Mary March
2 Op Collective has their eyes on Mary March! Here are some examples of her work:
Q. Tell us about your work?
A. I work in many mediums and styles, but this is my favorite piece so far. Identity Tapestry is a Participatory Installation. Each participant selects a color of yarn (out of 300 some uniquely dyed skeins) to represent them. They then wrap the yarn around the identity statements they feel are part of their identity. Some of these are simple “I am a woman”, “music moves me” and some more hard-hitting “I have fought in a war”, “I have seen a someone dying”, and even “I have been raped”. As more and more people overlay the strands of their lives the interconnections and common human experiences become visible, forming a Tapestry of human identity.
The new iteration begins with the yarn in a nest/egg/womb-shaped object. As you unroll the yarn a stone it exposes the stone inside which becomes a sort of memorial marker- the course of a life.
Q. What advice do you have for your peers?
A. Advice to other artists? If you want to get anywhere as far as showing your work you need to take care of all the non-art parts of being a professional artist. Find listings of open calls for art shows (nyfa.org, wooloo.org, artlist.com, etc.). Apply to at least one thing a month. Get rejected, apply to more until you start getting in. When you first start “blind” juries that don’t care about your resume are great. Write a resume and keep it up to date. Get a webpage and keep it up to date. When you have open studios or shows, collect a mailing list and when you have the next show send it out. Read Art/Work to get a sense of how to handle your relationships with galleries (and how to get a gallery relationship in the first place) and how not to get taken advantage of. It’s a great resource for nearly everything about the business side of being an artist. Silvia White’ archived advice to artists is also helpful: http://www.artadvice.com/blog/. Basically, no matter how good you are until you start doing these things your chances of getting anywhere are slim. Don’t get discouraged by rejections, just keep getting your work out there.
Q. Where can we learn more about you and your work?
2 Op Collective 
Reblogged this on i-heart-art.org and commented:
I’ve been researching artists who aren’t from another century – I came across Mary Corey March. She’s visible on instagram, twitter, has a website and a blog where you can explore her work.
First – it’s jarring to find artists so close to my age who have done bodies of work that span decades… I’m knocked out of my frustration at coming to art late in life – I need a little shake up to remind me why I’m back in school getting a degree that no one understands. (what are you going to do with an art degree? can you make money doing that? how much will that pay?) Does no one understand that anyone who pursues art pretty much expects to be poor and subjected to constant criticism?
Damn, artists are serious badasses – I stand ready for your bullets of doubt and judgement – and then I do amazing, beautiful, imaginitive things that feed my passion and make me insanely happy. Try cashing that paycheck and go pooh-pooh someone else’s dreams.
Mary Corey March works with textiles and likes to make participants our of spectators. I connect with that – I’m going to school for this art degree because I want people to relate to art, to experience it and find that they have more facets than they thought.