photogrammatical

Last night I attended the opening of A Tribute to the Life & Art of Jerry Burchfield at Biola University. Jerry was a teacher of mine from the very beginning of my interest in photography. He gave me my one and only gallery show. He taught me how to cut mattes and put the frames together for it. Really those are the least of the things he taught me, but I remember them strongest because we did them alone together. He lost his battle with colon cancer on Sept 11. His show, which was planned before his passing, went right ahead and opened as he would have wanted. But it was a somber event without him.

Jeff Delgado and I went to high school together. He was a talented artist even then, and seems to have only gotten better over the last decade. I remember senior year, one of his illustrations won some big award and they made posters of it. He gave me one and I asked him to autograph it for me. My mother was going through some sort of compulsive framing phase at the time. She had it professionally framed and hung it in her guest bathroom over the display of little soaps and hand towels no one can use. If you’ve washed your hands at my mother’s house in the last ten years I’m sure you’ve noticed it. That framed poster hanging behind you in the mirror.

Jeff saw my silly self portrait on FB and painted his own rendition of it, which I like more than my photograph. You can check out more of Jeff’s paintings here:

http://jdelgado.deviantart.com