Resting Places

"Resting Places" is a collaborative artistic effort between photographer Mary T. Wagner and artist Erico Ortiz that balances Wagner's atmospheric and poignant photos from out-of-the way rural cemeteries with Ortiz's vibrant and colorful paintings often drawn from nature and his surroundings. The seeds for this artistic pairing was initially planted when they noticed parallels between some of their earlier works, and took the notion an exciting step farther with a joint exhibit at Ortiz's gallery, Inspiration Studios in West Allis, Wisconsin. Wagner, an award-winning photographer and writer, has long been drawn to nature as a subject. However, she found unexpected grace notes and unspoken stories among the marble tombstones of various cemeteries she happened to drive by. Ortiz rediscovered a passion for painting after retiring from a career as a public school administrator. Discovering abundant inspiration all around him, he is still delighted to find that an artistic project can take on a life and opinion of its own, leading him in directions he didn't expect when he first put the brush to his canvas.