Studio Visit
This is the second installment in our new Studio Visit series, a set of ArtsWest talks conducted by artist and Bill Lane Center Affiliated Scholar Lukas Felzmann. In each episode, Felzman will introduce a new creative person whose work is based in the American West or is relevant to it. Audiences will have a chance to visit guest artists, writers, and thinkers in their "studios," and engage in conversation about their creative life and work.
Studio Visit: Linda Connor
Join us for an engaging and insightful discussion as we delve into the world of renowned photographer Linda Connor. In this Studio Visit, we will explore Linda's recent work and delve into the intriguing concepts she is weaving into her next book project.
As a photographer with a rich and diverse portfolio, Linda has not one but two compelling book ideas simmering in her creative mind. We'll have the privilege of gaining insight into these forthcoming projects, offering a glimpse into the artistic process of a seasoned photographer.
Linda Connor is an internationally renowned photographer with decades dedicated to the art of photography. Linda taught at the San Francisco Art Institute's Photography Department from 1969 until its closure in 2022. In 2002, Linda founded the non-profit organization PhotoAlliance, where she continues to actively engage with their programs.
Her photographs are in notable collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, International Center for Photography, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Her work is published in monographs including Visits; Solos; Luminance; and Spiral Journey. In 2008, Chronicle Books published Odyssey: The Photographs of Linda Connor. This monograph includes over thirty years of photographs and is accompanied by a major exhibition traveling to several locations across the United States. More recently the art publishing house Datz Press has published several of her monographs, most recently Constellations. She is the recipient of numerous awards including National Endowment for the Arts grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Her photographs depict the relationship between the culturally sacred and natural world while illuminating her connection to and deep respect for her subjects. With her large format camera, Connor travels extensively, exploring sites that evoke mystery and spirit. These explorations of ancient and sacred locales reflect her interest in how diverse cultures manifest the holy.
Linda Connor’s formal photographic education came under the instruction of Harry Callahan at the Rhode Island School of Design and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).
Lukas Felzmann
Lukas Felzmann is an artist and educator. He was born and grew up in Zürich, Switzerland and has been living and working in San Francisco since 1981. His work and installations contain sculptural elements, and through photographic means explore the intersections of the natural and the cultural. Current themes include our relationship to the landscape, and how we internalize and attempt to control nature. (Waters in Between). Another published body of work (Swarm), is an investigation and celebration of flight, musing on the working of natural systems, and how there might be control without hierarchy. The degradation of the marine environment through plastic and other materials is examined in Gull Juju. Lukas Felzmann’s work has been exhibited internationally, and six monographs have been published on it. The most recent is Apophenia published by Koenig Books, London in 2018. Lukas Felzmann has taught photography at the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University for 25 years, and is currently an Affiliated Scholar at the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. In 2018 Lukas Felzmann was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in photography.