About this Artist

Pronouns: she/her

Maria Weaver is a visual artist. She has been creating “wearable art” (jewelry/crochet/sewing) all her life. These skills turned her into a teaching artist for 10+ years. Her teaching artist work gave way to more visual arts—drawing, painting, papercraft, and most of all, bead-making! Maria loves to shape her art themes in Black American culture and social issues that encourage awareness, pride, and self-love, which connect to students’ Identity.

Artist Statement

Everyone is an artist! One of the best things that happened to me (as an artist) was to attend the Teaching Artist Institute (TAI) in 2011 with Young Audiences of Maryland—currently Arts for Learning of Maryland. I found that there were so many people who were artists that thought like me but were still very different! Encouraging self-love, social awareness, and acceptance via visual arts is a necessary tool to help us feel good, understand each other, and communicate. It also helps students learn or reinforce science, math, engineering, and literacy in a different way. Visual art is a constantly evolving learning tool that helps students think of how they can make the world a better place!