¡Ven a la tamalada!
A studio visit with MassArt MFA grad and printmaker Magda Leon
It hasn’t been an easy time for art schools, or liberal arts in general. Last fall, Lesley University announced cutbacks that included its graduate photography program, and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth shuttered its Star Store campus in New Bedford, which housed a gallery and studio space. Every spring for close to 20 years I’ve been writing an “MFA Grads to Watch Out For” story in the Globe, and I have seen the number of students I’m surveying shrink each year. And yet art schools are as vital to the soul of society as artists are. Visiting with the artists who have artworks up in thesis shows now seems strangely urgent this year.
Since we’re doing studio visits anyway in the “Working Artist” column, I won’t be writing a big feature story this year. Instead, I’m spotlighting one MFA grad each week. And this week, it’s a tamale party – a tamalada – with printmaker Magda Leon. Globe photographer Suzanne Kreiter and I stopped by her MassArt studio. Her thesis show piece, now on view at MassArt x SoWa, is titled “Tamalada.” It’s a quilt she stitched from banana and plantain leaves, screenprinted with layers of indigenous Guatemalan patterning. She also had a tamalada in her studio, pictured above.
Magda’s focus is on the immigrant experience and her heritage as a Guatemalan. When I asked her one of the standard Working Artist questions – do you make a living as an artist? – She said, “It gives me life.” That’s why art is so important. Here’s her story in the Globe
Fantastic work!!
lovre this work