Biography
As a graduate of Montclair State University with a B.A., M.A.T., and Administrative and Supervisor Certification, I was employed by the Newark Board of Education as an art educator and administrator for thirty-six years.
The major part of my career was spent in a magnet high school - Newark’s Arts High School- as both a classroom instructor and ultimately an administrator. Additionally, I participated in the initial establishment of the Geraldine R. Dodge Visual Artist/ Educator Initiative Fellowship program. Subsequently, I was one of the artist/educators awarded the seven thousand dollars fellowship in the second year of the program’s establishment. Both my artwork and my writing were selected for publication in “A Passion for Teaching”, edited by the former director of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Scott McVey.
My work has been exhibited in major African American shows, on college campuses and in regional museums. Selected exhibits include: The Studio Museum of Harlem, the “Emerging and Established” exhibit at the Newark Museum, the Women Artist Series at Douglas College, as well as exhibits at City College of New York, Seton Hall University, Rutgers University and Trenton City Museum.
My solo exhibits have been at Essex County College, Bloomfield College, and New Jersey City University, Passaic County Community College and The Pen and Brush in New York.
In my artistic career my art has evolved from genre drawings and paintings involving familial and maternal representations to thematic pieces on women’s roles and societal status. These pieces are painted and incised on clay board to enhance the trompe l'oeil illusion of lace.
Since my retirement from the Newark Board of Education in the year 2000, I have been serving on the Board of Directors at The 1978 Maplewood Arts Center in Maplewood NJ, The George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University and the Pen and Brush in New York city – an organization of women in the arts- where I am now the elected first vice president.
In addition I have been the curator for various exhibits. These include exhibits for Passaic County Community College, the 1978 Maplewood Arts Center in Maplewood, NJ, and the Brennan Art Gallery in Jersey City NJ. as well as the Eleta Caldwell Gallery in Newark Arts High School.
As a curator at the 1978 Maplewood Arts Center some of the artists I have engaged for solo exhibitions, in subsequent years, have been, Ben Jones, Bisa Washington, Gladys Grauer, Camille Billops, Michael Cummings and Don Miller (posthumously) and most recently, Chakaia Booker, and Emma Amos.