Lichtenstein’s Protégé Brings the Arts to the Bronx

When she ran with Manhattan’s art crowd, Carey Clark’s friend and mentor, pop painter Roy Lichtenstein, told his protégé that she had to be revolutionary. He wanted her to test her boundaries and she did – but not on canvas. Instead, Ms. Clark challenged herself by teaching art to children in the Hunts Point neighborhood in the Bronx.“It’s really the idea that the arts should be part of everyone’s life,” explained Ms. Clark, who works as a visual arts director at the Point, a nonprofit. “It’s not only a great tool for making learning interesting.”The Point’s central space, painted orange, reverberates with energy and creativity. Colorful silk paintings – the work of Ms. Clark’s students – hang from the rafters, and black-and-white photos taken by Point attendees line the two story-high walls. Cluttered bookshelves stand in one corner, near the in-house soul food restaurant, Pat’s Kitchen. On a recent afternoon, teenagers sewed clothing they designed for an upcoming fashion show. When school lets out, the Point is often swarming with as many as 70 children, studying everything from theater and painting to Latin drumming from professionals.Currently, the Point is creating more projects outside of its walls. The organization is backing a campaign by local artists to redesign the exteriors of five neighborhood storefronts, and it has received $25,000 to com mission a piece from a sculptor for a nearby Bronx River park.The after-school program at the Point (which also offers classes for adults) costs $75 a year and stresses literacy as well as creativity. The organization provides college counseling and requires students who want a paid apprenticeship at the Point to receive SAT tutoring.Until the academic component was introduced at the Point, Ms. Clark never knew how to steer her charges toward college. She particularly regrets not browbeating one of her former favorite students – a talented artist – into continuing his studies.“Now he stops by, he doesn’t seem like he’s working, he doesn’t seem like he’s in good shape,” she said. “I feel quite responsible for that.”As the crow flies, Ms. Clark, 50, didn’t grow up far from Hunts Point, but her childhood surroundings and those of her students could hardly differ more. Raised in Old Westbury, Long Island, her youth rustled with old money, second homes, and boarding schools. She studied art at Kirkland College and the Rhode Island School of Design.Later on, Ms. Clark met Mr. Lichtenstein at a party in South Hampton. They became colleagues and friends, and over the years, Mr. Lichtenstein contributed generously to the Point. When he passed away in 1997, Ms. Clark, who also owns her own frame shop, received the task of framing his estate. “I think they also like the fact that that work supports the Point,” she said about his estate’s executors.When she began working in the Bronx, an area known for crime and poverty, Ms. Clark traded in what she knew. But her career shift was not only a change of setting. She also traded in the solitary life of a studio artist and framer to work in a bustling environment. “This is totally the opposite from being in the studio and making your own decisions,” Ms. Clark said about the project. “I can’t take a step without having a meeting with 25 or 30 people.” She wasn’t really complaining.With all the mayhem in her life, Ms. Clark hasn’t painted since 2000.“I don’t really miss it,” she said. “I think that the work that I’m doing here is more important.”Her gradual journey toward the Bronx began in 1989, when she received funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to create a temporary art installation at the Yankee Stadium subway station.She knew she wanted to create a baseball mural, and had to somehow tie the project into the community, a point stipulated by the grant. So she recruited a group of neighborhood teenagers to help with the project, and they spent entire summer together drawing baseball players.“I loved working with the kids,” she said.Four years later, Paul Lipson, a friend of Ms. Clark’s, founded the Point, and Ms. Clark began volunteering. She moved her custom framing shop, Q Art Co., to the Bronx from her TriBeCa loft, filling staffing needs with neighborhood residents she met through the Point. She was permanently hired at the Point in 2001.“I took a job because [volunteering] was so consuming that I was jeopardizing my economic well-being,” she said, laughing, “which I continue to do on a daily basis.” Although Ms. Clark didn’t grow up concerned about money, she eventually had to confront that everyday worry.“It was this old American aristocracy,” she said about her childhood. Yet she wasn’t completely sheltered. At age 11, she spent a weekend with Timothy Leary’s son, while Mr. Leary – a friend of her cousins’ – stayed at their summer house. But Ms. Clark’s father was living on the last of the family fortune.“By the time Dad lost all his money, I was ready,” Ms. Clark said. “I was proud to join the rest of the human race. I’d always felt isolated by my privilege.”

Lichtenstein’s Protégé Brings the Arts to the Bronx

Lichtenstein’s Protégé Brings the Arts to the Bronx

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