Iowa Artist of the Month: Ashley Mary
Please welcome Ashley Mary, a multi-disciplinary artist, designer, and muralist with an MA in Graphic/Web Design from MCAD. She splits her time living between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Des Moines, Iowa.
Can you share a bit about your background? How did you become an artist/how did your love for art begin, and who or what have been your biggest influences/how has it evolved?
"I was born and raised in Minnesota with most of my time spent in the Twin Cities and Minneapolis, where I still maintain a studio out of the Northrup King Building that I share with two artist pals. I moved to Des Moines in the summer of 2024 and live in Valley Junction with my partner and our baby. I studied religion in undergrad at Hope College and have my Masters in Graphic Design from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Hope is where I took my first studio art class and got the bug for it playing with pastels. My senior year I delightfully tripped into collage. I've always loved vintage ephemera and objects so this made sense to me. I created my first series of collages using textiles to sew into the paper. I recall my instructor being really excited about them and encouraging my experimentation. After graduating I decided to keep investing into my practice, gaining commissions and getting involved with shows. After doing that for a number of years, I really was craving to pivot to full-time creative work which is how I decided to go back to school for graphic design. By the time I graduated in my late 20s, I began freelancing/contracting in the design world doing everything from art direction, prop styling, set design, packaging, illustration, and eventually my own line of products. As far as my mural work evolved, it truly started as one person asking if I'd "ever paint on a wall" and saying yes - now I've painted over 100 murals both small and residential to large scale and over the US. In the past 10+ years I've gotten to work with tons of great brands in collaboration over products and surface design and mural work while balancing my own studio practice and I'm now a proud poster child for multi-tasking. But really I just enjoy learning new skills, playing with new materials and constantly evolving my mediums. I find the variety to my work energizing and it's given me the opportunity to work with all types of people and spaces."
What has been the most challenging obstacle in your artistic journey, and how did you overcome it?
"Two things I find most challenging and the first I think most freelance creatives can commiserate with. One is the constant anticipating of where your next project/paycheck will come from. There's not a lot of grounding in being a freelancer - you have to get used to uncertainty and thinking ahead, which can get very exhausting and overwhelming at times. I have to practice taking care of myself mentally and not letting the stress absorb me. One way I deal with the worry that comes with freelance is to focus on how I can diversify my projects and income so no one arm of my business is carrying all the weight. So year round I could be doing anything from making work in my studio to sell, running my online shop, selling at art events, graphic design services, branding, murals, product design, this takes the stress off of one thing and helps me to pivot when I need to."
"And right now, the most prevalent shift to my identity is that of becoming a mom (while keeping a creative career/practice). The balance of maintaining a personal art practice AND trying to provide with my creative work AND being a present mama, it's just a lot to hold and figure out. Every day is new and changing and I'm learning as I go. And it's a privilege to even get to have any of these opportunities too, I love being a mom so much. And I love making art so much. I feel pulled in a lot of directions and my plates just always feel full. I think rest is critical to being present (and staying sane) to all those roles but so hard to prioritize. I also think play is critical to tending to my wellbeing so I try to get involved in classes/workshops to keep me inspired, prioritizing movement when I can, staying connected to friendships, therapy....there are lots of tools, just not lots of time. And what the heck is time anymore?! I try to shift my perspective to it being "a season" and hopefully in that can hold more patience and grace for the tension of it all. Being an artist and mother is a space of dualities - both/and. I have full belief the two can tend to the other. Trying to stay focused on what I can do and not be too hard on myself for what I can't do (easier said than done)."
Can you walk us through your creative process? Do you have any rituals or routines that guide your work?
"I'm not a huge creature of routine beyond making myself coffee in the morning. I usually have too many ideas going on in my head at once so I prefer to multi-task - in my studio that translates to always working on at least 4 paintings at a time with a pile of textiles I'm painting on strewn about, and a scattering of unfinished collages nearby and always some new tool staring at me that I haven't busted into yet but I'm waiting for the moment to play. Right now that's paper mache. I recently took a paper cache workshop with local artist Genevieve Lavelle and Molly Spain and now I'm craving to quit all other obligations and just do that full-time. What guides my work most, is a curiosity of material and to see an idea through and to play. There's no one set way I approach my studio art practice but constantly shifting and asking "what if" and taking each experience with the materials as information for the next idea. I will say over the many years of doing this, I have found collage (analog and digital) to be a huge part of my sketching and ideating and that a variety of tools yields the best results for what keeps me most motivated in my process."
