You meet a lot of creative people through the Buy Nothing Facebook page. I met artist Shante Bullock when I gave her a rolled-up blank painter’s canvas. When she came to pick it up, we started talking on my porch and migrated into my house where topics flowed from one into another. She showed me photos of her art on her phone, and I was hooked! When she told me one of her woodcuts was in the exhibit, Women Artists of the DMV, at the Atheneum in Old Town, I went to see it even though I was only a few weeks past total knee replacement surgery. Well worth the effort!

 

Shante’s Atheneum art was a print of a boy on a bicycle. Her subjects are often children, rendered realistic or surrealistic, in drawings, paintings or prints such as etchings or woodcuts. It isn’t intentional; she just finds that kids often find their way into her art. It may be because she worked for 20 years in child welfare – 10 years with lawyers and 10 years with social workers. Concern for their well-being also contributes to her social justice art, which is something else she often finds herself creating unwittingly.

 

Shante describes her artwork as “a slice of life – you happen to catch someone in a moment – like kids on a beach or sitting on a fence ready for some type of shenanigans.” She said the children in her oil or acrylic paintings often look straight at you – with confidence and openness.

 

When Shante discovered the first Free Little Art Gallery (FLAG) in Capitol Heights in 2021, she was excited to share her art in those little boxes now found all around the DMV area. “I feel it’s a way to give back to community.” Buy Nothing and FLAGs are both part of the gift economy.

Her subjects for the FLAGs aren’t what she normally paints. At one next to an elementary school, she left animal paintings. Other places she leaves small versions of her “thinking series,” acrylic paintings of crayons, beach balls or leaves appearing above a child’s head. Other topics in paint or print: kids in space or flowers. She likes that FLAGs embrace pictures drawn by kids, sometimes even scribbles, but it’s their art. She calculates she’s given away over 150 pieces of mini-art.

 

Art keeps Shante busy – whether it’s large or small. She has co-curated 10 shows in the past five years and was a judge in the last show at the Reston Art League. Keep a look out for her creations in FLAGs and in area exhibits. Her art has also been shown in New York, New Jersey, and various galleries up and down the east coast.