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B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip HopJune 28 – September 9, 2007rap . graffiti . dj . dance . panels . fashion . poetry . visual exhibition . film |
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Stef Skills |
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STEF, Stephanie Garland born July 1971 in Brunswick, Maine, moved several times as a small child until her family settled in Florida, where she received the Outstanding Art Achievement Award at Booker T. Washington High School in 1986, the Congressional Art Award in Lafayette, LA, in 1987, and a scholarship to Parsons School of Art and Design in New York, in 1988. It was here in New York that she decided to pursue a career in art and was simultaneously baptized in Hip-Hop culture. After graduating from Cleveland Heights High School in 1989, she moved to Chicago, IL to pursue a multi-media degree at Columbia College. She landed a job at Stats-It as a colorist for Marvel Comics, and after working sometimes 16 hours a day on the computer she developed the need to express her self, elementally, through Hip-Hop. She began producing and engineering music while at Bad dog recording studios in 1992 and later at Island Recordings in 1994, but got the most satisfaction from "getting -up" as a graffiti artist with THC. After becoming a mother in 1993, she began to develop friendships with other women in graffiti, and started an all female crew ESP, in 1995, which she actively painted with until 1997. It was at this time that these women were separated by distance, one moving to San Francisco, the other to New York, and Stef becoming a mother of two and taking on a job as an art instructor for the Chicago Park District. Here she participated in the millennium mosaic project in 1999 and along with the children of the community, and installed a permanent mosaic at Smith Park. The Park District provided stability for her as an artist a single mother so that she was able to become a member of the Acme Artist Community in 2002. Here she was able to pursue her passion for public murals and also began to educate youth in the skills of deejaying with the Hip-Hop activists Kuumba Lynx |
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kid & family-friendly . all ages . all genders . all incomes . all ethnic communities |
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