Willie Birch

[1] While in New York, during the years 1978 and 1979, he was part of the Cultural Council Foundation Artists Project, funded by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).

"[3] Birch explained that the rest of the city was very different, concluding, "These two contradictory images of New Orleans offered me the opportunity to visualize a body of work that addressed the idea of perception and how we as human beings continue to create, perpetuate, and define peoples as the 'other,' and what that implies in a changing society.

He typically works in charcoal and acrylic on paper and his images often feature aspects of daily life in New Orleans as well as elements of the city's traditional culture, including brass bands, second lines, and musicians such as Trombone Shorty.

Birch was one of six artists featured in "Ten Years Gone" at the New Orleans Museum of Art on the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in 2015.

Birch has been an artist in residence at RedLine Milwaukee; New Orleans Center for Creative Arts; and Ecole superieure des beaux-arts de Nantes, France; New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation; Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM; Henry Street Settlement, New York; and The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY.