Grandmother's Circle a Continuum





My goals for the next three to five years is to continue building my curatorial practice and creating environmental installation projects on land conservatories, engaging the public in the art of placemaking projects. In the last decade, my curatorial practice has taken me nationally, and internationally.

My current artwork is a simulation of ceremonial purification circles, in which objects and images are selected to “serve as cultural mirrors and the sites in which they are situated serve as part of a broader cultural commentary.” I have examined cultural signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. I believe that objects in the public sphere serve to communicate and reinforce certain cultural narratives, hierarchies, and social mythologies.

This project is important to me, in my career trajectory because I am focused on making elements of art, in a non-traditional setting as an environmental installation artist, and working outside of the traditional gallery setting. In the last decade, I have traveled throughout the State of Illinois and created art as an artist-in-resident and engaged communities in the art of art-making, in empty lots, national forest preserves, on land held in conservators, in an alternative gallery, and in museum settings. I have also challenged collaborating artists to present a temporary installation that engages public interaction.




My project will be an installation about the importance of bottle trees in folk traditions, where the tradition became a carry-over from Africa, a by-product of the slave trade, and in the southern states as post-slavery external markers. 


Holding Glass up to the Light, Where it Can Sing” is a Continuum of the narrative, Grandmother’s Circle a Tribute to Mama Crecy, and Sallie Alpha. This installation of found glass bottles and chard glass objects will be installed in the window of Art on Armitage  July -31, 2015.

This is a new collaboration between Mary Ellen Croteau an artist, and owner of Art on Armitage. She featured me along with seven artists from Chicago to participate with AOA at the Supermarket 2015, which is the gallery's annual exhibition.  Here I  gathered content for my installation, on the African immigrants living in Sweden since the 17th century this practice of glass bottles taken to Europe and North America by African slaves. The final production of this project in its presentation is a solo installation. The collection of data is to support my exploration of customs to reinforce certain cultural narratives, hierarchies, and social mythologies.

MARY ELLEN CROTEAU was an artist whose work directly addresses the absurdities of social norms, and lays bare the underlying bias and sexist assumptions on which our culture is constructed. She worked with non-recycled plastic waste, in an effort to demonstrate the huge amounts of trash we are consuming and sending into the environment.

From 2006 to 2017 Mary Ellen hosted a window gallery in the Hermosa neighborhood of Chicago. She featured a different local or international artist every month. Visit ArtOnArmitage.net to see the exhibitions. Mary Ellen lived and worked in Chicago, IL


Jun 22, 1950 – Feb 16, 2019 (Age 68)

Mary Ellen died at age 68 on February 16, 2019. Born on June 22, 1950, in Chicago, Illinois to the late Catherine M. Croteau and the late Thomas A. Croteau, Mary Ellen graduated from Elizabeth Seton high school in 1968, from University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990, and she achieved a Master's Degree in Fine Arts from Rutgers University in 1998. Mary Ellen was the beloved partner of Steve Bild. She is survived by her sons, Vincent Gant and Paul Gant; daughter, Rachael Bild; brothers, Phillip, James, Thomas, Robert, and Guy; sisters, Suzanne, Therese, Juliette, and Catherine; and grandchild, Pierre Gant. The family invites donations in Mary Ellen's name to Planned Parenthood, the Nature Conservancy, Democracy Now!, or the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Friends and family are invited to attend her memorial service on Sunday, May 12 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N Central Park, Chicago.