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for ROGER MINICK
ROGER MINICK
1944 -
Roger Minick was born in Ramona, Oklahoma on July 13, 1944. He grew up in the Ozarks of Arkansas before moving to Southern California in 1956. He earned his BA from the University of California, Berkeley (1969) and his MFA from the University of California, Davis (1986). It was at Berkeley, at the Associated Students of the University of California Studio (ASUC) where he also worked from 1965 to 1975, that Minick began to photograph.
Lacking the toll money to cross the Carquinez Strait Bridge, Minick first discovered California's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in 1964 taking the long way back from Sacramento to Berkeley. His first pictures of the land and people of the region were made in the Fall of 1965, and a few months later he was seriously pursuing a series that would be published in 1969 as the book DELTA WEST (which Minick also co-designed). Begun in 1970, Minick made a few survey trips to the rural Ozarks before settling in to live and photograph there for one year. His father helped guide him through the community, making introductions, as Minick photographed the land, the life, and one of the few young families to be found among the old-timers. A 1972 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship allowed him to complete the project, published as the book HILLS OF HOME. 1974 through 1976 was spent in Southern California where he photographed the urban landscape as part of THE SOUTHLAND series.
In 1977, Minick became one of five photographers chosen to work on Espejo, a two-year National Endowment for the Arts Photo Survey project on the Mexican American community co-sponsored by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. His first color series was the SIGHTSEER series, begun in 1980. The NEW MAIN STREET, color pictures from shopping malls (1981-1985), and PERAMBULATIONS, a loosely structured project that called for him to photograph wherever he happened to be with his camera (1987-1989), followed. While in graduate school (1984-1986), Minick began painting, and has continued to work with mixed media since.
Greene, Kendra. "Roger Minick." Museum of Contemporary Photography. [http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/minick_roger.php] accessed 07/16/07.
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