FEATURED AUTHOR

Laura Blacklow

Lecturer in studio arts
School of the Museum of Fine Arts @ Tufts University

Blacklow uses drawing, painting and photo to hand-make artist’s books and prints employing non-traditional techniques. In her art, teaching, and book (“New Dimensions in Photo Processes”), she concentrates on depictions that do not replicate art history but expand the visual field. She often anchors pictures with text, as in her work about Guatemala, where she has volunteered art instruction with Maya and poor youth for over 25 years. See more at www.laurablacklow.com

Subjects: Art & Visual Culture, History, Photography

Biography

Laura Blacklow is the author of "New Dimensions in Photo Processes: A Step by Step Manual for Alternative Techniques", which first came out in 1980 and now is in its 5th edition. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowship for works on paper, the St. Botolph Club’s Morton C. Bradley Color Award, Polaroid Corporation’s Artist Support Program for 20 years, a Research Grant from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Artists’ Foundation Fellowship for her hand-colored black and white photographs.
Her work has most recently appeared in Focal Press books, Light and Lens: Photography in the Digital Age, 3d Edition, Robert Hirsch, 2018; and Exploring Color Photography, 6th Ed., Robert Hirsch, 2015. In addition, her prints and books appear in Cyanotypes: Photography’s Blue Period, Worcester Art Museum Publication, 2016; and 500 Handmade Books, edited by Julie Chen,
Lark Crafts, 2013. Her art work is in the collection of Harvard’s Fogg Museum, Simmons College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and the private
collections of Lucy Lippard, Sol Lewitt, and Bela Kalman, to name a few.
Blacklow has been teaching economically marginalized Guatemalan youth by volunteering with Photokidsoriginal.org and Belizians via Caracol.org.uk. She is a member of the Guatemala Solidarity Committee.
Laura Blacklow teaches Historical Photo Processes, Artist’s Books: A Hybrid, and Oral and Visual Story-telling at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts @ Tufts University.
More of Blacklow’s work can be seen at www.laura.blacklow.com

Education

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Historical photo processes, including cyanotype, Van Dyke brown printing, Gum Bichromate printing, Casein Pigment printing, and Bacquerrel (safer form of Daguerreotype). Contemporary alternative methods such as hand coloring inkjet and office copier prints, magazine and inkjet transfers, making digital negatives. Bookbinding.

Personal Interests

My favorite times are spent in my studio hand-making photo prints and limited edition books, or in my urban backyard organic vegetable and flower gardens. I enjoy reading, staying current with the news, and planning trips to Central America and Cuba. (I practice speaking Spanish.) I love to travel and dream of experiencing many more places!

Books

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