Marta McWhorter is an artist and maker working in Savannah, Georgia since 2004. She moved to Savannah to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design and study historic preservation, but before starting classes she found herself unexpectedly pregnant with a baby girl and soon married to raise a family. She was unable to afford the time and cost of school and therefore put off finishing her degree. She continued to make fine art and build her career in theatrical lighting design and stage electrics while raising two kids. Over the years she did some collaborative works with her brother, a cabinet maker, and like so many of us furniture designers began to be seduced by the warmth and beauty of wood. This is when she fell head over heels in love with woodworking! In 2015 she took the plunge and rented a commercial shop space and began buying up cabinet saws and woodworking tools. She was relying on the long distance knowledge of her brother, a cabinet maker, and began teaching herself the basics.
Fast forward to 2019 when she was presented with an amazing opportunity to finally attend SCAD and finish the degree she moved for all those years ago and this time for free, one class per quarter. She is still a nontraditional, part time student working toward an undergraduate degree in Furniture Design with a Ceramics minor. Despite still being a student, she has forged ahead with her professional design career.
Marta is constantly making or building something new, whether it is custom cabinetry for a local client, a theatrical set or lighting for her longtime theatre job, or a fabulous art object, painting or drawing to be sold in the co-op gallery she is a member of. Her creativity and attention to detail are always at the forefront of all of her endeavors!
StatementI am a multidisciplinary artist and maker whose creative work flows freely across many art forms ranging from theatre to fine art to furniture design. At the heart of my creative practice is an innate ability to draw. At the same time that I have developed my fine art practice over the years, I have also built a 25-year career in Stage Electrics and Lighting Design that has further influenced my creative practices by training my eye to see the nuances of light and shadow.
In recent years I have begun delving more into custom furniture design and object fabrication. My furniture designs are rooted firmly in the realm of one-off, fine art objects. These objects start as a series of sketches that I then begin to bring to life through material explorations. Most of these pieces are sculptural and organic in nature but I am starting to explore using CAD and CNC tooling to make components to these sculptural pieces in a more predictable way. I take great pride in my attention to detail as well as my finishing techniques. I'm always excited to start a new project and see where it will take me in the creative process!
