Her drawings, paintings, and sculptures focus on the representation of people, either in portraiture or as figures who embody aspects of her inner experience.

Among her art media are paint (oil and acrylic), ink, marker pen, papier-mâché, clay, and wood.

For her students, Cannon read aloud nonsense verse by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear.

[2][9] Burnett, who was then in his mid-seventies, was spending his winter years teaching such skills to children, the elderly, and the disabled.

In 1994, faced with severe depression, Alper opted for electroconvulsive therapy, which left her with some parts of her brain permanently damaged.

Among Alper's art media are oil and acrylic paint, papier-mâché, clay, ink, and marker pen.

[11][20] In 1986 she taught art on a voluntary basis to terminally ill teenagers at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

[2] During a period in 1992 when Alper lost the power of speech, Coulson acted as an intermediary to help her answer questions for an interview with Kristine McKenna.

When she was producing Benny & Joon (1993), she arranged for Alper to help Mary Stuart Masterson prepare for her role as a mentally ill young woman who falls in love with a mime artist.

[26] In 2016 the gallery closed its space on Santa Fe Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, and has operated as a website since then.

[27][28] The gallery's final group show, Celebration (2016), included three untitled Alper drawings in ink and marker pen.

[30] When he and fellow musician Peggy Harrison began writing children's literature together, Alper agreed to illustrate their first story: a chapter book called Norm and Burny: The Black Square.

Journalist and art curator Kristine McKenna esteemed Alper's work from early childhood as "remarkably sophisticated in their technical polish and psychological complexity".

[2] Writing in 2018, film critic Richard Brody was impressed by Alper's ability to capture powerful emotion and potent memories with such precision and sincerity.

[35] During a ten-year period when she lost the power of speech for long stretches, her work changed: "I was very prolific with my drawing," Alper says, "and I think that I was telling more complete stories—maybe because I so desperately was trying to communicate.

"[36] While studying at Tom Wudl Studio in the 2010s, Alper caught the attention of B. J. Dockweiler, a fellow painter and classmate.

Dockweiler's husband, Frank Stiefel, was equally intrigued when he met Alper at a group show and saw some of her pieces.