boston Artist Residency

I served as a 2017 Artist-in-Residence for the city of Boston, along with nine other artists who worked in different media, such as visual arts, music, and sculpture. As a writer, I chose to create “What You Don’t Know About Me” a project that collected stories from people who live and work in or near Boston’s Mission Hill. The project sought stories that highlighted some aspect of the person’s life that might surprise someone meeting her or him for the first time. 

“What You Don’t Know About Me” included individuals of diverse ages, racial and cultural backgrounds, incomes and professions and sexual orientations. The finished project consisted of one introductory panel and thirteen, 16" x 32" panels with 250- to 275-word first-person stories from the these individuals, accompanied by black-and-white photographs taken by Gordon Webster. The installation was on display at the gallery at Boston City Hall. 

The goal of "What You Don't Know About Me" was to remind viewers that the instant impressions we form of strangers on the street are sometimes wrong, or at least that they seldom tell the whole story.

BOSTON RESIDENCY WEBSITE

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY PROJECT
In winter of 2018, I was asked by the curator at the main branch of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square to create an expanded version of "What You Don't Know About Me"  that would consist of an additional four profiles and two panels with photo montages of neighborhood locals with text superimposed over them. That exhibit opened on April 25th, 2018 and was on display at the Copley Branch through September 30th. It’s currently on display at the Parker Hill Branch of the Boston Public Library, 1497 Tremont Street, Roxbury Crossing, through April, 2019.

You can view the Boston Public Library Installation here:

Click here to read a review of WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME that appeared in Boston's Bay State Banner.

Now that the installation is complete, my fundraising efforts are now focused on phase three of WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME: supporting a series of free and open-to-the-public readings and writing workshops in the Mission Hill neighborhood where I completed my work as a Boston Artist-in-Residence. 

Here's a two-and-a-half minute video that describes the second phase of WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME that will be on view at the Boston Public Library from April 25th, 2018 until September 30th. The film was shot and edited by Boston filmmaker Roberto Mighty.