I have seen art heal a community. I believe the act of making together forms a sacred relationship. I would like to protect the act of art making. Artists are essential historians and teachers. Above all, they are people who are courageous enough, and I believe inherently wise, to put something into this world. I would like to foster and restore this spirit. I would like to build a school that teaches art making through trades. This school would teach art, trades and science. I am inspired by the German Bauhaus institute, and by guild workshops which Leonardo Da Vinci trained under.

I realized my dad had bulimia because I would hear him after the dinner we cooked together. This was impactful and painfully enlightening. Food completely changed. It became terrifying, it became a measurement and an objectified of my dad's pain. Pain that I would hear every night. In the wake of this I feel I have a responsibility to myself to continue to treat food as nutrition. Everyone has their own relationship to food. I still cook dinner with my dad, I feel that preparing food remains a sacred ceremony between us, and I think it may be the key to helping my dad as best I can. I feel I can only lead by example and remember that everyone has a different relationship to food. I believe it is necessary to re-understand what food is, what health is.

I live in Madrid, New Mexico, where the land is harsh and unforgiving. Only through helping community elders I have a sense of the spirit it takes to grow life into the soil. Madrid is a former coal mining town, and the soil is part coal and soot. I understand Madrid as a self sustaining community, where responding to the environment is a key part of weathering the seasons. I understand the best way to live is to create harmony with the land. In order to be a part of the ecosystem, I like sticking to local resources and tools. I have grown to realize that local supplies are the key to understanding how to make change long-lasting. It was with this spirit that I built a greenhouse and started a garden. I salvaged scrap wood and two french doors, and composted with alpaca feces and weeds growing in the arroyo beds. The plants I planted were mostly kitchen scraps: squash, garlic, onions, potatoes, and corn. It is exhausting to fight against the blizzards and the 360 days of sun in New Mexico, but I feel my labor will sweeten the reward. It is most important to me that I can learn to better become part of my ecosystem.

Invention is my oldest impulse. Invention is important for my home community. Houses in Madrid NM are built out of odds and ends of wood, metal, cement, tires, and recycled glass. The memory of hanging homemade wind chimes, which sound like a family of sparrows, is evergreen. I grew up helping friends and friends of friends build their houses, garden beds, and walls. It is through this way that I understand community as a group of odds and ends, sharing the delight and labor of invention. It is with the spirit of invention that I have been building an adobe brick house. My friend and I make the team of two women weathering the land deep in the canyons of New Mexico. We started the house in July when the mud got hot in your hands after ten minutes under the sun and have continued through this winter when the ground froze to stone with cold. Each brick holds spirit. I am inspired every exhausting day. This is the first art piece that I have made a home through.

Invention is my oldest impulse. Invention is important for my home community. Houses in Madrid NM are built out of odds and ends of wood, metal, cement, tires, and recycled glass. The memory of hanging homemade wind chimes, which sound like a family of sparrows, is evergreen. I grew up helping friends and friends of friends build their houses, garden beds, and walls. It is through this way that I understand community as a group of odds and ends, sharing the delight and labor of invention. I have seen art heal a community. I believe the act of making together forms a sacred relationship. I would like to protect the act of art making. Artists are essential historians and teachers. Above all, they are people who are courageous enough, and I believe inherently wise, to put something into this world. I would like to foster and restore this spirit. I would like to build a school that teaches art making through trades. This school would teach art, trades and science. I am inspired by the German Bauhaus institute, and by guild workshops which Leonardo Da Vinci trained under. Here is a link to a documentary I made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ttoBLYzM4

Invention is my oldest impulse. Invention is important for my home community. Houses in Madrid NM are built out of odds and ends of wood, metal, cement, tires, and recycled glass. The memory of hanging homemade wind chimes, which sound like a family of sparrows, is evergreen. I grew up helping friends and friends of friends build their houses, garden beds, and walls. It is through this way that I understand community as a group of odds and ends, sharing the delight and labor of invention. I have seen art heal a community. I believe the act of making together forms a sacred relationship. I would like to protect the act of art making. Artists are essential historians and teachers. Above all, they are people who are courageous enough, and I believe inherently wise, to put something into this world. I would like to foster and restore this spirit. I would like to build a school that teaches art making through trades. This school would teach art, trades and science. I am inspired by the German Bauhaus institute, and by guild workshops which Leonardo Da Vinci trained under.

Invention is my oldest impulse. Invention is important for my home community. Houses in Madrid NM are built out of odds and ends of wood, metal, cement, tires, and recycled glass. The memory of hanging homemade wind chimes, which sound like a family of sparrows, is evergreen. I grew up helping friends and friends of friends build their houses, garden beds, and walls. It is through this way that I understand community as a group of odds and ends, sharing the delight and labor of invention. I have seen art heal a community. I believe the act of making together forms a sacred relationship. I would like to protect the act of art making. Artists are essential historians and teachers. Above all, they are people who are courageous enough, and I believe inherently wise, to put something into this world. I would like to foster and restore this spirit. I would like to build a school that teaches art making through trades. This school would teach art, trades and science. I am inspired by the German Bauhaus institute, and by guild workshops which Leonardo Da Vinci trained under. I have made a batch of paintings in the past which have made me sick to my stomach to look at. The batch of paintings were created during a difficult period a couple years ago. The paintings made me so ill that I did not paint fo the next two years. I left to New York to study art at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. I realized art was so essential that I exorcized the paintings by burning them. Through this release, which I understand as the creative cycle, I have made myself free again. Below is a link to a place where I have some of my work https://sites.google.com/view/malias/video-library