Senior Instructor Media Arts: Documentary Filmmaking, Digital Photography, and Bookart for Photographers, Past President: The Southeast Association for Bookarts

Current Research:
-Why We Smoke (2008) sponsored by the SC Tobacco Collaborative, in collaboration with The Free Times and USC Healthy Carolina
-RX (2007)
-Health Vignettes 2007
-Promises Made (2006)

NEWS:
Why We Smoke has been adopted for South Carolina Streamline for Use in high schools in South Carolina; is being used in University 101 Classes; will be aired on SC ETV in October 2008; and has Sponsorship of the SC Board of Education.

Film: Rx (2007) collaboration with School of Public Health interviewing patients on health Care in the U.S.
RX is an official selection for the Southern Winds Film Festival 2008 RX is an official selection for the ReelHeART International Film Festival (RHIFF) in Toronto, June 2008.
http://www.sc.edu/usctimes/articles/2007-04/RX_documentary.html

Promises Made is an official selection in 2008 for the New Orleans Film Festival.
http://www.sc.edu/usctimes/articles/2006-01/promises_made_docu.html

-Digital and traditional photography used in the creation of artists' books; writing for artists' books;

NEWS: Students enrolled in F08 Bookart for Photographers will exhibit works Dec 1-8, 2008 and May 2009 to coincide with the Southeast Association for Bookarts.

NEWS: The Southeast Association for Bookarts will hold its third Biennial bookart conference in May 2009. see http://www.cas.sc.edu/art/SABA/index.html for upcoming information (to be posted in Fall 08)

Artist Statment:
In 2008 after completing my third documentary film with all student crew members (Why We Smoke, RX, Promises Made), I am more convinced that the only way I want to make films is with students. It is their energy and curiosity that draw me.

I have had the pleasure of collaborating with over 60 student filmmakers to date, introducing them to impoverished South Carolina Communities. As one student said, “this town we filmed is only 40 miles from where I grew up and I never knew this kind of poverty existed in my own backyard.” As their executive director, I guide the explorations to those people and places that are often invisible.

We learn together about the communities and the people living there. We work to gain trust, film and organize the material we gather, state the thesis of the film early and drive toward it in every action (or alter our thinking as we learn more than we used to know), edit the story, create special effects, develop a website and create print media where needed, and finally: screen the work and listen to the responses.

Each work is different. Each story requires new story telling techniques, ways of interviewing, nimble minded approaches, staying true to the subject and the story. Often, there is history and historical footage to research to enhance the stories. Always there is the student dedication and my own enthusiasm for their exploration that I always hope will serve them for a lifetime of media making.

Walker Evans said when he finished photographing rural southern towns, that the pictures had chosen him, not that he had chosen the pictures. For whatever reason that art calls to us, this artistic and teaching work calls to me.

Continuing Project: the Brick Project 2007-2008 – slave made bricks from 1740 unearthed by a local diver at Brown’s Ferry are the subject of a documentary. Marks on the bricks have lead to some speculation that the brick may have been signed with a thumbprint. Documentary students will follow the story with film release projected for September 2008.