Judy Levy
Art in the Environment

Jenn Libby
Glass Photographs: The Art of Wet-Plate Collodion

Jill M. Kepler
Introduction to Computer-Based Illustration

Joan Lyons
Artists' Books:
Narrative/Text/
Image

Margaret LeJeune
Experimental Image Techniques

Although pop-ups are typically associated with children's books, they have a long history of inclusion in scholarly work. This workshop will explore the historical beginnings of moveable books along with contemporary uses of pop-ups. Participants will be introduced to various approaches to pop-up books, from simple interactive structures such as pull-tabs to more complex elements with moveable pieces. Previous bookmaking experience is helpful, but not necessary. Participants will combine various pop-up techniques to create a unique interactive book by the end of the workshop. Participants should bring photographs, drawings, and visual imagery related to a specific concept from which a narrative will be derived.

Rachael Hetzel received her MFA in printmaking from the University at Buffalo and her BFA in printmaking from SUNY Brockport. Rachael is the founder of Pistachio Press, coordinator of the Visual Resource Center at SUNY Brockport and an instructor at the University of Rochester. Utilizing printmaking and bookbinding techniques, her work focuses primarily on memory and storytelling. In 2007 she was the recipient of the Constance Saltonstall Foundation Individual Artist Grant in printmaking. Rachael's work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in both institutional and private collections.

image: Rachael Hetzel, A decision must be made, 2007, screen print

What if art came to life?!  Came into life?

Many artists have not had a chance to explore ideas in a non-traditional setting, but what wonderful options there are to play, to communicate, to make visible the world that is taken for granted or hidden, to revitalize a participant's experience of living by creating events and artifacts outside the traditional gallery!

This workshop will be a stimulating and participatory exploration of art outside the gallery. It will be a mix of individual experiments, collaborative experiments, whole-group experiments, and exposure to the work of many powerful and serious artists who have involved themselves in art outside the traditional settings. Each action, each exposure, each exchange between us as a group, contributes to an evolving sensitivity. We begin to be aware of the qualities and "messages" inherent in any setting, and to the impact and interdependency of art-object and the context in which it is experienced.

Sometimes the single photograph does not aptly describe the idea; sometimes the idea is about the form of the presentation. Over the course of five days we will examine what an extended landscape is, how to make use of the properties of the medium and create extended landscapes. Whether these are installations, books, topologies, or extended images, the investigation into the real or personal landscape will be about picture making. There will be critiques, lectures, field trips, and lots of photographing, journal writing, and idea generation. Photographers and image makers may work in B&W or color, digital or in film, the goal is to work and to work hard.

Keith Johnson received his MFA from RISD studying with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind following a year at Visual Studies Workshop with Nathan Lyons. Ten years of teaching led to a move to the business side of photography completing an MBA in 1987. He supports his fine art making as a consultant in the northeast and is on the summer faculty at VSW, Maine Photographic Workshop, and Jackson Hole Art Association. Recent solo shows include CEPA Gallery, FotoFest, George Eastman House, and Panopticon in Boston, Nelson Hancock Gallery, Brooklyn, NY and Wall Space gallery in Seattle. www.keithjohnsonphotographs.com

Top: CMY, Keith Johnson, Bottom: Stone Crop, Keith Johnson

Frederick Scott Archer introduced the wet-plate collodion photographic process in 1851. Its relative simplicity, cost, reproducibility, and versatility led it to supplant the popular daguerreotype. Collodion was used to produce fine-grain glass negatives, ambrotypes, and tintypes. The ambrotype, like the daguerreotype, is a unique negative/positive photograph. It is a thin negative on glass that appears as a positive when viewed against a dark background. This archival 19th century process enables you to make your own photographic emulsion.

