MARIA MOLTENI - Albers Residency Application 2025
Maria Molteni / www.mariamolteni.com / Mariazitamolteni@gmail.com
The name of the residency you want to apply for :
I’m VERY interested in being considered for the Carraig-na-g Cat (Ireland) residency. A residency in Thread, Senegal is also of high interest and I’d be happy to be considered for all three, including Bethany (Connecticut). See “motivation” section for further reflection.
Preferred residency period:
I’m booked through July or August of 2025 (Spring teaching + exhibitions, and summer commissions). Possibilities of teaching Fall and/or Spring semesters at Massachusetts College of Art are open, but I’m willing to plan around and prioritize this residency acceptance over teaching offers. I’m open to anything after ~August 2025, but would most prefer Summer of 2026. I’d like to attend a residency as long as possible.
ARTIST BIO
Maria Molteni (They/Them, b 1983, Nashville) is a queer interdisciplinary artist, designer, educator and mystic. They are the grandchild of Tennessee square dancers, stunt motorcyclists, quilters, beekeepers and opera singers of various European backgrounds. Their practice has grown from formal studies in Painting, Printmaking and Dance at Boston University and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica (Venice, IT), to incorporate research, ritual, play-based collaboration. Their intuitive practice spans somatic spellwork, diagramtic alchemy, astrology, tarot, dreamwork and color magic.
Molteni enjoys tactile and tactical problem solving, giving shape to the unseen. From fiber to found-object sculpture, textile to video, performance to publication, they choose media that combine conceptual rigor, formal satisfaction and spiritual depth. Exploring seemingly separate areas of study- athletics to craft, entomology to urban planning, Shakers to queerness- they seek to interrupt binary thinking, crossing otherwise siloed communities and research. They playfully position their practice as Phys Ed experiments for visionary communities like the Shakers, Bauhaus and Black Mountain College.
Molteni brings over a decade of first-hand experience in competitive sports, seventeen years researching Shakers, six years as a member of Lake Pleasant (first Spiritualist community in US), eight on an ocean rowing team, two sitting on the board of Golden Dome School, four designing for Design Studio for Social Intervention, and twelve + years working with nation-wide radical beekeepers. Their extensive experience in various fields combines “academic” observation and participation through interspecies and spiritual communication.
Molteni has exhibited, lectured and peformed in all sorts of environments. More formal institutions include ReVIEWING Black Mountain College International Conference, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (CA), The Momentary (Bentonville, AK), MFA Boston (MA), ICA Boston (MA), Center for Craft (NC), Project Rowhouses (Houston), Den Frei Contemporary Art Center (Copenhagen, Denmark), Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (Cambridge, MA), NGBK (Berlin), Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA), Museum of Design (Atlanta), Conduit Gallery (Dallas), Canterbury Shaker Village (New Hampshire), Flower Head (LA, CA), Fuller Craft Museum (MA), Fitchburg Art Museum (MA), Space Gallery (Portland, ME), A Plus A Gallery (Venice, Italy).
FULL CV LINKED HERE (Scroll past bio on linked page)
PORTFOLIO
Brief Disclaimer: I do not have a separate studio from my home, so I often create and document work within exhibition, commission or installation spaces. I also work on long and short term “projects” . I often execute 2-4 projects or installations/ year, though some are ongoing over many years and take many different presentation forms. For the most part, I make everything myself and rarely hire out fabrication. My documentation is thus a bit different from more traditional portfolios of of market gallery / studio artwork. I also do a lot of writing and publishing with the projects. All of the above makes navigating conventional grant + residency submissions tricky. Below I share some most recent work and some work that is not most recent, but feels relevant to the legacy of the Albers, who not only inspire me but are sometimes directly referenced in my work.
Date: 2024, solo exhibition
Location: San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (SLOMA), CA
Media: Installation including, 7 hand-bound brooms from found and milk painted tree branches, hand cast and painted plaster hands, stones and star mosaic pieces, hand-dyed cotton rope, milk-painted wall details, milk painted card tables, foraged obsidian, naturally died eggshell powder, deck of Stelle Scopa cards, 50 framed colored pencil drawings on paper,
Dimensions: variable
Beautiful Seven gathers around a set of fifty hand drawings and fabricated reproductions of found stones set into Marian niche portals. The work reflects the artist’s avid interest in the Pleiades star cluster (a theme of their Seven Sisters mural in SLO), an original deck of playing and divination cards that reference the popular Italian game Scopa (meaning “broom,” or “to sweep”) and the artist’s pilgrimage to Southern Italy’s Seven Sisters – historic Marian miracle sites sacred to the mountainous region of Campania, where worship of the Madonna is an active part of life. Further, the term Settebello literally means “beautiful seven”, naming the luckiest card in the game of Scopa.
