Stephanie Froelich and Faculty Mentor: Robert Machoian, Department of Design

This ORCA grant funded phase one of a long term project documenting the lives and stories
of my two sets of grandparents who live in different geographic areas of Canada. Through the
guidance of my mentor, and through the opportunities he provided to meet with other artists,
I was able to shoot, edit and print a set of highly curated photographs for display in a public
gallery. Something I treasure about being a photographer is the opportunities it creates for me
to understand the world around me. This project gave me an opportunity I may never have
taken before: I was able to spend several weeks exploring my relationship with my
grandparents, documenting who they are and how they live.

During the ideation stage of the project, my mentor Robert Machoian set up a meeting with
an artist, Carrie Elizabeth Thompson, whose work is made on her own life and family. At this
meeting I presented preliminary images, and discussed the process of photographing one’s
family and how to develop a story. This proved to be invaluable to me as I gathered
information and materials to shoot the project. In May, I drove to Canada and spent two
weeks photographing my grandparent’s lives. I photographed using large, medium and small
format film, practicing for the first time how to document a story. I also conducted and
recorded interviews with my grandparents about their lives.

Over the summer I spent my time developing and scanning film. Meeting with Robert to
discuss how to curate the 400+ images that I made over the course of two weeks. Part of the
process was looking at other work suggested by Robert to see how other artists curate images
to tell stories of family. I curated the images down to 100, and printed them as 4×6 prints. I
spread the images out on the floor of my living room, looking at them everyday, arranging
and organizing the images to see how they worked together. During this time, Robert set up a
review with the artist Amy Stein, a visiting photographer to BYU. I presented to her my
project, narrowed down to 50 images. Amy Stein critiqued my work in the context of her
experience with long term projects, book curation and photography. In her review she helped
me identify which images were a strong addition to the project and which were detracting
from the statements I was trying to make.

The last review that my mentor, Robert, arranged for me was with the artist Aline Smithson.
In preparation for this review, I narrowed down the images to only twenty-four: twelve from
each side of my grandparents. I printed the images on professional, archival paper, and was
able to present the project as a culmination of my best work. Aline Smithson runs the website
Lenscratch and has seen and reviewed a wide range of photography. Her perspective was
balanced and extremely validating. I presented the the images as a cohesive story. Each
grandparent’s story was introduced by an image of the “welcome to” town sign of where they
live, followed by an image of a photograph of my grandparent’s house, followed by a
combination of candid and posed portraits. Aline Smithson’s review and discussion of my
work opened my eyes to opportunities such as book publishing, and graduate school
portfolios. Time spent with Aline and the other artists who sat down with me to discuss my
work have helped me to see the value of personal relationships with artists who are further
along in their career. These reviews played an essential role in this project’s development in
receiving advice about preparation, shooting, curation, and ways that this project can be
presented to the world.

Throughout this process I have grown immensely as an artist, and learned more about
photography, curation and storytelling. Through our discussions on my work, Robert
Machoian’s expertise and knowledge has taught me many skills I need to continue forward as
an documentary artist. I have also gained deeper relationships with my grandparents as I lived
with them, interviewed them about their lives and spent the time trying to do justice to their
story. At the end of this ORCA grant, I have curated twenty-four final images that will be a
part of a public gallery. I have applied for gallery space in the Harris Fine Arts Center at
Brigham Young University for the winter semester (exact dates still to be determined), where
I will show the work.