Blackpoint Editions
Walking in to the Blackpoint Editions studio and workspace, the first thing I immediately noticed was a mech-giant of a printer, along with not 1,2 or 3… but four drum scanners. The words ‘collective’ and ‘big sexy prints’ were uttered, and all of a sudden the heavens opened up, a dove came floating down, olive branch in tow, and one hundred wing-ed angels broke out in the Hallelujia chorus. It was beautiful…
All joking aside, I was really impressed by both the facilities and the back story of how B.P. came to be. It was really inspiring to see a bunch of Columbia photo grads make it to the big time of fine art digital printing; aka my dream job.
I really enjoyed hearing Aron talk about Chicago as a place to ‘make it’ in the art world. Being an artist, like everyone else at Columbia, it is a daunting task to think about the future. I think many of us can say we live in the ‘now’ because, let’s be honest, the future is just too damned scary to think about right now. I’ll worry about it when it gets here. But I think he got it dead on when he said you have to work your ass off for no pay, meet as many people as you can, impress as many people as you can, and get your foot in as many doors as you can. I feel like art students should understand that their lives are most likely not going to be that of wealth and fame. It’s not going to happen over night, and hitting the pavement with a brand new pair of P.F. Flyers is the only way we’re gonna get where we want to be in our artistic and professional careers.
Listening to Aron talking about his work, I was at first rather puzzled. I liked his images, especially the more experimental techniques he used in some. But hearing him talk about what he was trying to do with the images, I really didn’t follow. It felt disjointed and kind of random, to be honest. The more I heard him talk, however, especially in the second body of work he showed, I began to understand what it was he was trying to do. The photos themselves are scattered, and vary greatly in technique and subject matter. But I realized Aron was going for a much more cerebral reaction from his audience. He wanted an emotional response that coincides with what he was feeling at the time of the project, not necessarily a full understanding of what the work actually ‘means’. That’s a new thing for me, so it took me quite a while to wrap my head around it. But now that I have, I can appreciate it much, much more.
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natalieobscura said:
You win blog of the week haha. Your first paragraph is brilliant and I think it’s awesome to hear what a photography major had to say about the studio.
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jeremydop posted this
