North Georgia Arts Guild - Maria Castano

North Georgia Arts Guild Reconstituting Frameworks: The Far Away Worlds of Maria Castano

By Susan Brewer

The work you see here is by artist Maria Castano, the newest member of the North Georgia Arts Guild. Her visual language is striking and richly detailed, otherworldly—exotic, like the life of Marco Polo, the Viennese merchant who trekked from Italy to the Middle East to China and back again in the 13th century. Maria’s works are inhabited by Middle Eastern and Oriental influences. Much like Marco Polo, Maria has traveled around the world to benefit her work. Until recently, home was in Vermont. From the north eastern United States, she has traveled around North America and further, to New Zealand, Australia, Asia, and Europe for art training, drawn by inspiration and fancy. Maria grew up in Plymouth County, Massachusetts in a small town south of Boston called Brockton. Her father was a leather cutter there in what was the shoe capital of the world. There were about a hundred manufacturing outfits in town and as a cutter he was on-call to all. His role represented

the first step in goods manufacturing—everything from soles and bodies of shoes to purses… and later while working for himself, to washers for fancy drums. The list – the variety of things that he took part in manufacturing – is endless. And Maria’s art fortunes are heir to this work. She gathers things; she deconstructs them and then reconfigures them, these separate things from around the world together—imagining new ways things can be made to fit together—to tell the story about her family, her life, and her ideas. Unwritten there, too, are the careful questions she asks of the world she lives in.

Here we see details of Mario Prada Walks Beneath Stars Of Murgia And Above The Egyptian Pyramids. That fir trim you see once edged the collar of a coat her mother wore. We see an image of a saint dear to her older sister who died. To these are added carefully dissected Italian embroidered silk shoes by Prada, as well as vinyl, Indian glass beads, a zipper—a very large zipper—plus counterfeit Chinese coins, Japanese silk, metallic paint, fittings, and screws. The visual journey is there for the taking. These ornaments are collaged – that is, glued or cemented – onto an assembled, two-piece board backing. (Maria spends a lot of time gluing things together.) Maria is a straight-up New England soul… kind, full of serious and practical virtues. In person, her mood is warm, light, infectious, and funny. A jazzy, small town woman and cosmopolitan lady with a passion for adventure—that’s what she is at heart. Her works take us where we would never visit without her, and it’s fun. We step out of our tidy, comfortable, known, easy-to-assemble worlds to visit her loves and curiosities and obsessions.

If she had been allowed her druthers, she would have spent the last several years volunteering for the Peace Corps in Morocco, in northwestern Africa. She experienced a medical trauma that has made it difficult to do most things she did before and is now in Clayton near family. She just spent several weeks taking advantage of the artist-in-residence facilities at the Lillian E. Smith Center nearby. It allowed her to get back into producing new art works. She may be slowed down but she’s finally revving up her art engine and continuing her work here. New York art critic, Jonathan Goodman, described Maria’s art by saying that it maintains rigor and control while combining forms in intricate patterns that are both organic and geometric. Her works are densely packed with contrasting elements. You may enjoy the perfectly round shapes and triangles and other straight-edged stuff. But those abstract shapes are married to fluid, gestural, painterly, even calligraphic themes. The contrast is sharp. Maria is, too. If you are interested in finding out more about her work, you can email her at marieinmorocco.com (“Marie in Morocco” dot com).

The North Georgia Arts Guild is a growing collective of 100+ members who seek to celebrate the art and artists of our community. For more information – northgeorgiaartsguild.com Susan Brewer has been writing articles featuring North Georgia Arts Guild members since April 2017. Email your comments/ questions to her at sbrewer991@gmail.com