Mariela Cunqueiro

Mariela's love of cultural artifacts and history, music and art, has been influenced by her home country of Argentina, and growing up in several countries in the Americas.    Studies in film and business communications in Monterrey, Mexico, led to work in film production and marketing in Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Nicaragua.  After stretches of time in Bali and Tulum, she settled in Nevada City.  She began experimenting with pyro-wood burning techniques, touched with inspiration from her travels and her parent’s lifetimes creative works of art.  Mariela’s “Func-Art" is a mix of rich colors and shaded pyro art applied to everyday functional wood pieces found mostly on the shelves in our numerous local thrift shops or alongside our regional rivers and lakes.  There is no preset look to Mariela’s work: each piece plays off a scrap of wood, a simple table, a piece of driftwood, or a discarded lampshade.