ANNA PASQUALUCCI

About the Artist

Born in Baltimore and raised and educated in nearby Anne Arundel County, I was mesmerized by painted screens in Baltimore city rowhouses as a child. Like most screen painters, I've had little formal art training and I am for the most part self-taught. Folk art is passed down from generation to generation, not necessary through formal art lessons. I earned my bachelor's degree in Biology at Hood College, Frederick, MD. For twenty-five years I enjoyed working in biotechnology, cancer, agricultural, and pharmaceutical research. Now I am embracing a new passion and painting those wonderful window screens that held a special place in my heart. What better way to preserve a tradition than to pass it along to the next generation? I’ve shared my art at local Farmer’s markets and craft shows and I’ve taught screen painting classes in Anne Arundel County Public School Performing and Visual Arts afterschool program and Chesapeake Art Center, and held workshops and demonstrations at Maryland State Art Council’s Maryland Traditions Festival, Creative Alliance, and community centers. As an active artists' board member of the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore.org, I was honored to participate in the 2014 ALTA Achievement in Living Traditions and Arts Awards and to have a spot in Elaine Eff’s book The Painted Screens: An Urban Folk Art Revealed. I helped promote screen painting in city neighborhoods through community arts grants: 100 Screens for 100 Years through the Community Development Corporation in Highlandtown, the Billie Holliday project on S. Durham Street, and the Painted Screens Exhibit and Bicenntenial Celebration on N. Collington and Ashland. In 2012, I even painted and installed a giant painted screen in a merchant window for the first annual BOPA Harbor East “Window Wonderland.” I have been “Painting the Town One Window at a Time” since 2007. I have expanded painted screens out of the Baltimore area and into windows across the country: to NY, NV, Colorado, Florida, PA, Delaware, Hatteras Island, NC, Ocean City MD, NC, Missouri, and beyond. My screen art has been on exhibit at “PICTURE WINDOWS ... The Painted Screens of Baltimore and Beyond” at Maryland Institute College of Art, Dec 2013 – Mar 2014, Crystal Moll Gallery, Highlandtown Gallery, The Meeting House, Skylofts Gallery, Out of Order, Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower, Fells Point Festival, Fox 45 News, MSAC Maryland Folklife Festivals, The National Building Museum Big Build, “Not your Grandmother’s Screens” at Top of the World Trade Center, and in the art gallery along the city streets.

Artist's Statement

I have been “Painting the Town One Window at a Time” since 2007 and have expanded painted screens out of the Baltimore area and into windows across the country: to NY, NV, Colorado, Florida, PA, Delaware, Hatteras Island, NC, Ocean City MD, NC, Missouri, and beyond. Most of all, I love transforming my clients’ dreams and ideas onto their own personalized house window screens. Making people smile by painting places and things that are near and dear to their hearts is the greatest reward. I have been intrigued with Baltimore screen painting since I was a child. I am striving to revitalize this delightful but vanishing folk art. I believe screen painting still has a valuable purpose in today’s changing city neighborhoods. Painted screens always have and always will delight residents and visitors. Once screen painting is revived, this simple unpretentious art-form conveys a renewed sense of pride, friendship, sharing, and belonging to city residents.