Ann Alexandra Wolken, Biography

Ann Alexandra Wolken refers to herself as a community artist which she traces back to her roots of Pittsburgh in the '60s. There she roamed the city sketching Victorian houses, Civil Rights rallies for registration in the South and folk sings at Carnegie Mellon University.

In 1965, Wolken taught in a one-room school in Decoy, Kentucky on a workshop with the American Friends Service Committee where she and the children composed a mural that was as large as an entire wall of the school. Wolken also used her tenure in Kentucky to visit and work with the people of Appalachia in their homes.

Wolken was a major part of the early history of the California Arts Council (CAC). In 1977, she worked with minority children in Venice on a CAC grant where each child was treated as a professional artist. The project resulted in an exhibition titled "25 From Venice" held in June, 1978 at Venice's Beyond Baroque Gallery.

"Stories in Our Lives," a 1980 CAC grant, was an oral and visual history residency designed to make visible the lives of older people in Santa Monica. A thirty-two page book produced during the residency premiered at an inter-generational reception on May 5, 1981 at the Santa Monica Public Library. The exhibition was shared by First Federal Savings and Loan in Santa Monica.

In 1981 Wolken was commissioned by the Downtown Women's Center (refuge for the women of Skid Row) to create a 12 by 80 foot mural on the exterior brick wall of the Center. The mural was an "x-ray" of the activities that go on inside the center and was based on sketchbook that Wolken produced about the women. The women of the Center also participated in the process of painting the mural. Tragically, the Downtown Women's Center building was condemned in 1987 by the Whittier earthquake. The building has since been torn down and the mural was demolished.

Wolken participated in a number of community-oriented graphic design projects commissioned by the Women's Graphic Center of Los Angeles in the early '80s. She designed several books including, On the Kitchen Table, The Menagerie Theater Company and The Women of Skid Row through the Center and funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The mid-'80s brought motherhood to Wolken which she integrated with her work as a community artist. 1986 saw Wolken install a painting in the Santa Monica Public Library which was purchased by the Santa Monica Arts Commission, paint a wall-sized mural to promote children's healthy habits for Dr. Susan Stangl and participate in Santa Monica's Water Division Poster Event for water conservation.

Wolken began a residency at the Boys and Girls Club of Venice in 1988 which includes working with children who otherwise might not have an opportunity to experience art. Throughout the past two years, Wolken has taken over 75 youngsters through the communities of Venice, Santa Monica and Mar Vista to explore the beauties of everyday life. Wolken and the children document the community by sketching first, then transforming the sketches into four by six foot paintings.

Wolken was awarded the Brody Art Fellowship for distinguished work as a community artist in 1989 and plans to rework the Downtown Women's Center mural in 1990.