My art (and writing) draws on my life as a naturalist and observer of texture, form, behavior, patterns, rhythms and color moving through space and time. I have worked in a variety of media over the years, including sculpture, photography, paper collage, multimedia, as well as installation works and often in multiples. Much of my most recent Abstract Expressionist work is painted with oil sticks on canvasses I found with pre-existing sketches, another artist’s unfinished paintings. While barely visible artifacts in the final product, those marks are referenced, explored and brought forward in color and shape. After years of creating art that was more design-oriented and conceptual, the liberating oil sticks encouraged me to draw from an emotional reservoir and my deep connection to the natural world. Influenced by the likes of Frankenthaler and Mitchell, years of sunsets and waters and fields burst abstractly onto the canvas.
In writing, I don't believe stories or experience to be linear, but operate in the past, present and future all at once and truth lies in the grey area and nuance.
Publications
- Gray Love: Stories about Dating and New Relationships after 60, "Prologue: Looking at 60," Rutgers University Press, January 2023
- The Pennsylvania Gazette,"Orchard Bounty," June 2022, https://thepenngazette.com/orchard-bounty/
- The Pennsylvania Gazette,"Chainsaw Massacre," February 2022, https://thepenngazette.com/chainsaw-massacre/
- Goats Milk, "Foraging Asparagus," August 2021, https://goatsmilkmagazine.ca/
2021/08/01/foraging-asparagus/ - Pigeon Review, "This is What Happens," August 2021, https://www.
pigeonreview.com/post/this-is- what-happens - The Pennsylvania Gazette, "Up the Creek and Back," February 2021, https://thepenngazette.com/up-
the-creek-and-back/ - Mondays at Ten, "Neighborhood Laundry," "Print Out" and "Polysandory", November 2020
- Orion Magazine, "All About Tractors," Spring 2020 (print only, unless you have a subscription)
- The Ravens Perch, "In the Woods," http://www.
theravensperch.com/in-the- woods-by-cynthia-mcvay/ - Chestnut Review, "Perfect," Winter 2020, https://chestnutreview.
com/cr_v1_n3/ - Meat for Tea, "My Buddhist," Spring 2020 (print only)
- 2019 Orison Anthology, "Morning Kenyan" (print only)
- Ragazine, November, 2018, "Field Farm," https://www.ragazine.
cc/cynthia-mcvay-creative- nonfiction/ - Eclectica, "Deities of Sicily," http://www.eclectica.
org/v22n3/mcvay.html - DASH, "Layer Cake" (print only)
- daCunha's Anthology 2, "On the Road," https://dacunha.global/
cynthia-mcvay-on-the-road
Awards and Honors
2018 Orison Anthology Award in Nonfiction
Editors' Choice winner, daCunha's 2017 Flash Nonfiction Competition, Performed in the UK October 2017
Semi-finalist, Boulevard's Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers
Short-list, Anton Chekov Contest New Flash Fiction Review
Finalist, 2nd Annual — Sunshot Book Awards
Honorable Mention, Writer's Relief Peter K. Hixson Memorial Award Short Stories
Honorable Mention, Glimmer Train Press Very Short Fiction contest
Finalist, Palooka Chapbook Contest
Finalist, New Millenium Writings Muse Contest
Finalist, freeze frame fiction
Non-fiction Finalist, Bridging the Gap Awards, Slice Writer's Conference 2017