Meetings - October 4, 2007

Meryl Meisler, artist, photographer and teacher, will present her newest work “Bushwick Revisited” 1977-2007.

“Was the other art teacher killed?” Ms. Meisler could only imagine why a teaching position had opened in Bushwick, the week before Christmas vacation of 1981. Bushwick then looked Beirut after the bombings, with people living amongst ruins, in neglected neighborhoods with shattered cinderblock fortress surrounded by fallen timber, crumbling concrete, broken bricks and ashen cinders. For 14 years, Meryl documented her walks to and from school, carrying an inexpensive point and shoot pocket camera loaded with cheap transparency film and developed in the least costly way possible. “The photos are like a wink, quick sketches of the places and people in this small section of Central Bushwick.” She revisited the photographs, literally extending the realities with paint and mixed media. Most of these photographs had never been printed or even been out of their boxes before their Brooklyn Historical Society exhibition “Up From Flames: Mapping Bushwick’s Recovery 1977-2007.” Revisiting and photographing Bushwick in 2007, Meryl felt like “Jimmy Stewart coming home to Pottersville in Its a Wonderful Life.”

Meryl joined PWP the same year she began photographing Bushwick, and has been a constant active member serving as a Board Member, newsletter editor and Vice President to Katherine Criss.

More information about Meryl’s work