From September 2012 until forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to shut down, I painted in the storefront window at 356 Marcus Garvey Avenue to create a “collaborative portrait” of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Made possible with funding from the Puffin Foundation, the Brooklyn Arts Council, Citizen Committee of NY and the generosity of private donors, the project’s mission was to “continue the dialogue between art and the lives of ordinary people.” The project became a nexus not only of art but an assertion of personal and community empowerment in a historically poor, working class area undergoing sharp economic changes.
To view all the portraits, and learn more about the project, visit www.window-studio.com