Arletha Greer (photo by Nakyia Ussery, a fellow 2024 UDC Arts and Sciences graduate)
In 2020, when the world shut down, Arletha Greer made a step toward expanding hers.
Then a self-taught artist in her late 30s, Greer enrolled at the University of the District of Columbia’s College of Arts and Sciences. This month, she graduated a bachelor’s degree in art. And beginning on June 14th, her work will be featured in a pop-up solo art show at 4340 Connecticut Avenue. (See below for the gallery hours and dates.)
Arletha Greer’s abstract painting, What would Alma, say (March 2024, 7×5′ acrylic on unbound canvas), shown here at the 2024 Artomatic, will be one of the works on display.
“I didn’t think I was ‘trained,’” Greer told Forest Hills Connection in an email interview, “so going to UDC was feeding that desire to know how to technically do what I had been ‘experimenting’ with all the years before” – folk art.
“It was not until I was in art history class that I even understood that there was a distinction between what was folk and fine art,” Greer said. “It made me feel differently, because I had created art as a ‘folk’ that sold and was appreciated and I’d just seen it as beginner art. So it was eye opening to realize there was a class system. This knowledge made me want to bring “folk” to the fine art museums. It made me feel like there was segregation.”
Greer is also driven to understand and know more about the artists who blazed a path for her, and who inspire her. She is applying to PhD programs in art history, and intends to focus her studies on the African American female visual artists who were active 1900 and 1980. Already, Greer said, she researches their art and their lives and uses what she learns for her own growth and understanding as an artist.
“At times I struggle with what I want to be, so that’s why I focus on history and telling the stories uncovering the reasoning,” Greer said. And while her UDC confers upon her the title of “fine artist,” Greer still thinks of herself as a folk artist.
Greer working clay at her home. (photo by Nakyia Ussery, a fellow 2024 UDC Arts and Sciences graduate)
“Representation drives me… My art is about showing truth and reality of the process; the weight of the work being created. I’m inspired by the women who have been deemed less than or unworthy to know those things. I do this for my grandmothers who raised me to follow my heart and take care of my family. My mother and father who gave me space to breathe. For my daughter, who had always held me to a standard that I must take care of her and show her the right way.”
About Arletha Greer’s art show
What: Portraits in oil, acrylic, textiles and other media, as well as ceramics, including sculptures and her commercial line of tableware.
Where: The Van Ness Main Street office at 4340 Connecticut Avenue (The UDC David A. Clark School of Law)
When: After the opening reception on Friday, June 14th from from 7-9 p.m., the gallery will be open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on June 15th, June 20-22, and June 27-28, and the hours on the final day, June 29th, are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Follow Greer on social media for details of an additional event – the date and topic to be announced.
Instagram, Facebook and TikTok: @arlethagreer
Twitter/X: @arlethargreer
Acknowledgments: UDC and Van Ness Main Street, Himiwan Bagus (her UDC advisor “who is the force behind my show”), the UDC Art Club (“the official partner for my student show”), and the art club’s advisor, Davide Prete.
Forest Hills Connection is an editorially independent program of Van Ness Main Street.
