Marie-Elena Schembri Writer, Photographer & Visual Artist

Marie-Elena Schembri is a writer, photographer, and visual artist living in the quaint foothill town of Mokelumne Hill in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. She is a full-time reporter for the Calaveras Enterprise newspaper, and also writes prose and short stories, copywriting and blogs, marketing materials, and is available for non-profit and small-business strategic planning consultation. She teaches art to local school children as a Teaching Artist in Amador County, with classes focusing on creating art through sustainable, nature-based art practices.

Marie-Elena earned a Bachelor of Art in Studio Arts with a concentration in Visual Media from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where she also studied creative and technical writing. She also received an Associate’s degree in Applied Science with a concentration in Commercial Photography from Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Nebraska. While in Omaha she worked as a fine jewelry photographer, copywriter, florist, photo lab tech, gallery attendant and director, and curated several group art exhibitions while also showing her own work regularly. 

Marie-Elena enjoys making all kinds of things by hand, and uses her knowledge of plants and flowers to aid in experimentation with plant-based film developers and hand-made pigments. Her work focuses on community-facing issues, and nature-based, sustainable art practices. She has exhibited her work locally in Amador County at the Amador Arts Gallery, internationally at Place M Gallery (Tokyo, Japan), and in the Omaha area at Commonwealth Gallery and the Gallery of Art and Design at Metropolitan Community College, Pet Shop Gallery, RNG Gallery, Cali Commons, Hot Shops Art Center, The Little Gallery, and Link Gallery.