Monterey Peninsula Art Foundation
MaryLee Sunseri
“Every work of art is the child of its time.” Wassily Kandinsky
 Green Boat, soft pastel, 5" x 7"
There is a flow from one art form to another. Curiosity leads. As a child I was drawn to music and the shapes of dance, then singing and songwriting, and the dramatic lights of the theatre. My mother, daughter of a foundryman and sculptor, attended Rhode Island School of Design. My father was an MIT grad Electrical Engineer, specializing in lighting. Seeing was something we did as a family. Everyplace we went was a visual experience. We talked, laughed, and sang about all the things we saw. Most of my early years were spent in Marblehead, Massachusetts. My teens were spent on the edge of the Santa Monica Mountains and Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades.
I left home at twenty to tour with a show band-- four shows per night, six nights per week, nine years criss crossing the country. There was a lot to see. Hours driving through farmland and desert and mountains and along the waters of the Great Lakes, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf. Cities and highways and train trestles and dust storms and red rocks and salt flats and forests and Everglades. America. I brought small art that traveled well. Tole painting in my hotel room. Stitching costumes in the back seat of the van.
Old Barn at Monterra
In 1985 I began singing for children in preschools and libraries. There was always the necessity of art and craft in the making of show props. I designed the covers of my 16 CD's, winning several national awards for my recordings for children of original and traditional songs. It's been 30+ years and the children I first sang for bring their children to sing with me now.
Cypress, pastel on sanded paper, 5" x 7"
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Junco on Pumpkin, soft pastel, 5" x 7"
There have been many teachers along the way, and more to come, but I wouldn’t have had the courage to put brush to paper without reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards in 1983. Ms. Edwards was the best friend of my choral teacher, Margaret Pasella, a connection I hold dear. All my life I have adored the works of the Impressionists, especially Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas and am currently in love with the same French soft pastels they used.
Roiling Sea. soft pastel, 5x7"
My husband is artist, sculptor and painter, Frank Sunseri. I couldn’t ask for a better mentor and encourager. Nothing is more fun than the two of us seeing the world together.
Apple and Pear, pastel on paper, 5" x 7"
My work can be seen at MPAF Gallery, 425 Cannery Row, Monterey, California
For more about my music visit: www.maryleemusic.com |