photo by: Bremen Keasey

Allie Martinez

The future for Allie Martinez once looked as simple as painting by numbers.

In early 2020, she was named Lawrence’s Youth of the Year by the local Boys and Girls Club, she was applying to prestigious art schools around the country, and she got accepted to one of the most famous, the Art Institute of Chicago.

Then the COVID pandemic hit, and suddenly, instead of going to art school, she was taking a gap year, taking on a caretaker role in her family and trying to figure out what was next.

What she didn’t realize then was how much she’d learn from her family and her home in these five years, both about art and about life.

Now she’s getting ready to graduate from her hometown University of Kansas, and on Friday night at KU’s Off-Site Art Space she showed off her senior thesis gallery, “The Mary’s” — named for the five generations of women named Mary in her family, and highlighting their womanhood, their hardships and their resilience.

Martinez said the family lessons and mantras of following her dreams and pushing through adversity shine through in her artwork, but also in her journey over the past few years, where she has faced many U-turns and dead ends. Now, she sees an open road to drive toward her dreams.

“This has all felt very rewarding because the last few years have been so hard,” Martinez said.

• • •

Through most of her childhood, Martinez lived in the same house with her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was surrounded by family — surrounded by Marys.

In her family, there is a line of five Marys: Mary Mabel, her great-great-grandmother whom she never met; Mary Merlene, her great-grandmother; Mary Beth, her grandmother; Mary Elizabeth, her mother; and herself — Mary-Alicia is her full given name. All of her family also have been artists, in a variety of media — quilting, gardening, sewing.

When she thought about who she was as an artist, she kept in mind the women she was raised by and those important relationships among generations, as well as their financial hardships and the power of womanhood. Despite the fact that being an artist is not a “high-profit career,” Martinez said she was never tempted to think of something more stable.

“My grandmas and my mom really wanted me to follow my passion and my dreams,” Martinez said. “A lot of my work revolves around resiliency — following your dreams and pushing through hardships.”

One of the mantras in her family is to not run away from your fears, and to “try the scary things,” she said. That’s part of why her gallery has so many different kinds of works in it. Her grandma pushed her to try all sorts of media that seemed daunting, like sculpture or metalsmithing. And her grandma’s love for crochet and embroidery led her to try those art forms as well.

One of Martinez’s works — a series of colorful watercolor portraits of her family called “The Birthday Book” — is inspired by a book that was passed down through the generations. In the book, each family member’s birth month is associated with a special flower and a color. IN the paintings she included small, raised imprints of the flowers on the canvas and used the colors that would go with each birth month.

Another inspiration was their house itself. Martinez said the house she grew up in was built in 1901 and had “spiral, wooden motifs” in the design. That pushed her to work on sculpture so that she could properly translate that design and showcase her love for the architecture. And it helped her find that “not every single work” can properly be portrayed as a painting.

“Sometimes they have to be articulated in different forms and media,” Martinez said.

Becoming an interdisciplinary artist has given her a broader perspective, Martinez said, and that broad scope lends her more creativity.

“I’m not confined to a box of just being a painter or sculptor,” Martinez said. “I feel more like an artist.”

• • •

The lessons of resilience from Martinez’s family were especially important during the trying years between her graduation from Free State High School in 2020 and today.

Although she got into The Art Institute of Chicago and planned to attend the prestigious design school, the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial hardships it caused left her unable to cover the costs of attending, meaning she had to withdraw before she had the chance to go.

She spent 2020 at home in Lawrence, helping take care of her younger siblings, who were in elementary school at the time. She also cared for her great-grandmother, who lived down the street. Martinez would walk down to her house and help her out around the house.

Her great-grandmother died in November of that year.

“That was pretty hard,” Martinez said.

Martinez’s family didn’t want her to give up on her dreams, though. Her grandmother was constantly urging her to keep going and “apply, apply, apply” to other schools. She got into the University of Arkansas and started attending class in 2021. But again, she couldn’t afford to keep attending there. So she came back home to Lawrence and KU to continue her artistic journey.

The path she’s taken has left traces in her art, of course. Martinez said one frequent motif in her art is spray paint, which she said is more associated with street art than with artists trained at prestigious schools. She uses it as a reminder that it’s OK to be a “self-taught artist.”

photo by: Bremen Keasey

Some of the sculptures Martinez created as part of her show “The Marys.” Martinez said she used a spray paint as a symbol to demonstrate the way she was a self-taught artist, reminding herself that it is ok.

“Using spray paint is some of the symbolism for learning through all my struggles,” Martinez said.

Martinez is grateful that she can share her unique journey in a gallery setting. Not only did she present it at the show with two other Marys alongside her — her grandma and her mother — but she presented her art to a community that shaped it. She said it felt like a full-circle moment for her, and she’s gotten to the point where she wanted to be.

“Maybe it’s not in Chicago or wherever, but I’m so proud of the work I have made,” Martinez said.

• • •

While the past five years have certainly changed her perspective and forced her to grow, many things have stayed the same for Martinez.

A big part of her life five years ago was the mentorship she had gotten through the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence, which she started attending when she was in the third grade. Growing up, she had a lot of mentors through the club, some of whom were at the gallery show on Friday, but she returned the favor in teaching kids at the club.

photo by: Bremen Keasey

A woven piece from Martinez’s show “The Marys.” Martinez noted its design and color was inspired by the flowers that would bloom at her great grandmother’s house in August around her birthday.

Martinez said it was impactful to be around the young people at the club, and the kids helped impart their “happiness and vibrancy.” They were big cheerleaders for her, frequently hyping her up, saying, “You’re an artist, Miss A.”

That experience of teaching is something she might explore further in the future. For now, Martinez said she is planning on taking a gap year to work and visit some other schools, where she hopes to apply to get a master’s in fine arts “as soon as possible,” and hopefully eventually become a professor.

Martinez is also hoping to go out of state to further expand her horizons, and it mirrors a lot of her hopes from five years ago. But unlike five years ago, she has more wisdom and ideas to reflect on, about the importance of following her dreams and remembering those who support you.

It’s those themes she imparted into her gallery, and it’s what she wants to share for any others who might be in her shoes.

“I want people to come in and feel passion and feel like it’s OK to follow their own dreams,” Martinez said.

photo by: Bremen Keasey

Allie Martinez’s painting series “The Birthday Book” with three of the women who inspired it. From left to right, Mary-Alicia “Allie” Martinez, herself; Mary Elizabeth, her mother and Mary Beth, her grandmother. The fourth portrait is of her great grandmother, Mary Merlene, who died in November 2020.