Public Work

CATHOLIC CHARITIES
PUBLIC HOUSING COMPLEXES

I am commissioned by Catholic Charities Housing Services of Yakima to create large fabric art pieces for their public housing projects around the region. The subject of each piece is based on the name given to each project. I then research the individual, who is the subject, to try to depict what contributions they made to the lives around them. The pieces then are mounted into wooden box frames with shatter proof, UV glass before being hung permanently in the commons room for all to enjoy.

SAINT ANTHONY

(size 48″ x 72″) Installed March 2018 at the Senior Living Apartment complex of CC Public Housing project in Prosser WA. It depicts St. Anthony’s devotion to the aged and poor during his life. He is remembered as the finder of lost things. The story is that if you wanted his help to find things you promised to help the old and poor in exchange.

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RIO DE VIDA/ RIVER OF LIFE

(size 35-40″x 82″)  Completed in 2016 to be hung in the Family Living complex of CC Public Housing project in Prosser WA. this piece speaks to the river that feeds this valley. It turns the desert into rich fields of food.

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BRINGING HOPE TO LIFE. THE LIFE OF MOTHER JOSEPH

(size 72″x 43″) Completed in 2016 Mother Joseph founded the Sisters of Providence in Seattle WA in the mid 1800’s. Her work included building hospitals, teaching nurses, caring for the orphaned children and the poor. This hangs in Granger WA.

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PADRE KINO. LIFE IN ARIZONA

(size 72″x 48″) Completed in 2015 Padre Kino, trained in Italy as a Jesuit, came to Mexico in the mid 1600’s and was then sent to Arizona to bring long-horn cattle to the new land. He also is known for having mapped much of Arizona and the Baja area. He befriended the native Americans and built many missions, many of them are still open today.

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SOR JUANA. THE RADICAL AUTHOR AND NUN OF MEXICO CITY

(size 72″x 48″) Completed in 2014 Sor Juana was born in Mexico in the mid 1600’s in a time when most women were kept illiterate. Her desire for learning was so strong that she not only taught herself how to read, becoming a well known poet and author, but spent her life promoting the cause of all women being educated. To be able to further her life’s passions she became a nun.

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COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES

(size 3 panels 48″ high by 12′, 28′, 16′ plus small door panel.) This project was designed to lend some privacy to an outdoor rest area for the staff of this office. I was given a huge bag of different shapes and sizes of nylon banners to construct the covering with. When I was finished there wasn’t an intact banner left.

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HABITAT FOR HUMANITY BENEFIT

GARDEN FOLK

(size. 6′ stakes with fuel cans and wicks on top) Transformed into people for your garden.

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PAINTING IN WAPATO TO COMBAT GRAFFITI AND TAGGING

All of these pieces were done to improve the view of Sister Mary Ellen Robinson, who runs the Marie Rose House  in Wapato. She was surrounded by graffiti which disturbed her so we started to collaborate on eliminating it.

PAINTING CASAS EN WAPATO 2014

(size 105’x 6′-8′ tall) This project was done with the efforts of 15 children (ages 9-14) from Wapato and 11 teachers from Zacatecas Mexico, who came to teach a Spanish language summer school, called Mexico in Wapato, program for the children.

The priming and background landscape was painted by 3 prisoners on work release from the Wapato jail. The children drew houses and learned how to scale them up to size, the teachers and my friends drew them on the landscape at which time everyone helped paint them in. We truly had the community involved. The only damage that has been done to this wall since the mural was a small fire started in brush by fireworks. No one has tagged or graffiti ed the work.

