Avis Collins Robinson

ROBINSON

AVIS COLLINS ROBINSON

The artist, environmentalist, collector and advocate Avis Collins Robinson passed away on Saturday, October 28, 2023. She is survived by her husband of 45 years, Eugene Robinson; her sons, Aaron and Lowell; her grandchildren, Alice and Malcolm; her daughter-in-law, Maureen; her sister, Kirsten; her foster brothers, Harold and Donald Miles; loving nieces and nephews; and an indelible legacy of creativity and compassion.



Avis was born on July 26, 1953, in Baltimore, MD, the daughter of Annie Ruth (nee Brown) and Edward Rhodes Collins. She graduated from the Academy of the Holy Cross in 1971 and received her B.A. from the University of Maryland in 1974. She later earned two master's degrees, the first from Golden Gate University and the second, an M.P.A., from Harvard University in 1988.



Avis had three stellar careers. She worked for more than 20 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she did early work on climate change, coordinated with governments in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and advocated for environmental justice. In 2003, she left the EPA to devote all of her energies to Washington Metropolitan Scholars, an non-profit organization she founded to connect 50 of the nation's leading universities with low-income, high-achieving minority students in the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area. Through Avis's tireless efforts, WMS provided college access and financial aid to more than 1,000 young men and women. During these phases of her life, Avis also assembled a large and important collection of African American historical artifacts and documents. Items she donated are on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.



In her deepest essence, however, Avis was always an artist. Her talent and skill could no longer be held back, and in 2008 she began pouring all of her time and effort into painting and fabric art. She received validation a year later when her portrait of Abraham Lincoln was chosen as the single iconic representation of the great president in the newly renovated lobby of Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was slain. Wider recognition quickly followed. She had a residency and two one-woman shows of paintings and abstract quilted fabric works at the Studios of Key West in Florida. In 2022, she had a one-woman show at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. The National Gallery of Art has acquired one of her fabric pieces, "Black Hands Moving Colors," for its collection. The Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies has permanently installed Avis's quilted works at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, the U.S. Embassy in London and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. FAPE recently commissioned Avis to create eight major fabric pieces for the planned new U.S. Embassy in Hanoi â€" and has pledged that the project will be completed, and Avis's vision realized, according to her designs. At the time of her death, Avis was also completing a project for The Washington Post in which she created new quilted fabric pieces, and wrote accompanying essays, to herald the four seasons.



Funeral services will be held Saturday, November 11, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 12319 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring, MD., 20904. Visitation will be from 10 to 11 a.m., followed by Mass of Christian Burial at 11 a.m. Private interment will be at Gate of Heaven Cemetery on Monday, November 13.

www.collinsfuneralhome.com