JENNIFER SCAVONE
Jennifer D. Scavone earned her M.A. degree in Painting from Northern Illinois University, as well as a M.A. in Educational Administration and Leadership and B.A. in Art with a minor in Education from St. Xavier University.
As a Senior Lecturer at Benedictine University, Ms. Scavone has taught a variety of courses in the Fine Arts Department including Drawing I and II, Advanced Drawing, Digital Photography, Watercolor Painting, Art Appreciation, Silkscreen Printmaking and Senior Seminar: Art Criticism.
In addition, Jennifer has taught courses in the following programs at Benedictine: Honors Creativity, Art and Culture for the Scholars Program, Art and the Common Good for the General Education Program, Seminar in Writing for the Communication Arts Department and Inquiry, Curiosity & Judgement for the General Professional Studies (GPS) Program. Furthermore, she served as Feature Editor for the Benedictine Literary Arts Magazine, The DuPage Valley Review and Faculty Advisor of BenedictInk from 2016-2019.
The depth and breadth of Jennifer’s art administration career is illustrated by her interdisciplinary program design and global partnership development, having worked with a variety of visiting artists, arts organizations, and community outreach programs.
Employing her background in Art Administration and Art Education, while serving as Art Department Chairperson in Hinsdale District 86, Ms. Scavone taught a myriad of art courses specializing in painting, drawing, Advanced Placement Art History, and developmental art education courses, in addition to planning Interdisciplinary Arts programs.
In addition to having served as a board member of the Illinois Art Education Association, Jennifer continues to present curriculum writing seminars, mentor teachers, serve as an art show juror and exhibit her work throughout the Midwest.
Ms. Scavone currently teaches studio art and art history courses at Benedictine University and a number of other local colleges and universities.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As long as I can remember, I have loved to draw: using line and value, to express my ideas, has always captivated me. My preferred drawing media are pencil, ink wash and charcoal, but as an undergraduate, it was not until taking a course in traditional black and white photography that
I discovered photography is “drawing with light”.
Finally, I understood why British scientist Sir John Herschel in 1839 coined the term “photography”, which was literally derived from the Greek phos, (“light”), and graphê (drawing
or writing) meaning a process of “drawing with light”.
In photography, I delighted in the joy of composing well-designed images by looking through the camera’s viewfinder and drawing with light in the darkroom by burning and dodging the light emanating from the photo enlargers onto emulsified photographic paper.
This magical and mysterious darkroom process provided creative exploration but required patience because drawing with light could not be experienced immediately due the time delay required of the dark room chemical process.
After I graduated, I no longer had access to a darkroom. Therefore, was unable to continue
my darkroom explorations but continued to take photographs that were then commercially processed. Much of my time that was previously devoted to the darkroom was now able to be spent drawing and painting. It was not until I purchased my first digital camera in 2014 and learned Adobe Photoshop that I returned to creating photographs without the aid of commercial processing.
Surprisingly, I discovered that digital photography allowed me greater creative expression, immediacy, and freedom than traditional photography. My digital camera enabled me to experiment more freely in terms of the quantity of images produced without concern for running out of film or needing to purchase films of varying speeds.
Adobe Photoshop beautifully replaced the traditional chemical darkroom with a new “Lightroom” that was available to me anytime, anywhere. This new “Lightroom” provided me with the immediate results I had craved in the traditional darkroom.
Returning to photography as my creative tool for expression, my interests have focused on an attempt to comprehend life’s mysteries, and heed Einstein’s recommendation: “Look deep into nature and you will understand everything”. Unceasingly, I am drawn to the timeless beauty provided by the limitless transformation of the natural landscape.
I am curious to see how the natural landscape is transformed by the fog’s ephemeral and transitory qualities, which echo the fragility, brevity, and preciousness of life. When that rare foggy morning appears in our landscape, I escape to the woods and immerse myself into this surreal dimension of time and space created by this ethereal, atmospheric environment.
On snowy days, I try to capture how the light filters through the trees reflecting on the newly cleansed landscape blanketed in white. As John Muir recommends, “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away… Wash your spirit clean.”
To capture these fleeting memories of nature, I have utilized the inherent instantaneity of the photographic medium to produce my photographs, which I consider aesthetic artifacts to be used as objects for future reflection. These photographic memories remind me of nature’s power to heal.
As Rachel Carson states, “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
My greatest drawing teacher and strongest artistic influence is Rembrandt van Rijn, whose prints and drawings I have copied in the Art Institute’s Print and Drawing rooms since I was a teenager.
Digital photography has become another drawing medium, like pencil, ink wash and charcoal. As I explore the expressive capabilities of value via the burning and dodging processes, I am continually inspired by the prints and drawings of Rembrandt who professes:
“Choose only one master—nature”.
STOPPING BY THE WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING - ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
TO AUTUMN
by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
“There are no accidents in Nature,
he said.
Every motion of the constantly shifting bodies in the world is timed to the occasion for some definite,
fore ordered end.
The flowers blossom in obedience
to the same law that marks the course
of constellations, and the song of a bird is the echo of a universal symphony.”
John Muir