In 2024, Molteni returned to Italy in community with fellow queer and trans Italian-American artists on a Sacred Third Gender pilgrimage to the queer/trans-embracing site of the Madonna of Montevergine. Tabletop mosaic constellations, hand rolled beads made from rose mud, two video works set to sounds of the Moon and Venus, seven portal-like grottos (small cave-like altars), open hands modeled after Virgin Mary statues common in Italy, and respective handcrafted brooms further explore themes of queerness, intersectional feminism and gender expansiveness with a lens towards inner spirituality and cosmic cycles.
Counting to Infinity, a series of 50 drawings of Molteni’s hands positioned to hold “beads” of their stone Rosary. Colored fingers reflect Molteni’s childhood habit of counting Hail Marys on their hands, like a decade of rosary prayer beads. Each decade- sets of 10 Hail Marys- are a different color
In the center of my Beautiful Seven installation, 5 card tables came together in the shape of a five-pointed star surrounding a black stone (my own fabricated stone representing the Goddess Cibele, who was said to have been a stone or meteorite that fell to earth and then was stolen by the Romans)
(COUNTING TO INFINITY + SWEEPING STARS)
Date: 2022- Present, ongoing body of work
Location: mostly developed between ancestral “homelands” in Tennessee & Italy
Media: 50 colored pencils drawings translated into imagery for a limited edition deck of playing + divination cards. Cards come with “Games Are Magic” publication and screen printed Cosmatesco Altar Cloth
Dimensions: 61 cards, at the standard card dimension for the region of Italy that Molteni’s family is from
Hand drawings became a deck of playing and divination cards based on the popular Italian card game Scopa (meaning broom). My deck is called “Stelle Scopa” (Sweeping Stars or Broom Stars) since ancient astronomers often referred to comets as such. Celestial and Terrestrial imagery connect the above to the below. The imagery pulls from references sacred stone collecting as bead/body-based prayer. Stelle Scopa departs slightly from tradition to include five suits, with terrestrial planets in place of typical Court cards, and a set of eleven asteroids. Sixty-one total cards equals the full number of beads on a Rosary.
Triptych showing cards in context. I always carry them with me on pilgrimages to sacred sites around the world.
Left : Mt Pindo (aka “ Celtic Mount Olympu”s) in Galicia, Spain
Middle: Coastal blooms at Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady, Big Sur, CA
Right: La Leonessa, ancient rock formation and chapel of Michael the Archangel outside Benevento, Italy
These drawn portraits are superimposed over the old Stereographs (reprinted onto many colors by a risograph) strewn about the seance table. When you look through the stereoscope, they hover in the layered 3D image like an auric ghost in its historic house. I hope to call back to the Seance table those spirits who weighed in heavily on the spiritual and social reforms of their institutions but who have been largely unrecognized by history.
Date: 2020, Installation debuted in After Spiritualism: Death and Transcendence in Contemporary Art
Location: Fitchburg Art Museum, MA
Media: Participatory installation, including risograph printed stereographs, pen and ink portraits of Spiritualist mediums and Bauhausler, found objects, acrylic on the wall, milk paint made from scratch
Dimensions: 30ft x 12ft x 20ft
This installation is inspired by a vintage stereograph of Lily Dale’s (historic Spiritualist site) “House of Boughs” as well as the Bauhaus’ “Haus am Horn” drafted by Benita Koch Otte. Each is the first building erected for its respective visionary community. This project calls formerly marginalized members and channelers of each community back to the (seance) table and history books via 18th century Stereoscopic technology likened to Clairvoyance.
Vin peering through the Stereoscope to view the figure hovering in the space they once inhabited in physical form
UNSEEN HOURS: SPACE CLEARING FOR SPIRIT WORK Collaborative Solo Exhibition
Date: 2021
Location: Fruitlands Museum and former Harvard + Shirley Shaker Villages, Harvard, MA
Medium: Original Shaker artifacts: chairs beehives, baskets, boxes, stereographs, drawings + Artist hand-made and found/altered objects: brooms, garments, hand-made milk painted paper cut-outs, looping video projection, honeybee smokers
Dimensions: Variable
Unseen Hours: Space Clearing for Spirit Work is the culmination of an artist residency at Fruitlands Museum that builds upon 17 years of Molteni’s work with/on the Shakers. The exhibition showcases short film Sacred Sheets, along with original artworks created for the film, including brooms, garments, a cut-paper installation, and Shaker items from the museum's permanent collection.
