MAGGY ROZYCKI HILTNER
MAGGY ROZYCKI HILTNER
Maggy Rozycki Hiltner is a full-time studio artist and activist who moved to Red Lodge, Montana with her family in 2005 to establish the Red Lodge Clay Center. She grew up in Pennsylvania and comes from a family of makers: her mother and grandmothers needlepointed pillows and made quilts and stitched or knitted their clothes and toys; her father built odd things and cooked outrageous meals and painted murals in their home.
She earned a BFA in Sculpture with a concentration in Fibers from Syracuse University and was a Studio Assistant at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. For over 20 years now, she has been collaging found embroidery with her hand-stitched imagery, giving these abandoned textiles new meaning and relevance. Her work has been published and exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally. She was a 2015 recipient of the Montana Arts Council Artist’s Innovation Award.
Rozycki Hiltner searches antique shops, thrift stores and yard sales for embroidered linens, quilts, and small objects, collecting the brightly colored flowers, foliage, and animals that appear in her work. What she cannot find she hand-stitches and builds and mixes in with the collected embroidery. She uses the familiarity of the stitch along with seemingly lighthearted and cheerful designs to convey more serious subject matter. She often uses humor to tell her stories, and very rarely is everything quite what it seems.
