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Painting with Paper: A Second Act in the Fine Arts
Losing a comfortable corporate job in a recession was an emotional and financial shock, but Yolanda Ward overcame the hardship and is thriving.
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Losing a comfortable corporate job in a recession was an emotional and financial shock, but Yolanda Ward overcame the hardship and is thriving
March 21, 2025
For more than 30 years, Yolanda Ward worked her way up the corporate ladder, from typesetter to graphic designer and ultimately becoming the creative director of a Fortune 500 company. Through it all, Ward held fast to a dream. "I knew that I would be an artist in my retirement," she said.
By her early fifties, Ward had finally saved enough to move out of the semi-detached house in Philadelphia she shared with her daughter and buy a spacious new home in the suburbs. One of the primary advantages of the new location was that Ward would be much closer to work and not have to fight traffic every day. Or so she thought.
Then came the 2008 stock market crash. Overnight, Ward went from being a high earner to being an unemployed single mother with a steep mortgage on a new home.
"I went into survival mode," she said. "I sent out resumes determined to get back into the corporate world. But I quickly found out that no one wanted to hire an experienced woman over 50."
Her 'Light Bulb Moment' Arrives
A woman of faith, Ward prayed for a way forward. It did not come all at once, but in small glimpses. "I went into my home studio and got busy," she said. "I experimented with every medium: charcoal, watercolor and oil paint. Meanwhile, I took art courses at night to advance my skills. I was searching for the medium that would enable me to make a distinct artistic statement."
Ward, now 69, didn't find her medium as much as it found her. From childhood, she had been fascinated with paper and collected it for decades without knowing what she would do with it. One day, her brother-in-law showed up at her door with a huge bin of papers and asked, "Do you still want this stuff?"
"It was a light bulb moment," said Ward. "I had found my medium!"
Viewed from a distance, her images look like oil or acrylic paintings. On closer inspection, though, one sees the "painting" are actually collages made with tiny pieces of paper in a laborious process that starts with making the paper itself.
"It It Wasn't For You," by Yolanda Ward
"I took a night course in paper making and found the process very meditative," she said. However, the ability to support herself as an artist did not happen overnight. While working part time jobs, she participated in area art shows, selling drawings, jewelry and note cards she had designed.
A Fateful Friendship
That is how she met Sherry Shine, an award-winning African American fiber artist, at an area art show. "Sherry was light years ahead of me in her achievements, yet she was very enthusiastic and supportive," said Ward.
They were both exhibiting at a huge art show. "I just happened to pass Yolanda's table on my way to the restroom and her work, a charcoal on canvas portrait, stopped me in my tracks," said Shine. "My husband surprised me and bought one of her charcoal canvases. Yolanda and I have been friends ever since."
"Sometime later, we commissioned her to do a piece as a gift for the gallery that represents me, E&S Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky," said Shine. "Yolanda did a beautiful landscape collage for them."
Prestigious Gallery Invitation
Upon seeing Ward's work, E&S, one of the leading fine art African American galleries in the nation, invited Ward to create collages for a show in the Hamptons resort area near New York City. "My collages sold out the first day," said Ward. "Since then, E&S Gallery has represented me."
"If it wasn't for those who survived that harrowing journey, I would not be here today."
While finding her medium took time, finding her subject matter was instinctive. "I draw inspiration from the African American diaspora because it allows me to bring a part of myself, and my journey as well, to honor my ancestors," said Ward.
In Ward's largest collage to date, a 5 foot by 7.5 foot canvas, entitled, "If It Wasn't for You," a woman in a brightly colored gown is lying on the ocean's surface, her hand reaching out to the viewer. On the horizon is an 18th century galleon. Closer inspection reveals that the woman is being held above the water by hands of drowning slaves.
"That is just one aspect of what is known as The Middle Passage in which Africans were thrown overboard from slave ships," said Ward. "If it wasn't for those who survived that harrowing journey, I would not be here today."
Painting with Paper: A Second Act in the Fine Arts
Losing a comfortable corporate job in a recession was an emotional and financial shock, but Yolanda Ward overcame the hardship and is thriving.
