Talk:Christina Schlesinger

Past tense?

"She had two brothers, one sister, and a half-brother.[4] She was the middle child.[2]" As Schlesinger is still alive, is this written in past tense to acknowledge Schlesinger's transgender status, is it just a mistake, are her siblings deceased, or is it simply bad grammar? The article makes no pronoun distinctions, referring to Schlesinger exclusively as she/her, so that doesn't really give any clue. Anastrophe (talk) 20:51, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Conflict of interest edit?

An anonymous IP user made significant changes to the article, purporting to be the subject of this article. There are multiple reasons why this is problematic. We have no way of verifying the claim that it is the subject of this article who is making the changes. Secondly, the subject of an article has an explicit conflict of interest in doing so. So it's a double-bind. I have - guided by policy - reverted the edit. I hope that the editor visits this talk page, and can point us to reliable disinterested sources that can verify the claims. cheers. Anastrophe (talk) 18:31, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

· These are the errors I would like to see correctedZ: I did not meet Judy Baca at a feminist conference organized by Judy Chicago. This is how it should read: Schlesinger met Judy Baca in 1971 at a lesbian bar in Venice, Big Brothers, where Baca was recruiting artists to paint “The History of Venice Murals” at the Venice Pavilion. Schlesinger was a student at Cal Arts at the time in the Feminist Studio Program of Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro. Schlesinger soon dropped out of Cal Arts to join forces with Judy to form the Citywide Mural Project (1973) and SPARC (1976). · Baca and I did not collaborate on the Chagall mural. We collaborated on the History of Venice mural. · The information on the Chagall mural is incorrect. It was never called “Marc Chagall Comes to Venice Beach. Here is the correct story and how it should read. “In 1991, SPARC and the Jewish Federation commissioned Schlesinger to paint a mural at the Israel Levin Center, a Jewish senior citizen Center on the Venice Boardwalk. The huge mural, 138’ x 18’ ”Chagall Comes to Venice Beach” celebrates the famous Jewish painter and the long time Jewish community of Venice. The mural was destroyed in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, but the community missed the beloved mural so much that in 1996 Schlesinger was brought back to repaint it, and the mural became, “Chagall Returns to Venice Beach.” In 2016, the City of Los Angeles landmarked the mural, however in 2019, with the renovation and rebuilding of the Center, the mural was destroyed once again. In 2021, the Jewish Federation recommissioned Schlesinger to paint a new version of the mural. Now 15’ x 8’, it is an interior mural printed on metal, visible through a bank of windows to passers-by on the boardwalk. The new design, now permanent, captures the main elements, spirit and beauty of the original.” · My mother, Marian Cannon Schlesinger, was a recognized artist and writer, not just a woman who “could paint”. This should read: “Schlesinger’s mother, Marian Cannon Schlesinger, was an artist and writer. Her drawings and watercolors of New England textile mills were exhibited at the Boston Museum of Science and are in the collection of the New Hampshire Historical Society. Her elegant, idiosyncratic paintings of birds and horses were exhibited widely. She was also well known for her portraits of children.” Here is the link to her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Cannon_Schlesinger I am currently painting large landscapes of waterfalls and pine forests in Chinese ink on bedsheets, combining my love of landscape painting with the scale and freedom of mural painting. · You might add under personal: Christina Schlesinger has been with her partner, the sculptor Nancy Fried, since 1981. They live in New York City and East Hampton, NY, and have a daughter, Chun Isabella Schlesinger-Fried.

There are most likely other errors in the article, but these are the most egregious ones. As the daughter of an historian, I am concerned with veracity. A clue as to why this article is erroneous jumps at me when I see how Israel Levin Center is spelled in the article: Center is spelled as Centre – that is a British spelling of the word and completely inaccurate in this context. I would very much like to know who is responsible for this article. I see under history that there are several Italian sources. This makes no sense to me.

I am a supporter of Wikipedia and am in fact a small donor. I have used Wikipedia in my teaching (another error: I taught Cultural History at the Ross School as well as Art but was mainly a History teacher). It is disheartening to encounter so much misinformation.

I am currently at work on a memoir which will definitely set the record straight. In the meantime, I would appreciate your correcting these errors. If I find more, must I go through this process again to correct them?

Thank you, Christina Schlesinger

I have substantial edit requests as there are multiple errors in the wikipedia article about me. I am the subject of the article and have no idea who actually wrote it.

