Mary Jane Overall

I guess it's about time that I wrote something about myself. First and foremost, I am an artist. I was fortunate enough that my father worked with the military and my family thus lived all over the world. For example, I went to grade school in Morocco and finished high school in Paris. Our family spent holidays visiting other countries. While traveling or living abroad, my father insisted that we try to understand the cultures that surrounded us. My love of travel stayed with me and I later began to make "voyages" of my own through the middle east and India. While in Nepal, I lived in a Tibetan refugee camp. There the Tibetans taught me to weave.

I later spent 7 years in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. There I was able to have numerous one person shows. I was a prolific printmaking and had great gallery representation but my pieces that got the most attention were my 15 foot by 7 foot by 7 foot woven houses. (I had changed my Tibetan weaving style. lol) I started weaving houses that the audience could go inside as I was tired of galleries an museums always telling the audience to keep a distance from the art work.

In 1984, I won the Chromacry art award for my teaching and art work. This took me to Australia where I lived for nearly 20 years. I also became an Aussie citizen. There I worked out bush with the Aboriginal people creating health educational material like videos and brochures. I also created videos on Australian Artists including the infamous STELARC. I have moved back to the USA to be near my children and I live in Tucson. When I first arrived, I began producing my own TV show called "15 MINUTES". On the show, I featured local artists and their work. I later became a news editor for KVOA channel 4 (NBC affiliate).

With all this said, I believe you can understand why I write and illustrate books on the arts and cultures of different countries. They are meant to give young people and understanding and appreciation of the wonderful humans that fill our world.

In October, I will be launching my first biography title BUFFALO JOHNNY, Portrait of an Aussie Battler. This is the strange; eerie and very weird true story of a Belgian holocaust survivor who migrated to the Australian outback in the 1960's. There he went about creating a massive zoological park in the middle of no where using the military discards from WWll. The zoo housed animals indigenous to Australia and Johnny's works of Art. It is also clearly a freaky representation of his past life. www.buffalojohnny.com

I have a BFA in Political Science from American University and an MFA from the Instituto Allende. You can contact me through Facebook or my email address maryjaneoverall@gmail.com