I listen, and I forget
I see, and I remember
I do, and I understand
- Chinese Proverb

M.J. Dickson originally grew up in Boston, Massachusetts where she learned at an early age her propensity towards an artistic journey. At the young age of eight, she attended art classes at the The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Later she studied with Jan Cox at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts where her inherent skills began to be developed. As M.J.’s education progressed, she worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in the Department of Public Education and the Asiatic Department where she catalogued several collections. Then she attended Boston University, College of Fine Arts graduating with an MFA in Art Education. She continued in her desire of teaching while also remaining true to her own personal artistic goals.

M.J. began her career teaching in various venues such as M.I.T. in Cambridge and the Boston Architectural Center in Boston. Although continuing in private instruction in the city, she was finding herself spending more time back on Nantucket Island, a place that had a profound effect on her since discovering the Island’s beauty at her first visit at age five. Finding an opportunity to move there full time with her husband in the late seventies. M.J. after having two children found herself in the position to pursue her teaching by developing the curriculum of Art Appreciation/History of Art to the Kindergarten class at the Children’s’ House of Nantucket, a Montessori School.

During the period of her career in teaching, M.J. continued to be focused on her own individual artistic achievements. Although her first show was held at the Little Gallery in Nantucket, she also had exhibitions at the The Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, the Nantucket Looms, The Loomis Chaffee School, JFA in New York, and the Fold Art Gallery in Reykajvik, Iceland. M.J. also has many of her works included in the Nantucket Historical Association, the Pearl Restaurant on the Island, and The Boston Public Library.

M.J. sees her work as a way “to create a desire to understand and participate in life.” Being heavily influenced by the element of light, many of her observations are based on Einstein’s four principles of energy, matter, space and time. Solidifying her experience of teaching with her art, M.J. sees the connection of the “value of visual communication and the pleasure of image and their mediums to enable a person to integrate all of our five senses to any experience they might encounter.”