‘Growing Up Weston’ - Kim Weston kicks off Visiting Artist series

Kim Weston, artist and grandson of photographer Edward Weston, will kick off the spring visiting artists lecture series at CSU Monterey Bay on Feb. 17.

The event will be held in the University Center living room starting with a reception at 6 p.m. The talk will follow at 6:30. The public is invited to attend this free event.

“Growing Up Weston” is the title of his illustrated lecture. Kim’s talk will reveal insights into three generations of one of the most important and creative families in photography.

He learned his craft assisting his father Cole in the darkroom, making gallery prints from his grandfather Edward's original negatives. Kim also worked for many years as an assistant to his uncle Brett, whose bold, abstract photographs rank as some of the finest examples of modern photographic art.

Together, the Westons’ work has made the Monterey Peninsula an important locale in American visual culture, like Ansel Adams’ Yosemite or Georgia O’Keefe’s New Mexico.

While being trained by his father, Kim learned that the reward was in the process of the prints, not just in the final image.

Reminiscing about the days when he was an assistant to his uncle, Kim said, “My uncle used to say a great thing. When he would show his work, people would ask him to interpret it, and he would simply say, ‘The photograph speaks for itself.’ That is all he would ever say of his art.”

Kim has been a fine art photographer for 30 years, specializing in large format photography. His main body of work consists of silver contact prints made from 8x10 negatives. He also photographs with a Mamiya 67 that he inherited from his father. Lately, he has added paint to his photographs.

Driving directions and a campus map are available at csumb.edu/map.

Other artists scheduled to visit this semester are printmakers Imin Yeh on March 3 and Nancy Hom on April 7. For more information call (831) 582-3005.