Resume
Mary Louise Learned
EDUCATION
1982 MFA California Institute of the Arts/dance
1980 BFA California Institute of the Arts/dance
EXHIBITIONS, COMMISSIONS & AWARDS
| 2010 |
You Are 24 Carrots A fiber sculpture commission for Boulder Community Hospital’s fundraiser Boulder Busts Cancer |
| 2010 | Mining for Gold A slide show presentation about creative process for Front Range Contemporary Quilters “Sometimes you are in the root, sometimes in the stalk and then you are in the studio with the Flower” |
| 2009 | Alchemy of Cloth Solo exhibition, University of Colorado's UMC Art Gallery Twelve textiles including two site-specific installations Discs with Cross Hairs and Automatic Writing Artist talk Alchemy: a method or power of transmutation. The seeming miraculous change of a thing into something better. |
| 2009 | Street Dance Debuted at Quilt National 2009 Dairy Barn Art Center, Athens, Ohio Currently touring the United States A publication called Quilt National 2009 is available with artist statements for more than 80 of the Best of Contemporary Quilts by Lark Books. |
| 2009 | Hot Spots Colors of Life: The Fiber Art of the Front Range Contemporary Quilters. Hosted by the Carnegie Arts Center, Alliance, Nebraska Juror Jane Saurer of www.jsauergallery.com Sante Fe, NM juror's comment: "I can just feel the "hot spots" in this piece. I love the loose approach and variety of textures and marks. The marks have a sense of playfulness and yet a sense of order. The colors and marks seem to float across the surface and settle in the correct places. The irregular edges are wonderful and fit with the whole.” |
| 2008 | Landscape A commissioned nine-foot wide triptych quilt depicting themes of winter, Spring, summer, and fall of the Rocky Mountains with flower gardens and horse pastures Private residence in Boulder, CO |
| 2008 | Birch Bark Altered Threads: work by Front Range Contemporary Quilters Sangre de Cristo Arts Center, Pueblo, CO Karin Larkin, curator |
| 2008 | O Train This is how I see it: Art and Politics in America, Art Students League of Denver presents a juried exhibition with students, members and faculty commenting on the issues they're most passionate about. In an election year, politics and important issues are on everyone's minds. Whether it's global warming, terrorism, civil liberties, war, health care or other pressing issues. |
| 2007 | Moon Girls and Fish Tails Quilts=Art=Quilts 25th Annual Juried Quilt Show Shweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, New York Curator Eugenia Barnes Jurors: Ann Clarke, M. Joan Lint Ault, and Robert Shaw Keynote speaker: Robert Shaw, A History of the Art Quilt |
| 2006 | Scaffold Group exhibition at Boulder Public Library with participating artists of Boulder's Annual Open Studio's Tour |
| 2006 | Trees + Earth Line as journey Art Students League of Denver Used metaphorically in the journey through life, or perceived quite literally as an essential element of art in every media, league artists take the concept of lines in art and wonder over and through every surface conceivable. |
| 2005 | Haiku #1 Sacred Threads 192 original quilts by 120 artists from across the US and Canada Quilts exploring the themes of Spirituality, Inspiration, Joy, Healing and Grief Sponsored in part by Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, www.equilter.com and Fishers Gardens Reynoldsburg High School, Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Review by kaizaad Kotwal Thought-Provoking Quilts Delve into the Metaphysical Realm for the Columbus Dispatch "Haiku #1 by Mary Louise Learned. "Learned uses a minimalist approach in form and color. The mostly off-white quilt with hints of orange thread is beautifully simple. Viewers focus meditatively on the stitching and detailed textures of the various panels that make up the quilt." |
| 2005 | Ox-herding in America Best of Studio Art Quilts and Associates (SAQA) group exhibit at Quilt Market and Festival Houston, Texas Juror Jahje Bath-Ive’s statement" Quilt making is an art form with a long history and I felt that the entries for this competition covered many aspects and interpretations in the long lineage of quilts. Many of the quilt artists in this show also used their own hand dyed fabrics as the blocks from which they built their works". |
