Dennis Keeley’s Seminar
// February 22nd, 2010 // my Blog
Written by: Virgil
Dennis Keeley was our second speaker for our Senior Seminar class. He is a professional photographer and a current photography professor at the Art Center College of Design. He started the lecture about his life and his past experiences. For him, art is a career and not a job. He mentions that he may not be the smartest person in the room but he is the person that recognizes the possibility. He also showed a video of an octopus trying to open a jar and then reiterated that in life, we have to be able to look at different perspectives on how to solve problems which is applicable also to an artist; we have to be able to find ways of succeeding in our career.
In his early career, he started as a musician, playing drums for a band. At a very young age, he knew that he would be an artist, as told to him by one of his teachers in grade school. I guess this really inspired him and really got into his head, so he followed what was told to him by his teacher, he become an artist. After he graduated from Cal Arts, one of his first works was a photo editor at the LA Weekly, until later in his life he has established himself as a photographer. According to him, he started by just taking pictures of everybody but by the time he was 35 years old he realized that he has to move on and do something besides photography.
Dennis Keeley’s lecture dealt more with reality and how to deal with obstacles in life. By using his personal experiences as an example, he showed how to utilize his failures and obstacles in life to his advantage. He covered fear of making mistakes and he mentioned failure must be embraced because failure and mistakes will help you succeed in life, so don’t be afraid of failing because this is how a person and an artist will learn. He also tackled the role and importance of school in the life of on an artist’s and how an aspiring artist could channel this to his/her advantage. Through school, an artist should start networking with peers and especially with his/her fellow artists because these are the people who could help and support the artist and be the inspiration to overcome self doubt. As an artist, he mentioned the importance of risk and attempting the impossible in order to measure the possible. He elaborate that people want to see what you do and not what you can’t do. He also talked about that an artist should make plans and device it in order to work to his/her advantage.
Overall, Dennis Keeley’s seminar is something an artist should really pay attention to. He is a frank, practical, yet a humble speaker, and he really covered the reality of what life an artist could be. His lecture gave me a perspective on how to approach the future and how to deal with hurdles an artist could experience in life and in his/her career. The following lists are the questions I am supposed to ask but I have not been able to.
