I have worked in videography, electronically generated two-dimensional art, installations, and artist books.
Throughout my career I have worked with individuals marginalized by intellectual, emotional, and physical disabilities. Starting in the 1970s, I taught video and photography workshops in Rhode Island state mental hospitals and prisons. In the 1980s I worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Education as a consultant/artist in their special education programs.
2017 marked the beginning of my work creating an annual magazine about the adults participating in Studio 190, a program through The Arc of Delaware County. The “sheltered workshop” concept behind the studio is to employ people with disabilities, offering them workplace experience, personal fulfillment, and a community of their own. The activities of Studio 190 that I began documenting that year were inspired by the individual studio, craft-based practice of other Arc programs across the country, in particular in San Francisco in the seventies.
Initially photography was not allowed in sheltered workshops due to regional guidelines restricting “outside journalism.” Instead, we encouraged them to take selfies. These were printed on high-contrast paper, then painted on. For the first magazine I learned the stories of artists in the workshop and wove them through images I took of their artwork.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to find new ways to continue creating in isolation. Later editions of the magazine focused on their homes and finally, a collection of monographs on Studio 190’s six most prolific artists: ninety-two-year-old Ruth, the oldest artist connected to the studio; Shannon, producing the largest scale work; and Adrian, working primarily in embroidery.