Maria Schechter a 2024 DeHaan Artist of Distinction Award reciepiant, co-creates with the natural world using living materials, mycelium composites, and plant-based palettes. Her workshops call us to recognize that art and nature are inseparable, intertwined expressions of the beauty and wonder that we call the natural world. She was nominated for a MacArthur Award at the age of 21 for her development of What-is-Art-What-is-Sound, an international arts collective turned non-profit, founded in 13 countries and 28 cities with over 200 artists members. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has received a variety of grants and awards, including the UCLA Artist Achievement Award and the Center for Cultural Innovation Grant, Los Angeles, CA. Her first mycelium project, Gatekeepers, a homage to impermanence grown over a three year period, is  on the grounds at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee, where the five foot arch will eventually decompose back into the earth. She has exhibited with several galleries and museums including Agora Gallery and Whitebox in New York City, The Abrams Claghorn Gallery, Anderson Museum, Minnetrista Museum and Gardens, Triton Museum, and the Seattle Art Museum. She has been published in Eluxe Magazine, The Ecological Citizen, Nature Evolve Magazine, and recently in Axios 2025. Maria earned her bachelor of fine art from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA. She initiated graduate work with New York University and completed a master degree from Schiller International University in Heidelberg, Germany.  Maria lives and works in Bloomington, Indiana.