Your art has been featured in nationally recognized brands like Warby Parker, Lancôme, Planned Parenthood, and many more. Can you share the story behind these collaborations and what it’s like working with these brands?
"The stories are usually fairly straight forward but each their own. I've been very fortunate to be approached by these brands with the opportunity to create pieces for their packaging, interiors, or events. Everyone is always very professional and friendly, I love meeting new people and figuring out the best way to translate their ideas with my visual perspective. It's just a team of me and myself usually and with these three clients in particular, all the work was digitally created and delivered. Lancôme was especially fun to work on because of the reach and impact of the work I did on that project. The rose I designed for their Mother's Day packaging in 2023 was utilized in department stores worldwide and was really built out as an entire campaign, it's always really wild to see the scale at which designs can grow. One department store I went to in Minnesota had the rose blown up as a dimensional fabricated piece, it was fun to see at that scale. I'm really energized by client work that can expand past one space and become more multi-dimensional. And it's always a joy to support brands and organizations that I believe in and/or use, Planned Parenthood is a great example - I so admire the work they do to provide safe and accessible sexual and reproductive healthcare and it was an honor to create a some design to support one of their events."
Tell us about the pieces you're showing in the Iowa Artists Monthly Feature- what inspired them?
"Actually my move from Minneapolis to Des Moines inspired a few of the works! Last winter, I shared in a show called "Connections" with my artist friend Kelly Carambula out of Excelsior, MN and a few of those works are now included at Lidgett. They explore themes of community, solitude, staying connected to my hometown while expanding into this new one and the constantly shifting rhythms of travel and communication that each requires. I also became a mom this past year and the work explores the expanding identity shift there and how I have to navigate connection to myself and especially my relationship to my art in this new season. My piece "Potential of Abundance" and "Yes, Both/And and Everything" speak to these moments for me."
As a muralist, how do you come up with concepts for your murals? Do you start with the location, the theme, or your own inspiration? How do you hope people feel or interact when they see your murals?
"Sometimes clients give me direction for a theme for their mural. If that's the case then I'm cutting out shapes that feel symbolic or representative. If it's entirely an abstract direction, then I'm going for a feeling that I can depict through palette, mark-making, textures/patterns, and balance - I'm often thinking about movement and emotions when I'm designing a mural. In most cases, I tend to draw clients that want a mural that is inviting, bright, and playful. But I also really like approaching murals that can feel alive in a sophisticated way too, like the installation I did in Santa Barbara for Starbucks a few years ago. It would depend on the mural we're talking about, but generally I hope people feel lightness or a sense of familiarity. That perhaps the child part of them inside sort of lights up, feels invited into the moment and that some amount of warmth and energy is transferred. If anyone is paying attention to the work and maybe finds some simple delight from the passing through of it, that feels powerful to me. Artwork can serve so many purposes and one of them is hosting a moment so to speak. I hope my murals make people feel welcomed."
If you could paint a mural anywhere in the world, where would it be and what would you create?
"I have a a few places I'd be so honored to get to paint in. Kids have always been a great source of inspiration for me, and how they approach art-making is so inspiring to me. There seems to be no ego and I admire that greatly. I love watching how kids interact with my work too, I think they get the language I'm trying to speak and to be able to play a role in a shifting the feel of a space for them would be magical, especially a place of healing or learning. So I would love to paint anywhere that kids are primary guest: children's museum, children's hospital, toy shop, library, parks, etc. I also really hope to do more large exterior work generally, being able to go bigger is a curiosity I have both in concept and execution. And as long as we're manifesting, I would love to install one of my studio paintings really large scale. Much of my mural work has always been very separate from my studio work in its approach and I'd really like to execute some of my studio paintings from canvas unto a wall. And I wouldn't hate a warmer climate! Australia?! Anyone?! I need to be cut off from this question, not short on ideas."
