"Homeless people take cardboard and make shelters; they take plastic bags and make rain hats or boots," said artist, arts mentor and activist Gladys Barker Grauer. "They take old stuff and make it something good; they take bad things and make it good."
Grauer, born in 1923 and active as an artist for 70 years, was talking about the spirit behind her current exhibit at downtown Newark's 54 Park Place, WBGO Art Gallery. The show, "Some Made Lemonade" surveys 20 of her works from the past 25 years.
Grauer has been taking these same materials — especially plastic bags — and using them as the literal base for her current art. "I was doing a cloth weaving and needed a certain color blue," said Grauer. "I thought about the blue bags that the 'New York Times' comes in."
Grauer cut the bags into strips and incorporated them into the work at hand. "The plastic worked; I became fascinated with the medium and began making weavings only from recycled bags," said Grauer. "Then, I wondered if I could paint on them."
A fellow Newark artist and friend, the late Russell A. Murray, told her acrylic paint would work. Right now, painted woven plastic has become Grauer's favorite medium, as in her work "The Healer," which metamorphosizes the artist's own experience with breast cancer from the personal into the universal.
Grauer has been exploring different medium and using her art as both personal and political expression since her World War Two student days at the Art Students League in Chicago. "I grew up in Chicago's South Side during the Depression," said Grauer. "My family talked about politics and racial discrimination, but when I got to the student league, it opened my eyes. There were Labor Zionists and members of the Young Communist League and Norman Thomas Socialists. It lead me to see there were not only Black problems but world problems."
Grauer came to New York City to do design work. "I grew sick of it, I went inside of me, started being really creative," said Grauer.
The result is a body of work — in oil, gouache, acrylic, lithography, resist — that has been exhibited worldwide and is part of many prestigious permanent exhibits, including the Newark Museum, the Montclair Art Museum and the New Jersey State Museum.
Grauer came to Newark in 1951, raised four children with her late husband and became a key participant in the social, civil rights and artistic movements of the 20th century here. Her Bergen Street Aard Studio Gallery, begun in 1972, long nurtured artists of color from the community. Grauer was also among the founding members of Black Women in Visual Perspective and an early board member with City without Walls and the Newark Arts Council (NAC).
At the NAC, Grauer worked with past fellow board member Dorthaan Kirk, a WBGO jazz 88.3FM founder and the radio station's current special events and program coordinator. Kirk suggested this exhibit. "Gladys's work deserves to be seen," said Kirk. "I always try to bring diversity to the WBGO gallery by exhibiting both jazz related art and the art of women African Americans and also local artists, or if you will Newark artists."
Enter two other long-time friends of Grauer — jazz photographer Larry Hilton, who curated and hung the show, and Celeste Bateman, a past cultural affairs director for the city and interim executive director of the NAC, who did this show's administrative work.
The result is a powerful exhibit that has been eliciting strong reactions since its April opening. It includes Grauer's "Eleanor Bumpers," the artist's response to the 1984 police shooting of an elderly, emotionally disturbed woman, and two works, "Free Mumia Abu Jamal" and "Free Leonard Peltier," which had Grauer going to court in 2007 to protest their removal from a major Morristown Arts Council show.
Grauer's latest works reflect her respect for the homeless, be they lined up for a meal, as pictured here in "Lighthouse" or a mother braiding her daughter's hair. "I get a strong reaction from all women to that piece," said Grauer. "Every mother, no matter what color, has set her daughter between their knees and combed her hair."
"Sunday Morning" is another viewer favorite. The painting started out as a formal exploration of the different skin tones of African American women, but also became a celebration of something else.
"Every Black neighborhood has a milliner making hats for women to wear to church," said Grauer. "A woman, she has to come to church a few minutes late and sashay to the front of the pews where there are no seats left, then sashay back to make sure everyone sees her beautiful hat."
