Wednesday afternoon, March 21, my best friend, Daniel Evan Garza, Denver designer, screen printer, and web developer, and I made our way to San Francisco. We stayed with our very gracious friend, Beth Feret, whose patient answering of my many, many questions regarding UCD’s Photography program while I was still at MICA was one of the main reasons I transferred there. Beth graduated after my first semester at UCD, so I didn’t get to see much of her work until this trip. It’s awesome! She found out while we were in San Francisco that she was accepted to her grad school of choice, University of Glasgow. Go Beth!
An image from Beth’s BFA Thesis, “Making My Blue Eyes Go Gray”
We also spent some time with Dan Orr, who is one of the very nicest people in all of UCD’s program.
UCD was very well represented at the conference, so I got to hang out with some cool people I somehow never met before I graduated. We also started talking to a girl who happens to go to DU! And we spent a lot of our free time hanging out with her. People from Denver are really nice. I never cease to be amazed by that fact.
The first day of the conference, Daniel and I met up with my Blogger/Facebook friend, Timothy Archibald, which was just so awesome. I guess I can admit here now that Dan and I fabricated him an SPE badge to get in to the Sally Mann talk? Ha ha. And we ate tourist bread together and talked. And he gave me a copy of his book, “Echolilia!” The editing of which we had been corresponding about during its creation. A totally unnecessary and appreciated gift. Thank you, Internet, for bringing people together like that.
Also that conference first night, I was thrilled to see Elle Perez and Nate Larson, who I met during my time at MICA.
I met Elle during my first week as a freshman at MICA, and if I’d known that week what the Meyer Photography Traveling Fellowship was, I would have known that she would be its 2011 recipient. Her show, “The Outliers,” is on view through April 4 in the Main Gallery on the MICA campus. If I could have gone back to MICA for anything, it would have been for the reception this past Monday. So proud of this girl.
Nate started teaching at MICA my last semester there, but I took two classes with him and I can honestly say he is one of the best instructors I have ever had, an amazing artist, and an awesome human. It was SO GOOD to see him.
I got to meet and see the work of some students in the current MICA classes, which was a great experience. This is Sami Wilson.
Jes Marx
You guys rule.
Other people from the MICA days I was excited to see:
Jonathan Trundle, an amazing instructor (Crib Manager!) I had while i was at MICA. (image from here.)
Rafael Soldi, whose work I always admired while I was a student.
And some of Daniel’s iPhone pictures from the curator walk-through.
Talkin about my work
Beth and her work :)
Posted March 31st, 2012