Next week three of our students, Dale Stuart, Jeannine Hinkle, and Janet Huston, who joined the Art Photography Program at the California Center for Digital Arts, will present their new work for professional review at the 2015 Palm Springs Photo Festival (April 26 – May 1). A fourth student, Kathy Cahill, will also open a new presentation at Photo Independent in Los Angeles (May 1-3), and students, Katherine Zook and Ana Rattray will present their work at the Medium Review, San Diego, CA in the fall of 2015 (http://bit.ly/1GxksPW). Ken Cook earned a grant for his work from the National Park Service Artist in Residence program and he is producing an exhibit for 2016.

The Art Photography program is an intense thematic exploration and compresses a number of Master of Fine Arts courses and processes into six-months of research, study, shooting, post-processing, and printing. We are proud and excited for these students and we feel confident about their future as artists.

Kathy Curtis Cahill

Kathy completed “Childhood Memories”, a representational art project wherein she clothed and posed old dolls to represent difficult situations that most children cannot cope with emotionally. Kathy reached deep into her own background and portrays that, for many of us, childhood hurts often generate painful memories long into adulthood. Kathy brought her dolls to life through character poses, period dress, and careful use of post-production work to deliver a theme that is fresh, haunting, and deeply emotional. Kathy will be presenting her work at Photo Independent in Los Angles (May 1-3). I urge everyone to visit her exhibit and to explore this theme. Please visit her website at: http://www.kathycurtiscahillfineartphotography.com.

---

 

Dale Stuart

Dale completed “Outside-Inside”, a theme that explores our relationship with the environment from the containers in which we live. This project of exquisitely executed photographic composites from inside the home in combination with elegant landscapes serve to further the viewer’s understanding of how we interact and perceive nature from our environmentally sealed structures, whose primary purpose is to keep the outside out and the inside in. Dale successfully breaks several compositional barriers to allow viewers to explore this relationship with images that are sensory, striking, and beautiful. Ms. Stuart has been accepted at the exclusive John Paul Caponigro Master Class Workshop (http://bit.ly/1bfQTor), which, in our view, is the Juilliard of Art Photography workshops. Dale will present her work at the Palm Springs Photo Festival (http://bit.ly/1w0SNMD April 26 – May 1). See Dale’s work at: http://www.dalestuartfineart.com.

---

 

Janet Huston

Janet completed “Schizophrenia, a Hero’s Journey”, a theme that explores a man who is a man first but also lives life with schizophrenia. Her portfolio presents a delicate balance of images that avoid mental illness stereotypes by incorporating the personal writings of her subject, his drawings, and composited pre-diagnosis images. Janet’s post-production techniques encourage viewers to feel the “Hero’s” mental fog, and hear the top-of-the-mind voices that require dozens of drugs each day to control. Viewers can discern the force of schizophrenia as well as the heroic courage required to live a life that knows a reality far different then our own. Janet will present her project at the Palm Springs Photo Festival (http://bit.ly/1w0SNMD April 26 – May 1). Please review her work at: http://www.jmariehustonphotography.com/

---

 

Jeannine Hinkle

Jeannine completed “Resonance,” a theme of intriguing art photography abstractions. Using everyday objects such as handrails, iron bars, wall plaques, signs, etc., and random filter techniques in post-production, she generated abstract images that resonate with the original. The theme is avant-garde in terms of idea, but experimental too because “Resonance” deliberately extends the boundaries of art photography in terms of materials and techniques. Between camera capture and post-production work that often includes her delicate brushwork, Jeannine delivers abstract collections such as Faux Picasso, Sgraffito, Mayan Thought, Cranium Paths, and others. Each image stands alone, and each collection delivers a striking array of crystals, strings, forms, and impressionable shapes that invite the audience to interpret and communicate. Jeannine will present her project at the Palm Springs Photo Festival (http://bit.ly/1w0SNMD April 26 – May 1). Please review this compelling theme at: http://www.thejazzyartist.com

---

 

Ken Cook

Ken continues to pursue his project with a working title, “The Rocks”. This theme explores a uniquely arranged pile of rocks in the Mojave National Preserve, East Mojave Desert, California. While fitting broadly within the landscape genre, Ken’s work is also conceptual as his outcome goal is to record the rocks at different times of day and season from exactly the same location to demonstrate the permanence of the mass against the ever-changing atmospherics, which governs how we perceive and see “The Rocks”. The theme requires a year of patient study and a keen eye on the weather and seasons. Ken’s concept photos and thematic statement earned him a field grant on the National Park Service Artist in Residence program and he is scheduled for a 2016 exhibit.

---

 

Katherine Zook

Katherine continues to shoot and develop, “The New American Wilderness”. This theme examines the development of the walls that surround suburban Southern California housing communities. Katherine’s work examines the walls and gates as symbols of people existing in a series of containers–subdivision, house, car, work, crib, office, coffin, grave. Using black and white with subtle tones, a wall, house, or entire subdivision becomes an art work that explores our cultural quest to fill our containers with lots of stuff in the hope of finding meaning and comfort, and then we dispose of it and acquire other stuff in pursuit of the same hopes. Is this really the American dream or a New American Wilderness in which we are lost? Katherine will present the “The New American Wilderness” at the Medium Portfolio Review in October (http://bit.ly/1GxksPW).

---

Continuing Development

These artists completed the course and continue to define their themes for fall exhibits.

David LaNeve

David is experimenting with sensual female forms and exploring revisionist Boudoir photography. He is researching various concepts and expects to have work available for a fall review.

---

Ana Rattray

Ana is developing fantasy composites of children and for children. She is shooting a wide variety of sets, researching story lines, and developing new compositing techniques in post-production.

---

Elizabeth Toller

Elizabeth continues work on a self-discovery project by creating self-portraits. Her work in process will be available in the fall.

---