Sister Maria Faina
When Sister Maria reflects on her penchant for “doing art,” as she likes to call it, she credits her parents for nurturing her creativity. She inherited their yearning to bring beauty into their surroundings. She recalls her mother’s ingenuity with flowers and handiwork like crocheting and embroidery, and her father’s love of opera and how it filled their home with soaring sounds.
Over the years, Sister Maria has experimented with all sorts of artistic media. Whether it be collage, decoupage, watercolor or drawing, she just goes where the brush, pencil or pen lead her. Some of her creations, like her fanciful doodling, explore the space in between traditional artwork and personal expression. To her, anything that gives visible form to what one sees or feels becomes an art form.
Photography provides her with an important way to capture sources of inspiration, both in her travels and on walks around gardens and parks near her home in Silver Spring, MD. Through photos notecards, these images have become part of her body of work.
Sister Maria’s fascination with “doing art” is sustained by the knowledge that there are endless possibilities yet to be discovered. She finds that “when I DO ART, I am nourished and free.”
