What drew you to the MFA photography program at MassArt?
What I loved most about the MassArt MFA was that the current students were involved in the interview process; first-year grad students would sit in on the interviews because they would end up being in your cohort—they were the second-year photo master’s students when I came in as a first year. It was a great vibe; you could just tell everyone wanted to be here.
What is ‘The Lab’ at MassArt all about?
I think of The Lab (which is what we call the computer print lab here) as the hub of the campus: it’s where everybody goes to print their documents, but it’s also a place where artists can work and connect. We have all sorts of specialty printers in The Lab—wide format, archival, inkjet, a latex printer, a RISO. All that equipment allows students to think beyond the parameters of a normal-sized artwork. Right now, I have a student who’s making a 1,000-foot print: 36 inches tall by 1,000 feet long. They ordered 19 rolls of vellum! I was like, “Yeah, let’s make this happen!”
If a student comes in with a cool idea like that, and I know it’s feasible, my response is, “Of course, let’s do it.” It’s a teaching opportunity where the student figures out how to accomplish their vision. Will the driver of the printer that you’re trying to print on be able to handle a 1,000-foot job? No. So how many slices do you need? I put that on the student to figure out, and I work on it with them.