John & Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art
Reno, Nevada
The Lilley Museum of Art is located on the main campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Artist: Mary Bowron
Mary Bowron was a self-taught artist with work spanning 6 decades. She developed her oeuvre in several mediums; ceramics being most well-known during her lifetime. Her body of work in monoprints and painting is extensive but was largely kept private until 2017. Mary was born in Alabama in 1933. Her childhood was spent in the southern United States; born in Alabama, moving to Louisiana as a toddler, and spending significant time in Mississippi. She attributed her early love of clay too, “playing in the mud,” in the countryside of her youth. By nature, she was preternaturally creative, imaginative, and uninterested in the convention. Mary started producing ceramics in the 1960s at the Pot Shop in Venice Beach, CA, with Hank Murrow and JaneHeald. In 1964 Mary moved briefly to Washington, DC, and then to Maryland. In Chevy Chase, Maryland, she built the first of several kilns and personal studios. This first kiln, with catenary arch, was outdoors and gas-fired. In 1969 Mary moved with her young family to Bethesda, MD, again building a gas kiln. This Bethesda kiln was significantly larger and housed in a building behind the house. She continued to pot at this location until moving to rural Maryland in 1980. Her earlier works were largely wheel-thrown functional wares. After having moved to a farm in Boyds, Maryland, she built her third gas kiln. The farm’s old bank barn and out-buildings became her creative center for work in clay. In this setting, she began to introduce more hand-built pieces and sculptures. She experimented with pit firing. Mary’s farm was a creative paradise where she was able to periodically return to and exercise her facility with printing and painting, amassing an astonishing additional body of work. There are examples from her teens of copperplate etching, something she briefly touched on in adulthood but was keeping for the time when she could no longer manage clay work. On her farm in Boyds, Mary designed and worked alongside a team of devoted friends and fellow artists to build her remarkable and massive anagama kiln. As the physical demands of working with clay would from time to time require respite, Mary always looked forward to spending more time with her works on paper and with photography. Mary lived and worked in Boyds until just before her untimely passing at the age of 84. As she would remark, “I have so much more to say.”
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