About Me

H. Maria Armijo is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Northeast Ohio. Her creative practice bridges visual storytelling, memory, and cultural identity through painting, textiles, handmade paper, and mixed media. She is also trained as a librarian, a role that continues to shape her research-driven, archival approach to art making.

Originally from Honduras, her family migrated to a suburb of Dayton, Ohio. Her multidisciplinary background reflects a lifelong commitment to curiosity, culture, and community. She holds a BFA in Fiber Art from the University of Cincinnati, an MS in Social Administration from Case Western Reserve University, and an MLIS from Kent State University.

Armijo’s work is rooted in themes of diaspora, assimilation, loss, and the intimate connections that bind us. Drawing from a personal archive of family photographs and inherited artifacts, she explores how we carry culture, remember, and remake meaning over time and across distance.

She began painting during the pandemic and, in 2022, completed the Kent Blossom Art Intensive in Painting. Her painting The Dreamers received Honorable Mention in the 2025 Paul & Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize at the Ashtabula Arts Center. She is also the recipient of the 2025 SCBWI Ohio North Underrepresented Diverse Voices (BIPOC) Scholarship, supporting her exploration of picture book illustration and narrative art.

Armijo teaches Game Design and Visual Communication at Cuyahoga Community College and serves as the Artist Opportunities Manager at the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, where she connects artists with residencies, internships, and professional pathways in papermaking, book arts, and print.

She lives in Northeastern Ohio with her husband and two children.

Armijo was recently interviewed by Books Are My People. Click here to listen to the interview.