"Margaret Dowell, a woman of tremendous talent, intelligence and strength, is a force of and with Nature. Her compassion and respect for the world at large shines, not only through her art but through her activism, her writing, her teaching and absolute determination to leave us all better for having known her"
Maggie Ball
Maggie Ball is an artist and Professor Emeritus, Carroll Community College
About Margaret
Margaret Dowell's personal history includes both laboring beside her family in the tobacco fields of Southern Maryland (planting, cutting, stripping 609) and High Academia (BA, MFA, PhD).
An art educator by career, her teaching resume includes public schools, colleges, and universities. A visual artist by fate, she began in her youth drawing in the dirt, then as a young woman creating installations (shown mainly in Washington DC Universities and Art Centers. Painting social commentary works in oils followed. These works often addressed the likes of gender, violence, mental health and addiction. Today she lives on her ancestral farm (1700s), painting images inspired by farm life - both past and present.
Artist Statement
"In my paintings I visually address life as it presents itself to me - both in sparks of color and meaning. A long-time goal of mine has been to make art that is accessible, art that strives to contribute to the generating of a more tolerable existence, and, as such, my works tend to have a narrative bent.
The following words have traveled with me throughout my life as an artist and remain relevant:
The making of Art for me has always been a continual search for the instant when the artwork takes on its own life. It is a physical, spiritual, intellectual and psychological process which can be simultaneously humbling and elating.
