above: “squared abstract” by Callahan McDonoughInterview with Artist and Psychotherapist, Callahan McDonough

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1.Who are you, what do you do, and what is your background?I am an artist, a painter and print maker and have been for over the past forty years. I received my Bachelor of Visual Arts from Georgia State University in 1970. It was an exhilarating time for art at GSU and I had some wonderful mentors, teachers and friends. Jim Sitton, Medford Johnston and some amazing fellow students really changed my life and how I thought about my art.  Happily, I earned a scholarship for graduate school in the art department at the University of South Florida. Unhappily, my mother fell ill and I left grad school to care for her after completing one year of the two-year program.  ‘Reality takes precedence’, another mentor, Pauline Clance, PhD would say to me later.  By the way, Mom is doing fine and lives in Florida all these years later. After Mom recovered, I returned to Atlanta and worked as Director of the Techwood Homes Girls Club.
About this time, the Feminist movement was kicking in gear, and I immersed myself in the  Feminist Women’s art movement. Along with 30 other women artists, we started the Atlanta Women’s Art Collective, as well as the co-ed Art Workers Coalition. Both of the organizations were pivotal in changing the art scene in Atlanta. We were lucky to have Maynard Jackson in office as Atlanta Mayor. He was a big supporter of the arts and started the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, which gave a sense of camaraderie and unity to a multitude of Atlanta arts organizations. There was a window of about ten years when it felt as if we were experiencing a contemporary version of the Renaissance in Atlanta.

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above:” A wrinkle in time” by Callahan McDough 

 

Above: “Inner Vision” by Callahan McDonough