Biography
Sally Young is an artist, street artist, community activist and community gardener, who has resided on the Bowery for mostly 40 years with a short stint around Ave. B and C in the 1980’s. She teaches art to children at Greenwich House, located in the West Village. This summer in-person teaching resumed there. “We went back. we did it, successfully, and we served as a model for schools that are trying to re-open during the Pandemic. I taught art to kids who had not had contact with other kids for several months. They produced some amazing work and they needed to do this. Everybody wore mask all day. I am so proud to be part of this now historical experiment that worked.”
Sally’s work is about HOME-finding home, having home, losing home, meaning of home, necessity of home, survival, and what’s left. Climate change has changed our homes and the landscape of them-some are disappearing due to rising seas. Recent paintings examine the rural and industrial landscape, some that is disintegrating and inevitably changing for better or for worse. Now, as we live through a Pandemic, many people will also lose their homes through eviction and foreclosure. This is now an added dimension to the definition of the word HOME.
Recent exhibitions are a Solo-Show at 222 Bowery Gallery in Spring 2019 and was an Acker Award recipient for painting in 2018. She has been in numerous group shows. The most recent is a street mural as part of the show BRINGING BACK BOWERY: PAINTING AS PROTEST presented by Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project. 6 East 1st Street, Curated by Sono Kuwayama and Bob Holman.
Curriculum vitae
SALLY YOUNG
235 EAST FIFTH STREET #7 NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10003 646-228-1455
EDUCATION
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, Detroit, MI, Monteith College BA Humanities
ART SCHOOL OF THE SOCIETY FOR ARTS AND CRAFTS, Detroit, MI (Now Center for Creative Studies): Painting and Photography double majors
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, Detroit, MI: attended graduate school, Painting Major
DETROIT MUSIC SCHOOL, Detroit, MI: Modern Dance and Ballet
EXHIBITIONS/ VISITING ARTIST/ SHOWS
2021 “Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg/Just act normal, that’s already crazy enough” Theater for the New City Gallery. 11/7-12/31.
2021 Soul Cake Album photograph backside-record release 10/27/2021
2021 “LES Festival of the Arts with the Theater for the New City. 155 First Ave. NY NY.
2021 “Surviving Covid” Theater for the New City Gallery. 155 First Ave. NY NY.
2021 “Postcards From the Edge” Online exhibit.
2020 “Endangered Environs” Theater for the New City Gallery. 155 First Ave. NY NY.
2020 “Bringing Back Bowery” HOWL! Gallery 6 East 1st Street NY NY. 2 Murals-East 4th Street and East 2nd Street.
2020 LES Festival of the Arts with the Theater for the New City. May 2020. Online Exhibition.
2020 “Postcards from the Edge” Visual Aids. Bortolami Gallery 39 Walker Street NY NY
2019 “The Unseen”, Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator. Theater for the New City Gallery. 155 1st Ave. NY NY
2019 Paddle 8 Filmmakers Coop 475 Park Ave NY NY
2019 LES Festival of the Arts, Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator. Theater for the New City Gallery. 155 1st Ave. NY NY
2019 Tactical Stream 5-“ July 2019, Theresa Byrnes Gallery, 616 East 9th Street NY NY
2019 “The Palette Show”, 222 Bowery Art, 222 Bowery, NY NY
2019 Solo Show, 222 Bowery Art, 222 Bowery NY NY
2019 “Clothesline Art Show”, Bullet Space 392 East 3rd Street NY NY
2019 “Postcards from the Edge”, Bortolami 39 Walker Street NY NY
2018 “New Work” TNC Gallery, NY NY Carolyn Ratcliffe Curator
2018 LES Festival of the Arts, TNC Gallery, NY NY Carolyn Ratcliffe Curator
2018 “Postcards from the Edge” Gallery 524, 524 W. 26th Street NY NY
2018 “Kathy Acker Award” Recipient in Painting, Theatre 80, 80 St.Marks Place NY NY
2017 “New Works” TNC Gallery 155 First Avenue NY NY Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator NY NY
2017 LES Festival of the Arts TNC Gallery 155 First Avenue NY NY 2017 “Tactical Stream #2” Theresa Byrnes Gallery, 616 East 9th Street NY NY
2017 “Postcards from the Edge” Metro Pictures 519 West 24th Street
2016 Guest Lecturer “Abolition on the Bowery & Lower Manhattan” Neighborhood Preservation Center, NYC NY
2016 “Life Matters” show at the TNC Gallery NYC NY Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator
2016 Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, TNC Gallery NYC NY Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator
2016 “Sweet Sixteen” 25th Annual Roundtable Exhibition The National Arts Club NYC NY
2016 “Postcards from the Edge” Sikkema Jenkins & Co. 530 W. 22nd Street NYC NY
2016 Razzle/Dazzle A.I.R. Gallery 155 Plymouth Street Brooklyn NY
2015 Group Show TNC Gallery 155 First Ave. NYC NY Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator
2015 A.I.R. Gallery Postcard Show. 155 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn, NY
2015 Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator.
2015 “Postcards from the Edge” Luhring Augustine Gallery 531 W. 24th St. NYC NY
2014 “Greed Vs. Power” TNC Gallery, NYC NY Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator.
