Brooklyn Artist Michael Anthony Pegues Appears on John Bredin's Public Voice Salon

NEW YORK - June 12, 2014 - PRLog -- This week's episode of John Bredin's The Public Voice Salon, features special guest Brooklynite and prominent Downtown artist Michael Anthony Pegues on its panel of educators, activists and community members. Mr. Pegues, recently named "Black Andy Warhol," joins New Yorker Laurel M. Sturt, author of Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School Gulag, and other experts, activists and community members for a lively round table style discussion of art, education and politics, led by host John Bredin, long-time Hoboken resident, educator and writer. Topics include art education in our public schools, the role of charter schools, the impact of standardized testing on our children, and other important community issues.

Mr. Pegues, who has been spending more time in New Jersey these days as Artist in Residence at Poets Wear Prada, a small literary press based in Hoboken, spotted Mr. Bredin's call for panelists one evening at Hoboken's uptown Starbucks on 12th and Hudson. The very next day, publisher Roxanne Hoffman and Mr. Pegues were having brunch outside Stacks Pancakes when John Bredin, a friend of Ms. Hoffman's walked by their table. Ms. Hoffman made the introductions and Mr. Pegues was invited to be on the show.

Host Bredin says "We had a wonderful time. And, we accomplished two of the main goals of our show: to give citizens a voice in our media and to build community. We spoke of the magic of art, named serious problems in our society that need to be addressed, and created the warmth of human community.time."

Mr Pegues, self-employed full-time as an artist and designer, and a product of public education, graduating from alternative High School Redirection in Brownsville, Brooklyn and later attending Nassau Community College, says he is dismayed by the impact of standardized testing on our school curriculum and art education budgets. Mr. Pegues, who often recycles found objects and brought a work in progress made of  reclaimed styrofoam to the show, says he is grateful for the art education he received and the opportunities and lifestyle he  now enjoys. Mr. Pegues has  worked with teenagers on art projects at Lafayette College's Williams Center of Arts, Easton, Pennsylvania, and also was a participating artist for "The Children's Expressions Project Benefiting Children through Art," organized by the Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families. "This was a two-part project." says Mr Pegues. "Foster care children had the opportunity to collaborate with selected artists.Together we created artwork for a benefit whose proceeds went right to those foster care children painting with us."

This week's edisode of the The Public Voice Salon, titled "Citizens Speak Out: a Community Dialogue in Hoboken," airs this Thursday, June 12, at 5:00pm EST, on Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), Manhattan's public access television station (Time Warner Cable Channel 34). The show can also be viewed online from MNN's website, www.mnn.org.  The episode was videotaped live last month on Wednesday May 25 at Symposia Bookstore in Hoboken, New Jersey.