Margaret has written and illustrated several books for children and adults and is represented by Anna Olswanger at Olswanger Literary LLC. Her picture book The Science of Light (Holiday House 2022) was awarded a silver Orbis Pictus award for excellence in non-fiction children’s books, and Inkblot: Drip, Splat and Squish Your Way to Creativity (Boyds Mills 2011) was awarded a Eureka! Silver Medal for non-fiction children’s books. Her art-making-for-everyone book for adults, Make Your Mark: Explore Your Creativity and Discover Your Inner Artist (Chronicle Books, 2004), voted one of Library Journal’s best how-to books of 2004.

Margaret paints and dyes costumes for the theater at Parsons-Meares, LTD. Shows she has worked on include Broadway shows such as Moulin Rouge, Hadestown, Frozen, The Lion King, Wicked, Will Rogers Follies, for dance with American Ballet Theater’s Peter and the Wolf, Joffrey Ballet’s Cotillon, Pilobolus, Feld Ballet’s Evo and Paper Tiger, Nevada Ballet and San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcrackers, the film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as well as for circuses, arena shows and ice shows. She is represented in the 2020 Routledge book Theater Artisans and Their Craft. Margaret is a member of United Scenic Artists, local 829.

Margaret teaches fabric painting at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) and Dyeing for the Theater at SUNY Purchase. She taught costume painting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for ten years and has presented costume painting workshops at UNC, BYU, USITT-SE. She lectures on making a living as an artist (The Self Employment in the Arts 2013 conference in Chicago, The Love Your Library series at FIT, Miami University in Ohio, BYU, UNC) presents art workshops (inkblots, fabric painting, painting with stencils) with cancer survivors, elders, children, writers, nurses and caregivers, at The Creative Center at University Settlement’s Creative Aging conferences, and their Artist-in-Residence Training program, at Art Lab at Mount Sinai Hospital, Gilda’s Club. Also with EngAGE Utah, at The Huntsman Cancer Institute, Operation Exodus in NYC, and at Miami University’s Scripps center with Dr. Like Lokon and Opening Minds Through Art.

Click here for a list of shows I’ve worked on!