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Green-knobbed Toaster
Archival Pigment Print (from the series ” Stuff I love”)
A3 size
$500
by Rita Dibert
| As most of us realise, it gets more and more difficult to condense who we are down to a few specifics. I had supportive working class parents and was very lucky to have been gifted a scholarship to attend the Flint Art Institute (Michigan) children’s art program when I was seven. I then decided to be an artist, a missionary (we had had one very occasionally as a babysitter) and an actress. I think becoming a teacher pretty much covers all of that. Going with five other art and drama college students in a VW bug to join Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Improvement Association (Alabama) meant I decided to not be a missionary or a minister but rather an activist. I was active in the civil rights, abortion rights,(I had an illegal abortion in 1969 as a married student), Native American Rights movements as well as the Anti-Vietnam cause during University years, travelling many times to Washington and other cities to protest. It was a life changing experience. I was very lucky to have encountered Mary Wright who was the director of Xochipilli Gallery in Birmingham Michigan who promoted my painting, photography and installation work from 1972-1997 when she closed her doors. I taught at the University of Michigan, Hartwick College (NY), Pomona College (CA), Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY) and University of North Carolina at Charlotte before applying for the job at the Whanganui Regional Community Polytechnic in 1995. This brought me to NZ to design both the physical darkrooms and the curriculum for the Fine Arts Photography there. However, it was all the clever and wonderful KIWI art students who kept me here, far away from friends and family. They are my family here. I live with a wonderful, re-homed Greyhound named Mea Moa in a 1903 house in Whanganui where we have attempted to design a “forest” in our back section. |
Rita Dibert lives in Gonville, Whanganui, New Zealand.
More of her art can be seen on her website at www.ritadibert.com
email Rita at rjdibert @ gmail.com (remove the spaces)
Exhibition Rooms |