This class will cover the basics of the wet-plate process and several ways to create images using collodion. You will make unique in-camera ambrotypes, as well as ambrotypes and positive transparencies made from your positive slides and negative film using an enlarger. You’ll learn how to cut and clean glass, pour, sensitize and process plates, burnish and hand-color final images, apply a protective varnish, and house your photographs to complete the process. Wear old clothing as silver stains are likely. Participants should bring their own large format camera and tripod if available.

Jenn Libby is an installation artist with a penchant for tactile, antiquated processes such as wet-plate collodion photography and hand-processed 16mm film. She teaches historic photographic processes in the graduate program at the Visual Studies Workshop and works as a researcher at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. www.jennlibby.com

Hand processing and chemical toning is not merely a method of achieving a different "look" in a film, but an important tool in controlling and manipulating an image which links filmmaking to other art practices. Using chemicals to go beyond the "professional," clean look of lab processing can open up new avenues of expression to a filmmaker. Participants will learn the necessary steps to make a handcrafted 16mm film, including shooting, processing, and projecting. Techniques include toning, tinting, bleaching and more. While raw stock will be provided students are encouraged to bring their own previously processed 16mm black & white footage for experimentation. Participants should wear old clothes for this hands-on workshop.

Pat Doyen studied film production and media studies at New York University and the State University of New York at Buffalo, and film preservation at the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House. Her films have been screened at festivals and microcinemas around the world including Ocularis and Millennium Film Workshop in NY, Cinematexas, and the DC Underground Film Festival. She has taught hand processing and cameraless filmmaking workshops for both children and adults and is a contributor to the DIY Guide to Film & Video published by Parcell Press.

In this age of information, the map--an image long associated with information--has increasingly become a means of expression for artists to organize and disseminate information. Maps can communicate highly complex ideas such as identity, politics, and culture. As a medium, maps allow artists to address socioeconomic and geopolitical issues and filter ideas of space and time through personal, local, and global perspectives.

This workshop will explore how artists use maps to understand and explain themselves and the world around them. We will investigate how artists use geographic or conceptual space for personal exploration, artistic expression, communication, and social change. Students will be encouraged to work in a variety of media including photography, drawing, collage, text and image, and alternative processes, (though I will not teach processes). We will also explore a wide variety of image sources from paint (gasp! a photographer?) to the world wide web to our own.

Judy Natal is a professor of photography at Columbia College Chicago and is author of EarthWords published in 2004 and Neon Boneyard Las Vegas A-Z published in 2006. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the California Museum of Photography, Center for Creative Photography, the International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman House, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. She is currently working on a new book project based upon six months of photographing around the United State entitled American Alphabet.

Love wet-plate collodion work, but want to get out of the darkroom? Have it both ways with this hands-on workshop. We will bring Mohammed to the mountain as we travel with a portable wet-plate darkroom to scenic locations in the area. You will have the opportunity to craft and challenge your collodion skills as we make ambrotypes and negatives in the field. On the last day, we will put some of those negatives to use making salted paper prints. Participants should bring their own large format camera, plate holders, and tripod if available. Previous wet-plate collodion experience is required.

Tammie Malarich is a photographer and object-maker who has been working is Historic Processes for the past three years. She has recently received her MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop and is a founding member of the Alternative and Historic Processes Studio at the Community Darkroom in Rochester, New York. Tammie has been teaching silver-based photography for over five years.

By using both still images and video footage, students will focus on refining a concept (narrative or not) through editing choices and sound design. Beginning with early films, students will analyze the development of visual series, sequence, and meaning, while also considering the use of sound as an artistic element. Although students will learn intermediate and advanced editing techniques, the focus of this course is primarily conceptual. A basic understanding of Final Cut Pro is a prerequisite for this course.

Liz Richards is a filmmaker and video installation artist whose work focuses on the intersection of physical process and concept. She holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Millersville University, an MA in Women's Studies from SUNY Buffalo, and an MFA in Film and Video Production from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. In Buffalo, NY, Liz worked as a theater lighting designer and was nominated for an award for her work. Liz also worked in television and web production in Boston for the PBS history series American Experience at WGBH. Currently, Liz teaches in the Cinema Department at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA, and directs the Post-Production Concentration within that major. She continues to produce her own films and videos, and has had over 60 national and international screenings of her work in the past six years in such places as Japan, Serbia, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and France.

