We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maria Blanche. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maria below.

Maria, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project in my creative life is the one I’m working on right now. Though it’s the most recent, it began as observational figure drawings that I made decades ago. I found them by chance twenty years later, while moving across the country from Los Angeles to Asheville. The drawings had become spotted with mold, altered by water and time. In this process of quiet decay, they shifted from drawings into artifacts.

At the time, I was grappling with aging parents, and coming to terms with my mother’s declining health. As I sank into the anticipatory grief of losing her mental presence, and later the waves of grief that followed her transition, I began coloring and drawing over my studies. Revisiting each drawing became a ritual, a space to remember her and reflect on how everything in life is always in a state of change.

I thought about the body as a vessel for experience. I wondered about the mysterious animating force that moves us. Does it have a shape? What is the color?

I’ve long considered myself a spiritual person. For over twelve years I’ve practiced Reiki, read tarot, studied astrology, and worked with others to do the same. But when death came close, I felt my heart shake with fear. Nothing had prepared me for that kind of rupture. I was stripped to the emotional and spiritual core.

What I knew for certain is how to sit in front of an easel with my colors, to draw and to paint. My art practice became the one place I could return to, a foundation for facing the unknown and beginning to heal.

These drawings represent a quiet triumph of the human spirit: to live in joy and inspiration in the face of inevitable loss. They underscore the power of the present moment. My hope is that the viewer finds in them a renewed sense of compassion for our fleeting nature, and a deeper reverence for the mystery of being alive.

The project has become a collaboration with impermanence. I’m creating images that are about loss as a natural part of evolution and transformation.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m an artist and creative director based in Asheville, North Carolina. I work across graphics, animation, and video to help organizations and businesses create content with clear and effective messaging.

My studio, Infinite Wow, is a collaborative practice I co-founded with my husband. We create motion design, story-driven content, and multimedia work for clients across the arts, culture, and mission-driven sectors.

Professionally, my work spans commercial and independent projects—from animated campaigns and short films to immersive media and digital content. I care deeply about the message and the energy behind every client collaboration.

I’m invested in understanding what someone truly wants to express and translating that into a visual language that feels aligned with their mission. Years of experience have taught me how to navigate the creative process from first spark to final form. Creative leadership means guiding and refining in order to deliver work that feels fresh and communicates a clear message.

As an artist I wear many hats, creating work in many different mediums: animation, motion design, painting, drawing, editing, designing. The way I see things, it all comes from the same place. The principles of design, the principles of movement, they’re timeless.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My creative journey is a practice—something I return to over and over. The beautiful and frustrating thing is that it’s always evolving and will never reach perfect expression or perfect skill.

As a first-generation Nicaraguan-American woman, I was raised with the belief that this is a country where anything is possible—that if you can dream it, you can create it. My creativity always felt like a natural extension of that promise. The ability to bring something into existence simply because I imagined it was powerful, and I never stopped following that.

I’m compelled by the idea that creativity is the engine of life, and that we have the capacity through creativity to shape our lives in a meaningful way. We’re free to imagine a better way to go about life, and that vision inspires us through the effort and pain of birthing that vision into reality. There’s not one right way to live, only what feels true and right for each of us. I’m passionate about how creativity allows us to explore this basic human freedom, and teaches us to take responsibility for the power of creation that we all have within ourselves.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Whether I’m making art or solving a visual problem for a client, ideas need room to emerge. They surface in the spaces between: walking my husky mix, reading something unexpected, even baking a batch of cookies. Some of the most important shifts happen in those in-between moments, when my subconscious is still at work. A colorful tomato at the farmers market, the striking shape of a leaf, or a bold composition from a design book might be the key to a breakthrough.

Over time, I’ve learned to trust this rhythm. Stepping away often leads to deeper, more meaningful results. It’s not about doing less, but about listening more carefully. There’s a quiet magic that enters when I stop pushing and give the work space to reveal itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mariablanche.com/
• Instagram: @mariablancheart
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariablanche/