Monday, November 19, 2012
Teaching America's Youth how to install a group exhibition
The Fall Student Exhibition is open for display. Please bring your students over to see the show and encourage them to bring friends and family! There is a surprisingly small amount of work compared to past fall exhibitions, but it is all quality work.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
In honor of those who have served...
In order to give voice to the stories around me, I make photographs. One of my great loves is making portraits, giving voice to individuals, places, and life experience through visual stories. In honor of those who have or are currently serving our country, I will be collecting portraits to share and maybe with some luck, later to show publicly, tomorrow 11/12. From 10am until 2pm, in SCC's College Center gymnasium, I will be set up with my portable studio and student assistants to make photographs of Veterans and military service members. I intend to lend my skills as an artist, to add light, and awareness to those that have served their fellow man and whom deserve recognition, respect, gratitude, and beyond all else, our service in return. All past and present service members are welcome to participate.
Model releases will be provided and required for anyone interested in participating. Anyone who is willing to sit for my camera and sign my release will receive a digital file of their portrait. If participants would like to share their story in the written word in return, it would be a most welcome reply to my email/letter (although totally optional and not required).
A few semesters ago I had my first really up-close encounter with young veterans. Young folks that could have easily been my friends, or my husband, or my siblings. One of them had such immobilizing PTSD, substance abuse issues, and paranoia that he proceeded to misconstrue everything my previously innocuous intro to photography class could possibly ever be about. Although sadly, he was potentially a risk to my safety and the safety of my students, his story was one of opportunity and was ultimately epiphanic for me. It was here that I began to truly awakened to the residual emotional, physical, and social effects, if only at the surface level, of what our loyal service members might be facing on our behalves. My inability to fully understand or provide mechanisms for catharsis or growth in this situation with this individual was deeply disturbing and equally heart-inspiring.
During that same class I became fast friends with another student who also was a young veteran. He had recently returned from his own tours of service. He shared with me many thoughts especially in light of this classmate's aforementioned meltdown. Without his discussions I might have otherwise not had the tools to understand what had happened and what was so pervasive all around me. He shared with me in words, and in images, his humanity and his compassion. As seasons change so does the face of PTSD, and that spring, after he had left my class, he had a particularly uneasy time. Dealing with the fast-forward and rewind of the human mind as it auto-pilots it's way through the lives that we inhabit and consume is a merciless process, particularly so when life & death holds us as visual,visceral hostages. We talked, and he talked, and I listened, and he talked some more--that was all I knew to do. We had a weekly pattern of discussions some more casual and some much more delicate. One morning he arrived at my office and he told me to hold out my hand. Curiously, and somewhat anxiously, I did. I had developed such a strong sense of respect for this person that I knew in my heart that this could only be a gesture of friendship. Into my hand he dropped the smoothest, most worn bullet I had ever set eyes on. It was the embodiment of all of the worries and the fears, the sorrows and the limitless capacity for the human mind to canabalize itself... And to the contrary it was the symbol of this bullet that with it one might literally and metaphorically save oneself from torture or compromise, whatever form that might be. I didn't fully get it at the time, I probably will continue to make realizations as I grow in time, but as I reflect it all becomes so much more crystallized.
I am honored to put that bullet in a safe place so that my dear friend might someday see more light, less sadness, more love and gratitude, and less fear. May his heart, and those of other folks known and unknown, be just a little bit lighter and a little more open every moment of every day. May our compassion for one another and our humanity prevail, despite all else.
These portraits are in honor of you my friend.
Model releases will be provided and required for anyone interested in participating. Anyone who is willing to sit for my camera and sign my release will receive a digital file of their portrait. If participants would like to share their story in the written word in return, it would be a most welcome reply to my email/letter (although totally optional and not required).
A few semesters ago I had my first really up-close encounter with young veterans. Young folks that could have easily been my friends, or my husband, or my siblings. One of them had such immobilizing PTSD, substance abuse issues, and paranoia that he proceeded to misconstrue everything my previously innocuous intro to photography class could possibly ever be about. Although sadly, he was potentially a risk to my safety and the safety of my students, his story was one of opportunity and was ultimately epiphanic for me. It was here that I began to truly awakened to the residual emotional, physical, and social effects, if only at the surface level, of what our loyal service members might be facing on our behalves. My inability to fully understand or provide mechanisms for catharsis or growth in this situation with this individual was deeply disturbing and equally heart-inspiring.
During that same class I became fast friends with another student who also was a young veteran. He had recently returned from his own tours of service. He shared with me many thoughts especially in light of this classmate's aforementioned meltdown. Without his discussions I might have otherwise not had the tools to understand what had happened and what was so pervasive all around me. He shared with me in words, and in images, his humanity and his compassion. As seasons change so does the face of PTSD, and that spring, after he had left my class, he had a particularly uneasy time. Dealing with the fast-forward and rewind of the human mind as it auto-pilots it's way through the lives that we inhabit and consume is a merciless process, particularly so when life & death holds us as visual,visceral hostages. We talked, and he talked, and I listened, and he talked some more--that was all I knew to do. We had a weekly pattern of discussions some more casual and some much more delicate. One morning he arrived at my office and he told me to hold out my hand. Curiously, and somewhat anxiously, I did. I had developed such a strong sense of respect for this person that I knew in my heart that this could only be a gesture of friendship. Into my hand he dropped the smoothest, most worn bullet I had ever set eyes on. It was the embodiment of all of the worries and the fears, the sorrows and the limitless capacity for the human mind to canabalize itself... And to the contrary it was the symbol of this bullet that with it one might literally and metaphorically save oneself from torture or compromise, whatever form that might be. I didn't fully get it at the time, I probably will continue to make realizations as I grow in time, but as I reflect it all becomes so much more crystallized.
