Stephen Berkman and Deborah Lawrence

Thursday, October 23, 2008

For the last two weeks I have had the opportunities to learn directly from two established artists. The first was Stephen Berkman (www.stephenberkman.com) who is currently showing at the Laband Art Gallery here at LMU and he was giving a walk through of his show. He is a photographer who works with 19th century photographic techniques, i.e. glass plate negatives, "old fashioned" cameras, etc. He stages his photographs and subjects in 19th century style dress and is particular about the look of his subject. He often asks people in the grocery store to be in his photographs, or where ever else he might be when he sees someone he particularly likes. Stephen is a very interesting person to listen to, and even though his process may be seen as out dated, his work, in my opinion, is smarter than most of modern day techniques.

Yesterday, I was able to be apart of a workshop with collage artist Deborah Lawrence (www.deedeeworks.com). Even though I wasn't able to complete my collage during the time I was there, I was able to talk to her about my concept and she gave me feedback and suggestions based on her experience and process. After the workshop, I thought to myself  how really blessed I am to be able to have experiences like this one where I can learn directly from the artist and have a personal conversation with them about my own piece. 

This semester had been a busy one, but I have never felt so challenged (in a good way). I can feel myself learning. That statement might sound weird, but during some classes they are so dull or taught so badly that you feel like you just do the work and go to class to get the grade. This semester, and most of my semesters at LMU, I have "felt" myself learning. Maybe been more conscious of my learning is a better way of putting it.