+ Sacred Sheets film (below)
Date: 2024, most recent edit
Location: shot in Shaker office (1794) of Fruitlands Museum
Medium: video/ film
Collaborators: Allison Halter (co-director), Gabe Elder (cinematographer)
Dimensions: full film 17 mins. See below for a 1 minute trailor
The Sacred Sheets were drawings crafted in 1843 by Shaker “instruments” Mary Wicks and Semantha Fairbanks during a period of vibrant Shaker channeled called “The Era of Manifestations”. This set of drawings stood out among many other Gift Drawings, revealed to young instruments by Holy Mother Wisdom, for their abstract script referred to as “spirit writing". For this project, one of the drawings was recreated by arranging milk-painted cut paper on the floor of a historic Shaker building.
Unseen Hours: Space Clearing for Spirit Work, installation shot at Fruitlands Museum, 2021
Hand craft objects such as garments, brooms and cut paper assemblages by the artist, combined with original Shaker artifacts, including Shaker beehives that the artist uncovered and identified from an attic of Hancock Shaker Village, and Mother Ann Lee’s original rocker paired with an exact reproduction
Molteni’s essay Dance to the Fountain in the Unseen Hours accompanying publication, investigates 15 years of parallel research on matriarchal societies the Shakers and honeybees. Here once can see honeybee smokers hidden beneath original Shaker chairs, key components to explore Shaker values and imagination in the exhibition and film.
MARIA MOLTENI: SOFT SCORE —-> FULL PROJECT PAGE
Date: 2024, solo exhibition
Location: solo exhibition at Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA
Medium: 160 recycled basketball hoops, grinded, welded primed and painted by the artist and assembled on top of mural as basketball hoop cloud-scape, knit basketball nets from Andrea Sherrill Evans knitting pattern in New Craft Artists in Action’s publication Net Works: Learn to Craft Handmade Basketball Nets for Empty Hoops in Your Neighborhood, video projection, kinetic sculpture
Dimensions: Variable
About Soft Score:
Maria Molteni: Soft Score employs “crafletic” expression for personal reflection and communal magic. Built upon 15+ years of Molteni + their collective NCAA’s socially engaged public artwork, it also emphasizes the importance of intersectionality and equity, within sports industry and community spaces alike. Works in Soft Score offer multiple layers of interpretation rooted in both sensitive and cerebral aspects of art and sport—basketball in particular.
BMC x NCAA (Black Mountain College x New Craft Artists in Action Collaboration),
Date: 2020, group exhibition
Location: UNCG Weatherspoon Art Gallery, To The Hoop
Medium: Hand woven + crocheted basketball nets with hand painted backboards inspired by Anni + Josef Albers & Ruth Asawa
Dimensions: regulation hoops, 8 minute video
Collaborators: members of Molten’s NCAA collective Taylor McVay and Andrea Sherril Evans
In 2010 Molteni founded the international queer/ feminist artist collective New Craft Artists in Action. Under Molteni’s creative direction, the NCAA has made many bodies of collaborative work as well as site-specific public interventions. Their project Net Works, which encourages the crafting of hand-made basketball nets for empty hoops has become a wide-spread teaching tool. Often Molteni’s hoops and Net Works reference the Albers- particularly the painted series, Homage to the Square, that Josef turned into an open-sourced teaching exercise. Molteni also extends their own studio experiments beyond the gallery and classroom to engage a wide range of participants and players. BMC x NCAA was featured in “To the Hoop”, in Greensboro, North Carolina and plays with the nearby legacy of Black Mountain College - a huge inspiration for Molteni who playfully positions themself as the Phys Ed Coach of BMC ; )
Yarn Over Double Dribble: Basketball Handling Score After John Cage:1 min excerpt of 8 min video
Date: 2020-Present, various video projections and live performances
Medium: hand drawn conceptual score adapted from an original basketball net knitting pattern, performance, video
Dimensions: full video 8 mins
Part of the BMC x NCAA series, this performance pairs ball handling techniques with knitting stitches (uch as yarn over, knit two together) found in a basketball net pattern created by collaborator Andrea Sherrill Evans. The pattern is transformed into a conceptual score performed live by Molteni as one reads sheet music. the pattern is also one of many found in the NCAA’s 2014 publication Net Works: Learn to Craft Handmade Nets for Empty Basketball Hoops in Your Neighborhood
MOTIVATION
I’ve had my eye on the Albers foundation for a while. My partner, who knows well of my excitement, refreshes your page frequently, to notify me of the application call ; ). I feel resonant with the spirits of the Albers and their innovative, eccentric communities of educators. I almost feel like I’m picking up a baton to continue work in their line of inspiration and world-building. I count Anni and Josef among my dearest of art ancestors, which my work communicates in both nuanced and, sometimes more overtly referential, ways (I have included just a couple of overt examples in my submission). Like Gertrude Grunow, their contemporary at the Bauhaus, I believe an artist must develop themselves as they develop their artwork, tuning their soul’s vibration with the work and the environment. I believe an Albers residency will, first and foremost, improve my work via this approach to creative and ancestral attunement.
