Maria Wiggie

I grew up in Sweden under the shadow of a gifted and successful artist—my mother. My artistic education began before my academic instruction. I visited galleries, socialized with other artists, and I can still recall the fumy smell of oil paints that was always around. At every corner, towering adults asked me when they’d get to see my work and when I’d get to have my own art show…

The pressure I felt as a child was enough to last me through adulthood.

Terrified of comparison and judgment, I pursued a Graphic Design degree from an art school in Seattle, Washington. The rules and boundaries of graphic design allowed me to bypass that judgment while at the same time letting me stay in touch with color and some degree of creativity. But all throughout my life, my inner world was vastly different than others perceived. It was rich with art, experimentation, and exploration. I let my creativity run free (to a degree), kept hidden away in private for decades. Even though I’d found success as a graphic designer and Art Director in big cities like San Francisco and Stockholm, the fear of being judged and compared was as ever-present then as it had been as a child.

As time flew by, I married and grew a family. And eventually, I found that my inner creative space had shrunk with the hustle and bustle of daily life. The pressure from my bottled-up creativity came to a peak one day. Giving up on my secret art was not an option, so I had no choice but to embrace it publicly so that I could carve out space for it. I asked for one day off a week from my job and finally made room for my art to grow.

While I sometimes still grapple with the pressures of showing my work, they are much less important voices that I can eventually turn off.