Art making is a process where you need to be familiar with materials and methods in order to turn their traditional uses upside down and combine them in new fashions. In this workshop we will be seeing, touching and understanding as many materials as possible, and then using these materials in as many ways as possible. This workshop is about garnering a true passion for materials, and a clear understanding of your own methodology for making art. You will be asked to do many things outside your normal realm, or things that might sound ridiculous; singularly they may not make sense, but collectively they will change and enhance the way you make art. This course provides you an opportunity to exercise and explore the techniques and cognitive processes that you will utilize in the future as an artist. This course is excellent for all artists who are interested in looking at different materials and methodologies for making art.

Marni Shindelman is an assistant professor of art and an associate of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Rochester. Her recent exhibitions include “Witness: A Collaboration with Nate Larson” at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Oh, “Souvenirs from Human, My Mammal” at Buffalo Arts Studio, Buffalo, NY and “Absence, Excess, Loss” co–curated with Sarah E. Webb at Rochester Contemporary, Rochester, NY.

Participants in this fast-paced workshop will learn the basics of digital video editing using Final Cut Pro. This course will cover the essentials of the workspace and tools of Final Cut Pro, from importing media to titles and effects. Basic project organization and other concepts related to non-linear digital video editing will also be addressed. Participants are encouraged to bring their own video work (if they have it) to edit during the workshop. A basic understanding of Mac OSX is helpful. Students who have their own digital video cameras are encouraged to bring them.

Joanna Heatwole has an MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop. Her documentary video work includes A Place at the Table, 330 Miles to Justice, and Farm Tours. She is an assistant professor of time-based media at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY.

As artists we are all passionate about the work we make but sometimes lack the skills to get it out into the world. Making a name for yourself post-MFA is an often daunting task. This course will demystify the process and participants will be given an intensive, well-rounded introduction to professional practice, taking the necessary steps to help you prepare for the art market as well as a career in academic teaching.

Topics will include resume writing, teaching philosophy, grant writing and exhibition of your work. Each day we will explore these themes and tackle the paper work necessary for locating and preparing shows, as well as discuss ways of marketing one's artistic self. Workshop participants should be prepared to come with a portfolio and a willingness to take the next step in branding themselves and their work.

Myra Greene received her MFA from the University of New Mexico and is currently faculty in the Photography Department at the Columbia College Chicago. She utilizes photographic technique to exploring issues about the body, memory and the absorption of culture and the shifting identity of African Americans. She has been an Artist in Residence at Light Work in Syracuse and the Center of Photography at Woodstock and has exhibited widely throughout the country. More information can be found at her website: myragreene.com

The course will explore technique, application, and theory in relation to becoming a digital illustrator. Emphasis will be placed on the practical concerns for establishing a freelance business, self-promotion, job negotiation and legal issues that effect digital illustrators. The course curriculum includes a collaborative assignment to create a children’s book. Students will participate in a high level of creative conceptual development, with theory and practice in the use of digital techniques. Also covered will be terminology and technology as they relate to vector-based computer drawing software. The areas of file formats, software tools, image creation, file layout and output will also be discussed.

Emphasis will be placed on digital medium for the purpose of visual storytelling. Students will be required to create vector based visual narratives and participate in critiques to discuss style, content and interpretation. Conceptual strategies, production methodologies, narrative composition, and color systems also will be covered. The goal is to advance conceptual problem-solving methodology and the language of visualization for professional digital illustration production.

Jill M. Kepler is currently an Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at Roberts Wesleyan College. Kepler’s teaching experience includes the University at Buffalo and the Rochester Institute of Technology in the departments of undergraduate and graduate Graphic Design. She received her B.F.A., in Visual Communication and Art Education from Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina, 1999 and an M.F.A., in Graphic Design with a Minor in Business from the Rochester Institute of Technology, 2004.

