Making Things Happen: An Interview with Lana Z. Caplan

Lana Z. Caplan, a Boston-based film/videomaker, photographer and installation artist, visited Chester College of New England this week as part of the Visiting Artist's Symposium Lecture Series. Caplan works with super8, found footage, video, interactive projections, and alterative processes photography in her pieces, which explore relationships, mortality and social issues.

Caplan grew up in a world of photography. When given her first Polaroid at the age of four, it was just a natural progression for a family that took regular snapshots. Although she never considered a career in art growing up, she attended numerous workshops and camps. It wasn’t until her undergraduate work in art history that she learned anyone can be an artist, if you work hard and make art.

When preparing for a new piece, Caplan said she starts with a concept and focuses on finding what the best ways to communicate that, be it through sketches or details within the environment or what works best with the site. Through her heavy use of Polaroids she can see what’s happening, and make decisions as she goes. Armed with research, her camera, and a willingness to experiment, she starts with an idea and keeps kicking it around until figuring out how to approach it.

Caplan’s varied portfolio includes pieces that are experienced, not just viewed. From her videos Love in the Afternoon, and The Waltz to her series on Sites of Public Execution, Caplan’s pieces cover a wide range of compositional interest. "I hope that my audience will give [the work] the time to try to understand, and to see the multiple layers and pieces that make it, as well as the collective meaning of the pieces put in the installation," she said.

Between exhibiting, studio time, researching and more, Caplan still finds time to visit many colleges as a traveling artist/lecturer. She said her biggest piece of advice is to work hard. "Nothing comes easy, so keep working at it," she said. "Take a good look at what came before you and the context of what you are doing, what you might be referencing and what others might be seeing when they view your work."

Caplan encourages young artists to look for inspiration everywhere. She has found it in the work of Pipilotti Rist and Andy Warhols' films. "We can all be inspired by something," she said. "Look at other artists and see what works or what doesn’t work for you and what you can take away from it to incorporate into your own work."

Even with inspiration, Caplan joked that a typical day in the studio consists of "cappuccino and email." On a more serious note, she did have one suggestion to beat procrastination. "On those days you are not in the studio, keep a running list of the things to do next time in the studio and options for those times you just don’t feel like 'it,'" she said.

When work is ready to be shown, Caplan suggested thinking broadly about exhibiting. "Create your own opportunities," she said. "Collaborate with other types artists and make your own events. Hire bands, invite friends, create your own scenes, work out the kinks. Don’t rely on the existing infrastructure --be prepared to show the establishment. By bringing people together things happen."

~Rhiannon Lombard

"Fantasticum" Features Chester College Student Work

"Fantasticum," a group show of Chester College of New England students, is on display now in the Whitherill Gallery at The Coffee Factory in Derry, NH. Works by Jamie Vitas, Maggie Alerding, Timothy Lee, Rachel Deccico, Tahlia Groupil, Peter Isherwood and Fairlee Anderson,--all students in the fine arts professional practices class and the gallery practicum--are part of the show.

Megan McNaught, assistant professor of interdisciplinary and fine arts at Chester College, said the exhibit is "the culmination of an excellent semester and hard work by all involved." It features a range of media from encaustic paintings to printmaking and was planned, managed and installed by the students involved. "It is a fine example of the work produced by students at Chester College of New England."

Unconventional Inspiration: An Interview with George Saunders

On Tuesday, November 16, nationally acclaimed author George Saunders visited Chester College of New England as part of the Visiting Writers Series. Saunders, who has been hailed by The New Yorker as one of the best writers under forty and as one of the top 100 most creative people in entertainment by Entertainment Weekly, gave a question and answer period for students during the day and a reading, that was open to the public, the same evening.

In a time when many writers lament that the art of the short story has passed by, Saunders has published three collections of short stories and two novellas. His stories and essays also are routinely published in magazines such as The New Yorker, GQ, and Harpers. "Do I think short stories are dead? No," he said. "I think people get this idea from bad agents. A bad agent will ask you if you have a novel finished. A good agent wants to know what you write. I've been lucky. One of the things we don't tell young writers, that we should, is that you can't pick what kind of writer you are."

Saunders said he spent his youth reading "less than literary" books and does not count other writers among his top inspirations. When just beginning his career as a writer he studied albums, in particular how musicians ordered the songs on an album, to learn how to put together books of short stories. Other influences? Comedians of course. Saunders said he counts Steve Martin and Monty Python as strong influences on his writing.

Saunders is known for his genre-defying short stories and has a writing process that is in many ways as unconventional as his work. Often spending as many as seven years writing and revising a story, he said that by the end of the process he has only kept about 40 percent of the words he started off with. "Many young writers write a story, revise it, and three weeks later feel it's finished," he said. "I write magazine stories. I need to let a story sit long enough so that when I come back to revise it I'm looking at it just like the reader who flips through a magazine and comes across it for the first time."

Each fall Saunders teaches an advanced fiction writing class in the MFA program at Syracuse University, but workshops are definitely not part of his own revision process. He explained that workshops are good tools for students but not for the seasoned writer. "The problem with workshops is that you get, say, five suggestions. Four of them, you feel, have nothing to do with your story. The fifth one does maybe, but only if it is something you were already thinking of yourself.

"Ultimately you send a story out with your name on it," he continued. "It should be your work. Then if it succeeds you deserve all the credit for it. And if it fails you don't have the feeling that you've been misled."

~Renee Mallett

Chester College Student published in Collective Fallout

Chester College Student Kelsey McCarthy's short story "Coyote Smile" has been selected as a finalist for Collective Fallout's Delfino Prize for Queer Genre Fiction. Her story will be published in the January 2010 issue of the magazine.

Chester College of New England's 2nd Annual Blood Drive

Chester College of New England will be holding their 2nd Annual Blood Drive on Thursday December 3. It will be held between 1 and 6 pm in the Chester Town Multi-Purpose Room. It is free and open to the public.

First 10 students to sign up with Stephanie Ramirez and donate blood will receive a special thank-you prize. All donors affiliated with Chester College will be entered in a raffle for a gift card to Applebee's. All donors will also be entered in a raffle to win a pair of lift tickets to Loon Mt.

Student Art Sale

On Friday, December 4 from 1:30 pm to 4:00 pm Chester College of New England Students will be displaying and selling art in the Wadleigh Library Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

They are still looking for interested students to sell work. If you are interested please contact Kara Schulse kschulze@chestercollege.edu, or sign up at the circulation desk.

Primary Studios Show

Between December 3, 2009 and December 15, 2009 Chester College of New England's Primary Studios Students will be showing their work in the Wadleigh Library Gallery. The gallery will be free and open to the public.