Your work often depicts figures in distant space next to a close-up of a face or part of a figure. Such jumps in scale imbue your work with a sense of cosmic depth, as well as intimacy.
When I visited the beach at Cape Cod, I used to dig a hole in the sand so my eye level would be low. The lower it was, the more extreme the scale, so a nearby figure would appear huge and a distant figure tinier than normal.
I love your illustrations of animals in Shadows of Africa, which are Zen-like ink drawings, cutouts, sculptures, and paintings. When did you go to Africa?
I never went to Africa, other than Morocco. The Central Park Zoo used to have a gallery, where I showed the work from that book. All my life I’ve drawn in zoos and natural history museums, wherever I see animals, and from my head.
I met Matthiessen when I was a fellow member of the Academy of Arts and Letters. I told him I had monoprints of snow leopards, so he came to the studio. He influenced me in many ways. He was a great man. I’d been working with solarcookers.org before I met him, and he said, “Mary, anyone who turns a spigot or turns a knob to get water, cook or get heat has no idea of how most of the world lives. People, birds, fish and animals all need the same thing, which is clean air and water and food.” I hadn’t realized the immensity of the repercussions when he said that. It was so powerful and clear, and huge numbers of people are finally realizing the urgency of this.
Some of your art has been inspired by the horrors of the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, environmental degradation and other world traumas. You’ve also been an activist yourself. When did this involvement start?
After my son Pablo was born in 1951, I walked with Grace Paley and other women to the UN with our baby carriages to protest the contamination of milk by nuclear fallout. Friends and I carried placards of my work at demonstrations against the Vietnam War and later in protests against the war in Iraq. And I did a poster for the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Watch.
When civil war broke out in El Salvador, Leo, my husband, figured out what US citizens were paying in taxes to have innocent people labeled communists and then killed. After the Archbishop Romero was murdered, along with the ten Jesuit professors from the University of El Salvador and their housekeeper and her daughter, our group established Woodstock as the sister city to the pueblo of El Buen Pastor, population 100. We brought people here and also sent people down there during the war. After the war I went with Leo to El Salvador to witness the first elections. The people were extraordinary. I had never seen community like that before in my life. They had seen all these horrors, and yet were very strong.
How are solar cookers helping the world?
It’s saving women and their daughters from being raped. They are the ones collecting firewood in much of South and Central America, the Near East, Africa and Asia. As deforestation increases, they must walk farther and sleep out in order to get wood, which puts them at greater risk. Half the world cooks with wood. There are many people who have grains, but they’re going hungry because they have no fuel to cook them with. People spend more money on fuel than on food; with a solar cooker, they can afford to get a goat. Also, carbon smoke from wood fires causes pollution and lung cancer.
I proselytize like crazy about this. I did a demonstration with two women from Kenya in front of the UN cooking meat, fish, vegetables, bread and cake and purifying water using 17 solar cookers. There were people from 65 countries watching with tears streaming down faces. We’re raising money and awareness. It has taken off.
Do you have a solar cooker?
Yes, and I use mine a lot. I just made quinoa and lentils and also have made pulled pork and chicken. It is all delicious.
What is your view about how high technology and the Internet are transforming the world?
I think kids now learn it in utero. The word about solar cookers is getting around through the Internet. However, the belief that high technology can solve all human problems is not true, because half the world has no electricity.
Do you have hope for the future?
The biggest challenge is overpopulation, which is the least talked-about because the subject is taboo for the major religions. But if it’s not addressed, efforts to save the environment will be severely limited. Despite all the horrors, I am stunned by how people all over the world are doing extraordinary, creative things. It’s wonderful being in Woodstock, because it’s such a vibrant community.
Do you have any upcoming shows?
Yes. From September 26 to January 18, there will be a retrospective of my work at the Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s called “Mary Frank: Finding My Way Home” and consists of over 60 pieces. Also, I’m having a show at the Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina, on view from September 13 through October 25.
Visions of Mary Frank screening/Q&A with John Cohen & Mary Frank, Sunday, August 31, 2:30 p.m., $20, Upstate Films, 132 Tinker Street, Woodstock; reception following at Elena Zang Gallery, 3671 Route 212, Woodstock, with Mary Frank exhibition, up through Labor Day weekend; https://woodstockfilmfestival.com, https://elenazang.com.
