About

Rachel Cyrene Blackman

I am a working artist, public arts curator and designer currently based in New England. I have been a non stop creative practitioner since I started playing trumpet and wrote my first poem in 5th grade.

It’s not clear to me anything I’ve created since has out shined that poem as written below.

When I grow up I want to be a swimmer but not in the sea
I’d like to swim in a pool I sure think that would be cool
- as written in fifth grade

Before the age of 15, I had lived in four states, eight houses and attended six schools all over the country. Imagination and creativity were my constant companions. The experience of growing up in very diverse regions and cultures continues to inform my multidisciplinary sensibility and the authentic inclusion in design in social practice and public art. And I really like pugs a lot.

Music was my first sustained artistic practice. In the early years of my creative life and education, I studied trumpet, was a performing songwriter and my MFA is in classical composition and creative writing. At some point, I pivoted to photography and poster making as my central expressive platforms in studio work.

I’ve been an active writer since the poem above. Words and writing eventually show up in every other medium I work in. Perhaps this will make sense as you look at the range of my work.

I’m the originator and lead artist for the Free Pass Project, a social practice of spontaneous compassion and conversation. This long term multi platform interactive art began in 2014. I am the originator, lead programmer and coordinator for the Florence Poetry Carnival in Massachusetts. Social justice and empowerment fuel this work.