Mary Ann de Buy Wenniger creates original fine prints, known as collagraphs, in her home studio at 70 Holly Street, Gloucester, MA, where you are invited to come watch her artistic process. Her work expresses her delight in everyday life, the quotidian. She enjoys capturing an ordinary moment and telling its story.
Wenniger chooses as her subjects: landscapes and seascapes, clothing and clotheslines. People engaged in all sorts of work, and most recently, Aprons with Attitude . They are beautiful celebrations of American life, people and places.
Her unique style of printmaking – collagraphs- are made from plastic glues affixing found materials to a base: fabrics, papers, string, eggshells, feathers abstractly suggesting subjects she has loved and providing unpredictable textures and gestures. The assembled collage is then painted with oil-based paints. Richly colored and permanent and printed on rag paper by means of a roller type intaglio press. Each collagraph print is uniquely colored. It becomes a separate exclusive monotype oil painting.
Mary Ann has enjoyed success not only as a printmaker, but as an informed voice on printmaking. With credentials from several notable schools, including an M.A. in Art Education from Harvard University. Mary Ann has published four titles, of which Collagraph Printmaking, the definitive book on the subject (Watson-Guptill), is still available through Amazon. For forty years she and her late husband, Mace, operated the well-respected Wenniger Graphics in Boston, Rockport, and Provincetown.
Mary Ann now runs Wenniger Cottage Gallery out of Stone Cottage, her home, art showroom and studio.