Current events, historical disasters, idealized landscapes, and a sly sense of humor can all be found in Maggy Rozycki Hiltner’s Vantage Point now on display in the large gallery through July 23.
Maggy Rozycki Hiltner scours antique shops and yard sales for old embroidery. Inspired by the images of animated vegetables and all too cute oversized puppies and kittens, she combines this found embroidery with her own to depict sweet, strange and sometimes unsettling stories. Her images at first appear whimsical or vibrantly happy but on closer inspection are not quite so. Sometimes it’s a malicious undertone to the relationships, or a lack of self-control on the part of the characters, or maybe an otherworldlyness hidden in the everyday.
Maggy grew up in suburban Pennsylvania. After serving as her high school mascot, Rowdy Ram, she went on to earn a degree in sculpture from Syracuse University. She and her husband, David, moved to Red Lodge in 2005 to open the Red Lodge Clay Center. The 278 square-foot hand-stitched installation, Vantage Point, was created for Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum’s Dr. Ruth Tan Lim Project Room, and incorporates Hiltner’s cast of Dick and Jane-style characters as well as found and artist-created imagery.