Rhonda Roland Shearer

Rhonda Roland Shearer is an American sculptor, scholar, and journalist, who founded the nonprofit organization Art Science Research Laboratory with her late husband Stephen Jay Gould. The mission statement avows that the lab aims to "infuse intellectual rigor and critical thinking in disciplines that range from Academics to Journalism. ASRL researches conventional beliefs and misinformation and transmits its findings by means of scientific methods and state-of-the-art computer technologies."

Relief work

Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Shearer and her daughter worked to deliver supplies to firefighters and other personnel at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in Manhattan. After being disappointed with her attempts to donate through official channels, she converted a 3,000 sq ft art studio about 1 mile from the World Trade Center into a one-stop-shop for crucial supplies that first responders needed.  From her Spring Street warehouse, she and a legion of volunteers began distributing supplies directly to emergency workers; donated items included gloves, face masks, hard hats, respirators, T-shirts, underwear, pants, jackets, steel toe boots, and tools. The New York Times  reported, “One thing is certain: to many of the workers at the site, she is a heroine.” Shearer later told The Washington Post that she had borrowed $1 million to finance her efforts, repaying the debt after the crisis with the help of money donated from foundations and individuals.

"A lot of this stuff, Rhonda is responsible for,'' said Lt. John Moran of the New York Police Department Emergency Service Unit, pointing out a wall of boxes full of respirators, flashlights, tools and warm winter clothing in the unit's supply station next to ground zero.

Shearer felt called to help those in need once again when the COVID-19 pandemic took root in 2020. Shearer founded Cut Red Tape 4 Heroes and worked to distribute personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks, gloves, antibacterial wipes, and hazmat suits, to firefighters, hospital workers, organizations focused on helping people with special needs, and low-income individuals. She again faced resistance from officials, as hospitals refused to allow her to donate on their property, forcing her to set up distribution areas nearby. Shearer explained in an interview on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show that she used her knowledge from front line work post 9/11 and the contacts she amassed to acquire PPE at notably low prices. She described herself as “highly competitive with sharp elbows.” During an interview with Sharon Osbourne on CBS’ The Talk, Shearer highlighted the comparisons of her post 9/11 work with the time sensitive work in supporting front line workers during the COVID pandemic. As of May 6, 2020, Shearer reportedly borrowed more than $600,000 on a home equity line of credit to fund the donations and was raising additional money through GoFundMe. In recognition of her efforts, Shearer was dubbed the ‘Patron Saint of PPE’.

"Once again, today we see the greatness and decency of our people. Rhonda Roland Shearer and Cut Red Tape 4 Heroes have stepped forward to help the oft-neglected special needs community and its service providers." – NYS Senator Andrew Lanza

Prior to her 2020 founding of Cut Red Tape 4 Heroes and her 2001 founding of the World Trade Center Ground Zero Relief project, Shearer took a leading role in the creation of Housing Works, which was founded in 1991. New York Magazine states, “Over the years, Housing Works has been touted as one of the most innovative AIDS organizations in the country.” Realizing there was a need to enhance fundraising, Shearer proposed the creation of an upscale thrift store and offered $100,000 to cover its startup costs.  According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, “By 1998, W magazine described the stores as "the place where the city's fashionistas drop off last year's Prada and Comme des Garçons."

Sculpture

As a sculptor, she has exhibited her work in New York City, Los Angeles and London, as well as smaller cities throughout the United States. One of her works reflected her feminist principles by calling attention to the gender disparity in the public art that New York City commissions. Of the hundreds of monuments erected in the city, she emphasized, only three depict real women: Gertrude Stein, Eleanor Roosevelt and Joan of Arc. In the traveling museum exhibition catalogue, Shearer described her exhibition "Woman's Work" by writing, "I depicted large scale images of motherhood and housework in heroic size, as are our most sacred monuments." The New York Times profiled the exhibit in an article "Celebrating Heroines of Drudgery".

In 1996, she exhibited Shapes Of Nature, 10 Years Of Bronze Sculptures in The New York Botanical Garden, which experimented in the use of fractals as a new way to look at space and form. Whereas many mathematicians like Benoit Mandelbrot understood fractals in the form of computerized models of equations, others like Nathaniel Friedman and Shearer recognized that fractals are also found in nature. The Economist quoted her as saying, "For the artists, nothing is more fundamental."