-
Losing a comfortable corporate job in a recession was an emotional and financial shock, but Yolanda Ward overcame the hardship and is thriving
March 21, 2025
For more than 30 years, Yolanda Ward worked her way up the corporate ladder, from typesetter to graphic designer and ultimately becoming the creative director of a Fortune 500 company. Through it all, Ward held fast to a dream. "I knew that I would be an artist in my retirement," she said.
By her early fifties, Ward had finally saved enough to move out of the semi-detached house in Philadelphia she shared with her daughter and buy a spacious new home in the suburbs. One of the primary advantages of the new location was that Ward would be much closer to work and not have to fight traffic every day. Or so she thought.
Then came the 2008 stock market crash. Overnight, Ward went from being a high earner to being an unemployed single mother with a steep mortgage on a new home.
"I went into survival mode," she said. "I sent out resumes determined to get back into the corporate world. But I quickly found out that no one wanted to hire an experienced woman over 50."
Her 'Light Bulb Moment' Arrives
A woman of faith, Ward prayed for a way forward. It did not come all at once, but in small glimpses. "I went into my home studio and got busy," she said. "I experimented with every medium: charcoal, watercolor and oil paint. Meanwhile, I took art courses at night to advance my skills. I was searching for the medium that would enable me to make a distinct artistic statement."
Ward, now 69, didn't find her medium as much as it found her. From childhood, she had been fascinated with paper and collected it for decades without knowing what she would do with it. One day, her brother-in-law showed up at her door with a huge bin of papers and asked, "Do you still want this stuff?"
"It was a light bulb moment," said Ward. "I had found my medium!"
Viewed from a distance, her images look like oil or acrylic paintings. On closer inspection, though, one sees the "painting" are actually collages made with tiny pieces of paper in a laborious process that starts with making the paper itself.
"It It Wasn't For You," by Yolanda Ward
"I took a night course in paper making and found the process very meditative," she said. However, the ability to support herself as an artist did not happen overnight. While working part time jobs, she participated in area art shows, selling drawings, jewelry and note cards she had designed.
A Fateful Friendship
That is how she met Sherry Shine, an award-winning African American fiber artist, at an area art show. "Sherry was light years ahead of me in her achievements, yet she was very enthusiastic and supportive," said Ward.
They were both exhibiting at a huge art show. "I just happened to pass Yolanda's table on my way to the restroom and her work, a charcoal on canvas portrait, stopped me in my tracks," said Shine. "My husband surprised me and bought one of her charcoal canvases. Yolanda and I have been friends ever since."
"Sometime later, we commissioned her to do a piece as a gift for the gallery that represents me, E&S Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky," said Shine. "Yolanda did a beautiful landscape collage for them."
Prestigious Gallery Invitation
Upon seeing Ward's work, E&S, one of the leading fine art African American galleries in the nation, invited Ward to create collages for a show in the Hamptons resort area near New York City. "My collages sold out the first day," said Ward. "Since then, E&S Gallery has represented me."
"If it wasn't for those who survived that harrowing journey, I would not be here today."
While finding her medium took time, finding her subject matter was instinctive. "I draw inspiration from the African American diaspora because it allows me to bring a part of myself, and my journey as well, to honor my ancestors," said Ward.
In Ward's largest collage to date, a 5 foot by 7.5 foot canvas, entitled, "If It Wasn't for You," a woman in a brightly colored gown is lying on the ocean's surface, her hand reaching out to the viewer. On the horizon is an 18th century galleon. Closer inspection reveals that the woman is being held above the water by hands of drowning slaves.
"That is just one aspect of what is known as The Middle Passage in which Africans were thrown overboard from slave ships," said Ward. "If it wasn't for those who survived that harrowing journey, I would not be here today."
Painting with Paper: A Second Act in the Fine Arts
Losing a comfortable corporate job in a recession was an emotional and financial shock, but Yolanda Ward overcame the hardship and is thriving.
