Center for Visual Art, Penland, and Arrowmont, focusing on Ceramics and Book Arts.
Blackwell-Chapman was juried into Artworks Gallery in Winston-Salem in 1992, and has exhibited annually there. In addition, she has juried into shows in galleries in North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington DC. Her work is in collections in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Ohio, and France.