Always fascinated by the intersection between science and art, Shearer exhibited Pangea—inspired by chaos theory—in New York and Los Angeles from 1990 to 1991.

Art history

Forbes has called her an expert on Dadaist art. Shearer has posited that many of Marcel Duchamp's supposedly "readymade" works of art were actually created by Duchamp. Research that Shearer published in 1997, "Marcel Duchamp's Impossible Bed and Other 'Not' Readymade Objects: A Possible Route of Influence From Art To Science", lays out these arguments. In the paper, she showed that research of items like snow shovels (In Advance of the Broken Arm) and bottle racks (Bottle Rack) in use at the time failed to turn up any identical matches to photographs of the originals. However, there are accounts of Walter Arensberg and Joseph Stella being with Duchamp when he purchased the original Fountain at J. L. Mott Iron Works. Such investigations are hampered by the fact that few of the original "readymades" survive, having been lost or destroyed. Those that exist today are predominantly reproductions Duchamp authorized or designed in the final two decades of his life. Shearer also asserts that the artwork L.H.O.O.Q., a poster-copy of the Mona Lisa with a moustache drawn on it, is not the true Mona Lisa, but Duchamp's own slightly-different version that he modelled partly after himself. The inference of Shearer's viewpoint is that Duchamp was creating an even larger joke than he admitted.

The 'accounts' of Walter Arensberg and Joseph Stella are hearsay accounts, no one has any proof of the three actually making a urinal purchase, namely in the form of receipts, other witnesses, etc.

Journalism and media ethics

Art Science Research Laboratory also operates the media ethics websites StinkyJournalism.org and CheckYourFacts.org. Both websites use the scientific method to critique the mainstream media and uncover hoaxes.

Monster Pig

StinkyJournalism.org gained widespread media attention after it uncovered evidence that the shooting of a "Monster Pig" was, in fact, a hoax. "Monster Pig", also known as "Hogzilla II" and "Pigzilla", is the name of a large domestic farm-raised pig that was shot during a canned hunt on May 3, 2007, by an eleven-year-old boy, Jamison Stone. The location is disclosed as a 150-acre (0.61 km²) low fence enclosure within the larger 2,500-acre (1,000 ha) commercial hunting preserve called Lost Creek Plantation, outside Anniston, Alabama, USA. According to the hunters (there were no independent witnesses), the pig weighed 1,051 lb (477 kg).

Several days after the story broke, suspicion mounted over the authenticity of the photographic evidence. StinkyJournalism.org interviewed a retired New York University physicist, Dr. Richard Brandt, who used perspective geometry to measure the photograph and showed that, as represented, the pig would be 15 ft (4.57 m) long—much larger than the 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) claimed. Brandt's measurements also showed that the boy in the photo was standing several metres behind the pig, creating the optical illusion that the animal was larger than its actual size. Others claim the photographs were digitally altered.

StinkyJournalism.org discovered that although the Lost Creek Plantation web site boasted that the hunting there was "legendary", the operation was only four months old at the time of the hunt. Eddy Borden had big plans for developing his canned-hunt operation, the Clay County Times reported shortly before the hunt.

In the aftermath of the story, an Alabama grand jury investigated the 11-year-old aspiring sharpshooter Jamison Stone on animal cruelty charges, along with his father Mike Stone, expedition leaders Keith O'Neal and Charles Williams, and Lost Creek Plantation grounds owner Eddy Borden.

The article ("Exclusive: Grand jury to investigate 'monster pig' kill") revealed information subpoenaed by the Clay County District Attorney Fred Thompson, which includes hundreds of hours of on-the-record interviews and research by StinkyJournalism.org director Rhonda Roland Shearer.

Personal life

Shearer was married to investor H. Joseph Allen.

In 1995, she married Stephen Jay Gould. The two lived in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan until his death in 2002.

Following Gould's death, Shearer had a fifteen-year relationship with Ronald Spadafora until his death in 2018. Spadafora had supervised the New York City Fire Department recovery efforts after the September 11 attacks, and his death from cancer was attributed to his exposure to the World Trade Center site.

Shearer has two children, London and Jade.