Marlies Manning

medium: watercolor/batik

Marlies Manning is a watercolor artist and landscape architect, residing in Big Rapids, Michigan.  Born in Toronto, Canada and raised in Racine, Wisconsin, Marlies moved to Michigan at the end of high school.  She completed her B.S. in Land Use Analysis from Eastern Michigan University, and then received her B.L.A. in Landscape Architecture from Michigan State University in 1989, graduating with High Honors.  Marlies worked as a landscape architect in Kalamazoo and Detroit before moving to Big Rapids in 2000.   Her landscape architecture firm, Manning Design, is celebrating its twenty year anniversary in 2020.

Marlies’ interest in art was manifest in her profession as a landscape architect.  Upon moving to Big Rapids in 2000, Marlies began taking art classes at Artworks.  Her creativity found expression in painting, batiks, basket making, mosaics, alcohol inks, and many other art forms.   While she enjoys them all, she has found watercolors to be the most challenging and rewarding.  She began a serious commitment to watercolor painting in 2012. 

Marlies has exhibited her watercolors in several galleries and numerous exhibits at Artworks in Big Rapids.  Her painting, “It’s Been a Good Day” won the Peoples’ Choice Award in the “Waterways and You” exhibit at Artworks (2018).  Marlies partnered in a two person show, “Journey of Two Artists” at Artworks, in Big Rapids, MI (2019).  Marlies partnered again in a two person show, “Views and Perspectives” at the 515 Gallery in Clare, MI .  Marlies has taught painting classes, served on the Artworks Board of Directors, and served on the Big Rapids Festival of the Arts Committee.