Artist Tom Zimberoff
https://zimberoff.medium.com/beachscapes-26529c30722e
Artist Mission Statement: The liminal interface of seawater, sand, and sky produces an artificial construct of consciousness, the space in which everything appears, the light by which we see, that beckons my camera.
Throughout my career I focused on portraiture: still lifes of people. Once in a while I’d point my lens at a landscape; never before at the sea. I used to think of the beach as a background. Now, it’s a theme. With a fresh eye, the upshot of a long hiatus from photography, and having only recently thrown my lens cap back in the ring — and given the proximity of my Outer Sunset neighborhood to Ocean Beach in San Francisco, I've discovered a rhythmic confluence of color and space that pulled me in like a riptide. As evanescent as it is powerful, this phenomenon can only be depicted with the unblinking eye of a camera adjusted to thwart its inherent intent to stop time. And it’s ironic that the most visually appealing characteristics of movement (the live performance of dance notwithstanding) can only be seen when arrested and confined in a photograph. There is no other way to see this illusion, short of psychedelics.
Creating art makes us human. Humanity is defined by the art it creates. It works both ways. And when photons bounce off the constructs of human consciousness to be yanked through the barrel of a lens by an occult force called “the mind’s eye” and converge at a focal point on a light-sensitive substrate inside a dark box, an artist gets to tell a story for one endlessly enduring moment. That’s photography. It’s magic.
Explain Why You’re a Good Fit for this Program? I believe I am a perfect candidate for inclusion in the Art@Work program because, even though my work is in museums and archived at the Briscoe Center for American History at the Univ. of Texas at Austin, I no longer have the client list I once enjoyed, shooting commercial and editorial photo assignments for publication. These days, keeping the rent up to date, able to stay in my Outer Sunset home, with income from Social Security, occasional print sales, and royalties is problematical. Any opportunity, like Art@Work to help promote the print sales and, at the same time, attract business for local merchants sounds like a win-win.
