If I don’t draw in a day, my day is not complete.
M. Rodriguez
Born in Pennsylvania, I am a Puerto Rican mother and a resident of Philadelphia’s Fairhill neighborhood. I became an artist in late life after many and severe life changes. It is through these life experiences, raising my children on my own in an impoverished neighborhood, finding love again after divorce, and then working as a guard in a psychiatric hospital and seeing how the mentally ill are treated that drove me to want to say something. And it is in the second stage of my life that I found my voice as an artist, a teacher, and a woman.
I saw first hand how poverty and lack of services can damage people. I witnessed how addiction ruins one’s life and destroys families. And I observed the ramifications that the lack of proper mental health service can have. But I have also seen how art can make an impact on one’s consciousness and provide agency. As it has for me.