“I have painted at the alliance for over 15 years and want the Alliance to continue to be a robust institution with heart, not what the renovation plans suggest.” (Norma Lauring, 2011). I met Norma at the Educational Alliance on the Lower East Side. I should say I met Norma BECAUSE of the Educational Alliance and its short-sighted decision to essentially destroy the essence and spirit of its famed 100+ year old Art School. I and some other students from the black and white photography classes (a discipline EA planned to discontinue after the slated renovations to the Art School) formed the “Organizing Committee 2 Save the Art School” (or “oc2sas”) and Norma was one of the first painters to join us. Despite battling "medical issues" (as she put it), Norma was always a steadfast and active supporter of oc2sas. She was a sweetheart and despite an oft-repeated claim that she knew nothing about organizing, she was up for whatever we proposed be it handing out postcards at the Chaim Gross museum, coming to strategy meetings, or standing in front of EA in the chilly rain with a "Shame" sign held high. I will miss her warm spirit and I will miss her jewelry (which always reminded me of my own mother) and I will miss her standard sign-off to emails which I'll borrow from now…"In art and peace,” Julie Berman