Couples Therapy
The artistic visions of Mary Heebner and Macduff Everton span time and space
A vintage Cadillac and a religious icon at a house near the Santa Barbara Mission caught photographer Macduff Everton’s eye.
Written by Joan Tapper
Photographs by Macduff Everton
Artwork by Mary Heebner
Night and day, earth, water, and sky—basic elements can inspire breathtaking creations in the right hands.
Everton’s panoramic camera added an otherworldly aspect to the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, which stretch 18 miles along the coast.
“Collage, my main medium, homes in on details that speak to qualities of humanity, juxtaposing fragments to create a whole.”
Mary Heebner in her studio with pieces in progress at the time. She and Everton frequently work on book projects together while maintaining their own personal practices. She notes, “We are each other’s best editors and fiercest supporters.”
“Macduff and I have collaborated for nearly 40 years in a married life filled with travel and art.”
The expanded, updated edition of Everton’s The Book of Santa Barbara captures the town’s people, places, and events—some reaching into the past, like the photo of the Mexican pool hall that was once a popular spot on lower State Street and the Cuyama Valley Wild West Rodeo of the 1970s and ’80s
Mary Heebner probed an ancient image in Geography of a Face: The Messenger, a grid collage from 2010.
Heebner’s new artist’s book, Mythos Quartet, interprets ancient myths, including that of Castor and Pollux, which she illustrated with Cut-Ups: Brother Love/Dioskouri.
Storm clouds swirl in imagination and reality, destined to loom forever in print and pigment.
The Book of Santa Barbara, Second Edition (Tixcacalculpul Press, $78) is out in bookstores this month. Mythos Quartet (Simplemente Maria Press, price on request), a limited edition of 20 sets of four books with words and images, housed in an acrylic box, will be available in January through maryheebnergallery.com.
