Preface: For the most part, the majority of students in almost all of my classes I have taught thus far have been non-art majors. Finding ways to guide students who have very little - if any - experience in theoretical or art historical contexts is at the forefront of all of my classes. Exposing them to creative conceptual development and critical thinking while teaching skill is the cornerstone of my pedagogy.
Above:
Project for Foto 205/Introduction to Darkroom
Using 3200 speed film, students are to create an image in the “horror” or “film noir” style to emphasize the film’s inherent functionality of being able to be used in low light situations.
Students photographers in order, starting top left: Abril Dominguez, Agnessa Schmudke, Eliza Kraule, Kathleen Snider, Kimberley Wood, Kyle Dickens
Above:
Raamezah Ahmad
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Personal Photo Essay
2015
Note: This photo essay was in regards to the student's forced participation and ultimate rejection of an arranged marriage.
Above:
Kelli Beard
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Personal Photo Essay
2015
Note: This photo essay was in regards to an injury that the student suffered and the resulting images were performance documentation from testing the new physiological limits of her body due to that injury.
Above:
Alvaro Bustamente
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Black and White
2015
Note: This student wanted to explore the barriers of experience when dealing with a site that was personal to him.
Above:
Haya Alwatban
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Photo Essay
2015
Note: Documentation - and purposeful play on visual legibility - of Washington D.C. area pillow fight meet up.
Above:
Emily Dzieweczynski
Gustavus Adolphus College
Darkroom Photography
Project: Photograms
2017
Above:
Christopher Rothgreib
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 180 - New Media in the Creative Arts
Project: New Media Self Portrait
2015
Above:
John Cognetti - Paracite
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project Prompt: Photographing different textures
2015
Above:
Bradley Glinkerman
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Personal Photo Essay
2015
Above:
Gustavus Adolphus College
ART 240 - Darkroom Photography
Class Collaborative Polaroid Project
Theme: Dualities
2017
Above:
Kayleigh Dahl
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Black and white
2015
Above:
Ivana Lombardo
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project Prompt: Memory and loss
2015
Note: this photo dealt with the passing of a child
Above:
Sam Rydzynski
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Personal Photo Essay
2015
Above:
Ivana Garcia
Rutgers University
Mason Gross School of the Arts: Visual Art
Media 1A (4D & Video)
Project: The Body
2014
Password: roykovich
A brief warning that the above video contains nudity.
Above:
Ronald Munoz
Rutgers University
Mason Gross School of the Arts: Visual Art
Media 1A: (4D & Video)
Project Prompt: Social Site Investigation
2014
Password: roykovich
Above:
Hatum Saenz Painemilla
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 280: Introduction to New Media
Project: Monsters
Project Medium: After Effects
2015
Password: roykovich
Gunter Urbano
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 280: Introduction to New Media
Project: Monsters
Project Medium: Student used a video game engine to create his own non-linear and open-ended game with creatures of his own designs.
2015
Password: roykovich
Above:
Ellen Miller
Rutgers University
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Print 1A: Screenprinting
Project: The Body
2014
Note: this student as a survivor of sexual assault and chose to do this project based on that experience.
"Five days, a work week, made a perfect parallel to my closest friend’s two years of hell. Two years, only two, less than five, less than ten, fifteen, but still anxious, depressed, self-harming, suicidal, eating disordered hell. Ropes hung from my wrists for five days like my closest friend was hanged for two years. Just as she managed to break free of her own execution, her horror story, these ropes are retired, retired from their first job as restraints for my horrifying haunted house character and their second job as a social experiment on my peers and myself.
My closest friend’s struggle held a self-stifled cry for help. I didn’t want them to see and question, didn’t want them to notice, but they should have known, they should have heard, they should have seen the ropes that hanged from my wrists. As part of me and my closest friend wished, they had no response except, “I didn’t even notice.” I found a world of people as painfully self-involved as my closest friend in her two years of hell. Everyone has their own executioners to cut down every day, and those who will stop to help bring down others’ executioners often have less time for their own. Fewer and fewer of us left.
My closest friend and I were lucky to find some who could stop to help. “What are those for? Not just a fashion statement, are they…They remind me of breaking free.” They saved her, but ultimately she saved herself because she was everyone: the executioner, the victim…and me. I will always have my broken bonds because I could never and would never choose to be rid of them. They are my greatest teacher."
Above:
Zoe Diamond-Tapper
George Mason University School of Art
AVT 253 - Introduction to Digital Photography
Project: Personal Photo Essay
Fall 2015
Above:
Gustavus Adolphus College
January Term Interim Experience Course: EM Squared - Environmental Memory and Experimental Media
Project Prompt - Create a personal utopia within the diameter of this neon cord.
Winter, 2017