| . | In an
artist's life, it is sometimes easy to trace the influences upon a body
a work….experience, education, inclination, circumstance.
For Dan Vanasse, occupation has always been an influence. Beginning in the early 1980's with a position selling and photographing for a portrait studio, Dan discovered that photography was more than an interest. Working with that most volatile subject while learning the basics of portrait photography provided Dan's first apparent influence from 1982 through 1984. In 1985, he took a position as a traveling photographer, drawing on experience and growing skill with his subjects. During those three years, Dan had learned enough to begin his own work outside the commercial portrait studios, and he quickly ventured into the artist's most vulnerable place, the gallery. Dan's first exhibited work hung at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Dan learned quickly from seeing his photographs displayed with others, and his body of work grew. In 1987, he began exhibiting annually at Grove Street Gallery, also in Worcester. With these exhibits came encouragement. Arts Worcester awarded him second place in the photo division at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center Gallery show in 1991. Circumstance has also played a part in Dan's work. During the early years, Dan's only camera was a manual Kodak Retinette. There is no better way to hone skill in controlling exposure than with manual use of F-stops and shutter speeds. As his ability grew, Dan endeavored to close the gap between his vision and his ability to achieve it. In 1988, he began a course in advanced dark room technique at the Worcester Art Museum. Solid teaching, peer feedback, and time committed to his work sharpened Dan's appetite for knowledge about what had certainly become his medium. Three years later, he studied light in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. It is far more difficult to trace the other influences on an artist's work, for they are never obvious. They lie in that space where mere facility become skill, and where vision is transformed into art. |
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©
Dan Vanasse 1999
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