Feature Artist: Maya Sophie Stansbury

By Gina Malone

Throughout her unconventional childhood spent moving back and forth between Poland and Asheville, and during challenging times of mental stress or physical pain, Maya Sophie Stansbury has always grounded herself with art. She began selling her creations at the age of 7 with the idea of earning money for college when the time came and as a teenager, freshly arrived back in Asheville after a few years in Poland, she turned back to art. “There was a calm, a reliable control in the small worlds built on paper ground,” she says, “and it brought me peace in the chaos of feelings I was too young to understand.”

When Maya struggled with insomnia as a child, her mother, Dorota, would sit her down at the table with colored pencils when she couldn’t sleep. “Most nights, I fell asleep, pencil in hand, mid-drawing,” she says. “My mother is the most creative soul I’ve ever met. I think that it was born from the scarcity and struggle of post-WWII Poland which grew in her a rare innovativeness and ability to create beauty out of whatever materials were on hand. The time that I got to spend with my mother, we often spent creating art together.”

During a time of instability in the family’s life, when her mother and her sister Ada went back to Poland to stay with family, Maya went on “the road trip of our lives” with her father, Dalton. “Those days were spent camping, hiking, studying the land, taking field notes on the flora and fauna we encountered and truly learning from the world around us,” she says. “My dad nurtured in me an understanding that the natural world is the greatest treasure, wisest teacher and most precious thing to experience in this life we get to live. During that time, my passion for studying and connecting with the real world, the natural living system that we had disconnected ourselves from, really blossomed.”

A socially and academically challenging time followed when Maya’s family settled in the Czech Republic where she had to learn the language and try to assimilate. After four years, however, her father came back to Asheville bringing Maya, now a high school sophomore, with him for yet another difficult transition before she enrolled in Green Mountain College in Vermont and discovered clay. “I was hooked,” she says. “I suddenly could create anything I wanted, limited only by the boundaries of my drive and imagination. I was able to do every style of mark making, drawing, painting, carving, sculpting, and I could make the canvas too. Clay unlocked something within me, and clicked in a way no other medium had before.” She returned to Asheville to enroll at UNCA where she graduated with a BFA in Ceramics and a minor in Biology.

That penchant for science, nurtured by a favorite high school teacher, shows in her work, most of which begins as wheel-thrown forms. “Most of my pieces begin as an adoration of something I see in nature: a funky seed pod, a mycelial network, the unique textures of an endangered animal, a beautiful scene along a riverbank—all these little moments inspire my artwork,” she says.

Her willingness to experiment and explore alternative methods served her well when it came to a particular piece: Appalachian Cottontail. “That piece is my only dynamic large sculptural piece, and once I had it hollowed out and fully sculpted, one of the legs fell off while I was moving it,” Maya says. “I reattached it and went to move it again, and another fell off. Since I don’t give up on any of my projects, I took the situation as an opportunity for evolution with the piece. I decided to ‘expose’ the attachment sites of all the limb joints and compress and carve the sections and create sections of revealed tendon and muscle. The extra attention to the areas and compression ended up strengthening the areas, and nothing else fell off after that. It was a great lesson in perseverance and adapting to the challenges that I am faced with, turning them from a problem to a strength.”

A body of work she began while in college is titled The Art of Conservation and invites viewers to be curious about the environment and endangered species. “It’s been an honor watching people engage with these pieces and learn about their meaning,” she says.

Maya finds inspiration in the novelty of her work and in representing the natural world that captivates her. “When I look at the textures of mossy rocks, the rhythms of the woven branches of the rhododendrons, the magic stillness of the ghost pipes, the joyous blossoms of the trilliums and the wise trickle of the usnea-covered branches, I feel such a strong sense of love and belonging,” she says. “My eyes twinkle and my soul lights up.”

See Maya Sophie Stansbury’s work through Sunday, September 6, at the Southern Highland Craft Guild’s show The Details Have It at the Folk Art Center. Her work will also be featured in an upcoming exhibition of new members’ work. Visit SouthernHighlandGuild.org. Learn more about Maya Sophie Stansbury Ceramics at mssfirefly.com and on Instagram @mssfirefly.