Marjorie Maffett, M.A. CCC-SLP
Marjorie’s Journey as Speech-language Pathologist,
Maker, Teacher, SLP, Owner of The Wordshop
Marjorie Maffett, M.A., CCC-SLP has found her voice, identity, refuge, solidarity, and clarity through art-making. And she loves to talk with people. She has not kept much of the works she has made, historically, and for some time she did not really know why. Then, she began to understand: she regards the piece itself as an ephemeral by-product. The real value of the work is in the process of making it—finding joy in the unfolding that happens along the way. Sometimes unexpected things happen, requiring flexibility and a beginner’s mind!
Marjorie began teaching at age 15 while working as a lifeguard. She taught swim lessons for many years to children and adults and found her passion for highlighting people’s strengths and bringing additional confidence to the journey of learning through teaching new skills. Starting at age 9 caring for and training her own dogs, and others in the neighborhood something she does to this day, her roots in understanding behavior are deep. She is always looking for the “why” for every behavior that occurs. Now, 11 years into her career as a speech-language pathologist, Marjorie has brought all of her existing passions together with the Wordshop.
Marjorie believes communication and experiential art making are essential to human experience, it unites us, and in making, there is learning about making mistakes, finding our intuition, building confidence, absolutely passionate about this. Her goal is to provide comprehensive communication therapy by actively inviting creativity into her therapeutic process. Helping all children regardless of ability or background find their most confident voices is what Wordshop is all about.
Mary Hlastala
Administrator & Program Director at The Wordshop
Mary Hlastala is the Admin + Program Director at Wordshop. She has a B.S. in Mathematics from Portland State University. She has previously run two non-profits: one empowering girls in mathematics and creative thinking, and one supporting local artists in Portland, OR. She is a creator and problem-solver, balancing strong organizational and administrative skills with creativity and design.
Mary loves to paint, draw, and make things by hand, especially miniature foods out of clay! Using her passion for process-based art, she’s able to find strengths through art-making. It’s a way of connecting people to one another and their community, a space for self-reflection and discovery, and a tool to find your voice and how you see the world. She lives as a creative person not because she creates, but because she sees the world in a creative way, constantly developing new ideas and bringing new things to life.
