Meet Mara Wagner

We recently connected with Mara Wagner and have shared our conversation below.

Mara, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I can see, now that I am older, that both my parents were very resilient. My mother was a small-town Iowa girl whose community sent her to college when her parents planned only to send her brothers. She made the most of her opportunities throughout life, despite a lot of self doubt and a number of hardships along the way; she always got up again when she fell. My father was the first Indian to emigrate to the U.S. after the end of The Asian Exclusion Act in the 1940’s. I can only imagine how lonely he was, coming from a large family and a set of devoted colleagues left behind. He, too made the most of this opportunity, afforded by Nehru’s government and The U.S. I read about him in my high school biology textbook.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I used to call myself an accidental artist, since I began sketching on vacations and figured I couldn’t draw. My children told me to draw blindly, without looking at the paper, just at the subject, and it would bypass my inner critic. It worked so well that I never stopped. I eventually added color and collage elements, took some painting and collage classes, and developed a style that feels right to me.
These days I work mainly on 18″x24″ collage with papers I paint myself or buy at art supply stores. I am a frequent guest artist in several Massachusetts galleries – Three Stones Gallery and Galaray House – and have been in many juried shows in local art associations – Cambridge Art Association and Concord Art Association – and museums – Danforth Museum and Attleboro Museum. Most recently I did a commission for a collector with a tricky wall.
I also founded a gallery in the psychoanalytic Institute where I teach, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. We have a nice permanent collection and I occasionally recruit new work for rotating exhibitions.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Hmmmm, qualities, skill, areas of knowledge? I think my experience in psychoanalysis, from both sides of the couch, was the most important influence on my art-making. I turned back into the person I started out being in childhood, before the self- consciousness set in. In a freer inner state of mind, I was able to play again and make things just for the fun of it. My only advice would be to do what you love; then if it lights you up, do it again. If it gets dull, try something else.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

The state of the nation and the world weighs heavily on me, and I find that I don’t always have the spirit to get to the studio when all seems lost. I try to do one constructive thing for the outside world each day – write a letter to a Congressperson, make a call, attend a protest, send an illustrated post card encouraging a politician to do the right thing. This helps me turn back to what keeps me going. I remember all the airline stewardesses telling us to put on our own oxygen masks before assisting others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marawagnerart.com
• Instagram: @aberdeentreehousestudio

Image Credits

Natalia Mirabito Hoar, NMMarketing.com