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and the story continues to be spread

and the story continues to spread (11-2022)

The director of the Larson Gallery has an ongoing project to bring art to the people by covering the ugly gray power box about town with local artist’s work. After getting stalled by Covid, I finally had a box covered with the fabric art piece I made with images from the painting days. I am so fortunate to have my work across the street from our convention center, where it gets a lot of attention

PAINTING PRIDE IN WAPATO 2015

Consists of many paintings on different sides of this abandoned house  and it’s garage. Some Students from Seattle University came to paint this abandoned house. It had been badly tagged and their plan was to start a communication with the taggers by enhancing the tagging with more positive images. Some of their work has been answered by the taggers who have also used less aggressive markings. Other parts of the house and garage were completely painted over with positive images.

No one has defaced any of the work the students painted.

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PAHTO’S PEGASUS 2016

(size 20’x 10′) We finally had the chance to do the back of the garage  at Marie Rose House. Mary Ellen can’t see it from her windows but wanted to beautify the alley for those who use it daily.    I gathered  5 women artist friends, a couple of which have done professional murals, and we started meeting to decide on a theme. With Mary Ellen’s input we came up with the theme .

Pahto is the Native American name for Mount Adams and as the snow recedes in the spring the image of a horse appears on the mountain. Our horse became a Pegasus and dashed as a herd off the ground. These are the wild horses that really live on the mountain. Below are the rolling hills of the Yakima Valley along with Native and Mexican  images of black birds and humming birds. The children who are watching this happen were traced from children at the Mexico in Wapato summer school this year.    Actual painting took 3 days but the project spent nearly a year roaming around in our heads.

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Heritage University mural

Sister Kathrine Ross Endowment Community

(size 10′ x 13′) Heritage University is a small private University that is designed to help people, who come from communities where going to college is unusual. Located on the Yakama Nation many of the students are minorities. This school was founded by Sister Kathrine Ross and she  is still quite involved with the school even through she has stepped down as the president.

I was commissioned to paint the wall in the building named for her. Stained glass apples, engraved with the names of the people who have donated to the University, will adorn the apple tree. Thus the mural was depicting the Yakima Valley was stylized  to look like stained glass.

The concept design was done by Carlos Prado, an art student at HU.  He stopped by daily as we worked to cheer us on and help find us the equipment we needed. I also enlisted the help of Rosie Saldana and Maria Rueda, both graduate art students of HU. They gave me a lot of information from there experience as muralists and came to paint the birds into the mural.

Then I called in 2 women artist friends Sandy and Sarah to help with the taping and painting. We projected my drawing onto a wall I’d painted black and taped off all the lines with green frog tape. Using high gloss latex wall paint we mixed colors and painted in sections, stripping the tape as we went. It was exciting to reveal the finished painting as we went.

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Therace Heights Grange State Fair Booth

The Terrace Heights Grange asked me to paint the backdrop for their booth at the State Fair. They were pleased and so was the public as their booth won 1st place in the Peoples Choice voting.

Pianos for People

size: full sized upright piano.

This is another project that was delayed by the pandemic. The Sunrise Rotary is doing a project that places refurbished pianos in public spaces, gets artists to paint them.s These are placed in spaces ranging from local brew pubs to the huge valley mall. Ours is located at Yakima Chief Ranches, a huge facility that propagates hop for the local ranchers. The Yakima Valley is the largest hop producer in the country and second largest in the world so this is a huge business.

My friend and painter, Susan designed and painted this piano.
We designed the dancing hop coned and since they are on a piano in a hop company, we decided they probably be drinking beer. You can see that they are having a great party on the piano.

OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Center)

Henry Beauchamp
Reverend Leon Sullivan

OIC commissioned me to do large portraits of these two important men.

size: 26″wx32″h each

Reverend Leon Sullivan started the concept of OIC back in Philidelphia in the mid 1900’s to teach work skills to the black members of his congregation. They had been kept in poverty because of the lack of education and he wanted to change that. The organization was so popular that it spread across the United States and expanded it’s mission to benefit a larger community.

Henry Beauchamp started the Yakima WA branch of OIC and expanded it to include not only the training center but a community center and other facilities to improve the community. He was very influential in Yakima and along with many other positions served as mayor.