top of page

Click in any photo for a larger version of the series with titles.

NYC CCF CETA Artists Project
1978-79

Having returned to NYC after graduate school, I was extremely fortunate to be hired as an artist in the CCF Artists Project and designated as one of three photographers on its Documentation Unit. The project employed 300 artists (visual, literary and performing) and

50 artist-administrators and was broadly inclusive in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, age and neighborhood.

The work took me all over the city, into the studios of artists and to their community assignments, to performances, exhibitions and events, and to the regular meetings of the project artists.

The project was funded by the federal Comprehensive Employment Training Act, which created, over its seven-year run, 20,000 jobs for artists and arts professionals. This made it the largest such project since the Works Project Administration of the 1930s.

Through the efforts of the CETA Legacy Project, many of these photographs have recently appeared in print and been included in historically-oriented exhibitions such as "Art/Work" organized by City Lore and Artists Alliance in NYC.

All photographs on this site unless otherwise noted are by Blaise Tobia and are © Blaise Tobia

bottom of page