Carolyn aspires to reveal the magic of our existence and inspire active engagement and presence in caring for our human and more-than-human kin. Art and culture can engage people and places in different ways. Carolyn works with a variety of communities, processes, and materials to create responsive projects and develop tools and experiences that bring joy and a sense of connection. While doing so, their work also challenges dominant narratives about our more-than-human kin in our public who bear the weight of an exploitative and extractive culture, such as plants, trees, animals, insects, birds, and the land itself that we walk on. They are guided by a belief that the strength and humility of the relationships between people and the more-than-humans we’re in community with will determine our ability to adapt to and even thrive in changing environmental and social conditions. 

Carolyn’s lineage includes Ashkenazi Jews from Germany, Poland, Austria, and Russia, and on their paternal side is a fifth generation resident of the occupied lands of the Massachusett-Ponkapoag Tribe (Boston area). Carolyn is also a proud mother to a 7 year old who also has Oaxacan lineage. Together, and in community, they care for multiple garden areas around their neighborhood of Egleston Square. Deepening our relationships with the natural world through learning ancestral Jewish traditions, indigenous lifeways and caring for plants anchors us in exploring how to envision a life where there is balance between human activity and the natural world. 

Carolyn is skilled at navigating relationships with multiple stakeholders (including schools, community groups, planners, municipal government, and businesses) to find common goals and shared values to drive the work, figure out what questions to be asking, and how do it in creative ways that will engage people in conversations. (See Sole of Rockland, Muddle The Puddle, Transformed, and Hull Artwalk for some examples.) Their artmaking processes lead to the creation of artistic interventions or products that aim to create authentic positive shifts in the community and empower people who may have been left out in the past. 

Carolyn was the 2018-2019 Artist in Resident at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, where they worked with planners and municipalities in interdisciplinary teams to create site responsive public art projects that were driven by common values and designed to meet the goals and objectives of the initiative. Their artwork has been shown at locations including Medicine Wheel Gallery, the Jewish Community Center, Harbor Arts, and the Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston Children’s Museum and Franklin Park Zoo. Their work with municipalities includes art and green infrastructure projects in the towns of Rockland, Hull, Medford, Everett, and the City of Boston. Carolyn was a 2022 Be The Change Artist with JArts and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. 

Carolyn earned a Masters in Art Teaching from Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) in 2012, and BS in Landscape Architecture from UMass Amherst in 2003. Their practice is informed by these educational experiences, as well as working in landscape architecture, park stewardship, arts education, public art administration, and a continued desire to make things and play outside. Their areas of expertise include sculpture, sculptural installation, social practice, environmental art, natural resource management, relationship building, youth development, curriculum development, and artistic collaboration.