Mary Mailler

Mary Mailler is an art theorist and historian whose area of expertise pertains to pre-Columbian cultures of Central and North America, spatial perceptions, critical cartography, rhizomes, nomadism, and cultural landscapes. She is an admitted doctoral candidate at Texas Tech University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts where she teaches survey courses in the Art History Department. Mary is also a graduate minor in the University’s Anthropology / Archaeology Department. Throughout the course of her doctoral studies, she has been elected and appointed to serve on a number of academic committees as a doctoral student representative for the School’s Visual and Performing Arts.

In 2018, under the direction of Dr. Donald Blakeslee (Wichita State University), she participated in an excavation at Etzanoa, a historic site of the ancestral Wichita and associated tribes, located along the Walnut River, in Arkansas City, Kansas. Upon her return to Texas Tech, using remote sensing and satellite imagery technology, she analyzed historic maps having originated from a cultural exchange occurring between Juan Oñate, Spanish officials in Mexico City, and a captured Etzanoan who mapped a 200,000 square-mile area of the Great Central Plains for his Spanish captors. The study was groundbreaking in its approach, and further confirmed the site locale of Etzanoa, as it was recorded in 1601 by Oñate and his Portuguese pilot. Mary has presented her findings at conferences of the SAA (Society of American Archaeologists) and has since chaired sessions on the topic of geospatial archeology for the SAA. Additionally, she has served as an organizing chair member in hosting the annual Indigeneity Conference held each year at Texas Tech University, fielding papers and presentations on the topic of GIS, mapping, and cultural landscapes.

Prior to her doctoral studies, Mailler graduated from the University of Maine at Orono with an MFA in Intermedial Arts. In that program, she studied Heideggerian and Deleuzean philosophy, ritual performances, digital illustration, creative entrepreneurship, podcasting, and graphic design. Prior to the MFA, she graduated from Bay Path College in Longmeadow, Massachusetts with an MS in Communications and Information Management. Her courses there focused on graphics, database design and management, video production, and non-linear editing. For the past fifteen years, she has worked professionally in a variety of marcomm capacities for both private and public industries, primarily in print layout, advertising design, and social media marketing. She has extensive experience using a variety of Adobe applications, including Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and InDesign.

Degrees:

• Admitted Doctoral candidate, Texas Tech University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts, Texas
• MFA, Intermedial Arts, University of Maine at Orono

Areas of Specialty:

• Art Theory
• Pre-Columbian Cultures
• Art Historian
• Spatial Models
• North American Indigeneity