Award-Winning Artist/Designer McAlister Merchant's Show Opens May 2nd at Bellevue Regional Library

BELLEVUE, Wash. - April 22, 2014 - PRLog -- What is the texture of fear? Where does pride hide in the back of the bus? What's the maximum number of "little Black Sambos" in a high school? Is there a minimum? How far is it between freedom and equality? Can you draw it? Can you paint it? What is childhood like when it's always under threat?

McAlister Merchant, sculptor, painter, and former Microsoft employee, is exhibiting the first pieces of his autobiographical series, “Reflections from the Inside,” at the Bellevue Regional Library, under a Special Project Grant of the Bellevue Arts Partnership program.

Displaying his pastel paintings and writings in the library at 1111 110th Ave. NE in Bellevue, Washington, this one-man show opens to the public on May 2, 2014 and runs through May 29, 2014, during library hours.

McAlister was a teenager and youth during the tumultuous years of middle class growth and racial upheaval in the 1960’s and 70’s, and personally endured discrimination as the first Black student in an all-white parochial high school in the late 1950s. He went on to become a young executive in educational and social integration programs in Chicago, IL during the Mayor Richard Daley years, and in Sacramento, CA during Ronald Reagan’s governorship. McAlister's life is an uncommon story of American upward mobility. His developing series displays, in paintings and writing, a unique perspective on his involvements as young boy, teen and adult, through working as a program development executive, a professional product designer, then as a computer specialist; and always, as an artist.

Now, in semi-retirement McAlister Merchant is endeavoring to evaluate, document, and share those experiences from his unique perspective as a Black American. Visit www.McAlisterMerchant.com for additional art and information about this remarkable artist.