Public art injects creativity and personal expression into the everyday conversation and lives of the people. Murals are the people’s voice talking loudly for anyone to hear at anytime for FREE with no walls or doors in between the viewer and the audience. All of my public artwork has been part of the San Francisco Bay Area. I was there for 23 wonderful years. About 20 of those years I spent learning the craft of community muralism thanks to many artists working with me, namely Susan Cervantes and Precita Eyes Muralists in San Francisco. I enjoy being a community’s artistic catalyst to a new creation on the walls or public spaces of their neighborhood. To have my art part of several San Francisco neighborhoods feels like an accomplishment.
In 2003 I started working in my other field of interest, public education as a special educator. Each year I attempted to fold as much art into my core lessons. Sometimes we even worked a few murals in at each school I have worked at. At Cook Middle School in Santa Rosa, CA we enhanced the 7th and 8th grade History curriculum with a mural about Meso-America, Mexican, and Chicano history. In 2015-2016 we got a chance to focus on murals as the curriculum. We produced over 20 murals on Cook in one school year!
Now I live in CT and teach in Hartford at McDonough Middle School. In the past 3 years we have created 7 murals, 6 of which were created during the pandemic! My goal now is to help schools build their culture and community through the creation of public art.
PLUS!! Teachers ARE THE BEST!!! They need to celebrated. I feel I need to be part of that with what I do best, make big paintings! Now I make big painted portraits of Hero Teachers. The US is full of them. Please help me realize my dream of creating 50 Hero Teacher Portraits and displaying them on the Washington Mall, thus celebrating the teaching profession properly.