UMVA Members Showcase – Fall 2026: Peggy Diggs, Natasha Mayers, Mary Becker Weiss, Jane Page-Conway

Peggy Diggs – Mapping

Mapping has the ability to go way beyond locating or situating. Since a map is a representation, it can serve as a symbol: to identify, typify, name, or characterize. Think of cartoons, where a map might be personified and identified as a character. For those familiar with the place being portrayed, this could come out as funny, or as rude, or as true. As someone born and raised in the US, I search for visual ways to pull out various characteristics that I choose to emphasize about this country; the result becomes something like a newspaper editorial. The images become simplifications, exaggerations, metaphorical portraits. Some are wooden maps covered in cloth: a map-shaped Luan die-cut board, wears “clothing” of a money print, carrying a “scarf” with a print of a slam-bam rowdiness; another is dressed in military camouflage with a “scarf” of a slinky party girl, creating a character partly militaristic, partly yee-haw. I love doing these pieces intermittently between other things, almost like notebook projects.

 

Natasha Mayers – State of War Maps 

These are maps—subjective, intuitive, emotional, inaccurate maps—a bridge between the abstract and real world. Some are generalized, some are more specific to Maine. I invite the viewer to both get lost and find a way out.

To express my sadness and frustration, outrage and uneasiness in these uncertain times, I am painting a world in chaos. I am making models of what the present looks and feels like to me and what the consequences of our actions are likely to be.

The world is the rural Maine landscape I know, but something is wrong in vacationland. There are disruptions (explosions, craters, cracks, changes from aerial to panoramic views, and sudden shifts in scale) and intrusions of war machinery into our backyards. The viewer can drive around the bomb blasts, exploding moose, sea urchins, and lobsters, visit the lighthouses and fields of sheep, and maybe begin to realize the impact of war on ordinary people. An empathetic response requires imagination.

I am playing games in some of these paintings, creating colorful, fast, pinball/video game versions of reality. I am playing with fire and arrows, planes and tanks. I am driving racecar fast around curves, following road signs and signals, trying to avoid danger, and seeking some understanding of how we can wage “endless war.”

Artist statement dated 5 April 2003.

 

Mary Becker Weiss

In utilizing maps, my artwork becomes a visual exploration of memory, geography, and a deep sense of place. My work in collage and assemblage looks to transform maps into landscapes of emotion, empathy, and positivity. I select maps which align with significant times and places in my life. Every element of these compositions is created with deep intention. The final creations are an invitation to look beyond literal geography and explore the hidden, multiple layers of meaning. I hope to inspire others to reflect on their own personal geographies through the lens of warmth, nostalgia and wonder.

 

Jane Page-Conway

I have always been interested in both using and looking at maps. There are a huge variety of maps for land, for weather, for air and many ways to show how to get from one place to another. Maps have been used for many centuries for humankind to find their way to wherever they want to travel.