After one year of working with electrode implants in monkeys in a neuropsychology laboratory at Boston University, Leslie Sills (CAS’69) decided she wanted to go to art school.
Sills had graduated from the College of Liberal Arts—now the College of Arts and Sciences—with a degree in psychology and was contemplating a career in psychological research. But a colleague at the lab who spent his free time taking and printing photographs inspired her to pursue her passion—creating with clay.
Since then, Sills has since built a career as an artist and art educator, as well as an author, championing other women artists; creating emotionally evocative, and socially as well as politically charged art works; and inspiring generations of students to pursue their own artistic passions. In recognition of this work and her continued efforts to celebrate diversity, Sills will receive a 2023 Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award, as well as an Arts & Sciences IDEAL Award, during BU Alumni Weekend on September 23.
“Even though I didn’t become a psychologist, I think studying psychology helped me be who I am. It also helped me be a good teacher and appreciate my students with all their complexities and issues,” Sills said during an interview in her Brookline, Mass., studio. “I consider myself an artist, but psychology is a huge part of me.”
Sills came to BU from a small high school in Northampton, Mass., without a clear idea of the career she wanted to pursue. As an undergraduate, she navigated personal interests and passions, taking advantage of the breadth of opportunities available to her at the College and the University.
“Looking back, I see that college was a time to grow, and a time to look at oneself and ask ‘what is important to me? What do I really care about? What do I really like? How do I want my life to evolve?’ she said.
After her time working in the lab of Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neurology, Allan Mirsky at Boston University School of Medicine—now Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine—Sills’ answer was art.
While she had enjoyed her writing, philosophy, and psychology courses, her favorite undergraduate course was the pottery class that she took — initially as a degree requirement and later as an elective.
Sills decided to apply to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she initially pursued ceramic art and then expanded her range of forms and mediums.
While an art student, Sills participated in a work study program where she taught children who lived in a housing project in Cambridge. Although she faced numerous challenges there, her connection to the children, helping them to express themselves, inspired her to stay.
After three years as a student at SMFA, Sills was asked to teach in the ceramics department. She went on to teach in after school programs in the Newton school and later in Brookline. “It was in the Newton School System that one of the moms said to me, ‘you have a gift for working with kids.’ And that kind of clicked for me,” Sills said.
She then converted the dining room of her apartment into a studio space, not only for her own work, but also as a space to teach, where she did so up until the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout this time, Sills’ own work evolved — from clay and multimedia sculpture to painting and drawing. Her early work drew inspiration from her personal emotions, including anger and repression. In recent years, her paintings have depicted images of world crises, social justice issues, and politically charged events, including the shooting in El Paso, Texas in 2019, and the immigrant children detained at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I’m very psychologically oriented, and my art reflects that,” Sills said. “I work from my emotions.”
Sills has had her work shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, as well as the Norman Rockwell Museum, The Danforth Museum, The New York Historical Society, The Henry Ford Museum, George Washington University Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, and galleries in New York and Chicago.
At the same time, feeling outrage that there were no books for children on women artists, Sills decided to write her own. She is the author of four books written for middle-grade readers: Inspirations: Stories About Women Artists, Visions: Stories About Women Artists, In Real Life: Six Women Photographers, and From Rags to Riches: A History of Girl’s Clothing in America.
Sills is proud of all her works but has met challenges exhibiting her art that expresses social justice issues.
“I am often inspired by newspaper photographs, but most people do not want to look at those pictures,” she said.
Motivated by her background in psychology, however, she remains determined not to let these challenges stop her from creating what is important to her.
“My art is important to me because it reflects who I am,” Sills said. “It is integral to my being and the way I connect to others and the world.”