Check Out Mary Little’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Little.

Hi Mary, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Northern Ireland and trained as a furniture designer at London’s Royal College of Art. For over two decades, I developed bespoke furniture for private clients. Designing forms that were not only practical but also with emotion. In 2001, I moved to the United States to take up a teaching position at California College of the Arts (CCA), San Francisco. It was another few years until I made a conscious break from furniture design and began creating abstract works devoid of functional references.

I’ve always considered myself a sculptor. These days, I’m able to fully explore this title without bounds, albeit using an unconventional material: raw canvas. It’s challenging, exciting, and quite meticulous work that allows me to play with concepts like light and shadows, balance and proportion, texture and repetition. Though my inspiration comes from the fabric itself, many of my pieces evoke the landscape of my childhood and memories of my mother’s knitting. In this way, life has come full circle.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Precision is essential with pattern-making and sometimes can be difficult to achieve. Manipulating canvas requires a certain amount of improvisation and determination. There are instances when I’ve put months of work into a piece and must give up on it. I hold onto the failures, figuratively but literally, storing them away in hopes when I bring them out to explore again, new ideas or directions will arise. This work is fraught with lessons in patience, fortitude, and perspective!

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My approach is to take an unassuming material and form it into something wondrously calming. While my works are muted and minimalist (in color)*, they are commanding in their tranquility and softness. They ask, ever so politely, to be studied in their various motifs.

Shifting from furniture design to sculptural art was a creative departure that perhaps took some inner strength. Though the two paths are distinct, they are connected. Having a proclivity for sewing and fascination with fabric propelled me to face the challenges that come with starting anew.

Lineage, at the Gallery on the Rooftop, 1700 S Santa Fe, Downtown. Wednesday-Saturday, 12-6, through Saturday April 23.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I’m an artist and am self-managed, in that I run my studio autonomously. In future, artists will manage their own careers more and they will begin to understand that if they take control: they can make their best work, develop a strong career and make an exceptional living. With innovations in digital marketing it will be easier. And with younger artists coming up, it will seem natural to them to go this route.

There will though, always be a huge role for galleries.

From an art lover’s perspective, it will be easier to be a collector and throughout, we’ll see more original art on the walls of the general public.

Pricing:

Image Credits

Mary Little Studio