Mary Dennis

Mary Dennis has been creating art in one form or another as long as you can remember. As a youngster She learned, sewing, knitting, crochet and embroidery, and also began studying music. She played piano as a youngster and taught herself to play the guitar as a teen. In her adult years, she became interested in traditional Irish music and taught herself to play the violin/fiddle, tenor, banjo, mandolin, and the Irish hand drum, the bodhran. She performed music in a family band with her two brothers and friends and later in another band with her husband.

Mary also became interested in the visual arts as well. In 2004 she began taking classes in pottery/ceramics beginning at the 577 Foundation in Perrysburg and also through the Toledo Potters Guild Toledo.

Mary opened her first pottery studio at the common space on S. Main St. which was the old South Main school building in 2006. She also organized an artist co-op with the other artists in that building and and also from the surrounding area. Together, they created a gallery in one of the classrooms of the building. When the building was sold, she moved her studio to her home and has been making pottery in her home studio ever since.

Mary was also very involved with the Black Swamp Arts Festival for many years as a coordinator for, at that time, what was known as the youth Arts area of the festival. In fact, if you see the children want wandering around with their big floppy paper hats during the festival, you can thank Mary for that! That was one of the ideas she came up with for one of the many Art projects that she would plan each year for the youth arts area.

Over the years, Mary has participated in many of the different local art shows, including the Black Swamp Arts Festival, Bowling Green Art walk, the better than ever show and other shows sponsored by the Bowling Green Arts Council over the years. In recent years, Mary has also dabbled in other forms of visual arts like Drawing, watercolor painting, and gel plate printing. One thing Mary loves to do is to create!  There’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t have an idea to create something new.