Martha Shade is a mixed-media artist whose unconventional ‘stitchworks’ and sculptures blend global mythology with personal memory and contemporary social issues. Born in Colorado, Shade studied printmaking at University of Arizona and ceramics at Louisiana State University. After a move to the Pacific Northwest, her early art career found her showcasing ceramic and paper-pulp sculptures at MIA Gallery, Bellevue Art Museum, Bumbershoot, and more. Shade’s style evolved to explore increasingly elaborate ways to finish the surfaces of her sculptural work, leading her through glass mosaic toward new explorations in paper, beading and stitchwork.During time spent living in Taos, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon, she exhibited in shows including most notably “Women Artists from the Land of Enchantment”, co-curated by Lucy Lippard and “Originals 2005″, a group show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe. Since returning to Seattle, Shade has been exhibiting her work at ArtXchange Gallery. In our 2015 “Mythos” exhibition, Shade’s work was pictured in the Seattle Times and highlighted by Michael Upchurch as “gentle, eccentric and exquisitely crafted.”