Margot McMahon
Oak Park, IL
Sculpture/Installation
A lifelong-environmentalist, internationally- awarded Margot McMahon sculpts, writes and paints human, plant and animal forms to say, through art, her hope that decisions be made to support life on earth. With degrees in Environmental Journalism and Art, and an MFA from Yale University, Margot has continuously made environmental statements in art and writing. She has been called the “Studs Terkel of the sculpting world” for her humanistic portraits, most recently the Gwendolyn Brooks Monument for Gwendolyn Brooks Park. The Smithsonian, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago History Museum, Soka Gaikkai International, Mobil Oil, the Chicago Botanic Garden, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Steans Family Foundation, and Yale University have collected her sculptures. Since 2017 Margot is painting and researching super coral that offers essential building blocks for our ocean’s health. These and paintings and sculptures of birds as indicator species are made into art with science writing to draw attention to two aspects of how climate change has affected critical life forms.
The Margot McMahon Collection at Aquarius Press includes environmental statements: 1) If Trees Could Talk, (NFPW National Book Award recipient published by Aquarius Press) 2) Mac and Irene: A WWII Saga and 3) RESIST! A Visual History of Protest and Airdrie. In 2020, her essay titled Sculpting Forms of Nature, was published in the Remembering Fifty Anthology commemorating Fifty years of Women at Yale University. Margot’s The Fifth Season: The Chicago Tree Project book, 2020 First Place Mate E. Palmer Book Award (IWPA) includes: 1) poetry 2) ASAP! Adopt Saplings Project, 3) a photographic essay that summarizes five years of internationally renowned artists sculpting fifty trees in Chicago parks along and, 4) Margot’s MIT Press published paper, Transforming Nature (2018) expresses the importance of creating tree trunks into art to support urban ecology. The National Sculpture Society (NYC) received the Alex B. Hector award for her sculpture. Soka Gakkai International (Tokyo, Japan) and Barat College (Lake Forest, Illinois) the Rose Philippine Duchesne Society Award honored Margot with their Art and Culture award. Margot taught at Yale University where she earned an MFA and a Fellowship of Timothy Dwight College. Margot taught at Yale Norfolk, the Art Institute of Chicago, and DePaul University as well as other institutions. Earth Day environmental poetry and art workshops are held annually at Margot’s Gwendolyn Brooks Monument as well as throughout the Chicago area and New Haven Connecticut. She serves as a facilitator, artist, and panelist for the One Earth Film Festival and is a certified TreeKeeper with Openlands Chicago.
The Chicago Tree Project documentary, collaborated with Dominican University students, (https://www.chicagotreeproject.org) captures artist’s sculptural statements that keep dying trees in parks to maintain the health of our urban forests. Margot's From a Ball of Clay video (Cinema Guild, NYC) shows how to sculpt and cast in sustainable Fondu ciment. The Gift of Art: Sculpture Ventures for Young Artists (Yale University Print &Publishing), teaches various sculpting techniques with recycled materials for children through adults. Margot’s environmental statements are published in Scholastic Magazine, Chicago Magazine, World Book Encyclopedia and anthologies.