With a penchant for creating art but little affinity for guiding a pencil across a piece of paper, Amanda Rosenblatt at age 14 picked up a camera and a roll of film.
“I have always been into art, but I can’t draw,” she said. “Photography was artistic and I understood it.”
Thousands of shutter clicks later, Rosenblatt has a studio and a deadline for an exhibition of her work.
A senior in the Art and Design Department at the University of North Florida, Rosenblatt is the recipient of the 2015 Student Residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville.
For the next three months, she’ll be working three days each week in her studio on the fifth floor of the museum. The space along the north side of the building is where she was this week setting up backgrounds and arranging props, planning to take advantage of the large windows that line one wall of the room.
“It has beautiful natural light,” Rosenblatt said.
That light will be used to add to her portfolio and to create an exhibit that will open Dec. 13 in the museum’s Florida Blue Education Gallery. Rosenblatt’s theme will be the symbolism found in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck.
She’ll be photographing professional models — and some friends — to create images such as the sun, the moon, the hermit, the lovers and the magician.
Interacting with museum guests as she works, Rosenblatt will display images in progress and answer questions about her creative process and the technical side of professional digital photography.
“It’s like performance art and I’m looking forward to meeting people,” she said.
The residency also gives Rosenblatt experience with the museum’s curatorial staff and others who work behind the scenes as her exhibit is planned and installed.
“I make a lot of work, but I don’t show as much as I should,” she said.
Rosenblatt is in her studio 4-9 p.m. Thursday, 2-5 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 4-9 p.m. during Art Walk, Sept. 2, Oct. 7, Nov. 4 and Dec. 2.
To view some of her work to date, visit sidewaysphoto.com.
(904) 356-2466