Tell me about your
background briefly.
- I was born in reading,
Pennsylvania, lived there my whole life, and never moved anywhere. I am the
youngest out of four, so I feel a lot of my life has been based off what they
did. I got into sports because they did; I got into the same music as they did.
They were definitely a big influence. I played soccer for a while, also was
mostly interested in swimming and water polo. I was definitely not an artsy kid
but more of a student athlete.
What made you come to an art school, and why photography?
- I always wanted to be a
fashion designer, since I was in third grade or so; I was always doodling
little dresses, giving them to my friends and thinking I was cool for it. After
a while, I never became something to focus on, but it was my junior year when I
realized I needed to actually do something progressive, so I finally took art
classes, which helped me building my portfolio. I became friends with those
kids in art and really got into it. I applied to four different schools, and
Tyler School of Art was the only art school. I wasn’t actually allowed to go to
an art school in itself, for example, if Tyler was still located in Elkins
Park, I probably wouldn’t have been able to come, because I had to go somewhere
connected with an actual college in order to get a broader education. It was
between Temple University and Penn State. Nobody wanted me to go to Temple, but
encouraged me to go to Penn State, but I ignored them and decided to go to
Temple anyway. I was thinking about majoring in fibers or graphic design. Then
I was sucked into the vortex of the jewelry department for a little. In
jewelry, the people were great, but I realized it wasn’t really for me. I
realized I wanted to major in something that involved more life experiences,
rather than playing a mad scientist in a secluded studio. I wanted life
experiences along with making art. At that time, I was also taking photography
classes, and one graduate student in photo department, Amy Harbilas, encouraged
me to stick around photo. Next semester, I had Mark Winicov for photo 2. By
sophomore year, people and professors gave me a great impression and made me
realize how great this department is.
What inspired you?
Who are some of your favorite artists?
- I'm not really sure what
inspires me. I think that's more of an unexplainable internal thing. But, I can
say that I am drawn to color, light, back lighting, and experimenting. Also, I
can say that being here in this environment with all these people who I see
work hard everyday really pushes me and my desire to be successful. It’s not
anything competitive, but more so that we are all pushing each other to our
limits and it’s great. My favorite artist may be Cy Twombly. I first heard
about him in high school when I had to write a research paper. I only wrote a
paper on modern art, because I just did not understand nor like it very much,
but, after writing a paper, it changed my mind. I learned that, in order to get
an appreciation of something, I needed to really research and study them. I
can’t choose one favorite photographers; there are so many. I really love Gerhard
Richter, Irving Penn, and Sally Mann.
Tell me about your work!
- I started to make works
with intent, outside of assignments around last spring. In Advanced Photo
Workshop, everything was very abstract, full of layers, levels of lights and
medias. I added paint or photograms on top of the work to push how much I could
abstract it. After all, I did love the final result, but at the time, I hated
the project. Each layer was like pulling teeth and I felt like I was at that
mad scientist in the studio by myself; I was getting away from what I really
enjoyed about photography and spending too much time in the dark. It was too
secluded for my taste, but the abstraction has led to things that I enjoy
working on now, painting on people. I believe working with one other person can
make a big difference on how I enjoy what I'm doing. Another project I did was
using light to illuminate important areas in photographs. I went outside when
it was dark, kept the shutter on 30 second exposure or so and used a hand held
flash to select what I wanted to brighten. This project was more of an
experience along with experimentation and I had a friend with me for protection
and to press the shutter, so I wasn't alone again.
What do you believe
in strongly? Any ideas, philosophy, thoughts and more?
- One thing that I truly believe in is that I have been extremely
lucky in how my life has played out. Many people don’t seem to realize how
fortunate they are and things are too often taken for granted. I believe that I
can't continue living so fortunately while others do not get the same
opportunity from the start. I also think living in North Philly has made me
grow up and see real struggle, which, to be honest, has made me cynical about a
lot of things, but I do not want to just forget about my ultimate desire to
help. I also strongly believe, as tacky as it sounds, that there is more to
life than just what we experience on this earth. There would be no point to
higher thoughts, to music, art even love. There has to be a point to the
emotions, relationships and feelings we make and it has to relate to something
other than this very short amount of time that we are given. Finally, I believe
that one shouldn’t get angry at small things, also that there is no reason to
suspect the worst in people. Why waste emotion and time by being angry with
someone? When you know in a matter of hours, you will forgive them and move on
and forget about that tiff completely.
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