Mary Calkins loved art from a young age and everyone around her, including herself, knew that she would become an artist. She could spend most of her free time doing artwork. Starting artwork at such a young age provided her with the means to continually refine her technique. It also provided her with the opportunity to learn a lot from other renowned artists. Her work is non-representational, allowing individual interpretation and response. Mary began studies in 1971, but left for some time before returning to the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston to study for a BFA degree in painting in Painting and graduated with honors. During this time, she developed an interest in Native American culture, which led her to study at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She now pursues printmaking and painting full time. She combines different techniques to obtain unique results; the resulting images are rich with color, texture and with historical and environmental influences. Mary forces the viewer to become involved in the geometry her carefully sequenced compositions and to deliberate on them until that deliberation becomes a meditation that evokes mantras that utter a special spirituality. One of her favorite techniques is the incorporation of collage in her work. She currently works in a studio in a peaceful environment of central Massachusetts woodland which has been her family's home for more than a century. Her paintings clearly show that she has an affinity for modern abstraction. She has developed several unique techniques, and is always searching for new ways to combine multiple imagery and mediums.
