About

About the work

My pieces combine drawing and collage and are made with ink and acrylics on a material called Pellon. It’s a sheer cloth often used as an interfacing between surfaces, but I love it for it's floating and paper like properties.

Many of the tools I use are a bit unusual. I have bamboo stakes from gardening, with brushes and pens attached to make a variety of strokes. And my sewing machine (from high school), is used as a way of "drawing" lines with stitches and collaging new forms.

With these fluid strategies things easily get out of control. It is a dance between ideas and intuition; a back and forth between letting things happen and making them happen. All of these forces become pieced together in works that are both made and found.

Professional History

Mara Metcalf has been exhibiting professionally since completing her BFA at the Rhode Island school of Design (RISD) (’80) and an MFA from Tufts University/Museum School Boston (’88). Originally from Portland Oregon, Mara moved to Rhode Island to pursue her painting studies at RISD.

In the winter of 2024, Metcalf will show at Grimshaw Gudewicz Gallery/Bristol Community College in Fall River, MA.

Recent exhibitions of her work include:

“Natural Consequences" was held at Salve Regina University in Newport, RI. Metcalf both curated and exhibited in this four person show, on the theme of urban nature.
"Enigmatic Space" at Chazan Gallery in Providence, RI.
"Between the Shadow and the Fence" at Harper College Gallery in Palatine, IL. This solo show was the prize awarded for her piece exhibited in the National Juried Small Works show of
"Birds Eye View" at the AS220 Project Space in Providence, RI.
“Arcadia” at Krause Gallery in the Moses Brown School.

Her work is in the collection of the RISD Museum in Providence RI.
Several of Mara’s paper collages are in the Boston Drawing Project at Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston MA.

For over 30 years she has been a member of the faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, teaching drawing and mixed media. She received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010 and was nominated again in 2015. Mara also taught courses and workshops through the RISD Foundations and CE program and has her studio and home in Providence RI.