ARTIST STATEMENT
I am 77 years old. At 18, forbidden to major in art, I studied community psychology, spending decades working as a community social worker. At 64, I matriculated at Brooklyn College for a BFA in art. I was a beginner at everything, not comfortable.
What was comfortable is that I’d lived years in the world, and knew what I wanted to paint, print and sculpt. I became a community artist, following decades of artists who came before me, the WPA artists of the US Depression Era, the Mexican Taller de Gráfica muralists and printers, and more. We make art whose message is accessible to the public. Our art also makes the point that art itself should be unrestricted, not only in museums, but on the street.
Thus, my artwork portrays the power-challenged people of my community. My “community” is the NYC I see - homeless beggars, people on food lines, people who vote, protestors. I myself am part of that “community.”
And, as a community artist, I make my artwork accessible, as booklets, posters, inexpensive prints. I combine art with useful information, resulting in interdisciplinary creations that are helpful and are witnesses to the workings of power.
Resume
EDUCATION
2017 BFA, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Brooklyn, NY
1999 MA, Community Psychology, Sage Graduate School, Troy, NY
SOLO EXHIBITIONS and PUBLICATIONS
2022 Searching for Home, accordion booklets in which people, housed and not, drew and wrote about what home means to them, 30 books resulted
2020 Covid-19, NYC: Resources & Reflections, book of my art and my text, aim is to simplify economic resources during this time in NYC, 1,000 copies distributed
2019 NYC: Struggles and Survival Strategies – a narrative book about the great variety of struggling NY’ers, illustrated by my prints, 20 copies
2017 How We Got Here, Streetcorners & Foodbanks, UK & US, book of my art and my text, a tribute to food charity workers and consumers, 30 copies distributed to food pantries
2015 Food, Money, Shelter: NYC Resources, book of collaborative art and my informational text, 3,000 copies distributed free to street beggars in NYC and to NYC non-profit agencies
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Kolaj magazine’s “Big Orange Monster” exhibit, New Orleans
2019 Lower East Side Printshop, “Awaken” exhibit
2018 Defining the Art of Change in the Age of Trump, Ctr. for Contemporary Political Art, Washington, D.C.
2018 Small Works Show, curated by Art Students League, at Manhattan Borough President’s office
2015 Respond, Smack Mellon Gallery, NY, NY
AWARDS/GRANTS/FELLOWSHIPS
2023 In our Backyard matching of individual’s grants to work on Searching for Home
2022 Puffin Foundation Grant to work on Searching for Home
2020 Robin Hood Foundation grant to publish COVID 19 NYC: Resources & Reflections
2018-’19 Puffin Foundation Grant to publish NYC: Struggles and Survival Strategies
2018-‘19 More Art Fellowship, training to become a better Community Artist
2017 Puffin Foundation Grant to publish How We Got Here; Streetcorners & Foodbanks, UK & US
2017 Tow Fellowship to research political wall art, Bristol, UK
2016 Rosen Fellowship to draw food-bank system, southwest UK
2015 Seedtime Fund grant to publish Food, Money, Shelter: NYC Resources
2015 CUNY Labor Arts Contest, first prize in visual art, NY, NY
COMMUNITY ART PROJECTS OTHER THAN MY PUBLICATIONS
2020 Vote! 1,000’s of art-fliers distributed all over NYC, with registration information, and postcards designed for the League of Women Voters’ campaigns
2017 The Wall, performance art about Trump’s Wall, part of Respond, Brooklyn College week
2014-2016 Tax Project, tax posters to market tax initiative in NYC soup kitchens
PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY SOCIAL WORK EXPERIENCE
Decades of work as a professional Community Social Worker, NYC, Albany, NY, and North Carolina – details available upon request