BAKER beverly

1961 . versailles . kentucky . usa

Beverly Baker suffers from Down’s syndrome. As a young woman, she found work at a government-run sheltered workshop for shredding confidential documents. She began to secretly take home stacks of papers slated for destruction and used them for her drawings. As a result, her first works were made on prison reports, tax returns and other official forms. Her parents signed her up to an art studio for handicapped artists organized by the Latitude Artist Community in Lexington, Kentucky, which she visits on a daily basis. She makes her abstract drawings by using a ballpoint pen to create layers of text that she copies from magazines, books and other printed materials. She then crosses the text out or colors it in until some of the letters or words are completely covered up.