Life & Work with Angela Faris

Today we’d like to introduce you to Angela Faris.

Hi Angela, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
From a young age, I was interested in two things—the natural world and visual art. I found that nature revealed the larger truths of existence, and art enabled me to express those truths, which can’t be communicated in words.

I practiced a range of artistic media in college, but I found photography most resonant because of its connection to nature; the changes in form made by light, time, and chemical interaction, and the direct physical connection between the subject and the art both intrigued me. In college, I also discovered a love for teaching, and early on decided to pursue it as a career alongside art. I have served as a photography professor in several exceptional programs, and each experience helped me advance as both an artist and educator.

I’m still enjoying a career in academia, but increasingly more often I’m contacted for individual and small group workshops, and I find teaching this way equally rewarding! This unexpected path has led me to develop several in-person and online photography workshops on topics ranging from Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to exploring photography of landscape and place, and from portfolio development to expanding conceptual and creative photographic vision. I enjoy working with adult learners to increase whatever photographic knowledge they’re seeking and helping them propel their image-making to levels they hadn’t thought possible.

Part of my success in teaching I owe to years spent honing the craft, but it’s also due to constant engagement in photographic art practice—conducting research, pushing the boundaries of photographic media, and embracing new techniques and technologies to inform my creative work.

With nature as my subject, and through sustained artistic practice, my artwork resonates deeply with viewers, which has led to having it widely exhibited and collected, and to artist representation with one of Denver’s preeminent galleries–Michael Warren Contemporary. I feel the more actively we engage in our chosen paths, the more opportunities arise, and I’m grateful for my artistic career so far.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t know many people whose paths have been smooth, and that’s especially true for artists. For me, the most challenging obstacle has always been balancing teaching and art making.

I feel it’s important for teachers to maintain relevance in our fields, but it’s difficult to do while teaching full-time, especially when you teach in a college that doesn’t support its faculty’s professional practice. The only way around it is to dedicate time to art making, put yourself on a schedule, and “show up” to make art no matter what. Like anything important, you’ll place a priority on it, and not allow other factors to impede on that time.

I schedule one day every week during the academic year and spend my summers and winter breaks focused on art making. Artistic practice is integral to who I am, so making time feeds me. If I don’t make the time, I feel it negatively reverberates through other aspects of my life. Also, I allow the artmaking process to guide my practice. Similar to meditation, we are only rewarded when we focus on the practice, and not the outcome. I listen intently to what my artwork reflects to me, and I trust in intuition along the way.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My work is inspired by nature, celebrating its inherent beauty and perfection, and often speaking to our human relationship with the more-than-human world. I live surrounded by nature, and I find vast inspiration where I live—near my mountain home in Conifer, CO and my cabin in the Blue Ridge near Asheville, NC. When people think about “nature photography”, they tend to think of monumental landscapes and magnificent wildlife.

Although I enjoy these kinds of images, I work more conceptually and experimentally; I enjoy taking unique approaches to common nature scenes, in hopes that viewers recognize aspects of nature they haven’t considered before. For example, my series Vestiges explores the idea that our future is inextricably linked to the natural world, through images of ancient bristlecone pines made with long-expired Polaroid film. Another series, Nascent, is made from young aspen trees placed in direct contact with homemade, historic photographic emulsion, and left in the sun for hours. As aspen trees are rhizomes, these images speak to the traces we all leave throughout our lives and the interconnectedness among all living things.

These themes recur throughout my work, although each series is stylistically unique. Rather than adhering to color or black and white, I gravitate toward whatever photographic media speaks best to the specific body of work I’m making. This breadth of understanding of the media opens doors for both my artistic practice and what I’m able to offer students of photography.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
To commission artwork, or to work with me on portfolio development, landscape photography, or other related topics, contact me through my website at www.angelafaris.com. To purchase limited edition artwork, contact my gallery at www.michaelwarrencontemporary.com.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.angelafarisphotography.com
• Instagram: @AngelaFarisPhoto
• Linkedin: AngelaFarisPhotography

Image Credits
Angela Faris and Jane Alden Stevens