
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.
Reported Pieces
Travel
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.
Other Selected Works
Studio Visit: Grace Rosario Perkins
Southwest Contemporary Magazine
Grace Rosario Perkins describes a drawing she had made years ago, taking Black Flag’s Family Man album and replacing Raymond Pettibon’s violent imagery with a repeated series of pencil drawings of women. She then filled out the liner notes with her mother’s name, whom she credited with everything from production to bass to vocals. “I want to start a punk band with my mom,” she said, one of dozens of brilliant ideas she mentioned offhand over the course of a conversation in her East Downtown studio in Albuquerque.
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.
The Muscle of Memory: Author Francisco Cantú Discusses His Work on the Border
Weekly Alibi
It sometimes seems that it is difficult for human beings, across geographies or generations or cultures, to care about one another—some archaic biological me-before-them mechanism, maybe. But there's life-sustaining worth in what we've built by way of culture, magic in communication, and more specifically, in story.
Modern Cyborgs Aren't Waiting Around for Evolution
The Portalist
The Skype ring tone filled the still air of my office before the screen flickered with the image of a woman—bleached blonde hair, dark eyes, blunt bangs that stretched to the top of her ear on the left side, her temple shaved underneath.
“Hello, Moon?” I asked the screen. It felt surreal, like something out of my cyberpunk fantasies, to be speaking through a digital feed to a cyborg in Barcelona. I've admired the work of Moon Ribas since I first read about it years ago.
I Don't Know Any Weak Women: A Conversation with Isabel Allende
Weekly Alibi
In 1972, just a year before his death, Isabel Allende visited the poet Pablo Neruda in his home. At the time Allende was working as a journalist in her native Chile. As relayed in her memoir, Paula, Neruda gave her some life-changing advice.
Contact
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