About the Artist
Cal George relocated to Santa Fe, NM, in 2011 to explore opportunities in the arts after 30 years in Washington, DC, working on cutting-edge economic and social policy issues. His engagement in the arts is long-standing.
Early on Cal did graduate work in poetry at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City, IA. Central to Cal’s poetry, following his love of e. e. cummings, Dylan Thomas and Gerard Manley Hopkins, are compression of language and visual imagery, punctuated by metaphors and juxtapositions. Similarly, Cal’s photographic aesthetic is minimalist, abstract and metaphorical in nature, inspired by Ellsworth Kelly and Minor White, among others.
Cal has had photographs and mixed-media works shown in six Red Dot Gallery exhibitions on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, NM (2013 -17), at Low’s Gallery, San Diego, CA (2016) and at the Santa Fe Community Gallery (2015).
Cal holds a master's degree in urban planning (concentration on labor market economics and public policy) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a bachelor's degree in English from Carroll College in Waukesha, WI. He also studied comparative political systems at the University of California – Berkeley.
Cal grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the nascent, rock and roll 1950s and the raucous, dangerous 1960s. There he was exposed to stark poverty in the City’s near Southside and was later active in the Civil Rights and Anti-Việt Nam War Movements. He also worked professionally at the community level in the early days of the federal War on Poverty and taught creative writing in Milwaukee’s Inner City Writers’ Workshop. These experiences have helped shape his aesthetic perspective and practice.
In Washington, D.C., Cal led / founded and ran several national nonprofits and was Principal of CalGeorge Consulting, a public policy and social entrepreneurship practice that specialized in national service, workforce development and education issues with national nonprofit, government and private sector clients.
Early on Cal did graduate work in poetry at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City, IA. Central to Cal’s poetry, following his love of e. e. cummings, Dylan Thomas and Gerard Manley Hopkins, are compression of language and visual imagery, punctuated by metaphors and juxtapositions. Similarly, Cal’s photographic aesthetic is minimalist, abstract and metaphorical in nature, inspired by Ellsworth Kelly and Minor White, among others.
Cal has had photographs and mixed-media works shown in six Red Dot Gallery exhibitions on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, NM (2013 -17), at Low’s Gallery, San Diego, CA (2016) and at the Santa Fe Community Gallery (2015).
Cal holds a master's degree in urban planning (concentration on labor market economics and public policy) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a bachelor's degree in English from Carroll College in Waukesha, WI. He also studied comparative political systems at the University of California – Berkeley.
Cal grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the nascent, rock and roll 1950s and the raucous, dangerous 1960s. There he was exposed to stark poverty in the City’s near Southside and was later active in the Civil Rights and Anti-Việt Nam War Movements. He also worked professionally at the community level in the early days of the federal War on Poverty and taught creative writing in Milwaukee’s Inner City Writers’ Workshop. These experiences have helped shape his aesthetic perspective and practice.
In Washington, D.C., Cal led / founded and ran several national nonprofits and was Principal of CalGeorge Consulting, a public policy and social entrepreneurship practice that specialized in national service, workforce development and education issues with national nonprofit, government and private sector clients.