By Matt Braddick

Taking my seat across from fashion professor Sarah Collins on a recent Wednesday afternoon, I couldn’t help noticing the stacks of history books on her desk and shelves. The titles give only hints about a multitude of topics, and several of them appear to be textbooks. A lone painting of a multicolored suburban landscape grips the wall proudly, looking down on all the texts and papers of the office.

I had come to discuss her lecture, “Unmentionables Mentioned: The History of Underwear,” set for Feb. 1 at the newly opened Ivy Hall.

“Well, originally, the topic was about looking at the role of fashion in literature,” she said. “I did the research, but it was just very academic and boring.”

She said she changed her mind after seeing another professor give a very entertaining lecture, and she worried about hers being far too serious. She decided, though, that this history of undergarments would be much more intriguing to people.

“Everybody has a fascination with underwear, it seems, because there’s something taboo about it, at least in most places in American society. It’s not as polite to talk about it.”

“Did you have difficulty when you were putting this together, worrying about if anyone would be offended?” I asked.

“No, actually. What’s funny is I first gave this lecture to a group of senior citizens.  I was a little bit worried, because I thought if anybody would be offended, it’d definitely be a group like this. But they loved it!” she explained.

I tried to picture a retirement home full of elderly couples enraptured by Collins’ lecture, and found the image quite humorous.

“It was really interesting because they gave me so much first-hand knowledge about seeing those changes,” she said of her first audience. “During World War II, for example, nylon material was used to make parachutes, so they stopped making hose for women. That’s when women started shaving their legs. So I kind of curse them because now I have to shave my legs as a consequence,” she said, half-jokingly shaking her fist in frustration.

I pointed out how that story related directly to the current economic decline in America, so I asked her how the fashion industry is dealing with an environment where people were having trouble buying food and gas.

“That’s something several publications are addressing right now,” Collins said. “That’s the debate going on right now: How is fashion going to survive? Basically, we’re in the business of selling things people don’t need. Everybody wears clothing, but our job is to make you think you need something new every season. The debate starts with, do people want to spend more money on a garment that is just a basic color, good quality that they can wear for longer periods of time or is it like the movies? Do people want to escape? Are we going to see more color and fabric and fun? So perhaps then they want something trendier and a little bit more disposable and therefore, possibly cheaper.”

Collins said this quarter started off well for her. Mostly, she’s been working with fashion graduate students, but says she still teaches a computer-aided design class for some of the new undergrads. Some of the students, especially those who come from semester-oriented schools, end up getting a real eye-opening experience.

“My school was like that,” Collins said of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, where she earned her undergraduate degree. “You get a soft opening; you don’t really start to get going until later in the semester. But here, you really hit the ground running. No warm-up period.”

“I was an American Studies major,” she continued, “a kind of interdisciplinary degree. I took classes in education, psychology, economics, sociology, literature, politics. At the time, I was doing art and theater minors. And at the end of my junior year, I had a breakthrough in art, so I switched majors; minors in English, American Studies and theater.” Collins said that background made her really appreciate the value of liberal arts.

“It gives you a set of tools, so that if I come upon a problem I maybe haven’t seen before, it’s a skill you can fall back on,” she said.

Collins offered some advice for students: “I’m not the best writer in the world, but I can write. I can put together papers, artists’ statements, that sort of thing. I think many art students have a tendency to say ‘I don’t need to write, I’m a visual artist,’ which is terribly wrong of them.

“Everyone has to communicate,” she chuckled.

She said that’s especially true in fashion.

“They have to be able to speak intelligently about their work,” Collins said. “You have to be able to do a little of your own public relations work in fashion. You have to be able to sell your own line.”

Collins said her liberal arts background and her passion for the subject with drove her to research for the underwear lecture.

“Something I discovered about myself and why I love so many different disciplines is I like storytelling, and I think fashion can tell a story,” she said. The history of fashion really fascinates me because it tells what everyone’s story is, the human story. It’s one of our basic needs. Even aboriginal people or nudists still decorate themselves in a basic way. There’s something about that, something about the human condition, to decorate ones self.”

“Does that stem from a need to distinguish one’s self as an individual?” I asked.

“Yes, very much so,” Collins said. “That’s something we’re talking about in modern times: the idea of mass customization, that people want to be individual,” she said. “But how do you sell that in a mass quantity?  How do you sell individuality?”

Whatever the answer to that question, it seems fashion has a bright future, as long as teachers like Collins continue to bring their own experience and knowledge of the field to students.

