Phyllis Segura

BRIEF ARTIST BIO – 2022
PHYLLIS SEGURA

Phyllis Segura is a well-traveled painter, designer, journalist, photographer, poet, and chef.
She studied art formally at Boston University and the Art Students League. Later studying privately with Nicholas Carone, Vicente Esteban, and Jordan Belson. In 1970 she co-founded and edited, the now renowned video journal “Radical Software,” receiving a NYSCA grant in 1971.In San Franscisco, Segura did pioneer work in holography and video in conjunction with the School of Holography with Jerry Pethick, Lloyd Cross and Peter van Riper. And, in 1973, she hand-painted a billboard based on the magic square of 16. Through the late 70s and early 80s she studied thangka painting with Tibetan master painters Beru and Rongae, and zen archery (kyudo) with Shibata Kanjuro, Sensei. She was a student of meditation master Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. In 1982 she curated the art exhibit “Kerouaciana” for the Jack Kerouac Conference in Boulder Colorado. In 1994 -1999 she produced “Broadshirt,” the poetry magazine on a t-shirt (Fales Library Special Collections). She devised a method of teaching drawing called “Drawing the Mind,” based on contemplative traditions and taught it in US and Europe. A 1998 scholarship from the James Beard Foundation took her to Florence, Italy to study Tuscan culinary traditions. Throughout the 80s and early 90s she was an award-winning print textile designer and instructor at F.I.T. In 1999 she completed three decorative murals on newsstands in Times Square as a project with NY high school students. She has performed an interactive calligraphy performance, “Who Are You?” both locally and in Nova Scotia. In 2020 she produced a poetry chapbook, “Thunderbolt Podium.” Her paintings have been exhibited in Europe, Canada and the U.S. and she continues to exhibit at various venues where she lives in Ulster County, New York.