MAGGIE
GRIMASON
writer + editor
About

Maggie Grimason is a writer and editor living in New Mexico.
Books
Visually Speaking: A Companion to Public Art in Albuquerque
Visually Speaking is a small reader published on the 40th anniversary of Albuquerque's Public Art program. A series of essays provide context for looking at the city's existing public art and offer a deeper understanding of the situations around which public art projects have been created and consumed. This collection of critical writing explores the “public” in public art and the specific ways in which such projects engage with history, culture, the built landscape, and creative practice in New Mexico's largest city. Visually Speaking highlights public art in our city and engages with it openly, honestly, and creatively. Emphasized in each of these essays is the vital dialogue within any public art process and an invitation to think expansively about the future potential of public art in Albuquerque.
Selected Journalism
Albuquerque Modern: A Sunbelt city’s mid-century building blitz draws new admirers
New Mexico Magazine
The sun gleams off the gilded bands of a white tower as Thea Haver, founder of Modern Albuquerque, leads me through the city’s Highland Business District and a few blocks of old Route 66. Oddly situated at the corner of San Mateo Boulevard and Central Avenue, the 17-story skyscraper juts above its surrounding single-story buildings.
Critical Reviews
Hyperallergic
Many Worlds Are Born, the current exhibition on view at 516 Arts in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the first of two exhibitions slotted this year to examine disparate histories of the state (the second, Technologies of the Spirit, opens on June 11). Both grew out of Art Meets History, a national initiative led by Ric Kasini Kadour (who co-curated this exhibition alongside Alicia Inez Guzmán, PhD) that “looks at how the divergent histories of race, conflict, and colonialism in New Mexico inform how we imagine our futures.”

Once Upon a Time in Albuquerque
Hyperallergic

Artists Explore Divergent Histories in Many Worlds Are Born
Creative Nonfiction

What a Ghost Sounds Like
Ploughshares
Death and Coffee: How One Café Is Breaking Taboos
Headspace.com
I was eight years old when my father passed away. I vividly remember the last time I saw him: he was at the hospital, reclined in a bed, offering me a bite of his ice cream. Now and then I regret shrugging off his offer. The next time I saw him he was laid out in a coffin.