Paint making with Chaga Mushroom

Your Instructor

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Maria Schechter is an American interdisciplinary artist. She has been an artist for 30 years and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, and pursued graduate studies at New York University working toward a master’s degree in Visual Art Administration. She later completed a Master in International Business at Schiller International University in Heidelberg, Germany.

Maria's sustainable, ecologically rooted practice is primarily focused on natural dyes, the use of natural materials and mycelium as a medium. The palettes she forages and transforms into painting palettes follow methods used by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh, as well as artists before the late mid- 1800s—including our earliest ancestors. She is committed to continuing these traditional practices, preserving the colors of the natural world from around the world. Schechter’s creative process involves ethical foraging and the use of natural materials—fruits, flowers, mushrooms, seeds, and botanicals—to produce her own plant-based pigments. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, with exhibitions at institutions such as the Anderson Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Bret Waller Gallery, Minnetrista Museum & Garden, Seattle Art Museum and the Triton Museum in Santa Clara, California.​ Schechter’s contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including a MacArthur Award nomination 2002, the 2025 CERF+ Get Ready Grant, 2024 DeHaan Artist of Distinction Award, the UCLA Artist Achievement Award, Art and Accessibility Grant UCLA, and the Center for Cultural Innovation Covid-19 Grant. Her writing and work have been featured in Eluxe Magazine, The Ecological Citizen, Nature Evolve Magazine, Hyperallergic and Axios.