BARBARA SWANSON SHERMAN

ARTIST BIO:

Barbara Swanson Sherman is an artist and writer working in Greenwich Village in New York City. Her drawings and collages imbue her daily life with fantastical colors, patterns, myths, and stories of her past. Sherman’s work is representative of her life and environment, but with a twist. Everything is a possibility, every walk, every experience, and even every chance remark can turn into an artwork. “Did you hear Tommy John got traded to the Angels?” led to a series titled Baseball in Heaven. An encounter with the Bronze Rhino from the Plaza at Musee D’Orsay led to finding him on a walk through the streets of Paris in a series of drawings. Her studies in etching have influenced the way she constructs her pen and ink drawings on paper, sometimes using old etchings as collage material.

Sherman is committed to nurturing and building her community. She has nearly two decades of experience in primary and secondary education, served as a board member at The Art Students League of New York, and is the founder and director of Art at First. In 2005, as she served on the Gates, Christo and Jean-Claude’s monumental project in Central Park she thought, “If they can do this, surely we can hang art on the church’s walls.” The newly restored south wing of First Presbyterian Church cried out for art on the walls and emerging artists in the community cried out for places to show their work, thus the space was born. 

Sherman writes a weekly blog titled, “Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday,” an illustrated short essay, commenting on art and artists, faith (with an ecumenical perspective), NYC, Greenwich Village, her family, and things that drive her crazy, there’s something to lift everyone's spirits first thing Friday morning.