Collins’ lecture, “Unmentionables Mentioned: The History of Underwear,” will be Feb. 1 at 3 p.m. at Ivy Hall on Ponce De Leon Blvd. It is free and open to the public.

Connector: Tell me a little bit of your background.
Kent Knowles: My dad was a chaplain in the Air Force, so we moved constantly. I spent a lot of my early education overseas: three years in Okinawa (Japan) and six years in Germany, where I started getting into painting. Years later, I graduated with a BFA in Painting at SCAD (1997) and got my MFA in 2006 at the University of Georgia.

Connector: Is it weird to come back to SCAD as faculty?
KK: It was 11 years ago and it was a different campus. So much has changed and most of my professors still teach, but mostly in Savannah. As an exception, I met Michael Brown (SCAD-Atlanta painting professor), while working on a degree in Savannah.

Connector: How long have you been working here at SCAD-Atlanta?
KK: I started in June ’06, in the Exhibitions Department and taught a class at night. Later, I switched to full-time teaching. Usually, half of my classes are painting classes and half are drawing classes.

Connector: Are there any challenges about teaching?
KK: Teaching painting makes you hyper-aware of your own painting practices, and not willing to be hypocritical by telling students to do something you wouldn’t do yourself.

Connector: Also, you have started a student painting club here, right? Would it be like a guild, then?
KK: More or less … I enjoy the comradarie between professionals, more than just professor-student. It is wonderful to be able to meet in equal level and address contemporary issues in painting … and maybe work on out-of-school projects.

Connector: When did the club start?
KK: It started about a year ago, and is called the “Prometheus Society.” Our meeting times have been Friday evenings, but we are switching it to Friday afternoons, up at the painting floor. We are intending to create a Web site and small printed catalog with members’ work, and we are going to have a show at Studioplex next spring, centerd on the theme “conflict.”

Connector: Your effort in doing that is related to your student experience?
KK: In fact, I bumped into some students who were interested in painting, but they were not interested in taking painting classes or pursuing a painting degree. Also, there were students who were interested in talking and discussing painting outside their normal classes.

Connector: What are your plans for next quarter?
KK: I’ll be teaching Portrait and Life Painting, so lots of human figure. I’m also teaching two Drawing I classes, so lots of charcoal too. I’m also working on a series of new paintings, which will be probably much larger than the ones I have done so far. My brother and I also write screenplays together. We’re working on one right now that is set in New Orleans. I’m also developing one on the Dahlonega’s gold rush. And I write and illustrate children’s books, too. The first one I have out is called “Lucius and the Storm,” and I’m working at another one right now.

Savannah College of Art and Design Atlanta Photography professor Suellen Parker uses a mixture of sculpture, photography and a lot of digital image manipulation to create images that explore human behavior. In her work, Parker combines photography with her passion for psychology. “I think people are fascinating; I have never studied psychology before but, a lot of what I read is either psychological or sociological research. I am very attracted to the authenticity of the self,” said Parker.

Using a nondrying form of clay Parker molds sculptures of people and photographs them with the appropriate lighting for the photograph that she is going to make. Then, using Photoshop, she takes eyes and other features from photographs of people and ads them to her characters. She will then spend countless hours in front of the computer manipulating the image until her character comes to life.

Parker has been developing and honing this process for the past four years but it began by chance and ironically because, she wanted a break from the computer. “I had been studying photography for two years in graduate school and I needed a break. So I took a continuing education sculpture class and really liked it. I thought I really need to incorporate this into my photography,” said Parker. From this metamorphosis of art forms spawned a series of manipulated clay characters that have taken on a life of their own.

The first full series she completed with this technique, “Incurable,” explores how we choose to present ourselves in our quest for the perfect self. In this series she also addresses many issues including: Botox, balding, pill-pushing, home exercise and sun bathing.

Although her characters that are aiming for perfection have very noticeable flaws, Parker is not criticizing or judging them. “I like all of my characters, so I don’t think that they are tragic” said Parker. She further explained “I am interested in imperfections; Idealized images have always been boring to me. I like to make imagery that goes through dealing with imperfections.”

Fourth-year photography student Jessica Milan said she’s encouraged by Parker’s work. “She inspired me to do what I do in my work; to show things in society through inanimate objects,” said Milan.

