BIO

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     My name is Adam Jacoby Maria. I was born on Independence day in the summer of 1988. I am a Ramah Navajo from Ramah, New Mexico. I grew up on a small ranch on the Ramah Navajo reservation.

     Art didn’t have a strong backing on the reservation. The art program in the high school would be cut every other year due to budget problems. One day in high school I remember being bored in a math class and wanted to listen to music but couldn't do so because I was in class. Instead I took out the album cover of the music I wanted to listen to and began sketching the artists' face that was on the cover of the CD. This was the first time I wanted to do an actual portrait of someone. The drawing did not end when math class ended. After that moment I wanted to add more to the drawing so it became an all day event of adding and subtracting to make it perfect. I was proud of what I had produced that day in class, even though it didn’t look exactly like the musical artist.

     Another huge influence on me at this time was Low Rider Magazine. This “Lower Rider Art” portrayed art from a young urban Hispanic perspective. The art was a mix of graffiti, realism portraits, tattoo art, and Hispanic culture. After exposure to this artistic expression I found myself wanting to draw portraits. At this point in my life, art and welding were my only two interests and I wanted to gain a better understanding of both disciplines.

     After graduating high school I made the decision to go to art school at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I had found what I was looking for in an art school. It gave me the opportunity to explore, learn, and grow. Drawing was my foundation but I started exploring other mediums; painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Sculpture had a deep impact on me, due to the welding classes I had in high school. The creativity of art and basic understanding of welding lead me to focus mainly on steel as material. Towards the completion of art school steel had become my primary medium preference.

     After graduating from IAIA with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree I decided to pursue more training in welding. I wanted to learn more about the details of welding, the ins and outs of the process. The University of New Mexico Gallup Branch in Gallup, New Mexico is where my college career continued.  Welding was more about the practice of the craft  then creating art work. This practice helped me develop hand eye coordination and this was an important skill for me to gain. Knitting with molten metal’s to join steel together is what I loved most about the process. I now know what it takes to get certified for a welding test. I now have full confidence to take and pass a welding test for future employment opportunities although this was not the reason I signed up for welding classes. It is  simply a skill I wanted to become better at and learn more about. I believe my time at UNM Gallup helped me achieve this goal.

     After graduating welding school I begin looking for employment. Welding was my vacation but it didn’t satisfy me. Even when I was welding for professional artist's such as: Kevin Box and for Shidoni Bronze Foundry both in Santa Fe, NM, I found myself disappointed with the nine to five. Broke, I decided to move back home to the reservation and gain fresh perspective and start back at square one. I needed to go back to my fundamentals of creating. Due to lack of money I couldn’t buy equipment needed to forge steel but I still had my paint brushes and old canvases from school. 2015 became "the year of the paint" for me because it was unlike drawing and sculpture this medium had not been fully explored, but that year this all changed. I began creating on canvas with brush and color. 

     At this point  in my art career I have become interested in becoming more knowledgeable and skilled with the business side of art galleries, art shows, and art markets they are now my main focus. My ultimate goal is to be able to create and make a living off my creation - to make a living off my art.