Mildred Howard is an artist whose work includes collages, installations, mixed-media assemblage, and public art. Howard was born in San Francisco, California, in 1945, and grew up in Berkeley. She attended several colleges, including earning an AA in fashion arts from the College of Alameda in 1977 and an MFA from Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts at John F. Kennedy University in 1985. Some of Howard's best-known work includes her bottle houses, such as Black Bird in a Red Sky AKA Fall of the Blood House; the installations Crossings and The Last Train from Caney Creek to 16th and Wood; and Three Shades of Blue on the Fillmore St. Bridge in San Francisco. She has worked in arts education, including at the Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts, the East Oakland Youth Development Center, the California Arts Council, and the Exploratorium. She also worked with the State Department as a visiting artist/cultural specialist in Egypt and as a cultural ambassador for the Art in the Embassies Program in Morocco. In this interview, Howard discusses her childhood in the Bay Area, including her family and early education; early exposure to visual and performance art, including dance classes with Ruth Beckford; arts education; time as a clothing designer; working in the arts, including at Fiberworks and the Exploratorium; network of artists, including David Ireland, Raymond Saunders, and Betye Saar; children and motherhood; son's death; installations, including Tap: Investigation of Memory; collages, including the Casanova Series; public art, including bottle houses; teaching art; creative process; international travel and its impact on her life and work; exhibitions, including Mildred Howard: This Time and Transparent Views: Mildred Howard; reflections on public art; the business of art; collectors and gallery representation; awards and honors, including two Rockefeller Fellowships, an Anonymous Was a Woman Grant, and the Lee Krasner Award; reflections on art career and future projects.