Artist

Calling myself an artist is relatively new to me. I have spent many years fitting art-making in around being a mother, a teacher, an entrepreneur, and an advocate for women and girls.

All of that wonderful work inspires my art. My paintings often include an icon from another part of my life: a drawing from a Zambian woman, a new way to use materials taught to me by one of my young students, a bird seen outside of my window, cloud formations noticed while doing other work. 
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Now art-making comes first, and inspirations for paintings (while very time-consuming to make) keep pouring out.

An Artist and her Work, by Abe Massik

Resume

Where the Air Grows Thin, by CB Follett

Remembering Robin in 4 parts (Lake Wequaquet) 2014 Soft pastel and acrylic medium on 4 sheets of watercolor paper. Each piece given to her children and brothers in memory. I tried to represent one of her favorite places in the colors of her favorite hydrangea.

Educator

Director, Artists in Schools at Youth in Arts
A visual artist with extensive teaching experience, I hold a degree in Art History from Wellesley College. Past work has included time as a fine art gallery curator,  an appraiser of fine prints for Butterfield and Butterfield, and researcher for another nonprofit. I am the co-founder of Purple Crayon Art Studio, a popular San Francisco art studio for children and families. Having created and directed Purple Crayon for over a decade, I sold the business in 2007. 
 
I have spent most of my adult life working to improve the creative opportunities of all children, regardless of economic background. In this era when arts education has been effectively erased from California children's education, I am working with Youth in Arts, creating a new integrated arts curriculum for public school children. 
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I love my work with every child: preschoolers with special needs, kindergarteners with limited opportunities to create, and even teens finding ways to use the arts to share their voice with the world.

Advocate

Pro-Bono Executive Director, Give a Jumpstart
Give a Jumpstart is a non-profit, non-denominational organization of women dedicated to improving the welfare of children and their families in Zambia. We have provided women with micro-loans in order to give them a jumpstart in initiating their own income-generating projects. Now, because of the feedback we received from mothers and their daughters, and working with local Zambians, we created and they now operate a center for the survivors of gender-based violence.
 
I was named Executive Director of Jumpstart in April 2009. I have traveled to Zambia eight times. My work has included creating brochures and a new web site, developing assessment documents for women’s projects, instituting policies and procedures for a new organization, helping to form a new (local) nonprofit in Zambia to run a Loan Program for Give a Jumpstart, and helping locals to form a center for the survivors of gender based violence. Art-making with locals happens as often as possible. 
 
In 2009 I self-published a book on my experiences in Zambia (available on Blurb). Kashikishi Lubuto tells the story of my travels to the village of Kashikishi, and helps to explain why I kept going back: because I COULD, and someone SHOULD.