Ever since I was little art has inspired me in different ways, although there is not one particular piece per say, but an artist who’s works I have always been in awe of. She is no longer living unfortunately, taking her own life in in 1971, none the less her master photography lives on in her wake, the woman I am talking about is Diane (pronounced DEE-ann) Arbus. I have not always been interested in photography, first I wanted to be a famous musician (how typical right?) I would sing down the hallways and in the car, croon in the shower or in the bath depending on the night and best of all I wasn’t afraid to make a fool of my self on the stage. Next was the painter/starving artist stage, both beginning and ending in the same five dollar sketch book my mom brought home one day for my entertainment. Finally, we make it to photography, I had seen some of Arbus’s work in a modern art book that I read for a Third grade project, my attention was drawn immediately to the strange people that took up residency in the lens of her camera. If you’ve never actually seen any of Arbus’s work, let me prepare you’re eyes for the candy to come, most books say she was known for photographing the “marginal and deviant peoples who walked the streets of New York,” this quote alone should peak your interest. Anyways, I loved what I saw but the thoughts of these beautiful pieces soon flew my mind, I was only a third grader of course but my curiosity of the actual art of photography stayed with me as I scrambled into my mom’s car out front of the school and got ready to leave for spring break a few weeks later.

My first ‘job‘ actually came on that vacation, I was assigned the position of photographer while we were in the San Diego zoo, I was so pleased with my self, thinking that all my pictures were amazing, so incredible in fact that I thought they would one day be put on display for the whole world to see! Needless to say, I hadn’t figured out that there was a zoom button, nor how to keep the camera still enough so that the whole thing wouldn’t be blurry. As the years have gone on and, as my interest has grown, my skills have increased a thousand fold, you’ll always find me at one point of time during the day taking a picture of some seemingly random object or person but these to me are the works of art that must be captured and shown to the world (even if that world just happens to be me and me alone). It wasn’t until last year though that I rediscovered Diane Arbus through the Art Gallery presentation I did for Ms. Stones class. I was absolutely stumped on what artist to pick, I knew it had to be a girl, I knew she had to be a photographer, I knew she had to be a little ‘out there’ (I did a photo shoot in a grave yard last year, of course she had to be some what strange!), I just didn’t know who she was. Finally Ms. Stone prodded me in the right direction with the mention of a really talented, reminds me a lot of you, interesting, and creative woman; I had done multiple projects for her incorporating my very own photographs into them, so she knew what kind of artist I was. As soon as I started researching Diane, I knew that she was my muse from the very beginning, even if I hardly remembered her picture from that first modern art book I was dead set in learning as much as I could about her. By the time I had to present my artist, I felt I knew Arbus like a personal friend, and thanks to her and her passion, I found my fascination with photography and for that, I will be ever grateful.