Name/Title
On Lok Lifeways Gee Center - Irene Higgins - Put Down the DevicesDescription
All her friends call her IrishH and she's led an interesting life. A multi-talented performer, she led a blues band (Spoonful of Blues) in San Francisco, composing some of the songs, playing bass and singing lead. She has worked with a small local theater group (Ninjaz of Drama) behind the scenes and in performance. With a Mission district crew (A Waking Dream), she constructed fantastical costuming and participated in the local Carnival and Pride parades, as well as Unity celebrations.
Always a bit of a nerd growing up, IrishH studied Spanish in high school, adding German studies and some French courses in college. After being a dropout for some years she returned to school and earned a bachelor's degree, cum laud, in Russian from SF State University after using scholarship funds to spend a summer semester studying in the Soviet Union. While back in school and afterward IrishH used her academic skills to empower learners in Academic Support programs at City College of San Francisco and After School Programs at Visitacion Valley Middle School.
She came to On Lok through a CCSF Older Adult Program art class and continues along the creative path here experimenting with watercolors, acrylics and gouache paints as well as at the San Francisco Senior Center working with oil paints and ceramics.
