Diana Greene Winston-Salem Monthly April 2008 Artist in Residence: Mary Ann Zotto

Artist Mary Ann Zotto is treading lightly as she experiments with a new concept. Five rectangular canvases are taped along the wall of her downtown studio. Some are nearly done, others remain untouched. Zotto is drawing and painting her way to knowing whether her latest inspiration has legs.

Using old journals as a springboard, Zotto has been searching page by page, notebook by notebook, looking for images that could open the door into a new body of work. A tall stack of spiral journals on her desk are flagged with colorful post-its. The journal idea came to Zotto while teaching last year at North Carolina’s renowned Penland School of Crafts.

“I’ve never mined these journals for work before,” she says, “They are a separate world for me, a private dialogue, but maybe there are things I need to think about.”

Maybe is the operative word. As an artist who digs deeply, her explorations typically last two years, meaning any new venture must be looked at in what she calls “a cold turkey kind of way.” And for an artist who creates “narrative fantasy,” the journal material initially seemed “too restrictive.” To generate some play in the process, she began using crayons, pencils, pastels, and about five different markers.

Zotto’s first drawings featured her house, pets, and other “sweet” things she’s never used in her art. But as the drawings progressed, those elements began giving way to narratives where disparate worlds collide, reality slides into the surreal, and, before long, a clock may appear on the roof of a house. Obsessed with mortality since the age of 9, clocks are a common symbol that surface in her work.

“I have no idea what these drawings are about yet, and that’s nice,” says the artist, who values unconscious intelligence more than conscious intent. Discovery is at the heart of her creative drive.

In the painting, “Coming Home to Roost,” Zotto combined an aerial view of her house and a clown from the Rune deck of cards, both images lifted from journals. The safety of home is countered by a dead man hanging from the clown’s spear. Zotto relishes this kind of juxtaposition. “Sooner or later the dream sequence comes back in,” she explains. “The different forms develop into an accidental story.”

While Zotto experiments, she remains committed to a visual vocabulary developed as a child growing up along the Texas-Mexico border. Her early visual experiences serve as the through line across her career, which includes several degrees and many decades spent painting, weaving, and papermaking.

As a girl, she often flew in her father’s small airplane. She absorbed the “vast” landscape - the roads and crops and colors - from high elevations. Many of her works feature the aerial view that provides an ideal - even idealized - vantage point for capturing a sweeping, undulating topography. 

“You can’t grow up west of the Mississippi and not come back to the land,” Zotto says. “It’s everything. It’s visceral.”

While Zotto’s landscapes now feature Walkertown or Walnut Creek, her exuberant palette remains tied to early Mexican influences and the extremity of her native geography. In the landscape, “Another Exit,” streams of reds, pinks, blues and yellows roll and cross over the sprawling fields and valleys; every square inch is vibrating, psychedelic, boldly shouting with life.

“When you live with the 112-degree sun beating down, the highlights are screaming yellow. There’s an intensity, a vibration, everything is amped up,” she says. “Moderation does not feel familiar.” It’s a statement that seems more broadly applicable to the zest and drive that propels Zotto’s fascinating vision of the world.

When did you realize you would live a creative life?

In my first painting class. It felt like home.

Where do you find your inspiration?

I’m not sure. There seems to be a barrage of it.

What do you do to overcome a creative block?

I haven’t hit one yet.

What do you think of failure?

I participate often!

What quality do you admire in other artists?

Insatiable curiosity.

Which artists do you admire?

People like Walter Anderson, who were completely mad and irrevocably disciplined at the same time.

What would surprise people to find out about you?

That I’m quite reserved and private.