From Guest Book to Historic Home

Machelle Wood almost didn't have an art show.

As a Bachelor of Arts student at the University of Texas at El Paso in 2003, she wasn't required to mount a senior exhibition. But when a professor offered her the Student Union Gallery — the most visible space on campus — she took it, organizing a full opening complete with a guest book.

"That book changed my life," Wood said.

Among the signatures was a construction manager with a job offer. He needed a local artist to work with EverGreene Painting Studios on the restoration of the Plaza Theatre. Wood called him, sent her résumé and soon found herself learning a craft she hadn't known existed.

More than two decades later, Wood is the educator at the Magoffin Home State Historic Site and secretary of the Concordia Heritage Association. Her career has run from graphic design to architectural conservation to public history — a path she never could have mapped out in advance.

"Opportunity rarely looks the way you expect," Wood said. "Sometimes it arrives in a guest book at an art show. Sometimes it's hidden inside a job you didn't plan to take."

Wood moved to El Paso in 1980 and graduated from Eastwood High School in 1989. She left Texas on a scholarship to study graphic design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, but Savannah never felt like home. Within a year, she was back in El Paso and enrolled at UTEP.

At her parents' urging, she traded art for psychology. They worried art wouldn't offer stability.

"I feared losing the creative spark that had always driven me," Wood said.

She worked full time at her father's pawnshop while keeping up with classes. She was also drawn to the stage, performing at the Union Dinner Theater and improvising with the Unauthorized Players. Between work, school and theater, something had to give. College was the first to go.

When her father sold his pawnshops, Wood joined Leach Publishing as an art assistant, working on Discovering Archaeology and Egypt Revealed. She called the job thrilling, but the company's financial troubles made it clear it wouldn't last.

If she wanted a future in graphic design, she decided, she needed a degree. Her research pointed to a combination that would make her more competitive: a graphic design major with a marketing minor. She returned to UTEP in fall 2001, determined to finish, and split her major with painting to speed up the process. That decision put her in the Student Union Gallery two years later.

The Plaza Theatre project introduced Wood to the delicate science of historic finishes: cleaning, color matching, in-painting and recreating original surfaces with mathematical precision.

"It was a perfect blend of art, science and problem-solving," Wood said.

It was a long way from the design career she had pictured, but the skills carried over. The eye for color and composition she had sharpened in UTEP's design and painting studios became the tools she used to match original paint and bring faded decorative surfaces back to life.

The work launched more than a decade of travel across the United States, restoring state capitols, theaters and historic homes and learning from conservators from around the world.

Eventually, the constant travel wore thin, and Wood wanted to be closer to El Paso. Work with Professio and Source brought her back to Texas, and in 2010 she assisted with finishes analysis at the Magoffin Home. That led to a role reproducing the home's exterior finishes.

In 2013 came another unexpected turn: an invitation to apply for a new educator position at the site. She started the job June 5, 2014.

Wood said shifting from restoring buildings to researching the people who built them felt natural. After years spent studying a structure's surfaces layer by layer, she turned the same patience and attention to detail toward archives, family records and the stories behind the walls.

"The Magoffin family's story was rich, complicated and full of unanswered questions," she said.

She has spent years exploring those questions and sharing what she finds with the public, interpreting a complex family history for visitors to the site.

Her work with the Concordia Heritage Association expanded her understanding of El Paso's history even further. As the organization's secretary, she helps create programs and research initiatives that connect more El Pasoans to their past.

Looking back, Wood sees a single thread running through every turn.

"All of this — the art, the science, the history, the education — began with a desire to be a graphic designer," she said.

Her advice for anyone facing an uncertain opportunity is to step toward it.

"You may feel overwhelmed or uncertain when something new appears, but stepping toward it can open doors you never imagined," Wood said. "For me, it opened a world where I get to learn, create and share my passion for history every day."