Although professors play a major role in a student’s everyday academic life, some may not take the time to know their students on a personal level. According to some Keene State College students, though, professor Jonathan Gitelson wants to see what his pupils can do through their artistic personalities.
According to his biography on the Keene State College website, Gitelson earned his BA in literature and photography at Marlboro College, as well as his MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago.
Gitelson teaches Photography 1, 2 and Digital Imaging, a graphic design course, at KSC.
Here at KSC, Gitelson wants his students to “feel empowered—confident in their personal visions—and to know how to ask questions of the world around them,” according to the site.
Senior Lee Germeroth, who has taken three classes with Gitelson, had nothing but positive things to say about him.
“I took Photo One and Photo Two with him. Jon is a great teacher. He is really laid-back and open. He allows you to get really creative and free through the class. He wants us to get a lot out of the class, and that is why he isn’t super restrictive in how he teaches,” Germeroth said.
Germeroth said that the one thing he learned in taking classes with Gitelson is to, “Just go with it, man!”
Germeroth added, “He wants us to take an idea and run with it. Let it develop and grow into something amazing. He has taught me to think more creatively and be open to anything. Jon is all about expressing yourself through your artwork and letting everything around you inspire you.”
Portrait by Brian Cantore / Photo Editor
Senior Amanda McKernan, who took two courses with Gitelson, said “Jon is a teacher that really cares about his students. He has a really relaxed and welcoming personality. You can see how passionate he is about his industry. He has a very friendly demeanor and a lot of great networking connections.”
Gitelson spoke of his own inspiration while in college.
“Well, my love in undergrad was Albert Camus, the philosopher and writer. A lot of what he wrote about is connected with what I do, which is looking at the absurdity of everyday,” Gitelson said.
“Usually what my work is always focused on is things in my immediate surroundings that I find interesting that are often times over-looked. It’s really all about responding to the quirkiness of life,” Gitelson added.
When asked to compare the work he did in his college years to the personal work he does outside of the classroom now, Gitelson said, “The work is much different, but the work ethic comes out of college.”
Gitelson said that a lot of what he learned in literature classes in college is still important to how he functions as an artist.
“As far as what I was making, totally different. I was working in the dark room, which now I don’t. I was working on black and white portraits of strangers on the street, but now my work is more personal and narrative,” he said.
Projects featured on Gitelson’s website, www.thegit.net, including “The Trashcan Project,” “The Car Project,” “The Man in Nature,” and “Let’s Start By Stating the Obvious,” all go beyond the photography aspect of his art.
When asked about “The Trashcan Project,” Gitelson described it by saying, “Basically my garbage cans were getting stolen while I was living in Chicago, where I moved here from. I started wondering, ‘What is happening to my garbage cans?’ So it began by me taking pictures of my garbage cans everyday and I built a website so people could track it online.”
Gitelson said that he built a 24-hour surveillance system so that viewers could watch people interacting with his garbage cans.
“Each morning I would have twenty-four hours of footage from the previous day and I would fast forward through until something would happen, then I would edit the footage together and upload it,” Gitelson said.
“I did this so people in Chicago or outside of Chicago could follow this thing that was my garbage cans. But that started to become a sociology experiment more than anything. It became more about how people engage in the urban environment when they think no one is watching,” Gitelson said.
Most of Gitelson’s work consists of these thought-provoking themes, including his “Lets Start By Stating the Obvious” photographs.
These consist of eight blocks of text containing the phrase “Let’s start by stating the obvious…” and a fact written next to it that popped up when Gitelson would type in “Let’s start by stating the obvious” on Google.
Most of these “facts” aren’t inherently obvious at all, but that seems to be the point.
“I just thought it was really interesting how in the democracy that is the web, you’re not coming into these things with any sort of audience. Like if you were at a tire conference and they said, ‘Let’s start of by stating the obvious,’ you know, ‘radial tires do this’, that might be obvious to an audience who has experienced that type of information. With the Internet there is no audience…. So it brings up the question, well what it obvious?” Gitelson said.
Gitelson will be presenting his garbage can project at the Techno Lunch in Keene next month.
Matthew Pereira can be contacted at matthew.pereira@ksc.keene.edu