Mary March
Since 2008
Works in San Francisco, California United States of America

BIO
Am a contemporary artist of many mediums living and working in San Francisco.

I formed a perspective on the world from extensive world travel from an early age, a family of academics (including an anthropologist mother and a sociologist father), a Unitarian Universalist upbringing and being constantly exposed to art. 

I grew up believing in the value and beauty of a multiplicity of belief systems and cultures, while at the same time feeling it entirely appropriate to not only examine all of them, but challenge each idea I came across. 

I am fascinated by culture, folklore, religions, social psychology and just simply the way people think. How do we define ourselves, our world and our place in it? How have other people done so in the past? Where are the common threads? Where are the boundaries? I ask these questions with both profound respect for the humanity in those definitions and absolute disregard for the sanctity of definitions for their own sake. 

I subscribe to the very Unitarian and Transcendental view of Walt Whitman- to listen to all sides and sift them for myself... and then I like to pick that idea up a moment or a year later and question it again. 

To fill that sieve I have tried to experience as many sides of life as I could do justice to. I have lived in woods and cities. I have been a competitive gymnast, a dancer, weaver, bouncer, salesperson, tight-rope walker, fire-dancer, stilt-walker, … even a bagel-slinger. After doing both Shiatsu massage and martial arts for 16 years, those are some of the most essential, as is being a teacher, but throughout everything I am and have always been an artist.

Now (living so near Silicon Valley) I am surrounded by computer programmers and engineers (including my husband) and that has added yet another dimension to my work and experience.

Each things adds to the others. I believe that in order to produce meaningful work an artist must draw from a rich and meaningful observation and experience of life.