ROOTED IN ME Solo Art Show Event 2023 Awbury Arboretum
https://www.instagram.com/yolandawardart/ reel/C1iNWj8p4Sv/
https://www.instagram.com/yolandawardart/ reel/CzZWIyMp51h/
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Collage artist Yolanda Ward's vibrant use of paper produces work such as this piece, "If I Only Knew," which is so detailed that at first glance it appears to be painted in oils. Her current exhibition at Awbury Arboretum will be up through Dec. 19.
Posted Thursday, November 23, 2023 12:00 am
by Len Lear
There is no excuse not to see the extraordinary exhibit of the art of Yolanda Ward, “Rooted in Me,” which will be on display at Awbury Arboretum in Germantown through Dec. 19. What makes the art so distinctive is that her Impressionistic works look exactly like oil paintings until you get inches from them and realize that they are actually paper collages.
“That is intentional,” Ward said last week. “There are a lot of collage artists, but I wanted to do it my own way. I want people to think it is an oil painting until they get up close. That usually starts a conversation. I get a big kick out of that.’
Ward combines techniques, using paper she has created with water and pulp. She paints and also has created woodcuts and silkscreens. Her art, she says in the show's catalog, is a process of translating memories into collages.
Ward’s work has appeared in juried exhibitions and received an Honorable Mention Award at Woodmere Art Museum's Annual Show, an Abington Art Center’s Paper Arts Award and a Black Music City Grant. She has also participated in sold-out regional shows. Next January, her work will be exhibited at Foulkeways at Gwynedd.
In her art, Ward has reflected on her relationship with her mother, the impact of the Great Migration, the politics of Black women’s hair, and her faith, which sustained her through a bout with breast cancer. Ward’s white vase series is a metaphor for that medically unsettling journey. In one painting, a vase with beautiful flowers sits on a table amid a foreboding shadow on a wall and curtains billowing through an open window with the breeze.
“Through the darkness, there is always light, You can’t have one without the other,” Ward said in the show’s catalog. “The winds may blow… and they did… Still I stand. maybe a little altered, but still I stand.”
Ward, 68, was born in Frankford but grew up on Conlyn Street in West Oak Lane. Starting in fourth grade, she was bused to Pennypacker School farther north in West Oak Lane. “I did not understand it,” she said. “We were told it was done to achieve racial integration, but my own neighborhood was always integrated, possibly because some of the white families could not afford to move and buy another house. We were the third Black family on our block. I was always around mixed races. I never thought of it as a problem.
“Our neighborhood was a really special community. Kids came from all around and played with each other. Times have changed so much. So many people are carrying around so much rage now, but bad behavior does not help you. When are we going to wake up and be kind to each other and raise kids with loving kindness?”
Ward always had artistic talent. After Germantown High School, she studied art at Arcadia University, the Philadelphia Printing School, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and the Philadelphia College of Art. She worked for 35 years in graphics at Advanta and experienced some financial reversals when the company went out of business. She immersed herself in her art and began making collages.
Why collages?
“It’s every step I’ve ever taken in my life – my graphic arts background, needlepoint, sewing, knitting and my love of paper,” Ward said. I carted tons of magazines around with me for years, never knowing how I would use them. Now, I incorporate them into my collages. My pieces are getting bigger. One in the Awbury exhibit is seven-and-a-half feet long. I've been working on the pieces in the exhibit since January.”
Ward starts each collage with a sketch, not on paper but on her computer. She had to learn all the various graphic art software for her career in the corporate world, and she finds it more efficient to do the basic composition on a computer, where she can easily make numerous changes. Her subjects include portraits, landscapes and seascapes that call to mind the brush strokes of Monet, Matisse and Cezanne.
Two years ago, after Ward’s breast cancer diagnosis, the artist had radiation every day for two months. “I meditate every morning,” she said. “I got so much out of this experience. It changed me for the better. I would not trade my cancer journey for anything.
“I'm inspired by my work and where it's going,” Ward said. “My spirit is getting bigger. I work all the time. I haven't had a vacation in eight years. My daughter, Erikka Rainey, who lives in Roxborough, is great, and my best friend, Miss Minnie, a 13-year-old mutt, has saved me.”
Stacia Friedman contributed to this article. For more information: Yolandawardart.com or @yolandawardart. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com
PHILADELPHIA STORIES ARTICLE
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