It’s not only students who are impressed by Parker’s unique art. SCAD-Atlanta Photography professor Sandra Lee Phipps said she is just as excited about Parker’s work: “I love what she is doing, bringing 3D art into a 2D image, and combining the two realities.”

Parker is currently working on a series exploring gender roles and how some people are actively redefining them, and the working title for the series is “Gender Fluid.” “I think people are more complex than the male and female gender roles that they are assigned,” says Parker. “I know plenty of boys who would like to wear skirts for no other reason than because it’s comfortable clothing,” she said, elaborating on the issues and ideas she is addressing with this new series. Parker makes it clear however that she is not condemning gender roles or people who follow them she just feels that there is a better way: “I don’t think that it is wrong; it is just limiting.”

Parker recently presented her work in a lecture she gave at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta as a part of Atlanta Celebrates Photography, and “Incurable” is on display at Jackson Fine Art Atlanta. A New England psychologist is now using a photograph that she created for an article in The New York Times Magazine about child abuse in therapy sessions.

If you would like to see her work, you can go to www.suellenparker.com.

Professor Roy Richardson is a Sequential Arts Professor at SCAD-Atlanta. He is a veteran comic book artist with 25 years of experience, having worked on major titles like “Captain America,” “Iron Man,” “The Flash,” “Star Wars” and his own co-creation for Marvel Comics, “Tomorrow Knights,” which was recently adapted into a role-playing game by Z-Man Games.

Can you tell me about your background and your inspiration for teaching?
Frankly, I never gave teaching a thought until a few years ago, when we were approached by Professor Ray Goto from SCAD-Savannah at a comics convention. Then, my friend Tom Lyle was hired to teach at SCAD, and he liked it, so that really got the ball rolling.

What inspired you to get into storyboards? What inspired your style?
Money inspired my wife and I (we work together) to get into storyboards. It’s a well-paying field, but it’s also a grind. I’m talking about commercial boards here, not movie or animation. Typically, you get the job on a Friday and are expected to be in the art director’s office with the completed boards on Monday morning. But the real grind comes in waiting to be paid; while all the agencies claim to pay within 30 days, it can stretch out to 60, 90 or 120 days, which is why we got out of the business. As for our style, we just used a modified version of our comic book style. I’ve been taken to task by some of my students for discussing comic book artists in my storyboard class, but comic artists make the best storyboard artists. After all, commercial boards are just comics with all the interesting stuff (flying people, intergalactic invasions, etc.) taken out.

Can you tell me your experience as an artist over the years? What are some of the revelations, some of the snags, and what are some things that became rewarding to you?
Working as a freelance artist for 25 years, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. My most successful year
financially was followed by one of my worst. It’s not a life style for the faint-hearted.

What’s the most important thing students should remember when entering a storyboarding career?
When entering any classroom, students should remember that the professor is an instructor, not a
magician. Many students seem to think that if I’ve done my job, they’ll somehow be transformed into
professional storyboard artists by the end of the quarter, with minimal effort on their part. Sorry, it
doesn’t work that way. All an instructor can do is expose you to what you need to know; it takes years of practice and frustration to get good at it. If you can’t face that, go into another profession.

By Brian Steel

Robert Frost once wrote: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” That often-quoted verse would be an accurate description of photography professor, Kael Alford. She photographed the fighting in the Balkans, as well as the invasion of Iraq. Alford shares her first-hand perspective on what is going on in Iraq.

What was it like photographing un-embedded?
I could’ve been with the U.S. troops, but I wanted to be on the Iraq side of things. The only way to do that was to not be embedded. It’s just a different physical perspective. The people who were with the U.S. troops weren’t really seeing very much. They weren’t seeing any real fighting. Most of the time they were getting very little perspective on what was going on in Iraq. The only way to get that perspective and that of what it was like for the Iraqis, particularly civilians, was to be in Baghdad. It was like being an Iraqi during the bombing campaign.

I went three times, and each time I went, there was a slightly different situation on the ground. The first time, I was there for three weeks before the bombing started and that was like living under Saddam’s regime in a real heightened state of anxiety, because they were expecting a war to start. After that, there was a three-week bombing campaign and after that, there was utter chaos, because the military disappeared and the authorities in Iraq had a temporary meltdown. There was no authority. For the period after the Americans arrived, there was a power vacuum.

