Pastel Society of New Mexico

Artist's Biography

Maryann McGraw has developed a unique relationship with nature and art. Growing up in Chicago, Illinois, Maryann cultivated a deep appreciation of nature spending summer vacations in the lake country of Wisconsin and Minnesota, a stark contrast from her daily life in the heart of the inner city. She attended art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Maryann has spent her entire adult life living in the West. She started her college career as an art major, but switched to geology having developed a fascination with the history of the earth, thus completing Bachelors and Masters degrees in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin. Spending many summers as a field geologist, her love of nature grew and expanded to interests in plants, soils, water resources and wildlife habitat. Her concern is for the continual exploitation of our natural resources in a non-sustainable manner, and her career path turned a corner towards environmental protection. In the 1990’s Maryann taught landscape ecology and restoration classes at the Santa Fe Community College in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is most recently the Wetlands Program Coordinator for the New Mexico Environment Department Surface Water Quality Bureau.

Her connection to nature has grown beyond the study of its physical characteristics and the understanding of physical and biological processes, to a more emotional and intimate relationship through art. In 2001, Maryann began to paint en plein air in pastel, concentrating on New Mexico’s scenic vistas and how time and seasonal changes affect those places. She also paints intimate vignettes of streams, washes, rock formations, and grasslands. Her goal is to convey color to the viewer beyond what is captured by a mere glance, but rather looking deeply and thoughtfully into the view.

Maryann has been mentored by John Howard, a landscape painter from Placitas, New Mexico. She has also gained insight into the painting process from classes with Iva Morris, Frank Frederico and Albert Handell. Her pastel paintings have been on the cover of the Quivira Coalition’s Conference Proceedings for four years. In 2005, she won an award for her painting “Just for Love” from the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens. Recently her pastel landscape paintings of the Jemez Mountains were displayed at the Jemez Pueblo Visitor’s Center Museum in a two-person exhibit. She was the 2007 Treasurer of the Pastel Society of New Mexico and is a member of Nomadus del Artes. Maryann’s other art interests include botanical illustration and colored pencil drawings.