This intensive week represents an entry-level introduction to digital photography and imaging workflow. By the end of the course, students will have a thorough understanding of digital photography workflow and will be competent at many aspects of digital imaging, from capture to finished output (printing). Topics will include: image capture, file formats, digital image processing using Adobe Photoshop, Color Management, high-quality output, and others. The course will consist of both lab work and shooting assignments. Pictures made in the course will be critiqued for both technical competence and aesthetic value. Students are required to have their own digital cameras for class.

Doug Manchee is an associate professor and chairperson of the advertising photography department at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Prior to his teaching appointment Doug owned and ran commercial photography studios in San Francisco and Rochester. In addition to his teaching and administrative responsibilities, Doug is also active as an exhibiting artist and is working on a book of photographs by the mid-19th century advertising photographer Lejaren Hiller. He has been teaching digital photography courses since 1991.

Documentaries have become more popular due to recent technological and social changes that have impacted the form itself. This one week workshop
will provide an introduction to the documentary form, the basics of shooting, time to shoot a short digital video, the opportunity to hone interview skills and evaluation of your footage in preparation for editing. Besides discussing your video, we will screen both contemporary and historic documentaries. From pre-production through the beginning of post-production, the documentary form will be questioned, evaluated and experienced.

Wendy Smith has been making documentaries since the 1970's in France and the USA. Currently, Wendy is producing an experimental documentary on the way identity is negotiated across cultural and political boundaries. This piece, "Dwelling in Displacement,” will be Part III of her trilogy on memory, identity, and home.

Artists’ books weave text and image together, within a physical structure, to tell a story. In the contained space between covers, extended sequences of images, multiple story lines and the orchestration of spatial intervals can all be used to move a reader through a book. What is a visual progression? A sequence? How does text function as an image? How does the form and structure of a book intensify its content? Using materials you bring and/or generate on site, we will work on a series of exercises concerned with integrating textual and visual notational systems. While exploring a variety of bookbindings, photographing for the "page" and developing text, you will produce several book mock-ups. Two archives of over 5,000 artists’ books are available to peruse. We will look at, and discuss, many of these, with attention to how book artists have incorporated sequential and narrative structures.  

Joan Lyons, the founding Coordinator of Visual Studies Workshop Press, worked with artists and independent publishers on over 400 book projects between 1971 and 2004. She is currently preparing an annotated bibliography of the Press to be published next year. She edited Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, an important early resource in the field. Lyons works in a variety of photographic and print media, moving between computer-based work and hands-on processes. She has produced many of her own bookworks, recently focusing on digital editions. Her work can be seen at www.joan.lyons.name

This course will explore the use of alternative processes including cliché verre and photograms as well as “lens-free” imaging with traditional and digital pinholes. The artwork of Corot, Millet, Corbet, Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, Spencer, Renner and Füss will serve as the foundation for this exploration. Students will investigate multilayer image making processes working from their own 35 negatives, newly created negatives and hand-painted negatives. This course is geared at students who have an interest in learning new processing skills. Traditional darkroom techniques will be reviewed.

Margaret LeJeune is an image-maker from Rochester, NY.  After receiving her Studio Arts degree from Nazareth College, she went on to receive an MFA from Visual Studies Workshop and is currently pursuing an MA in Art History from Syracuse University. Ms. LeJeune currently resides in Arkansas where she teaches photography and art history at Lyon College. Her imagery is passionate, intimate and honest.  Many larger-than-life representations of myths-of-the-feminine and ideal beauty enliven her photographic portfolio. Her current work investigates the intersection of traditional and digital mediums.    