Can you describe what the people on the street were like right after the invasion?
They were dazed. First of all, they had just been bombed with incredible amounts of ammunition and firepower for three weeks. Then, there had been some skirmishes around the city between the Americans and the remaining Iraqi holdouts. Then they didn’t know what to expect next. They didn’t know what was going on. I think it took people a while to believe that it was safe to talk about Saddam. These were people who would not even utter the name of their president for the entire time that he was in power. For decades, they had been accustomed to a repressive authoritarian state, and they just didn’t know initially if that state was gone.

They were really skittish about having the Americans around initially to some extent because they were armed and a little bit jumpy. It was a strange time. I don’t think anyone knew how to act. During that little period, just after the regime melted away, people organized themselves. They were organized into
neighborhood protection groups.

They would set up checkpoints outside their neighborhoods and keep looters out of the residential neighborhoods. Surprisingly, mosques stepped in and filled the void in social services. They would intercept looting civilians and they would bring the stolen goods to the mosque for redistribution. The mosque became a point of redistribution and social services while there was this void of power. People had nowhere to go to get treated, so sometimes the Americans would set up little make shift medical checkpoints or camps. People were bringing them in injured; civilians and injured kids.
The hospitals had been so badly looted there were no more medical supplies or beds to put people in. That happened right after the invasion. It was a chaotic time and people were trying as best as they could to cope and organize and maintain some sort of order. That worked for a little while, until the militias began to organize and stepped in to fill the void.

Can you describe how you were able to photograph with the Madhi militia?
The Madhi army militia developed slowly over several months beginning around the end of 2003. By the time I encountered them, they were pretty well organized. They already had press liaisons that would deal with the media. You could go to an office and make an appointment to speak to a spokesperson. You were supposed to actually get cleared through that spokesperson to work in any Madhi army controlled neighborhoods. I sort of worked with a soldier who was a self-proclaimed media liaison during a time where the organization was quite centrally controlled yet, so I was able to work in neighborhoods that he controlled. He often made introductions for me to other important people, and we moved around the Madhi army held territories. At that time it was more like a neighborhood vigilantly group. I worked with this one particular fixer, until I went to Najaf.

What was their mission?
Their mission was to gain some political power for the constituency of their leader Muqtada al-Sadr. He
is a cleric who has ties to a long-standing tradition of resistance against the Iraqi government. These were
people the United States would have funded in other times. In 1991, they would have been encouraged to over throw the Iraqi government, and really would have taken control. Which is eventually what happened, when we overthrew the government, and then they stepped in and filled the power vacuum.

Their agenda on a larger scale was to take some sort of political leadership in the country, and now they are actually a party in the Iraqi parliament. Leading up to that time, their goal was to gain popularity by policing neighborhoods, and enforcing a form of vigilantly justice in places where they worked. Sometimes it made them popular, and other times it made them unpopular depending on how fairly they matted out their justice. Sometimes they would seize markets where they were selling alcohol and beat the shop owners and put them in makeshift prisons and rough them up a lot. They were by no means always the friendliest, or most reasonable, people to be under, but their neighborhoods for a long time were generally free of car bombings, kidnappings, and other kinds of random violence that was happening in other parts of the city, so they were gaining a constituency in part that way.

I read that they were very conservative when it came to women’s roles. Did make it harder for you to work with them?
They were pretty tolerant with working with me. I was never banded from any particular situation. In mosques, I can only go to the women’s area of the mosque, but other than that, I just maintained the
basic standards that they expect. If I’m in one of their holiest shrines, I need to dress in a conservative way that is appropriate to them. Which seems reasonable to me; I don’t go to church in my bikini. I tried to be respectful in that way and that always seemed to be enough. I always feel that if I can show a certain amount of respect for people, it gets me greater access, and I get a certain amount of respect back, but they didn’t ever give me any problems. I do know journalists who had problems with them. Not just women, but journalists in general who were trying to work within their territories without the correct permission, or they were suspicious of them. They detained them or stuffed them in trunks of cars. They weren’t always so friendly.

As a documentary photographer, what are some of the things that you do to build a rapport with your subjects?
I mostly just try and spend as much time as I can and be interested. I interview people and spend time with them when I am not working and try to see what their lives are like. I try to learn about more than just the immediate story. I try to learn about the story in a broader context. I think that makes me a better reporter and it helps my subjects know that I am not just some reporter looking for a sensational story of the moment that my readers will take out of context. I really try to put the reporting that I do in a broader context that helps to bridge gaps between understanding different cultures and situations. I try to explain that to the people that I work with. I think that is the best kind of rapport that you can build, because it is built on trust and understanding.