Showcase 260 Artists in Your Classrooms
Greetings from sweltering Houston! Wherever you practice your photographic education, we hope you’re staying cool and having a productive summer.
In this newsletter, we’re showcasing one feature of Photography: A 21st Century Practice (P21) that, according to our readers, blows our competitors out of the water: in-depth analysis of artists, their work, and their careers. Here are a few highlights:
True to the book’s title, most of our featured artists are contemporary and cover a wide spectrum of career stages: prominent, established, and emerging. This is not to say that we disregard past masters; in fact, we have a chapter called Tradition which will be featured in another newsletter. Stay tuned.
P21 doesn’t just feature work by these amazing talents, it also explores their methods and career paths so readers can break the mold of passive admirers and become active learners.
Interviews of artists, in sections called Professional Practice are prominently featured, sharing their “secrets for success” and words of advice.
Highlighted artists appear under different topics throughout the book, presenting many sides of each artist’s work including their techniques, aesthetics, activism, thoughts, and even the way they write about their work.
Here’s an example: P21’s in-depth coverage of Laura Plageman, whose Response to Print of McWay Falls, 2013 is on the book’s cover:
For Plageman, physical prints go beyond technique and form, but also form the core concept in her process where she rephotographs landscape prints that have been molded and shaped like sculptures. It is fitting that her work leads Chapter 8: Prints. In the chapter’s artist interview, she discussed how the series began with feedback from peers and colleagues and how it developed conceptually. We also share some great advice from Plagement and other artists in Chapter 10: Development and Presentation on the handling of rejections. In Plageman’s words: “Rejection happens and it’s not fun. We have to remind ourselves that it’s all subjective and just keep going. One way to avoid burnout is to be selective about what you apply for: make sure you are targeting your work to the proper audience. It can take a bit of homework and follow-up but eventually, if you’re true to your vision, the tide will turn.”
We thank Laura and the featured artists, 260 in total, for sharing their work and wisdom with our students.