An outpouring of heartfelt condolences and grief greeted news of the death of Mary Elizabeth Cantú, who died suddenly from a heart attack on Thursday, February 18, at age 45. Ms. Cantú was a beloved member of the San Antonio arts community and founder of Spare Parts, a recycling-focused arts nonprofit dedicated to making art supplies accessible and affordable for artists and educators.
Mary Cantú and friends
A raft of comments flooded the February 20 Spare Parts memorial Instagram post announcing Ms. Cantú’s death, from artist and public art advocate Jimmy LeFlore describing her as “kind to the core of her being” and “the epitome of a community art educator,” to arts education professional Kate Carey honoring her as “a creative force for good.” In his own post, U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro praised her creative spirit and noted that she volunteered in 2018 to judge for his office’s annual art competition.
As noted on the Spare Parts website, the concept began with Ms. Cantú in 2011 “as a response to the lack of arts funds and resources in PreK-12 classrooms,” then incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) venture in 2018. For its initial years, Spare Parts took different forms and shapes in locations throughout the city, with a temporary home in the Wonderland of the Americas.
Ms. Cantú and Executive Director Maggi Peachey opened the Spare Parts Center for Creative Reuse in 2020 in a strip mall on Wetmore Road in the northern reaches of the city, touting itself as “San Antonio’s first art supply thrift store.” The store won the San Antonio Current’s popular vote award for “Best Thrift Store” in 2022, calling it “a goldmine for crafters and makers of all ages” that diverted 10 tons of materials from area landfills in one year.
Opening the brick-and-mortar store was “the ultimate goal for Mary and helped solidify Spare Parts as a resource for the San Antonio community,” Ms. Peachey said in an email to Glasstire. Elaborating on Ms. Cantú’s evolution and presence, Ms. Peachey said, “Starting from nothing, she managed to grow intrigue, a large social media presence, and a wide support network over the span of a decade. Her advocacy for reuse education through the arts was so prevalent in San Antonio it seemed that everyone either knew Mary or was connected to her through friends or colleagues. Her passion was contagious and her resilience was inspiring.”
Mary Cantú
Ms. Cantú was Art Department Chair of the Alameda School for Art and Design at Henry Ford Academy, a tuition-free college preparatory high school in San Antonio. She was renowned among those who knew her for her boundless energy. An Instagram post from the Alameda School noted Ms. Cantú started Spare Parts while simultaneously leading art camps, school projects, and teaching. The elegiac post notes that she had “a keen eye for the untapped potential in unlikely materials and found treasures.”
“[Mary] always had a way to utilize everything to its max potential,” said Dezarre Boone, an art educator who first interned with Spare Parts at age 17. Now 29, she said Ms. Cantú guided her toward becoming a teacher, and stayed her ”forever mentor.” Ms. Boone said she regularly marveled at Ms. Cantú’s ingenuity, once helping craft snow globes from baby food jars using knick-knacks and tiny toys Ms. Cantú and volunteers had collected over months, featured as VIP gifts for a Spare Parts fundraising event. Ms. Boone recalled how important annual Spare Parts Fine Arts Fair Materials Giveaways were for teachers, where through Ms. Cantú’s determined generosity and a small donation, under-resourced arts educators could grab two armfuls of art supplies to help their students thrive.
Patricia Morales, Head of Community Engagement for Ruby City, formerly worked with Ms. Cantú as Director of Young Artist Programs at the Southwest School of Art. “The thing that I always really respected about her was that she centered the experience of the art making, but also the educators. She was such a great advocate for arts educators, and there’s such a need for them to have access to resources that they often don’t [have]. … She was such a visionary. She saw a need and she filled it.”
Mary Cantú
Ms. Cantú’s interest in creative culture and community arts education was evident as a student at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Museum Education with a focus on Cultural Anthropology and Elementary Education, and at the University of Texas, where her Master’s degree studies were concentrated on community-based art. Following school, Ms. Cantú worked at Artpace as Manager of Public Programs from 2006 to 2010.
Mini Art Museum
In 2016, Andrew Leo Stansbury, an artist and arts administrator, worked as an intern with Ms. Cantú’s Mini Art Museum project. The initiative was a traveling exhibition format she co-founded in 2013 with Gabriela Santiago, a San Antonio arts administrator and educator entrepreneur. The Mini Art Museum made use of standard office binders as gallery “walls” and invited artists to contribute artworks small enough to fit in 8.5-by-11 inch clear plastic sleeves. Mr. Stansbury recalled the Mini Art Museum traveled to “every school possible as part of her outreach,” in addition to San Antonio venues Wonderland of the Americas, Carver Community Cultural Center, Hotel Emma, Period Modern furniture store, and other locations. Ms. Cantú helped foster other exhibitions, including a recent collaboration with Fiber Artists of San Antonio on their annual exhibition Circularity celebrating sustainability in the use of eco-friendly materials and methods.
The adventuresome creativity of Ms. Cantú’s Spare Parts team is evident in multiple social media posts advertising creative re-use workshops, including “Creepy Dolls with Morena,” “Not Your Childhood Shrinky Dinks with Julia,” “Basic Quilling with Carol” and “Japanese Boro Mending with Oliver.” An Instagram post from Ruby City, home of the Linda Pace Foundation’s contemporary art collection, praised Ms. Cantú’s past collaborative public engagement projects including the popular Bubble Fest, Las Princesas, Political Banner Project, and others.
Mary Cantú and Chris Castillo
Chris Castillo, a San Antonio artist who served on the advisory board of the Mini Art Museum from 2013 to2021, held Ms. Cantú’s feminist spirit in high regard. He said, “She’s part of the matriarchal lineage of San Antonio art professionals that have shaped San Antonio profoundly, wildly.”
Ms. Boone recalled that Valentine’s Day was Ms. Cantú’s favorite holiday, and the beloved arts leader’s commitment to her arts community was perhaps best exemplified by the Spare Parts “Crafting Love Beyond Boundaries” Valentine’s Day card making workshop held February 7 to honor “2SLGBTQ+ youth and elders.”
Ms. Peachey noted that the event was a partnership with Thrive Youth Center, a San Antonio nonprofit serving LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness, and that she intends such partnerships to continue. She explained, “Connecting with the local community and showing compassion to others were hard principles Mary Cantú lived by that Spare Parts will continue to follow.”
Ms. Morales expressed sadness at Ms. Cantú’s passing, but said her legacy as a community catalyst will live on in those she connected through art. She told Glasstire, “She created a community that supports each other. And that’s a huge accomplishment.”
Mary Cantú. Photo: Josh Huskin
The Alameda School post notes that in lieu of flowers, the Ms. Cantú’s family kindly requests donations to a scholarship fund being established in her honor to support Henry Ford Academy graduating seniors pursuing higher education. Donations can be made to: Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School, 901 E. Drexel Ave., Bldg. C, San Antonio, TX 78210, Attn: J.R. Sanchez.
Spare Parts will reach out to artists who knew Ms. Cantú and ask that they pledge to donate proceeds from the sale of an art piece to the scholarship fund.
