Artists in the Workplace - Panel Discussion

There are many goals for the Advanced Arts Education Program at Gallery 37 Center for the arts. One of those goals is to expose young people to the variety of opportunities that await them after high school. AAEP hosts several events and discussions throughout the school year. Colleges come and present their institutions and look at portfolios. There are also workshops on financial aid. And there are workshops on career opportunities after school.

On Tuesday, October 6th, Gallery 37 / AAEP hosted a panel discussion on artists in the workplace. The AP photography group, along with students from the other programs, spent the afternoon at the Chicago Cultural Center hearing testimonies from several Chicago-based working artists. Among the panelists were Sharon Gopfert from UIC, copywriter and creative director Wendy Lalli, graphic designer Susan Marx, and William Raffeld from UIC.

The panel discussion had three main objectives:

1. To showcase the variety of careers in the arts
2. To illustrate various paths taken to achieving successful careers in the arts
3. To give teens a brief overview of the connections between the participants, their careers and their overlapping skill sets.

Here are some testimonies from the students in AP photography:

Amanda Marco: "I liked hearing everyone's different stories about how they got to where they are today."

Erika Marquez: "I liked how one of the panelists was a former student at Gallery 37. It was cool to see that he had just finished college and was already professionaly working in the arts."

Dolly Rivera: "The panelists were open and honest about college. They each offered their different perspectives on the art world."

Andrew Vega: "The panelists were asked if they regretted anything in their lives. They responded that they didn't regret anything that they'd done, only things that they hadn't done. It was very motivating to hear that."

Field Trip to Museum of Contemporary Photography

On Friday, October 2nd, the AP photography group from AAEP took a field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Photography.


Photograph by Dolly Rivera


Photograph by Dolly Rivera

Once we arrived, a member of the museum staff pulled out some original photographic prints from their collection:


Photograph by Dolly Rivera

Sannya Munir, a student from Jones College Prep, shares her thoughts:

The artist that struck out the most was Robert Mapplethorpe. We saw two of his photos, and both were entitled self-portraits. The first one was of his face, in which he was wearing make-up:


Photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe


It was from that picture that we learned about gaze. Gaze means where the person is looking at. It also refers to where the person viewing the picture first looks. The other Mapplethorpe picture was a Polaroid, of his hand on his bed. In my opinion that was the best picture we saw. It was beautifully put together, and had great form.


AP Photography class outside the MOCP at Columbia College Chicago

Scanograms

Students go through a similar creative process for scanograms as they do for photograms. In both, they begin with a blank canvas and must compose objects within that space to create their final work. This is an interesting twist in a photography course, as creating a traditional photograph is a subtractive thought process: you begin with the world, and then you crop things out with the four edges of the frame. The result is a photograph.

For scanograms, however, students work in our digital lab with flatbed scanners and with the Adobe Photoshop software. They are asked to scan a variety of objects, some 3D and some 2D, and then assemble those objects in Photoshop. The project serves two key purposes: the first is to give them some variety in the breadth portion of their AP portfolio. The other is to teach them the fundamentals of digital photography and Adobe Photoshop. They are expected to consider image size, the layers palette, and a variety of tools. The tools include but are not limited to the crop tool, the move tool, brushes, and the eraser tool. Here are some examples:


Amanda Marco


Diana Martinez


Dolly Rivera

Like the photograms in the previous post, the best scanograms consider the entire page and transform the original objects into something brand new. Some also work within a coherent theme or idea and even employ metaphor, expanding them beyond mere aesthetic concerns.

Bill Guy
Teaching Artist
AAEP

Photograms

For this assignment, students arrange common objects on light-sensitive paper. While working inside a traditional black and white darkroom, the students then expose the paper to light using an enlarger. The result is generally an abstract shape with a myriad of gray tones that is referred to as a Photogram in the art world. The types of shapes and the variety of tones in the finished product depends on the objects that are used, and the length of the exposure time.

Students are asked to consider the entire page when arranging their composition, and to achieve a range of values from black to white, along with some gray values in-between. The best photograms achieve both of these objectives. As well, the student, through their clever use of composition and darkroom technique, transform everyday objects into something brand new and unique. Here are some examples:


Cassandra Cooper


Khalid El-Amin


Marvin Gutierrez


Diana Martinez


Erika Marquez


Dolly Rivera


Maritza Vales

Can you identity any of the objects that are used in the above photograms? In the end, it does not matter if you can or cannot. These photograms are unique objects, separate from their origins, and reflect the unique insights and creativity of the AP photography students at AAEP Gallery 37.

Bill Guy
Teaching Artist
AP Photography