The Solomon and Gillespie Fund was founded by Lyn Solomon and Peter Gillespie to support their lifelong interests in psychoanalysis and art. They met in 1975 in the Parsons School Design Fine Arts program. Lyn went on to graduate from Parsons while Peter transferred to the Cooper Union School of Arts and Sciences to complete is BFA training.
Lyn and Peter were married in 1982 and shortly thereafter searched for a place of their own to live and work protected from the whims of landlords and market forces. They were able to purchase an abandoned building in the Northside section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn by convincing the owner that they were committed to bringing the building back to life. Unable to secure a bank loan for the necessary renovations, they had to resort to self-financing the building’s upgrades through free-lance work in graphic design and carpentry and a lot of sweat equity performed over many years.
During this period, Lyn entered into a personal psychoanalysis, which eventually broadened her focus of interest combining art making with art as therapy. She went on to received a Masters in Art Therapy from New York University in 1997 and psychoanalytic clinical training from Washington Square Institute (WSI) and Après Coup Psychoanalytic Association. Lyn’s practice has included working with inpatient adults at Interfaith Medical Hospital in Brooklyn as well as individual patients at both the WSI Treatment Center and in her private practice in Williamsburg. All throughout her analytic training and clinical practice Lyn continued to make artwork.
Lyn’s personal experience and enthusiasm for psychoanalysis rubbed off on Peter whose interest in contemporary art theory already included the writings of the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. To further his interest, Peter obtained a Masters in Psychoanalytic Study from Deakin University in 2000 and shortly thereafter entered into a personal analysis. During this period, Peter served as the Executive Director of a community planning and environmental justice organization whose mission was to give a voice to neighborhood people to participate in land-use decisions that effect their lives and the future of their community.
In 2011, Peter received a Masters degree from Hunter College School of Social Work and three years later his clinical license. Peter has served as staff psychotherapist, supervisor and faculty member at the WSI Treatment Center and has written many articles on psychoanalysis focusing on the relationship between clinical practice and broader social concerns. He now has a private practice and provides supervision in Williamsburg and is also a member of the Après Coup Psychoanalytic Association.
In November 2018, Lyn was diagnosed with an aggressive and extremely rare form of leukemia (T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia). In the beginning the leukemia was indolent but became aggressive several months later. In response Lyn received prolonged immunotherapy treatment that pushed the disease into remission which made her eligible for an umbilical cord blood transplant. Initially the new stem cells started to rebuild her immune system and by September 2020, she was in a slow process of recovery. But within two months the leukemia returned. Over the next several months Lyn endured a demanding series of treatments to combat the illness. Remarkably throughout this ordeal, she continued her clinical practice and formation as a psychoanalyst. She also never stopped making artwork, employing techniques such as collage and photo-montage (inspired by women “hobbyists” of the Victorian era who invented the genre), handmade embroidery (playing with a variety of stitchings and patterns), and jewelry beading inspired by a collection of necklaces inherited from her mother (which Lyn viewed as both beautiful adornments and a repository of meaning).
After a long hospital stay that failed to arrest the growth of the leukemia, Lyn decided to end all treatments with the understanding that she would be allowed to die at home: the place she loved and where she lived and worked for almost 40 years. Fulfilling to her final wish, Lyn died quietly and peacefully at home on April 28, 2021 with her husband by her side.
The Fund is solely funded through the profits received from rental income generated by the building that Lyn and Peter bought in1982 and where they have lived and worked ever since. Eventually the building and its contents will become the property of the Solomon and Gillespie Fund in order to continue its work in perpetuity.