Mary Plaster, M.A., is a multi-media artist, facilitator, and presenter, residing with her family since 2000 on Spirit Mountain, which overlooks scenic Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Originally interning with the world renown Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company, she has been creating and teaching across various genres and venues of studio and theater art for 30 years, earning degrees, grants, and world travel experiences on this path. Mary's knowledge of "cheap art" magic was initially gleaned years ago living south of the border, working with creative recycling, papier-mâché experts of central Mexico. She has since admired firsthand the inventive folk art of the Americas, India and France.
Since events of 9-11, Mary has also extensively studied Earth-based wisdom, Creation Spirituality (CS) with post-modern theologian and author Matthew Fox, the Work That Reconnects (WTR) with Joanna Macy, Sacred Activism (ISA) with Andrew Harvey, and Magickal Activism with Starhawk. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Wisdom University, writing her dissertation on giant puppets and masks in ritual and celebration.
With her own Spirit Mountain Dancing Icons, Mary has focused on the organic nature of these larger-than-life paper entities, which call for inventive reuse of discarded materials, as well as a group process that encourages (gives heart to) collectives of actively engaged participants. Community art approaches stand in sharp contrast to mere entertainment of lone spectators in our television-bombarded culture. Many sets of hands have helped construct and embody her very biggest creations and she assists others in brainstorming to bring their ideas to visual fruition. In parades and various ceremonies Mary also volunteers the possibility of "stepping into" the role of a famous ancestor peacemaker or a personified energy for social justice. Her series features: Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and more abstract archetypes of the "Green Man," "Gaia," and the "Black Madonna."
Mary received a 2008 McKnight/ARAC (Arrowhead Regional Arts Council) Individual Career Development Grant to attend the July apprentice program with Peter Schumann's 45-year-old Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont. Immediately upon her return from the "Northeast Kingdom," she was a guest curator for the Duluth Art Institute (DAI), organizing an exhibit, Effigies of Peace and Protest: The Art of Social Activism, featuring four decades of selected historically significant street theater art. This 2008 pre-election show displayed Bread and Puppet Theater, the 35-year-old In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (HoBT) of Minneapolis and local works. This art show inspired two All Souls Night (Dia de los Muertos) celebrations in the downtown area.
Mary and her original 3D designs have toured to several interfaith conferences across the Midwest and California Bay Area, and to the 2007 Burning Man Project in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Her Gandhi entity appeared in the Twin Cities antiwar marches during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Mary was staff artist for HOBT's 2008 MayDay Parade in S. Minneapolis entitled, "A New Bridge, Infrastructure for the Future Beings," and she annually works for the St. Paul Ordway Center's ARTmoves Parade.
Summer Activities 2009
Water Works: Artistic Expressions Concerning Water, "The Face of Gaia" group art show in the Sanctuary at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth, September Maritime Visitor Center on Canal Park, Duluth, Minnesota, July
Gathering Gratitude "Welcome Back Sunday" display, "Puppet & Harvest Bowl," Hennepin Ave. United Methodist Church in Minneapolis, MN, September
Creation Spirituality Communities Gathering w/ Rev. Matthew Fox, Ph.D.
Principles and Practices of Creation Spirituality class with Matt Henry, D.Min.
Conference visuals and art facilitation, Jubilee Community, Asheville, NC, July
Summer Program, Duluth Children's Museum in the Great Hall of the Depot, June
"Larger-Than-Life" puppetry PowerPoint, demonstration, and papier-mâché activity
Also "Giant Hand with Bubble Wand" display at the Bubble Festival, MN, August
Midwest Regional Collaborative for Sustainability Education, Presented /participated in this workshop as an Elder/Storyteller, art facilitator: Cosmic Walk Solstice Ritual, group Gaia sculpture and final group performance, Northland College in Ashland, WI, June
Spring 2009
ARTmoves Parade worked with St. Paul recreation departments creating units for the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts' Flint Hills International Children's Festival, May
A Council of All Beings, Deep ecology classes, adults developed masks/costumes for discussion about Earth's future, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth, March
Rosa Parks Lives! Celebration of National Women's History Month, Rosa sightings/ contest on the city buses, she (again) refused to give up her seat! Duluth YWCA, March
Winter 2009
Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend events merged with celebration of President Barack Obama's Inauguration for Duluth Community Breakfast, March, and Rally, January
Befriending the Darkness, Duluth Winter Solstice celebration, Lincoln DAI, December
Fall Activities 2008
Coming of Age, Center for Interfaith Relations (CIR) Festival of Faiths: puppets played w/ Brian Swimme, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Malidoma Some, Louisville, KY, November
All Souls Night coordinated community procession/celebration of art, costumes, puppets, music and dance. Large Death entity closed "Effigies" DAI Depot art show, November
Art in the Heart of Community, statewide Community and Technical Colleges Fine Art Conference, facilitated group sculpture, Lake Superior Community College, October
Spirituality of Work, College of Saint Scholastica Spirituality Conference, gave talk and power point entitled: Work of the People: Postmodern Ceremony & Celebration, October
