Robert Adams

Writing about a photograph by Edward Ranney called Canyon del Muerto, Arizona, 1987:

"Ed lives in northern New Mexico, about two hundred miles east of Canyon de Chelly (which includes Canyon del Muerto). Many notable photographers have preceded him there, including Timothy O'Sullivan, John Hillers, Edward Curtis, Laura Gilpin, and Ansel Adams. To make a strong new picture at that location is a remarkable achievement. 

"How did he do it? Probably not by walking the canyon rim with any preconceived notion (if you begin with an idea you're usually beat before you start). To make a photograph of this quality he must have trusted to good fortune and to his eyes, looking with full attention at the water-marked sandstone, the cottonwoods, and the slanting light...this specific place and moment. Only from within that focus is it likely that he would have been allowed to see more, a landscape unified by what appears to be part of an X, the unnamable. 

"Perhaps there is also in the picture a suggestion of outstretched arms. I have never asked the photographer if he sees that too, but it might be an appropriate reading by any of us. Art is important when nothing less will suffice, a reconciliation."

- Art Can Help, p. 33

Short Film about Dan Callis

The co-founder of this class, Dan Callis, retired last spring after nearly 40 years of teaching. This fall, Biola's Art Department hosted a celebration of Dan's work as a teacher and a symposium examining his work as an artist. As part of the festivities, the art department commissioned a short documentary, which you can watch here. As you watch it, you can see how Dan's sensibility shaped the content and form of Vision, Voice, and Practice.

Culture of the Day

This semester, instead of beginning each class with a song of the day, shared by each respective class participant, we're sharing a "culture of the day"—an artifact (songs are still welcome!) drawn from the world of the creative arts, broadly understood. Those who share on a particular day basically share with us something they love. 

2/3/26: "Everything is Peaceful, Love," by Bon Iver.

1/22/26: "The Night I Heard Caruso Sing," by Everything but the Girl

1/20/26: A mug made by former VVPer Jonathan James:

1/15/26 [Writer Dan Kois talking about Ruth Asawa]:

VVP 2026

A new semester begins. This time out, some changes have been made. For one thing, Dan Callis, who co-founded this course back in 2009, has retired, so Chris is teaching the course on his own. For another, we only have writing students in VVP, since the English department wasn't able to coordinate with the art department to make it a true interdisciplinary class. This is nobody's fault! :) And it has happened before, back in 2023.

But some things have stayed the same, like the first week's spot collaboration. Small groups of students are given words on a sheet of paper (excerpts from poems, songs, articles, Wikipedia pages, history books, recipes, etc.) and then have forty minutes or so to make something out of them. 

VVP 2024

 

Extended Collab #3: Videos

Extended Collaboration #3

Students were asked to make something in collaboration that (ideally) combined visual material and language and install it in a site-specific location somewhere on campus. On our last day together, we all walked around and looked at, and interacted with, the things the students made. These photographs do not capture just how amazing each of these installations were, almost every single one inviting us to tangibly engage with the work, from ringing the bells attached to pine-cone weighted fishing line, to the poems tied into red thread and woven around a tree, to the "Station of the Trees" installation that asked us to decode sentences written in symbols. The students made amazing, enchanting work that reminded us to look more closely at the everyday wonders right under our noses.

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Ashley Brown, Jonathan James, Grant Freiling – folded paper, yarn, handwriting, found flowers:

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Isaac Mancilla, Kelly Behn, Josef Porte – modified bird feeder, paper, bible verses:

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Vit Yu, Karly Pridmore – paper, tape, thumbtacks, inkjet printing, human interaction:

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Bridget Waelty, Melissa Dunnigan, Eden Stratton – found pinecones, bells, fishing line:

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Ryan Himes, Abbey Newman, Alec Clothier – digitally modified map, yarn, paper, bottles and corks, song lyrics, class-generated text:

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Lex Chen, Janae Miller, Ben Bruyninckx – red thread, project-specific poems, paper, 3d-printed heart:

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Aasia Albers, Noah Bryant, Arielle Anderson – found and created symbol codes on paper, wood, paint:

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Chase Kelly, Abigail Laswell Park, Rebecca Madsen – found stones:

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Ava Hagenbach, Rebekah Stockinger, Hannah Roark – braided yarn, ribbon, other assorted items: