Cheryl D. Edwards
Contemporary Artist
I was born in 1954 in Miami Beach, Florida. My mother, Olivia Love Edwards was a pharmacist, and my father Clarence Leonard Edwards was a porter at Eastern Seaboard Trains. I spent my leisure time playing volleyball, swimming at the pool and the beach, fishing with my father, writing poetry, roller skating, drawing, climbing trees and looking at the clouds.
I attended an all-girl Catholic High School in North Miami. My sophomore year I was a member of the Glee Club and spent that summer touring Europe. I can still remember the first time that I saw the Mona Lisa painting at the Louvre viewing through the lens of a 15-year-old girl and was in wonder, as well as, puzzled to fully understand the work of Leonardo Da Vinci.
I went to college at Boston University where I was a MA candidate in the Black Studies program. I was assigned to shadow Alan Crite for a year and documented his oral history as my project for graduate school. I remember all of the paintings in his home that I stared at for a year and learned much about his practice while documenting his life.
I ended up in New York City and begin practicing law and worked as an Administrative Law Judge. I attended school at night at the Art Student League and studied under Ernest Crichlow. I have traveled to Africa, South America, Europe, the Carribean, Cuba and Canada.