Community Stairway

As a painter and artist, I am constantly experimenting and looking for new and unique surfaces to turn into my canvas. I love working on old guitars, skateboards, recycled soda cans, stucco, asphalt, and concrete. My style is realistic and heavily influenced by botany and organic shapes.

Although I am an artist through and through, I also consider myself very much an activist and advocate. Some causes close to my heart are the Black Lives Matter Movement, education for children who are English language learners, PRIDE, and enabling women who are survivors of domestic violence, like myself. Each of these causes find their way into my personal work and also my large-scale mural concepts.

A few days ago while having coffee with a friend, I was approached with an idea I loved: creating a mural on the vertical surfaces of the steps in front of the Westminster Presbyterian Church on the Alameda, just outside of downtown San Jose.
Each step would add a portion of a completed image that can be read from a distance, like many staircases in San Franscisco.
My first experience with the church was eating hotdogs on the steps after the fourth of July Rose, White, and Blue Parade. Three years ago, I moved literally down the street from the church and drive past it daily.
In the summer, local musicians perform on the steps. In the winter, Santa gives out candy canes to small children on the steps. During covid, homeless slept under the porch overhang at the top of the steps. Many people stop and rest on these steps and drink in sunshine.

This project has a somewhat flexible timetable, but it would be best accomplished in the summer. I may include a community art-making project for passerbyes: perhaps chalk or a pinwheel project. Because this section of the Alameda is very close to Billy DeFrank center and the original home of the bay area LGBQT community, I plan for the final imagery to include a rainbow reaching over a body of water.

Грант предоставил San Jose, CA (April 2022)