On a more practical note, I desperately desire the time and space to dream and focus outside of my tiny, overcrowded live-work apartment and highly demanding art hustle. I’ve been largely supporting myself and my partner- a trans woman in her 3rd year of law school. Things are tight and stressful, but we’re determined to do great and world-changing work, with the support of great programs like this. When I’m away at residencies, she also has more focus time on her studies (and upcoming BAR application periods) and both of us can embrace the Hermit sides of ourselves that we love as much as our partnership.
While I didn’t submit any writing samples in my portfolio, I also publish essays and well-crafted zines with most of my projects. Writing and research in a quiet, dedicated space are crucial for my work. When I’m home, the grind of teaching, commissions and community organizing absolutely consumes me. Besides not having a separate or adequate studio from my living space, I find that it can be difficult to even get the privacy and concentration when I’m in my city and available to the many demands of my creative community. I would much prefer to be living more rurally, but at this time cannot afford the expense or unpredictability of such a move.
As for location, it’s so hard to choose! Each sound incredibly generative. I trust that I’ll be placed where I’m meant to be. I’m VERY interested in being considered for the Carraig-na-g Cat (Ireland) residency. I’ve never been to Ireland, where about half of my blood ancestry hails from. I’m inspired by the land and folk magic. I feel like it’s time. I’m also drawn to the fairy cat lore and animistic stone devotion! I included my project Counting to Infinity * Stelle Scopa to give a sense of how I position my work within call-and-response, or antiphonic conversations with land formations and spirits. I created Stelle Scopa deck of cards, from a set of 50 found stones, as like a set of calling cards to use as I pilgrimage to sensitive sites. Further, I have some close Irish artist friends who have been begging me to come visit.
While I have little knowledge of Thread, Senegal, it looks like an absolutely amazing place. An adventure in a less familiar region would be nothing short of a great privilege. If I was placed in either international location, I imagine I would focus on drawing, research and writing.
Finally, if I’m placed in the Bethany location, I will greatly benefit from having access to your archives and could see myself creating a publication based on this research. I also believe this could make me a better educator. I’m currently teaching in the Fibers department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and often teach the Alber’s practices as well as the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College legacies as models for creative resilience and visionary worldbuilding in times of crisis.
I trust similarly that if the Albers residency is meant for me at this time, they will open the door.
END OF ALBERS APPLICATION. PLEASE IGNORE IMAGES BELOW, BUT FEEL FREE TO PERUSE MY SITE IF INTERESTED : )
4. Venusian Rosaceae (Five Seeded Star), 2020
Medium: Industrial concrete/ground paint, colors mixed by hand, hand painted with brushes by Molteni
Site: The Momentary, formerly an apple orchard- today a contemporary art museum
Dimensions: 50 ft diameter circle
Inspired by the history of the site as a former apple orchard, Venusian Rosaceae explores the myriad of myths, shapes and symbols associated with apples. The circular composition includes layers of five-pointed stars and infinitely connected braids, referencing the pentagonal shape of an apple’s core and the Dance of Venus- an astrological map of Venus retrogrades as it moves around the Sun with the Earth.
5. Venusian Rosaceae (Five Seeded Star)/ Plaited Ouroboros, 2020
Medium: Industrial concrete/ground paint, colors mixed by hand, hand painted with brushes by Molteni, this is also a video work in its own right, a way to experience the activation of the piece digitally
Dimensions: painting- 50 ft diameter circle, video- 5 mins
6. A Sea Bird, 2021
Medium: Industrial concrete/ground paint, colors mixed by hand, hand painted with brushes by Molteni
Site: Downtown Boston, 2 blocks from the former Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel
Dimensions: 2,000 sq ft
A Sea Bird is the culmination, in painted form, of ongoing multi-media and performative work dedicated to the late Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel, built along the Boston Harbor in the 1950’s and demolished in the “Seaport” in 2017. One case see coded phrases “A Sea Bird”, “Wave of Grace” and “Brace, Brace”- an original sea shanty prayer/ poem written with the nautical flag alphabet to honor the “Fall” and “Ascension” of Our Lady, the Sea Bird.
Molteni pioneered the community-centered basketball court painting movement in the US. A Sea Bird is their 7th of 8 hand painted basketball court murals in Massachusetts.