• What I think should be changed (include citations):

• Why it should be changed:

47.20.156.115 (talk) 14:31, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

References

· I did not meet Judy Baca at a feminist conference organized by Judy Chicago. This is how it should read: Schlesinger met Judy Baca in 1971 at a lesbian bar in Venice, Big Brothers, where Baca was recruiting artists to paint “The History of Venice Murals” at the Venice Pavilion. Schlesinger was a student at Cal Arts at the time in the Feminist Studio Program of Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro. Schlesinger soon dropped out of Cal Arts to join forces with Judy to form the Citywide Mural Project (1973) and SPARC (1976). · Baca and I did not collaborate on the Chagall mural. We collaborated on the History of Venice mural. · The information on the Chagall mural is incorrect. It was never called “Marc Chagall Comes to Venice Beach. Here is the correct story and how it should read. “In 1991, SPARC and the Jewish Federation commissioned Schlesinger to paint a mural at the Israel Levin Center, a Jewish senior citizen Center on the Venice Boardwalk. The huge mural, 138’ x 18’ ”Chagall Comes to Venice Beach” celebrates the famous Jewish painter and the long time Jewish community of Venice. The mural was destroyed in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, but the community missed the beloved mural so much that in 1996 Schlesinger was brought back to repaint it, and the mural became, “Chagall Returns to Venice Beach.” In 2016, the City of Los Angeles landmarked the mural, however in 2019, with the renovation and rebuilding of the Center, the mural was destroyed once again. In 2021, the Jewish Federation recommissioned Schlesinger to paint a new version of the mural. Now 15’ x 8’, it is an interior mural printed on metal, visible through a bank of windows to passers-by on the boardwalk. The new design, now permanent, captures the main elements, spirit and beauty of the original.” · My mother, Marian Cannon Schlesinger, was a recognized artist and writer, not just a woman who “could paint”. This should read: “Schlesinger’s mother, Marian Cannon Schlesinger, was an artist and writer. Her drawings and watercolors of New England textile mills were exhibited at the Boston Museum of Science and are in the collection of the New Hampshire Historical Society. Her elegant, idiosyncratic paintings of birds and horses were exhibited widely. She was also well known for her portraits of children.” Here is the link to her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Cannon_Schlesinger I am currently painting large landscapes of waterfalls and pine forests in Chinese ink on bedsheets, combining my love of landscape painting with the scale and freedom of mural painting. · You might add under personal: Christina Schlesinger has been with her partner, the sculptor Nancy Fried, since 1981. They live in New York City and East Hampton, NY, and have a daughter, Chun Isabella Schlesinger-Fried.

There are most likely other errors in the article, but these are the most egregious ones. As the daughter of an historian, I am concerned with veracity. A clue as to why this article is erroneous jumps at me when I see how Israel Levin Center is spelled in the article: Center is spelled as Centre – that is a British spelling of the word and completely inaccurate in this context. I would very much like to know who is responsible for this article. I see under history that there are several Italian sources. This makes no sense to me.

I am a supporter of Wikipedia and am in fact a small donor. I have used Wikipedia in my teaching (another error: I taught Cultural History at the Ross School as well as Art but was mainly a History teacher). It is disheartening to encounter so much misinformation.

I am currently at work on a memoir which will definitely set the record straight. In the meantime, I would appreciate your correcting these errors. If I find more, must I go through this process again to correct them?

Thank you, Christina Schlesinger

While I am reasonably sure that you most likely are the subject of this article, there are problems with your requested edits.

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia. There is no one person who is responsible for the article. Someone in the past started the article, but others - many others, including myself - have edited it. The only edits that I have made, personally have typically been grammatical fixes, copyediting for clearer wording, reverting vandalism, and other such minor changes.

The problem with your requests is that you did not provide any sources other than your own claims for your peers here to verify the information. Wikipedia can only be accurate if any editor and every reader can independently verify what is written. What is written above sounds perfectly reasonable, accurate, and legitimate. But we have no way of verifying it. Third-party sources - newspapers, existing books, periodicals, can all serve as sources of verification, as long as those sources are known to be reliable themselves - for example, the National Enquirer is a newspaper/periodical, but it is known to print unsubstantiated rumors routinely, so it isn't an acceptable source. The New York Times however, is an acceptable source.

Editors are particularly hamstrung with 'Biographies of Living Persons', because they demand even higher standards of verifiability, due to the serious risk of defamation. Likewise, in many cases we cannot even use the subject's own words as a source of verification - imagine a comedian known for spinning tales, which, out of context, could be used to add absurd content about the subject to the encyclopedia 'because they said it'.

The subject of an article has a unique conflict of interest - there have been countless 'Biographies of Living Persons' that were sureptitiously created by the subject themselves, exaggerating their bona fides, their accomplishments, and their notability for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia isn't a platform for self-promotion or a collection of random information about people who aren't notable. I am not implying any of that in this case, please be aware.

So in summary, we cannot make the changes you request. We cannot verify that you are the subject of this article. Nor even if we could verify that you are the subject of the article, can we simply take your word for any matter stated. Wikipedia editors cannot interview the subject of the article and post information based upon that - because editors themselves are not reliable, verifiable sources for that information. It must be found in an established source, typically news or periodicals with a reputation for checking their facts.

That said - you are welcome to - and uniquely qualified quite probably - to search the internet for references to yourself on reliable sources. You can review a list of sources indicating their reliability here - Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. You can then post links to the specific articles here, we can review them, and use the information from them to adjust/correct/rewrite as needed. cheers. Anastrophe (talk) 17:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)