Changing. Changing. Changing.
New Visual Studies Workshop Director - Looks Back, Looks Forward
In 1969, photographic images were recorded on silverbased film and paper. ARPANET, an experiment connecting four computers, had yet to evolve into the network known as the Internet. That year grainy chiaroscuro television images showed Neil Armstrong taking “one giant leap for mankind.” The microprocessor made its debut and Nathan Lyons, photographer, writer, curator, and educator, founded Rochester’s Visual Studies Workshop, an educational and support center for photography and other media arts. Jump ahead 34 years to 2003 when Tate Shaw arrived at the Visual Studies Workshop as a graduate student keen to learn more about artists and how they turn the book format into an art form. His interest Tate Shaw, VSW Director in this specialized medium of artistic expression began and was nurtured while an undergraduate at a small liberal arts college near Kansas City, MO. and later while working in an art gallery that displayed artists’ books.
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It was there, in 1999, that Shaw came upon Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook (1985) edited by Visual Studies Workshop’s Joan Lyons, founder of VSW press and wife of Nathan. The work drew Shaw to Rochester to study with Joan Lyons and pursue his master’s degree at VSW. The experience would become much more. In less than five years he would not only earn his MFA, but he would ultimately become director of the 41-year-old institution. (The College at Brockport MFA in Visual Studies at VSW is the only degree-granting program offered by VSW in conjunction with The College at Brockport. Since 1969, VSW has awarded more than 500 MFA degrees through The College at Brockport and its earlier affiliation with The University of Buffalo.) But graduate study is only one of VSW’s programs. VSW also offers summer and weekend courses, operates three exhibition galleries, sponsors lectures and film screenings. All of this makes the Visual Studies Workshop one of the world’s premier institutions for the study of the visual images in its many forms — photographs, film, video, books and digital media. And 41 years of supporting materials (prints, slides, books, magazines, films) have also made VSW both a researcher’s treasure trove and a director’s challenge. “We have 800,000 print, slide and negative images; 25,000 books, 5,000 artists’ books and small press volumes, and thousands of periodicals. I’m working on how to make all these resources available, getting them archived and digitized so that this cultural history won’t be lost,” Shaw said. Preserving the past is only one of Shaw’s challenges.