Lily Yeh

Describing Lily Yeh as a sculptor is a bit like describing the Sahara desert as dry. While technically true, it ignores the scope of the situation. Ms. Yeh's sculpture shop is the city itself; its residents are her workshop. In her ongoing North Philadelphia-based project, The Village of Arts and Humanities, Ms. Yeh has collaborated with a sprawling community of artists and ordinary citizens to create an oasis in a heretofore ignored part of the city. Sculpture springs up in vacant lots. Murals appear on walls where adjacent buildings have disappeared. Even more convincingly than the work itself speaks about the transformation of the neighborhood, local residents show how radically things have changed by their pride and participation in the ever refining process of what Ms. Yeh refers to as "a dustless realm." Ms. Yeh received her B.A. at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, and her M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. She has also studied classical Chinese painting with masters in Taiwan. Her work with the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia has been recognized and support by grants from the Venture Fund Award from the Carnegie Mellon Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Philadelphia Foundation, and the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation. Ms. Yeh has been a visiting professor and guest artist/speaker for colleges and academies in China and currently teaches at the University of the Arts.