Parade leading to Exhibition at BK Children’s Museum, 2016. Photo: Beckie Bintrim.

We paint from life while recording conversations with each person, and present them altogether to paint a portrait of a place through its people. 

The Portrait Project at Hudson Guild (Chelsea, Spring, 2021, NYC)

Hudson Guild brought 14 of its members who lent their faces and their stories to this documentary effort. Our art studio shared space with a Covid-19 vaccination site at the Senior Center as well. 

We Are Crown Heights (2015 – 2016):

Artist Rusty Zimmerman painted 200 portraits from life of Crown Heights, Brooklyn residents in one year and recorded their stories in audio interviews. Each portrait was painted in 4 hours or less between June 2015 – June 2016. The audio was made available to the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Weeksville Heritage Center for an ongoing oral history of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The entire collection of paintings and stories were exhibited at Brooklyn Children’s Museum (Fall, 2016). Each of the original paintings belong to the people who sat for them.