Relief work
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Shearer and her daughter worked to deliver supplies to firefighters and other personnel at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in Manhattan. After being disappointed with her attempts to donate through official channels, she converted a 3,000 sq ft art studio about 1 mile from the World Trade Center into a one-stop-shop for crucial supplies that first responders needed. [5] From her Spring Street warehouse, she and a legion of volunteers [6] [7] [8] began distributing supplies directly to emergency workers; donated items included gloves, face masks, hard hats, respirators, T-shirts, underwear, pants, jackets, steel toe boots, and tools. The New York Times reported, "One thing is certain: to many of the workers at the site, she is a heroine." [5] Shearer later told The Washington Post that she had borrowed $1 million to finance her efforts, repaying the debt after the crisis with the help of money donated from foundations and individuals. [9]
"A lot of this stuff, Rhonda is responsible for,'' said Lt. John Moran of the New York Police Department Emergency Service Unit, pointing out a wall of boxes full of respirators, flashlights, tools and warm winter clothing in the unit's supply station next to ground zero. [5]
Shearer felt called to help those in need once again when the COVID-19 pandemic took root in 2020. [10] Shearer founded Cut Red Tape 4 Heroes and worked to distribute personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks, gloves, antibacterial wipes, and hazmat suits, to firefighters, hospital workers, organizations focused on helping people with special needs, and low-income individuals. She again faced resistance from officials, as hospitals refused to allow her to donate on their property, forcing her to set up distribution areas nearby. [11] Shearer explained in an interview on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show that she used her knowledge from front line work post 9/11 and the contacts she amassed to acquire PPE at notably low prices. She described herself as "highly competitive with sharp elbows". [12] During an interview with Sharon Osbourne on CBS' The Talk, Shearer highlighted the comparisons of her post 9/11 work with the time sensitive work in supporting front line workers during the COVID pandemic. [13] As of May 6, 2020, Shearer reportedly borrowed more than $600,000 on a home equity line of credit to fund the donations and was raising additional money through GoFundMe. [9] In recognition of her efforts, Shearer was dubbed the 'Patron Saint of PPE'. [14] [15] [12]
"Once again, today we see the greatness and decency of our people. Rhonda Roland Shearer and Cut Red Tape 4 Heroes have stepped forward to help the oft-neglected special needs community and its service providers." – NYS Senator Andrew Lanza [16]
Prior to her 2020 founding of Cut Red Tape 4 Heroes and her 2001 founding of the World Trade Center Ground Zero Relief project, Shearer took a leading role in the creation of Housing Works, which was founded in 1991. New York Magazine states, "Over the years, Housing Works has been touted as one of the most innovative AIDS organizations in the country." [17] Realizing there was a need to enhance fundraising, Shearer proposed the creation of an upscale thrift store and offered $100,000 to cover its startup costs. [18] According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review: "By 1998, W magazine described the stores as 'the place where the city's fashionistas drop off last year's Prada and Comme des Garçons'."
Sculpture
As a sculptor, she has exhibited her work in New York City, [19] Los Angeles and London, [20] as well as smaller cities throughout the United States. One of her works reflected her feminist principles by calling attention to the gender disparity in the public art that New York City commissions. Of the hundreds of monuments erected in the city, she emphasized, only three depict real women: Gertrude Stein, Eleanor Roosevelt and Joan of Arc. In the traveling museum exhibition catalogue, Shearer described her exhibition "Woman's Work" by writing, "I depicted large scale images of motherhood and housework in heroic size, as are our most sacred monuments." [21] The New York Times profiled the exhibit in an article "Celebrating Heroines of Drudgery". [22]
In 1996, she exhibited Shapes Of Nature, 10 Years Of Bronze Sculptures in The New York Botanical Garden, which experimented in the use of fractals as a new way to look at space and form. Whereas mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot understood fractals in the form of computerized models of equations, also found in nature others, like Nathaniel Friedman and Shearer utilized fractals in their work. The Economist quoted her as saying, "For the artists, nothing is more fundamental." [23] [24]
Shearer’s monumental bronze artwork Pangea was installed in New York City on 23rd St and 5th Avenue to commemorate Earth Day 90.
