Karen Boccalero
| Karen Boccalero | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Carmen Rose Boccalero May 19, 1933 Globe, Arizona, US |
| Died | June 24, 1997 (aged 64) East Los Angeles, California, US |
| Education | |
Karen Boccalero (May 19, 1933 – June 24, 1997) was an American nun, fine artist, and founder and former director of Self-Help Graphics & Art.
Carmen Rose Boccalero was born in Globe, Arizona, to Albert Boccalero and Annie Guadagnoli; both her parents were of Italian ancestry. She moved to Los Angeles with her family as a child. She attended Immaculate Heart College in Los Feliz, California, where she studied with Sister Corita Kent. Boccalero pursued further art education at the Tyler School of Art abroad in Rome, Italy, and earned an MFA as a printmaker at Temple University.
Boccalero founded and named Self-Help Graphics in Boyle Heights in 1971, with a group of Chicano artists. She had acquired a printing press and started a workshop in a garage rented by her order, the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity. Self-Help Graphics was both a print studio and a community center, with Sister Karen as its longtime director. She worked to highlight Mexican cultural elements in much of the studio's output, and in the educational programs that they undertook. "Sister Karen was very adamant about including Mesoamerican and Mexican iconography and history in teaching young people in East L. A.," noted instructor Linda Vallejo.
Boccalero was a persuasive fundraiser for the program. Her training as an artist informed her work supporting emerging artists. She considered the studio her mission, as a Franciscan nun, and her order recognized it as such, even while she was supporting Willie Herrón in bringing East Los Angeles punkero bands to perform regularly in the studio. In 1988, Boccalero won a Vesta Award from the Women's Building, for her work in arts community support.
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