Ben and Jeanne Dunkle have experimented with it all over the years; their scope of work extends from Fine to commercial art and teaching. Ben is currently the lead professor of digital media at Canisius College while Jeanne is Art Director at corporate web solutions giant, Synacor. Amidst all of their endeavors, including managing a house full of children, the couple cooked us a spread that we spent four hours eating.
Do you find that teaching limits you? Does it inhibit your creativity when you are forced to keep the students working inside of guidelines?
Ben: At Canisius, there's a set number of required courses that I had no control over but in terms of content but if I teach them, I have total ability to change what I want. I can revise. I don't do that ridiculously, I try to stay within the idea of the course. Interactive Multimedia was a director course and we changed it to a multimedia flash course, cause nobody found the directors course useful anymore so the course had to progress in terms of the content.
Jeanne: The technology alters it so much.
Ben: From a creative standpoint, if I want to introduce a new idea or style of work in the course, I have freedom.
Jeanne: For me, I've always had some leeway. Some I've had to stick to a form because maybe they were part of a foundations program. Even though I never teach intro, they were usually foundations. Especially because I'm a multimedia artist, at UB, they gave me leeway in how I taught my classes. I'm usually the one they say works so differently and very experimental, so I'm the one they bring in to let the kids go crazy
Ben: When you have restrictions, its because someone's taught that class before and they've handed you the syllabi. I haven't experienced that.
Tell us about each of your skill-sets, the range.
Ben: Printmaking - intaglio is my major focus. Even before college I was really interested in comic book art, graffiti, lettering, sign painting. When I went to college I gravitated towards illustration, but then printmaking became interesting because it was structured, there was a set of rules, a result. I needed that at that time. That also led to book making/binding which was a focus in my masters at UB and computer art; all facets of it really. Not a lot of photography or video, I could never let a camera make my image.
Jeanne: But the work we've always done in flash is relying on my photographs. You've always known how exactly to use them.
Ben: I don't want to touch the photographs. I like looking at them and thinking of a word that sums them up.
Jeanne: A lot of our art-making is based on the idea of subliminal messages, subtle text that you don't even realize is there. Although neither of us write copy, we are very interested in it.
Ben: The idea of how text and image talk to each other. Some of the work we do together and some of it is real separate; Jeanne works on it then I work on it.
I also had a Commodore 64 that I uses to type programs on and even before that I had TSR 80 Texas Instrument and I've always loved computers, buttons, clicking stuff. The nice thing about my transition from studio to desk was that because it was an ad agency there was a demand for marker comps so I was doing marker comps to balance out the cold computer stuff that I was forced to do. They needed sketches of a photo they wanted to take so I could do those.
Jeanne: My undergrad was in photography and I've always done it with an analog camera and I do use digital, but I prefer analog, which is carcinogenic. I just love film. I do B&W, color and everything related. I've done really experimental stuff which I created. There's a guy locally, Robert Hirsch, who was my professor and had come here from Arizona and took shining to me because he was really into processes too. We were garbage picking microwaves and making them work so I could screw around with photographic chemicals in them. I am sure I am going to die young! Me and this guy micro-waved all these chemicals in the darkroom and we would put our film in it and then throw pasta in there and eat it.
I am also a painter and printmaker. In college I found that I loved photography and painting and I like process. So I found printmaking which is a blend of these technical chemical processes and painting. In do Intaglio, woodcut, Lino cut, Litho, Photo-litho, Gum printing, Collotype, Kalotype and Colytype. Oh, also screenprinting.
I had a professor that was working in graphical imaging. That's where I was introduced to Quark and dabbling in computers. Together we became more interested in design. When I was teaching at UB, a lot of my photography students were designers because the lab was right down the hall. UB had this push towards being completely digital. Nobody understood it besides me so I had to go in and teach the classes and fix the printers.
When do you feel like you are most productive?
Jeanne: Used to be during the night now its during the day because we have kids. We're workaholics. Before we had kids we'd stay up till five or six in the morning and sleep till noon.
Ben: We've always been late to bed, late to rise. in college the only timer you had the studio to yourself was late at night.
Jeanne: We're both really interested in what's happening so I don't think we'll ever be the kind to let stuff pass us by. He's always reading books on developing. I'm always reading books on marketing, what are they saying and what are the in colors. There is always a plethora of books to keep us busy, learning. We're always researching, always productive
Which of your work do you find most fulfilling?
Jeanne: They are all fulfilling in different ways. I could say italia, but then I'd say photography, and then there's something about a marketing campaign. I love the challenge; trying to figure out why someone needs an item and how do I deliver that message visually and verbally and communicate that. I'm not a consumer, everyone's a consumer but I am not really a consumer.
Ben: Etching. Mistakes are great
Jeanne: Great things have come from mistakes.
Ben: Nostalgia
Jeanne: You're right. We work similarly. It's story telling and imagery.
Ben: Even when your story telling your enhancing with imagery from your memory.
Jeanne: I like people to use my images as a jumping off point to create stories, evoke memories and relate images with text.
