After finishing art school, I designed an identity and brochure for the now-closed New Lincoln School. I worked as a book design assistant at Viking Press/Penguin Books, attending my graduation during my lunch break.
While at Viking/Penguin, I received a NYSCA grant to document Queens Cemeteries’ architecture, with an exhibition at the Queens Historical Society. I also worked on a similar project funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, exhibited at the Municipal Art Society in New York.
Subsequently, I opened my own photography studio, pioneering a location in Chinatown, where I shot national ad campaigns, featured in magazines like Vogue, Mademoiselle, Vanity Fair, Elle, and Seventeen. I served advertisers and publishing houses during the 15 years I ran the studio.
While commercial photography was exciting, I yearned to create more personal work. So, I closed the studio and worked on my art from my apartment. I produced prints for installations that were exhibited across Europe, securing grants for a residency in Cologne, Germany, and showcasing experimental work in an Amsterdam photography museum. Eventually, I returned to New York, missing my hometown.
The hard reality of creating installation work in the US is that it often lacks funding for experimentation. To support my installation projects and continue exhibiting, I worked as a production color analyst for commercial printers, gradually advancing to the role of manufacturing director for two consumer publications.
While continuing my photography, I secured a grant to capture the instability of life in the declining industrial Midwest. This project led to a commission from a museum in upstate New York to document industrial structures in Columbia County, culminating in a solo exhibition at the Columbia County Historical Society Museum in Kinderhook, New York.
Then one day, I came across an opportunity to teach at City Tech and that’s where my journey into academia began.
Please visit AnitaGiraldo.com website to see my artwork.
