Our friend, photographer Stephen Sheffield, held an open studio at his loft in Fort Point on Saturday.
We love spending time with Stephen and Alison, whether we’re grabbing a drink at The Hawthorne, which Alison and Stephen designed together, hanging at our house, or, in the old days, at the playground. They’re even a pleasure to follow on Facebook, thanks to plenty of lunches accompanied by oversize glasses of wine, disgruntled kid anecdotes (the boys make appearances around town on Stephen’s Instagram too), and a family trip to Disney in a Winnebago.
We’re longtime fans of Stephen’s work (click back to ARTmonday: Stephen Sheffield), but we’d never been down to his studio. So glad we made the trip. It’s in a Fort Point loft building called Mondo Condo, with a funky old elevator , exposed brick walls, wood beam ceilings, and worn wood floors.
Stephen shoots most of his photographs (he uses actual film) on location, including a fair amount on a lake in northern Maine, where they spend summers. His studio has lots of little work spaces where he makes stuff (he creates mixed media pieces too), and his darkroom is just down the hall.
The studio is filled with his work, plenty of cameras, props like his bowler hats, other interesting odds and ends, a swing he rigged for the kids, and a chandelier he concocted from mannequin limbs.
Stephen grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, attended Cornell University, earned his MFA at California College of the Arts, and teaches at New England School of Photography. Stephen Sheffield is represented in Boston by Panopticon Gallery.
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