Wildenstein Gallery
While Shearer was represented by the Wildenstein Gallery, she exhibited in New York and London starting in 1986. In 1987, she debuted a solo exhibition, “Still Lifes in Bronze,” in London. [25] Two solo shows in New York City followed suit, “Bronzes: Chaos, New Science, New Art, Wildenstein Gallery,” in 1989, and, “Ambiguous Figures, New Bronze Works,” in 1990. [26]
Art history
Forbes has called her an expert on Dadaist art. [27] Shearer has posited that many of Marcel Duchamp's supposedly "readymade" works of art were actually created by Duchamp. [28] Research that Shearer published in 1997, "Marcel Duchamp's Impossible Bed and Other 'Not' Readymade Objects: A Possible Route of Influence From Art To Science", lays out these arguments. In the paper, she showed that research of items like snow shovels (In Advance of the Broken Arm) and bottle racks (Bottle Rack) in use at the time failed to turn up any identical matches to photographs of the originals. Investigations were hampered by the fact that few of the original "readymades" survive, having been lost or destroyed. Those that exist today are predominantly reproductions Duchamp authorized or designed in the final two decades of his life. [29] Among the various versions of Duchamp’s artwork L.H.O.O.Q. , where he adds a mustache to reproductions of the Mona Lisa, he claimed that his original piece was a postcard he bought in front of the Louvre in Paris. Shearer argues that instead of using a real postcard, Duchamp combined his face with the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa was stolen and returned in 1911, with artists blamed for the theft. The implication of Shearer's view is that Duchamp “stole” the Mona Lisa openly, and no one noticed, which creates an even bigger joke than he admitted. [30]
No one has any proof of a urinal purchase, namely in the form of receipts, other witnesses, etc.
Art Science Research Laboratory also operates the media ethics website iMediaEthics.org rebranded from StinkyJournalism.org in 2011. Both websites use the scientific method to critique the mainstream media and uncover hoaxes.
Shearer was Technical Director and Principal Investigator for NASA’s Astrobiology Magazine, from 1999 to 2018. Astrobio.net was a popular online science magazine that served the public by delivering the latest news on the origins of life and beyond. [31]
While publisher of IMediaEthics, Shearer won the 2012 Mirror Award for Best Single Article in the Digital Media category for her work with Malik Ayub Sumbal on the murder of Benazir Bhutto in "Mrs. Bhutto’s Murder Anniversary Part 1: Troubling Double Standard, American photojournalism’s different treatment of foreign victims." [32]
Science and academic research
In 1996, Shearer spoke at the founder of fractal geometry's, Benoit Mandelbrot, memorial at Yale University. There she gave one of the two keynote talks, “From Flatland To Fractaland: New Geometries In Relationship To Artistic And Scientific Revolutions” which was later published in Fractal Geometry and Analysis that July. [33] [34]
From 1999-2000, Shearer was a visiting scholar Harvard University’s Department of Psychology. [35]
Shearer has been widely published in art and science journals, such as Harvard Press's The Languages of the Brain." [36]
In 2023-2024, Bradley Martin, Senior Policy Researcher, cites Shearer's TilNeeded Supply Chian System in two report as addressing supply chain vulnerabilities during emergencies like COVID-19’s 700% N95 respirator price spike. These contracts lock in price, quantity, and delivery speed of critical products, such as personal protection equipment (PPE) or military supplies, and offer, for a 10% of the purchase price premium, making a cost-effective alternative to stockpiling. [37] [38]
Monster Pig
StinkyJournalism.org gained widespread media attention after it uncovered evidence that the shooting of a "Monster Pig" was, in fact, a hoax. "Monster Pig", also known as "Hogzilla II" and "Pigzilla", is the name of a large domestic farm-raised pig that was shot during a canned hunt on May 3, 2007, by an eleven-year-old boy, Jamison Stone. The location is disclosed as a 150-acre (0.61 km2) low fence enclosure within the larger 2,500-acre (1,000 ha ) commercial hunting preserve called Lost Creek Plantation, [39] outside Anniston, Alabama, USA\. According to the hunters (there were no independent witnesses), the pig weighed 1,051 lb (477 kg).
Several days after the story broke, suspicion mounted over the authenticity of the photographic evidence. StinkyJournalism.org interviewed a retired New York University physicist, Dr. Richard Brandt, who used perspective geometry to measure the photograph and showed that, as represented, the pig would be 15 ft (4.57 m) long—much larger than the 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) claimed. [40] Brandt's measurements also showed that the boy in the photo was standing several metres behind the pig, creating the optical illusion that the animal was larger than its actual size. [41] Others claim the photographs were digitally altered. [42]
StinkyJournalism.org discovered that although the Lost Creek Plantation web site boasted that the hunting there was "legendary", the operation was only four months old at the time of the hunt. Eddy Borden had big plans for developing his canned-hunt operation, the Clay County Times reported shortly before the hunt. [43]
In the aftermath of the story, an Alabama grand jury investigated the 11-year-old aspiring sharpshooter Jamison Stone on animal cruelty charges, along with his father Mike Stone, expedition leaders Keith O'Neal and Charles Williams, and Lost Creek Plantation grounds owner Eddy Borden. [44]
The article ("Exclusive: Grand jury to investigate 'monster pig' kill") revealed information subpoenaed by the Clay County District Attorney Fred Thompson, which includes hundreds of hours of on-the-record interviews and research by StinkyJournalism.org director Rhonda Roland Shearer. [45]
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