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Born:

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1949, Marshalltown, Iowa

Education:

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1983, BFA, Syracuse University, cum laude

1985, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, full scholarship

1986, MFA, University of Pennsylvania, scholarship

 

Completed Apprenticeships:

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2003, Moravian Pottery and Tile Works

2004, Fabric Workshop and Museum

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Grants and Awards:

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2022, Leeway Foundation Fall Art and Change Grant. 

2022, Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity Grant.

2018, Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant.

2017, Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant.

2017, The Puffin Foundation, LTD Award.

2016, Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant.

2015, Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant.

2013, The Puffin Foundation, LTD Award.

2011, The Puffin Foundation, LTD Award.

2010, Leeway Foundation Transformation Award.

2009, Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant.
2005, August, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Special Opportunity Stipend funding the Painted Bride Solo Exhibition.

2003, August,  Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity funding a mural, hand-made hand painted tile portrait of life-sentenced Rose Dinkins mural at 44 and Locust in West Philadelphia.

2001, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts funding a Special Opportunity Stipend to apprentice with a ceramist.

2000, Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity funding a hand painted tile mural portrait of life-sentenced Cyd Berger at 3rd and Poplar, in Northern Liberties, PA.
1998, The Puffin Foundation, LTD Award,  funding website of Cyd Berger, life-sentenced at SCI Cambridge Springs, PA.

1994, New Forms Regional NEA Grant funding City Hall Courtyard Tent in Philadelphia City Hall Courtyard.

1994, Womens Way Discretionary Fund funding Philadelphia City Hall Tent.

1994, Bread and Roses Fund supporting Philadelphia City Hall Courtyard Tent.

1992, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Fellowship.

1989-91, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Artist in Residency Program also funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Inmate General Welfare Fund of Pennsylvania State Corrections, and the Pennsylvania Prison Society, teaching painting in the State Correctional Prisons in Pennsylvania primarily at SCI Muncy, the only state correctional facility for women.  

 

Solo Exhibitions:​​

 

2024,  Pardon Garden, Media PA, Tile Mural Portraits and Garden.

 

2018, September 4-28, Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, Philadelphia, PA. Reparations for Incarceration,  Portraits of Pennsylvania women sentenced to life without parole and talks with Paulette Carrington

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2017, November 4, 2016- January 18, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, PA,  Recent portraits of life sentenced women with videos and a 2016 series of abstract paintings

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2016, April 13- May 15, George Washington Hall, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, Release! Portraits and video of women sentenced to life without parole

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2014, October 5-30, the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, Philadelphia, PA, “Then and Now, Portraits of Women in Prison”,  Thirteen portraits of women with accompanying audio or video 

 
2012, December 11, 2011-January 10, the “A” Space, West Philadelphia, PA, New paintings and portraits of life- sentenced women

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2010, September and October 16,  Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, PA, “Pardon Me”,  a retrospective exhibition of portraits and video of life-sentenced women

 

2010, March-November, Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Philadelphia, PA, “Pardon Me”,  Portraits with Voices of four life-sentenced women

 

2001, October- December, Bucknell University, Samek Art Gallery, Lewisburg, PA, Portraits of life-sentenced women
 
2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, May- November, Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site,  Philadelphia, PA
Installation of portraits and voices of life-sentenced women
 

1994, Philadelphia City Hall Courtyard, “I Face Myself/ I Face You”, Philadelphia, PA, A tent installation with walls as portraits of life-sentenced women with their voices.

 

Group Exhibitions:

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2018, September 20- December, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia,PA ,  Leeway Foundation Making Space 

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2017, September 10-December 10, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Perelman Building, Philadelphia Assembled, Philadelphia, PA, Portrait of deceased juvenile lifer, Sharon Wiggins

 

2016, April 30-September 11, Arresting Patterns, African American Museum in Philadelphia, portraits of Avis Lee and Kennetta Andrews 

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2015, February 26- June 30, Leeway Foundation, Philadelphia, PA, “Release”.  Eleven portraits of women serving life without parole in Pennsylvania

 

2015, February 22- May 4,  Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center, Wallingford, PA, An exhibition in conjunction with Michelle Alexander speaking about her book The New Jim Crow

 

2015, January 17- March 14, Arts Council of Princeton, Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, Taplin Gallery, Princeton, NJ, “the Bigger Picture”.  Four portraits: two of women serving life-sentences and two of women working in prison to help them. Accompanying videos  include each subject’s voice and the development of each portrait and narrative

 

2012, December,  Temple Contemporary, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA, “Voices and Faces of Mass Incarceration”. Four panel portraits with narrative about life-sentenced women Sharon Wiggins, Marie Scott, Marilyn Dobrolenski, and Cyd Berger, painted and shown in a 1994 NEA funded installation as tent walls, in Philadelphia City Hall Courtyard

 

1995, “Art and the Law”,  Portrait of life-sentenced Sherri Robinson, West Publishing Annual Exhibition, traveling nationally with the American Bar Conventions. Selected for publication in the ABA Journal

 

1991, July- August, Moore College of Art Levy Gallery, “Doing Life”, My portraits and self-portraits by life sentenced men and women sentenced to life without parole at SCI Muncy and SCI Graterford

 

You Tube Publications:

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All of the publications are accompanied by narrative and still photographs of my developing portraits.

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2017, published September 13, 3:44, Rise, Sharon Wiggins, Sharon Wiggins describes her grandmother’s memory of the KKK

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2016, published November 21, 3:47,  Sharon Wiggins: a KKK Memory, Sharon Wiggins, who was raised by her grandmother,  describes her grandmother’s memory

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2016, published March 23, 4:08, Brenda Watkins Lives the New Jim Crow, Brenda Watkins describes a defining childhood moment

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2016, published March 14, 4:52,  Rose Dinkins Speaks, Rose Dinkins describes her family relationships

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2015, published October 27, 3:57, Teri Smallwood, Incarcerated 43 Years, Teri Smallwood talks about her experience as an African-American wrongfully incarcerated

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2015, published April 14, 2:13, David, Ocean, David talks about life with Parkinson’s

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2015, published January 14, 5:24, LJ Kittle, 1985-2014, The Evolution of the Prison Industrial Complex, LJ Kittle, a Clinical Supervisor, overseeing treatment at SCI Muncy from 1985-2014, describes the evolution of the Prison Industrial Complex and the consequences

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2014, published September 9, 4:37, Cyd Berger, Then and Now, Life-Sentenced Cyd Berger describes her relationship with her children, her accomplishments while in prison and her goals

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2014, published March 20, 6:20, Kennetta Andrews, Then,  A guard at the SCI Muncy from the 1970s- 1990’s, Kennetta Andrews describes the prison as an African-American in the early 1970’s

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2014,  published March 2, 6:55, Avis Lee, Then and Now,  Life-Sentenced Avis Lee describes her crime in 1979 and her activity in 2013 at SCI Cambridge Springs

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