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A sketchbook is a valuable tool for studio practice: a vessel to help artists preserve their thoughts, process their ideas, and grow as makers. For photographers, a sketchbook can be a place to write down exposure records, keep notes during courses or lectures, display exhibition postcards, preserve test prints (and scraps that may otherwise be destined for the trash), and more. Because everyone approaches the practice in a different way, no two sketchbooks look the same.
Kelly Webeck introduces various ways that the sketchbook can be used as a tool for a photographer’s studio practice. Together we look at examples of sketchbooks from contemporary photographers, both established and emerging, to see how the written word is combined with visuals to support a developing body of work. These examples are shared alongside images of finished bodies of work (and, when available, installation photographs), so we can discuss the connections between the sketchbook process and the final pieces.
Through guided visual and written assignments, participants are given the opportunity to work with their own sketchbooks over the course of the workshop, and we share our ongoing progress in the second half of each group session. As you get comfortable writing with courage and conviction, you discover how a sketchbook practice can substantially influence your image-making.
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Kelly Lee Webeck is a photographer and visual arts educator based in Berlin, Germany. She received her BFA in visual art studies from the University of Texas at Austin and her MFA in photography from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her photographic research is about Holocaust history, memory, and education. During her graduate studies, she spent one year on fellowship at Freie Universität Berlin to research Holocaust landscapes and memorial sites. During this time, she photographed the city and beyond, falling in love with the quality of light, the energy, the grit, and the thriving photographic community. She connects deeply with Berlin and is thrilled to share the city as an immersive, energetic backdrop to teach in.
As an artist, she is interested in bookbinding, analogue photography, and the use of vernacular photography in contemporary practices. She teaches visual arts at an international school in Berlin and teaches courses online related to contemporary photographic practices as well as Sketchbook Practices for Photographers. She has maintained a sketchbook practice that supports her photography for more than 15 years.
Instagram: @rocketfacedweeb