0.3 Gertrude levy barnstone, b. 1925  (Page 2/3)

Early leadership

The de Menils brought Jerry MacAgy,

Other pursuits

In the 60s I got on the school board—the Houston school board—and it was extremely political, extremely dramatic. It was quite an experience. In ’64 I ran, and then I didn’t get off until 1970. I found that during that time I couldn’t keep up with the art thing in any form…the focus changed. Then in 1970 I did other things—TV and whatnot. Channel 2 (KPRC-TV) kindly gave me a job doing community relations…because I was divorced by then, and had three little children. After a few months they asked if I would do a non-commercial children’s program. Those were the days of Sesame Street and the realization that—wow!—you could do something worthwhile. The FCC was breathing down the necks of commercial stations to do this, so they wanted me to work it up. Since I’d been on the school board they figured I had some feel for this thing about kids. I did that for a few years, and they gave me total carte blanche, which was wonderful.

The show was called Sundown’s Treehouse, and it was participatory…about eight kids with total ethnic diversity. They were all under ten, but the children ran the show. I would come up with an outline of what the show was going to be, and we’d meet and we’d talk about it and we’d start doing some dialogue back and forth, and then two days later—it was the taping, and kids just went! I tried to include a lot of participatory things like putting a piece of plastic in front of the camera and a kid with a brush would draw on it, so on the screen all you’d see is a brush and these lines and things. I loved doing that program.

The whole television thing lasted a few years, then the Women’s Caucus for Art became important. I’d been so active politically, and discrimination was just everywhere. This was certainly something that needed to be worked on, so I was very active in that…helped get that going. And I was active here and there nationally for a few years, as well as doing my own work. Then you realize, okay, I’ve done that, I’ve got to get back to what is really me, and put all my energy and focus on that. So I did.