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So, this past weekend I had a first time experience: I had my work photographed by a professional. It was incredible. After years of waiting for the perfect overcast day or color correcting oh-so-yellow photos of my generally neutrally colored work, I now have legitimate photographs of work from the past year.

This is coming at a great moment. Soon the Interdisciplinary Arts Department will have its annual crit week. Crit week is the time that we are required to present our work to the faculty and our fellow students for feedback and review. As a second year, my critique is important, as it leads into my thesis year. So, knowing that this was coming, I really wanted great images to accompany my verbal presentation. And now I have them!

Arranging my work to be photographed. Photo by Stephen DeSantis

Also, thesis year is looming. Not in a bad way, but just in a “Hey, I’m almost here!” way. So, I’m feeling like it’s time to kick a few things up to a new level – like my web presence, like my photos. This semester has been a heavy writing, curating, participating one – I only have one studio class. Because of that, I’ve had a lot of time to catch up on things that have taken a backseat to major production for the first half of graduate school. One of the perks of a three year program, like Book and Paper, is that there is time to have semesters where you make a whole lot and semesters where you don’t make as much. Having the third year takes some pressure off and allows you, I think, to balance all those items on the grad school checklist (make great art, work on being a legitimate art pro).

So, here’s to a new experience and good photos!