2014 Lower East Side Festival of the Arts Exhibit, TNC Gallery, NYC NY Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator.
2014 The 23rd Annual National Arts Club Roundtable Exhibition, 15 Gramercy Park South, NYC NY 10003
2014 Solo Show, Ottendorfer Public Library 135 Second Ave. NYC NY 10003 Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator.
2013 Lower East Side Festival of the Arts Exhibit, Theatre for the New City,NYC NY. Carolyn Ratcliffe, Curator.
2008-2013(2020 added) were years that although I was making Art, I was also actively working with some significant Historical Achievements, (LES History plays a large part with my work) namely that of being a member of a group, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, that eventually was able to bring the Bowery from Chatham Square to Cooper Square to both the State and National Registers of Historic Places. This involved photography, research, and video documentation, and my personal research. During this time I had also been making hand-made book editions of my photos and writing that centers around NYC, especially the LES and the downtown area. Books were at Printed Matter and St. Mark's Bookstore. Research continues to identify a significant hub that is believed to be part of the Underground Railroad on the Bowery and to do extensive research resulting in a very significant report involving two houses and its occupants. Research is still on-going.
2010 Window Installation for JK's, and Solo Show. 44 E.1st Street, NYC NY
2009 Bowery Artist Tribute, New Museum, 235 Bowery NYC, NY www.boweryartisttribute.org
2009 "Art of the Crash" Fusion Arts 57 Stanton Street NYC NY. Julius Klein, curator.
2006 "Art in Odd Places" exhibit: my address, in front of 235 E. 5th Street, on weekends for the month of September. I made a large wooden book depicting the decline and almost total demolition of the Cooper Square block between E. 5th St. and E. 6th St. and the beginning of the building of the Cooper Square Hotel, now The Standard Hotel. The exhibit also included a stand where passers by could take free postcards, I made using my photos of different stages of demolition, and the postcards changed daily, even hourly, so a collection could be made of them. I also gave away my book "Deconstructing Bowery" that sold at St. Mark's Bookstore, and at Printed Matter.
1986- 2005 Costumes for Tamar Rogoff Dance Company:
"To Sow and To Sweep" 14th Street Y NYC NY,
"Angel of Ascent" Summer Stage, Central Park, NYC NY,
"Mating for Life" PS 122 NYC NY
"Shiva Shakti" St. Peter's Church NYC NY
"Sleeping Beauties" St. Mark's Church Danspace NY NY
2004 GENDER[f] curated by Deb King WESTNORTH Studio 106 W. North Ave. Baltimore MD http://gender-f.com 1995 "Matchbook Show" Art in General Gallery, 79 Walker Street, NYC NY
1987 Costumes for Bill Young and Company and for the Randy Warshaw Dance Company NYC NY
1985 "Prometheus Project" at the Performing Garage, 33 Wooster St. NYC NY Costumes and Sets.
1985 ABC No-Rio Invitational International Show NYC, NY. Painting and writing.
1979-1985 Represented by the Feigenson Gallery, Detroit MI. The Gallery is now closed.
1984 "Confrontations and Conflicts", The Willis Gallery, Detroit MI. Costumes for Deb King, choreographer
1984 Charles Moulton Dance Company at the Bessie Schonberg Theatre NYC NY Sets: Scarlet Curtain Booths
1983 "Money on Money" show, Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC NY
1981 Solo Show, Paintings and drawings, Feigenson Gallery Detroit, MI
1978 "Bird Brain" dance performance, "Punch and Judy Theatre" Detroit, MI
1976 Alternative Space Gallery, Detroit MI, paintings.
1976 Visiting Artist, Lake Placid Center for Music, Drama, and Art. Lake Placid NY "Soap Opera Blues" Poetry/Video Performance. Also while there did "Dancing in the Streets", Elaine Summers, choreographer, Sarenac Lake, NY
COLLECTIONS include Willis Woods, former Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Joy Hackenson-Colby, former Art Critic for the Detroit News, Sur Rodney Sur 2019, The Lily and Earle Pilgrim Foundation 2019, Ingrid Dinter Fine Arts, and many private collections.
COMMUNITY GROUP AFFILLIATONS:
Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, member and officer.
Arts Loisaida Foundation, board member.
Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden, member since 1985 and President 4 times as well as VP and treasurer over the years-I signed the special lease with the city in 1998 that gave us permanent site status with the Trust for Public Land. Now Co-chairing the Event’s Committee, and also Treasurer of the Events Committee.
EMPLOYMENT:
ARTS EDUCATOR: Afterschool Arts Programming at Children’s Aid Society, 219 Sullivan Street till 2012 when the building was closed and demolished. The Program moved to Greenwich House in 2012, and has remained there since. I teach Painting and Drawing, Architecture, Architecture and Engineering, Woodworking, and Organic Art/Mixed Media.
It should be noted that we are one of the first whom has returned to in-physical instruction beginning July 6, 2020 at Greenwich House 27 Barrow Street NYC. We have carefully researched how we can do this safely and have implemented plans to do this which are very strict but also allow children to be free with one another again, and it’s working. This is historical for this neighborhood alone.