About the Artist
Marilyn Narey is a transdisciplinary artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A former teacher, university professor, and author of scholarly books, Narey has recently transitioned to full time arts-focused endeavors in her pulpandpaperworks studio as well as the new enterprise, un/common lines (for poets, writers and community groups).
Throughout her career as an award-winning educator and internationally-recognized scholar, Narey argued against labels that “siloed” academics with artificial boundaries between disciplines and instead she promoted multimodal literacy and transdisciplinary approaches to learning. It is this same transdisciplinary perspective that she brings to her current creative work: “Although I paint, sculpt, draw, write, etc., I don’t define myself as a painter, sculptor, or poet—I even struggle with the label “artist” because what I do, the media I choose for each work, the form that it takes, grows out of my intense dialogue with the conceptual idea behind the piece. Additionally, that dialogic process is informed by science and psychology in my work with visual perception, by technology, history and culture. Going beyond any disciplinary perspective, I ask, what mode best communicates what I am trying to say? How will my compositional choices engage others in conversation with the work? What meanings are embedded in the materials that I bring together? My role as the creative, is to explore the many “voices” of meaning to discern the essence of a conceptual idea that can be presented in some tangible form– what society calls “art.” It is not about one discipline, but rather about the idea or problem, the conceptual meaning. That work transcends disciplines.”
Beyond her initial degree in Art Education, Narey has been awarded a Doctorate in Education (Curriculum and Instruction), and two Masters (Reading Specialist and Instructional Technology) as well as certifications in Language Arts and Social Studies. She is past president of South Hills Art League, and currently a member of Madwomen (Carlow University), Pittsburgh Poetry Society, Fifth & Wood Poets Collective, and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.
“As a transdisciplinary artist, working in pulp and paper frees me from disciplinary structures…It is not about one discipline, but rather about the idea or problem, the conceptual meaning, and that work transcends, goes beyond, disciplines.”