Boccalero Karen

American Roman Catholic nun, fine artist, and founder and former director of Self-Help Graphics & Art. She earned an MFA as a printmaker at Temple University. Self-Help Graphics was both a print studio and a Chicano community centre in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, with Sister Karen as its longtime director. She worked to highlight Mexican cultural elements in much of the studios output, and in the educational programs that they undertook. Boccalero was a persuasive fundraiser for the program. Her training as an artist informed her work supporting emerging artists. She considered the studio her mission, as a Franciscan nun, and her order recognized it as such, even while she was supporting Willie Herrón in bringing East Los Angeles punkero bands to perform regularly in the studio. Karen Boccalero died on 24 June 1997, aged 64, of a heart attack at East Los Angeles, California. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less