I am honored to put that bullet in a safe place so that my dear friend might someday see more light, less sadness, more love and gratitude, and less fear. May his heart, and those of other folks known and unknown, be just a little bit lighter and a little more open every moment of every day. May our compassion for one another and our humanity prevail, despite all else.
These portraits are in honor of you my friend.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Last chance to see "Transform" @ SCC Gallery
The art exhibition "Transform" is only up until November 2nd in the Fine Arts Building. If you have not been over to see the show yet, please take the time out to check it out! It is a wonderful grouping of artworks by regional artists. This is also a wonderful exhibition to send your students over to see. They may even find some inspiration!
Gallery Hours:
8am-8pm M-Th
8am-4pm F
10am-3pm Sat
Christine A. Holtz
SCC Art Gallery Coordinator
Gallery Hours:
8am-8pm M-Th
8am-4pm F
10am-3pm Sat
Christine A. Holtz
SCC Art Gallery Coordinator
Benedict J. Fernandez: A Life's Work in Photography
From the May Gallery @ Webster University...
Our next exhibition, Benedict J. Fernandez: A Life's Work in Photography, will open with a reception from 5-7 pm on Friday, 26 October. Complimentary drinks and hors d'oeuvres are offered at the reception. The exhibition will be on view from 26 October through 21 November. Although Mr. Fernandez is unable to travel, we will have a conversation with Mr. Fernandez via teleconference on Friday, 26 October, at 3 pm in Sverdrup 101
The Wall Street journal wrote of this exhibition (which is currently also on view at the Robert Anderson Gallery in New York City), "(This is) a sampling of work from Benedict J. Fernandez's long career in photojournalism. Mr. Fernandez (b. 1936) does not belong to a photo agency and does not shoot on assignment. He self-selects his projects and, since he is not working against a deadline, works on them until he is satisfied; as a consequence, his pictures frequently have an art photography quality. Unlike much photojournalism that simply records an event, Mr. Fernandez creates images that distill its essence.
"The top half of "Wall Street, New York City" (1970) is dominated by a fluttering American flag, but the scene beneath Old Glory is one of strenuous conflict as hard-hat construction workers battle police during a demonstration in support of U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. The flag is backlit and light glances off the police helmets and the demonstrators' hard hats, charging the image with vitality. Mr. Fernandez shot both pro- and antiwar demonstrations, as well as actions in favor of, and against, the civil-rights movement." (22 Sept 2012, p. A-20)
May Gallery events are free and open to the public. (Free) parking in the university garage, Garden Park Plaza, is suggested, #23 on the map at <http://www.webster.edu/campusmap> (near the top). The Sverdrup building is #7 on the map.
The May Gallery is located on the second floor, west wing, of the Sverdrup Building on the home campus of Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 am to 9 pm, and Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 pm. We hope to see you.
Bill Barrett, Director
The May Gallery
A place for photography at Webster University
8300 Big Bend Blvd.
St. Louis MO 63119
1-314-246-7673
http://www.webster.edu/maygalleryhttp://stlopenings.blogspot.com
We're now a Facebook Group. Come join us there!
Our next exhibition, Benedict J. Fernandez: A Life's Work in Photography, will open with a reception from 5-7 pm on Friday, 26 October. Complimentary drinks and hors d'oeuvres are offered at the reception. The exhibition will be on view from 26 October through 21 November. Although Mr. Fernandez is unable to travel, we will have a conversation with Mr. Fernandez via teleconference on Friday, 26 October, at 3 pm in Sverdrup 101
The Wall Street journal wrote of this exhibition (which is currently also on view at the Robert Anderson Gallery in New York City), "(This is) a sampling of work from Benedict J. Fernandez's long career in photojournalism. Mr. Fernandez (b. 1936) does not belong to a photo agency and does not shoot on assignment. He self-selects his projects and, since he is not working against a deadline, works on them until he is satisfied; as a consequence, his pictures frequently have an art photography quality. Unlike much photojournalism that simply records an event, Mr. Fernandez creates images that distill its essence.
"The top half of "Wall Street, New York City" (1970) is dominated by a fluttering American flag, but the scene beneath Old Glory is one of strenuous conflict as hard-hat construction workers battle police during a demonstration in support of U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. The flag is backlit and light glances off the police helmets and the demonstrators' hard hats, charging the image with vitality. Mr. Fernandez shot both pro- and antiwar demonstrations, as well as actions in favor of, and against, the civil-rights movement." (22 Sept 2012, p. A-20)
May Gallery events are free and open to the public. (Free) parking in the university garage, Garden Park Plaza, is suggested, #23 on the map at <http://www.webster.edu/campusmap> (near the top). The Sverdrup building is #7 on the map.
The May Gallery is located on the second floor, west wing, of the Sverdrup Building on the home campus of Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 am to 9 pm, and Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 pm. We hope to see you.
Bill Barrett, Director
The May Gallery
A place for photography at Webster University
8300 Big Bend Blvd.
St. Louis MO 63119
1-314-246-7673
http://www.webster.edu/maygalleryhttp://stlopenings.blogspot.com
We're now a Facebook Group. Come join us there!
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