Shelley Feinerman

Live A Little
Year: 2006
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 36 " x 36 "

Artist Statement:

Harlem is not only a place, but a state of mind, with a unique and powerful energy. In my day job as a teacher, I have been working in Harlem high schools for for over 15 years. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude.. . ."

I have entered Harlem and it has turned itself out onto my paintings.