| 2004 | Still life with Silkworm, Haiku, and Migrating Mariposa East of the Moon- five worlds five person exhibition at The Lincoln Gallery, Naropa University. Boulder, Colorado Susan Edwards, Julia Lunk, Sophia Dixon and Leah Vane Greene Curator: Sky Brooks |
| 2003 | Sign and Symbol Quilt National 2003 at the Dairy Barn Arts Center Athens, Ohio A juried competition with 1,452 works submitted by 676 artists from 23 countries 86 were chosen to tour the US for approximately 2 years A publication of the 2003 exhibit is available at Lark Books "Quilt National 2003, the best of contemporary quilting" |
| 2002 | Still Life with Silk Worm, Heart Beat, Migrating Mariposa Group exhibition and artist talk curated by Jo Fitsel at OZ Architecture, Denver, CO |
| 2001 | Something’s Up with Jack The Landscape of Contemporary Quilting ll Denver International Airport presents: Art Quilts at DIA a group exhibition with Front Range Contemporary Quilters Denver International Air-port, Denver, Colorado |
| 2001 | Migrating Mariposa Boulder Art Associations 10th National Juried Exhibition received best of mixed media award |
| 1997 | Lady of the Carpet The artist and the quilt at Metro State College Denver, CO Juried group exhibition with Front Range Contemporary Quilte |
NOTABLE REVIEWS FROM 1980 TO 1979
Publication Dance News/ National Reports December 1979
by John Dougherty
CalArts' Students
Cristyne Lawson, CalArts' new Dean of Dance is inspiring her students to highly individual efforts. At the October 26 Dance Open House in Theater ll, Mary Razey came onstage in a fighting, violent mood and aimed he anger at a baby grand piano. She hit it, raised the keyboard lid and pushed it down with a shattering thud. She climbed onto the piano and danced a banging, writhing, rolling solo. Mean time her partner, Michael Love was playing the piano and contributing comedy. It was wild, tragicomic, and original.
Publication Los Angeles Times March 31,1980 excerpted article by Lewis Segal
Begun a year ago, the Kinetikos Dance Foundation's Choreographers' Showcase was designed to give recognition and production support to worthy creative artists not yet ready to form formal companies or fill entire evenings. The showcase presented seven such artists two weeks ago and over the weekend, seven more local choreographers introduced new works at Pacific Motion Dance Center in Venice. Mary Razey and Michael Love used music to Emmy Lou Harris to deflate the act of performance in their comic theater piece "3 guesses", incorporating their own critique: The Danseuses got spattered with a hurled tomato and the accompanist was gunned down, Ars longs, vita brevis.
Publication The Hollywood Drama-Logue (Americas foremost casting newspaper)
April 24-30 1980
An excerpt from the article Dance Spectrum by Martin A. David/ Dance Critics Ass
The second weekend in Kinetikos Foundations choreography concert series brought forth a beast, a clown, and a surrealistic potpourri. The message beamed loudly and clearly by the concert was that independent and non-academic choreography is very much alive in Los Angeles and doing well, thank you. 3 guesses by Mary Razey with Michael Love was an intriguing character study filtered through a dreamlike fantasy. A comatose, frowsy lady is dragged on stage and animated by a mysterious man in jockey shorts, a misshapen fedora and dark glasses. A guy in the audience throws a tomato. Water cascades down from buckets poised in the rafters. The tomato thrower jumps up and shoots the man in the black shorts who has started to play the piano (but not that badly) and runs out a fire exit. Madness, yes, but the Artists had researched the madness and they (especially Ms. Razey) had their technique down pat, which made the piecework on its own terms. Want to know what it's about? The title tells you: you've got 3 guesses.
Mary Louise Learned's birth name was Mary Razey
She was a recipient of a James Irvine, CalArts and Lou and Eddie Wasserman scholarship while attending CalArts from 1977-1982