In an age of constant media bombardment, children are exposed to ever-increasing levels of image, sound and other sensory stimulation. Evidence from numerous studies conducted on the effects of mass media on children over the past fifty years indicate that children learn attitudes and behaviors from this pervasive presence in both positive (productive, educational) and negative (potentially harmful) ways. This course introduces the theories and practices of media education, leading to enhanced critical thinking skills and ultimately to media literacy in all aspects of citizens' lives. Participants will plan a strategy to use print and video materials as well as other multimedia tools in the classroom and in other settings, as well as learn about the wealth of theoretical and practical products (and DIY versions) available to those interested in media education pedagogy. This course is appropriate for educators and laypersons alike.

Karen vanMeenen, MA, CAPF, was a participant in the Summer 2005 Catalyst Institute at the New Mexico Media Literacy Project and is enrolled in the Graduate Certificate program in Media Literacy at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. She also serves as an adjunct professor of writing, literature, cultural studies and media studies at Rochester Institute of Technology. Karen is also Editor of Afterimage, the Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism.

This workshop is for writers, photographers and other visual artists committed to critical thinking and experimentation with verbal language. Over the course of the week we will consider the intersection of image and text. Our daily survey of artists who write and writers who work visually will uncover new forms for exploration. Numerous books from the Independent Press Archive at Visual Studies Workshop will provide us different, extraordinary examples of artists’ writing. Each morning we will study these strategies and appropriate them to work each afternoon on manuscripts of our own creation. Four approaches will be investigated: Writing illegibly, Found Writing, Uncreative Writing and Diagrammatical Writing. On the final day of the workshop we will examine the resourceful ways our manuscripts may take form in a book.

Tate Shaw's artists' books and those he has co-published with Preacher's Biscuit Books (www.preachersbiscuitbooks.com) can be found in private and public collections internationally. His essays, reviews, interviews and reports on the field of artists' books are published in JAB, The Blue Notebook and Afterimage: the Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. Shaw is coordinating the 10th Biennial Pyramid Atlantic Book Arts Fair and Conference in Silver Spring, MD, November 8-9, 2008.

Understanding how to design and publish for the web is an important tool for the visual artist. Web sites can serve as a place to promote or display a portfolio, can function as a part of a larger community in which one shares thoughts, writings, and ideas, or is the medium in which an artist works, producing pieces that are web specific. The web presents unique constraints to the presentation of information and ideas. Principals and elements of design must adhere to specific modes of production but understanding these technical constraints allows one to ‘break’ with the rules and move beyond the average site. This class will cover multiple approaches to design and various ways in which to present work. We will look at incorporating animation, interactivity, and multiple forms of media into a web site. The class is a hands-on workshop. Participants should be prepared to design and develop a web site as well as take part in discussions surrounding aesthetics and strategies used in web design. We will examine the work of Internet artists; discuss current trends, issues, and techniques; look at various portfolio sites, and have an opportunity to apply these ideas and concepts to your own web pages.

Tracy Rudzitis has been designing and building web pages since 1995. She worked as a web developer for Starwave (Outside Online, ABCnews.com), Microsoft, Real Networks, and several interactive advertising agencies in both Seattle WA and New York City for 6 years before going into teaching public school full time. She currently teaches media-arts at a middle school in New York City, and designs and builds web pages for several clients when she is not teaching.

This course is designed as an introduction to the book form. This class will introduce students to the tools, techniques, and terminology of traditional bookbinding. During the course, students will build a variety of book structures, discuss content and form, and leave with a thorough knowledge of bookbinding construction methods. Class meetings will be a combination of lecture/discussion and demo/practical work in the studio. Students will complete several blank books as well as a final project. The historical uses of structures will be discussed, as well as some of the contemporary practices and varied methods used in making artist books. 

Marlene Seidman is a graduate of the Visual Studies Workshop and received a Master of Education from Lesley University. She is currently the managing editor of Afterimage, the journal of media arts and cultural criticism and creates mixed-media artifacts as inquiries of social and ethnic customs. Her installations, books, and photographs have been exhibited throughout the northeast and internationally.

image: Marlene Sediman, from Practice, 2008