MARIA ASHKIN

maria@ashkin.com

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Art, Fine Arts & Bachelor of Science, Botany
University of California Santa Cruz 

• Majors: Botany and Art
• Related Coursework: introductory and intermediate sculpture, photo-based printmaking, silkscreen, lithography, introductory and intermediate photography, introductory drawing, digital printmaking, and foundry.

Artist Strengths: 

•  Apt with wood working, foundry, photography, digital arts, and printmaking.

LEADERSHIP & EXHIBITIONS

Outreach and Communication:

• Designed six tree posters to promote outdoor education and exploration in the living laboratory located on the UCSC Campus Nature Reserve (CNR).
• Curated Seeking Symbiosis, an art and science collaboration with UCSC art students and Jennifer Harrower, a UCSC PhD. student and artist who is researching the impacts of climate change on the Joshua Tree.
• Designed all the art for a brochure for the UCSC seed library in collaboration with Cole Thomas, a UCSC senior, who won an award for the brochure as his senior project. Seed Library Brochure
• Aided other UC students with photo-based printmaking, an upper division art studio course taught by my mentor and world renowned artist, Jimin Lee. http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/lee/johnson.htm
• Created artistic presentations for conferences on my own scientific research on fungi in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and on stream ecology at Big Creek Natural Reserve, Big Sur, CA.

Current Art and Leadership Experience

• Awarded an independent study with Jimin Lee to create my first art installation, Terrain. This show is the cumulative presentation of my art work as an undergraduate. Simultaneously, I am mentored by Brian Quan, the master carpenter at UCSC, to further my skills and aspirations as a wood worker and artist.

Exhibitions:

• On February 27, 2015, I had my first solo show at the Eduardo Carrillo Gallery on the UCSC campus.  The installation and exhibition was my senior project and was called Terrain.

Art Experience and Leadership prior to University

• Interned as an art teaching assistant through an organization (FACT) that provides supplemental art programs in public schools for at risk youth in Española, New Mexico.
• Studied drawing at Oxford University during their summer Oxbridge program.
• As the senior yearbook editor, I designed and led my senior yearbook class. We made the yearbook from scratch with no templates and included drawings submitted by students on every page with the aid of Photoshop and Indesign.
• Featured artist with the inception of Grazia Peduzzi’s website: http://emergentartspace.org/