Damian VanCamp ’00
Lighting Designer
CONNECTIVITY LAID THE G RO U N DWO R K
Lamplighter:
FEATURE
By Sarah Woods, Director of Communications
12
“I fell into lighting design by accident. Actually, it came through drumming in a round-about way,” explained Damian VanCamp ’00. Damian started playing the drums at AllenStevenson in the Sixth Grade. Initially, he was a cello player but learned that a cool classmate of his, Robbie Krauss ’00, was taking drum lessons at school. “I decided to make the switch from cello to drums, and before you know it, a few AllenStevenson friends (Sam Moss ’00, Jesse Rhodes ’00, and Benji Sarlin ’00) and I had started a band. I continued to play throughout high school, and a core group of us carried on playing afterward. During and after high school, other groups I played with performed all over the city and even sat in offices where Grammys hung on the wall as we pitched our songs. Nothing panned out, but it was a wonderful experience,” said Damian. Traveling all over the city to gigs, Damian often had to lug his own drums. “I was that guy that people love to hate on the subway.” He never got to hang out with the fans who came to support his shows because he had to pack up his equipment immediately after each performance. On one occasion, he explained, “We landed a more upscale show for which I didn’t have to bring my own drums. Following our performance, I started to chat to a young lady in the audience who said she was in a program for architectural lighting design, something I’d never heard of. The rest is history.” “I went to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) for photography after high school. The idea of a career in architectural lighting design would allow me to combine numerous passions.” “I always knew I wanted to be an artist, and light had always been of interest to me. I used to look out my window, noticing the effects of light on the street and how it reflected off objects. Architecture and architectural elements have also inspired me.” “I’d like to have gone into architecture, but math and I were never friends. Just ask my teachers at Allen-Stevenson. The funny thing is, math is a part of everything I do now.”
Left to right: Damian VanCamp, Jessie Rhodes, Sam Moss, Benji Sarlin (ca. 1997)
