ContactArtist Statement
My first one-woman art show was exhibited on the underside of my grandmother's kitchen table. I had not yet developed my own particular style nor could I reveal my source of inspiration but I was, nevertheless, expressing my artistic self. In years to come these childish dabblings would lead me to a never-ending experimentation with a variety of styles, media and methods which, to this day, are still in the process of creative evolution.
Born in the Black Capital of the world, Harlem, I was bombarded with sights and sounds that only this unique neighborhood could offer. I felt I had it all and was quite aware that I was living in a very live art gallery. From behind the windows of my basement apartment, I viewed the colorful parade of Black ladies with their sugar brown legs; red-eyed winos, drooling in drunken contentment in the curb; the white-tipped cane of the nameless blind man announcing this approach. I listened to the local crooners, using the stoops as their public stages. I watched the flamboyantly-dressed numbers runner make his twice-daily rounds dispensing either joy or sorrow. When I can on the street itself, I danced to the hop-scotch rhythms of the double-dutch, played with the neighborhood girls. I watched with envy the scrabby-kneed boys playing their game of loadies with old bottle caps. I enjoyed the summer evening games of stoop-ball watching the soft pink ball bravely bouncing against the gray-brown cement steps. It was a time for running, laughing, jumping-a fun time. A lifetime of images, waiting to be born, were formed on these streets by these alive Black people