Mariana Alzamora

Mariana Alzamora is one of our Society's most talented and imaginative artists.  She came to Boca Grande with her mother, also an artist, in 1977.  For many years Mariana maintained a studio behind her mother's shop on Park Avenue.  Here she painted on silk, large decorative Batiks in gorgeous colors.  Some were left as wall hangings, others sewn into scarves or clothing.

After nearly ten years of painting Batiks, Mariana suffered a back injury and was forced to have bed rest for several months.  This gave her much time for reflection.  She remembered the mystical, dreamlike watercolors she had done as a young adult in Greece.

Once well, her work returned to this early theme, but in a new medium, painted clay in bas-relief.  Mariana calls these Retablos.  Using clay, paint, and mixed media, the stylized figures are set into a painted background; the shadow box frame is a continuation of the scene to create a dreamlike environment.

Many of her pieces show an influence of Peruvian culture, for as a child she lived in Peru, where her father had a medical practice.  Mariana returned to the States to continue her secondary education and studied Fine Art at the Eastern University of Michigan.  Mariana felt the University method of teaching too confining, so she left the scholastic world to find her own world, her inner self and her direction.  It was at this time she traveled to Greece with John Dickens, the father of her two sons, Daniel and Emil Dickens.  She later attended a Batik Workshop in North Carolina.

Mariana now works in a large studio behind her home on Tarpon Avenue.  A long table is filled with work in progress.  A kiln and boxes of clay and glazes fill another room.  Often a theme will develop from her life experiences, and she will repeat this subject as it evolves into other variations, each completely unique.  She is now completing several large fountains, her beautiful figures and natural forms set in concrete.  These large pieces necessitate her working outdoors on her patio.

Her sons have followed on the artistic path.  Daniel has gone into music, while Emil is a sculptor, creating life size torsos or parts of figures.  He presently works in a foundry in New York, learning to cast sculpture into bronze.

Mariana Alzamora has taught many children on the island, instilling a new outlook and encouraging their imaginations.  She is an inspiration to us all.