I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from the late and great Richard Benson and honored to be a part of his legacy through this beautiful book published by Aperture. For the book, we were asked to write a bit about what we learned from Richard…
p. 142-143
I remember the time Richard invited me and our entire MFA class to his house. He showed us his garden, his book collection, his studio where he made both photographs and clocks. I wasn’t aware of Richard’s interest in clocks until that day. It took me by surprise because I only knew him as Richard Benson, Mater Printer and Photographer. As the ten of us stood in his studio facing a wall of clocks, surrounded by metal parts and plans drawn on scraps of paper, he said that clocks were the most complicated thing to build.
Richard was never intimidated by a challenge, and he followed his passion wherever it went. He had the ability to effortlessly flow from solving complex technical and artistic problems to the routine of his daily life – all while maintaining a contagious enthusiasm. As we sat down to lunch that day at his long kitchen table, Richard talked freely about his family, his children, and the adventures he had while traveling the country in his RV named Giraffe. Richard was authentically himself no matter what he did, and he made you love him for that.
As a student of Richard’s, I internalized his generosity, his energy, his discipline, his character. He taught me to think about art in the context of life; and that no matter how particular and exacting your work is, the most important thing is to be authentically yourself, in every aspect of your art, your life and especially when confronted with challenge.
In recent years, I have drawn upon the lessons absorbed during my time with Richard as I have needed to face and accept the uncomfortable and challenging shift in my identity from artist to artist – mother. I no longer have the same time and freedom to search for photographs as I had as a young artist and have needed to figure out a way to make important work while confined to the responsibilities of home. I often think about Richard and the fact that he never resisted challenge; how he could effortlessly weave the complexity of life into art. Rather than resisting the challenge of my situation, I am weaving the complexity of life into art by using photography and drawing – a new practice for me – to incorporate the constraints of the quotidian in an investigation of domesticity, routine, ritual, and play. In this work, Scratch Drawings, I photograph sunlight coming through the windows of my home as it shines onto colored paper. The overlaid shapes, created by etching into the photograph with thousands of minute x-acto blade marks, are abstractions of photographs found, seen, and created in the everyday. Just as Richard would have expected of me, I’ve embraced the challenges I face to make work that is uniquely, authentically, and painstakingly my own.