Maria Valentina Sheets

Maria Sheets is a decades long professional art objects conservator and painter in the mediums of oil, egg tempera and glass pigments.

Sheets spent her childhood within the top story of a Russian Orthodox Church in San Francisco where her grandmother(a nurse), great aunt and great Uncle(a Russian Orthodox priest and prolific Iconographer) lived and preserved the art/artifacts of the church.  In spite of the influence of traditional liturgic iconography, Sheets work now adheres to contemporary social realism through portraiture.

Holding a Masters of Humanities from UT Dallas and a Professional Associates Status Certificate from the American Institute for Conservation, Sheets was contracted as chief conservator for the fire recovery project at the Museum of Biblical Art and the National Jewish Collection in Dallas, Texas.  In addition to treating contemporary, historic, liturgic, and archaeological artifacts for private collections, galleries, museums for over two decades, she teaches courses on collections care, painting, and traditional liturgical arts such as gilding, pysanky, traditional iconography, and glass painting/fusing.

Sheets has been contracted by large glass firms for numerous architectural glass commissions which include universities, houses of worship, businesses and private residences nationally.  Her work was chosen in recent juried exhibitions such as American Glass Guild NOW 2016(juror, contemporary artist Judith Schaecter),  Texas National 2018 (juror Jed Perl, international art critic), and Materials Hard and Soft International Craft Exhibition 2019(2nd place of 1100 entries).  She was recently contracted by reknown JUDY CHICAGO to collaborate in glass reproductions.