A teacher and artist with a variety of interests, Gwen Davies has joined Odessa College as the new photography instructor.
Davies, who arrived in September, wants to grow the program and add moving media including animation and stop-motion. She would also like to offer more alternative processing such as lumens and cyanotypes.
A lumen involves taking a piece of gelatin silver paper and exposing it directly to the light. “It creates these beautiful color shifts as the pH and the light and I believe temperature and intensity of light affect it.
“… It creates these really beautiful colors and then you fix it rather than developing it …,” Davies said.
A cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces blue prints using coated paper and light, the Library Space website said.
Davies has created one 8×10 for every day since New York State went into lockdown on March 16, 2020, as a result of COVID-19.
She has sewn one-inch strips of the lumens together by hand into a log cabin quilt pattern.
“… They’re a reflection on the way our experiences and our environment, physical, social, health, political, impacts our identity and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us,” Davies said.
Born in San Antonio, Davies has had 21 different addresses. Her father is an electrical engineer specializing in building and decommissioning power plants.
Before coming to Odessa College, Davies taught at Rochester Institute of Technology and Monroe Community College as an adjunct.
She taught in the photography program at both schools. At Monroe, she taught a class that spanned communications, photography and graphic design in a variety of Adobe programs and focused on moving images and print media.
“At RIT, the primary course I taught was basic short-form moving media.”
“… In the course of a semester, we do a video project that focused on continuity through video. That was usually three to five minutes, sometimes a little longer. We liked to have a group project, but with COVID we couldn’t so we had to reduce the length of the project for individuals to do; and then a documentary that was three to five minutes; a 30-second to one minute graphic animation; a parallax image, a cinemagraph image; and a stop motion, or photo film project,” she said.
Davies earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts in studio art with an emphasis in photography from Arizona State University. She also has a certificate from the honors college.
Her master of fine arts is from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Davies has been interested in photography since she was a child. She didn’t understand until later that it could lead to a career.
“… So when I was 20, I decided to stop going to school because I didn’t have a degree I was really passionate about and I didn’t want to invest any more money in. I worked for roughly the next 10 years and went back to Chandler Gilbert Community College to take a photography class when I was 30, so it would have been about 11 years ago,” Davies said.
She took just about every class the community college had to offer and realized she wanted to transfer to Arizona State University for her bachelor’s degree.
Having always enjoyed teaching, but a desire to pass on what she had learned and experienced at community college drew her into the field.
Along with teaching at colleges, Davies also taught preschool for three years.
She said she didn’t teach the preschoolers photography, but she taught them a lot of art.
Davies said coming up through community colleges is one reason she’s at OC.
“… And I think it is an important piece of the education system. A lot of times I think faculty overlooks the importance of that. I was at a conference a few years ago and a faculty (member) was like why do you think teaching at a community college is so special: and it’s like because work preparing people for the next step, or for the job and we’re doing it in a way that’s approachable and affordable and we’re giving them those skills. I think Odessa College is very aware of that and has a lot of programs in place to support the students and sees our role in the students’ education as really important,” Davies said. “So it’s the next step in my journey having come from a community college and valuing that education and to continue to give back that same experience,” Davies said.
She has other adjunct instructors in the photo department, but Davies is the primary faculty.
She plans to build on the foundation that Steve Goff and Beckwith Thompson built. Goff was the main instructor in the photo department until his retirement and he and Thompson are adjuncts.
“I think Steve and Beckwith have built a really amazing program,” Davies said.
She added that any changes she might make to the program are not critiques. They are building on what was established.
“… To have the facility that we have rival what I had at Arizona State University. They’ve established a program that gives students the full breadth of photography from the historic processes, the art process and the more commercial and digital processes, as well, and prepares them whether they want to pursue fine art, or their personal passion, or go into the industry working, they’re going to have those skills when they complete the program. They’ve done an amazing job building this product and I hope to maintain that and add to it,” she said.
Davies noted that there are many areas, aside from a photo studio or newspaper photographer, that students can go into. She added that a lot of it depends on the level of your degree or the school you choose to attend because universities may have different focuses.
Arizona State University focuses heavily on fine art. The University of Arizona focuses on the visual culture aspect of media and Northern Arizona University focuses on photojournalism and RIT’s program is split into photojournalism, commercial photography, fine art photography and biomedical photography, among others.
Photographers can go into those areas, but also social media managers or biomedical photography, for example.
There are currently 27 students in the program.
“We definitely want to expand. One of the things I’m going to be focused on, especially next semester and going forward, is recruitment and looking at how to get more students into the program and some of that is evaluating why we aren’t at capacity. COVID did hurt that a little bit, but also making sure that the program is meeting the needs of the students coming out and the students coming out at the high schools know that we’re here and what we have to offer and what opportunities are available for them,” she said.
Chair of Visual & Performing Arts Eric Baker said in a text message that he is pleased to have Davies on board.
“Gwen has quickly established herself as a talented and hard-working artist and has demonstrated a caring and knowledgeable approach as an educator. I am excited about the future of the Photography program under her leadership,” Baker said.
Goff said he and Thompson “really love Gwen.”
“She’s going to be a great fit here, so we’re real excited. We’re friends, so we’ll be hanging out,” Goff said.
He said it makes it easier that someone he feels good about is taking over.
“It sure is easier because she’s so good with students. I love her connection with students and she’s a really good teacher. … We have what seem to be so many similarities in our teaching style. I just really feel really comfortable with her taking over … She’s going to work out great for the program and the college. It’s in great hands. Good things are going to happen. She’s got some fabulous plans she wants to bring in and apply to the program and I’m completely, totally supportive,” Goff added.
