"This exhibition grew out of an assignment I came up with for students in my Art & Digital Technology classes. Its source is one of my own photographic endeavors; Every Day.
Every Day is a project in which, starting on February 23, 1987, I began taking one more or less identically posed and lighted photograph of my face every day. I have maintained this practice up to and through the present, and plan to continue each day for the remainder of my life. More about Every Day may be found at http://kbeveryday.blogspot.com
About 10 years ago, I began to give my Art & Digital Technology classes a new assignment; I’d send each student a digital photo of my face, from the Every Day project, for them to play with in Adobe Photoshop, to transform as they saw fit. My intention was to give them something of mine, and have them apply their creative resources and budding Photoshop skills to make it their own.
By 2008, I had been working on my own project long enough to be able to individualize the image I'd send to each student; I could now give some, then many, then all of them the photo I'd taken of my face on the day they were born. This new aspect added a more specific collaborative aspect to the assignment, a condition I suggested that they try to bring to their finished piece. The question posed was, 'How can you alter this image so that it visually and conceptually has something to do with the day you were born? Something about your family, perhaps, or the place where you lived. What happened in the world on that date?' " - Prof. Karl Baden, Fine Arts Dept.