Monthly Mentoring and Critique Program with Vaughn Sills (October 2020-May 2021)

This mentoring and critique program is for photographers deeply engaged in their work and looking for a place to discuss their images and ideas in depth and define their goals and how to reach them. Participants will get to know each other and their colleagues’ work, critique new work at each meeting, and help each other make the most of their strengths in photography.

The group will be led by Vaughn Sills, who has taught photographers at all levels to think critically about their own work and that of others; she has given portfolio reviews through the New England Women in Photography and has juried exhibitions at galleries in Boston and elsewhere. Vaughn is particularly interested in helping photographers make their images more powerful and meaningful both for themselves and for an audience.

The group will meet once a month in a blended fashion – in person (if allowed) and online – from October 2020 – May 2021. The course meets on Monday afternoon from 1:30 pm to 4:00 pm Eastern Time on these dates:

October 19, 2020
November 16
December 14
January 18, 2021
February 22
March 22
April 19
May 17

Cost: $500 Members, $550 Non-Members. Limited to 8 participants.

Bio:

Vaughn Sills’ photographs have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries, including the recent Griffin exhibit “Down Garden Paths”; in a review of that show Mark Feeney described her work as “marvels of emotional gravity”.  Vaughn’s work has been shown throughout the US; it is in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, DeCordova Museum, Harvard Art Museum, as well as the Fidelity, Polaroid, and the Eaton Vance Collections, among others. Vaughn has received two Artist’s Fellowships in Photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and awards from the Artadia Dialogue for Art and Culture, the Polaroid Foundation, and The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEA). Two books of her work have been published: Places for the Spirit, Traditional African American Gardens (2010) and One Family (2001).

Vaughn has taught this course for four years and loves working with the photographers she’s met through the Griffin. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Brandeis WSRC and Associate Professor Emerita of Photography at Simmons College.

Selected One Person Exhibits:

• Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
• Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC
• US Botanic Garden Washington, DC
• Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY
• Ellen Miller Gallery, Boston, MA
• Gamill Gallery, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi, Oxford MS­
• Matthaei Botanical Gardens, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• DuSables Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL
• Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe IL

For more information about Vaughn, please see www.vaughnsills.com.

Image © Parrish Dobson