Faculty
Faculty Mimi Haddon to Exhibit at Photoville LA
We recently chatted with Design faculty Mimi Haddon—whose clients include The New Yorker, Rodarte, and Getty Images—in anticipation of the upcoming photography festival, Photoville LA, presented by Annenberg Space for Photography, which will feature her work.
Where were you born and raised? I was born in the San Fernando Valley, then lived in Ojai for many years as a child where I raised a lamb and wandered around the small town on my own and with my friends. We had two dogs; a sweet mutt named Scruffy and a beautiful golden retriever named Blazer. They were wild and I would often run into them in town. It was a much different era. I then moved to Palm Springs for middle and high school and hold onto the color palette of the desert very dearly.
When did you become part of the FIDM faculty? I met Anne Bennion through my friend Carrie Burkle who runs Textile Arts LA. I had recently graduated from California State University, Long Beach with my MFA in Fiber Art and had been teaching classes and workshops at The Contemporary Craft Museum. I was very excited when Anne approached me to teach at FIDM. I have now been teaching for one year and have learned so much.
Which classes do you teach? I am in the BA department and teach 3D Color and Form, Textile Studio, and Photography.
What is your approach to teaching? I have always loved school and I love learning. I hope that my passion and enthusiasm for the subjects that I teach can entice my students to discover their own voices through the mediums that we are exploring. I find that teaching requires one to look for the essence of the subject in order to find the most important elements to investigate.
I had a wonderful Advanced Color Theory Professor, Marie Thibault, at CSULB, who introduced me to Joseph Albers and Johannes Itten. Through her teaching, I learned to dig into the subject of sensory perception through many different angles including scientific processes and intuitive leaps. I have learned to trust the process while acknowledging the physical realities of materials and senses in the world in which we live. I hope to pass this on to my students as well.
What do you enjoy most about teaching at FIDM? I am so grateful to be surrounded by so many creative students and professors. Anne has been a great teacher for me in how to best serve the FIDM students through creative learning within a focused curriculum. I get so inspired when I walk through the halls and see the quality of work being produced by the students. I recently attended DEBUT for the first time and was blown away by the textile, fashion, and costume designs.
The Library is one of my favorite spots at FIDM. I'm so impressed by the collection of books, magazines, and DVD's. I visit with my students and love to see their faces light up when they find relevant books or inspiration that will push their projects to the next level. Lastly, the FIDM Scholarship Store is a place where I find so many treasures. I work with textiles and fabrics to create soft sculptures and costumes for my personal work. Having access to so much variety at a great price helps in my practice. And I feel great about helping students to attend FIDM.
Tell us about The Palace Wild and being featured in Photoville LA. The Palace Wild is one of many projects that I am working on surrounding the vast costume and vintage clothing collection at Palace Costume. For the past six months, I have collaborated with friends and dancers from Heidi Duckler Dance Theater, in creating characters and archetypes through the clothing and props at Palace.
This series will be displayed the last week of April and first week of May at Photoville LA. Photoville is partnering with The Annenberg Space for Photography, in celebration of 10 years of serving the Los Angeles community with groundbreaking photography exhibits. I am thrilled to be a part of Photoville.
How did you come to use costume as a tool for your photography? When I first caught the photo bug during my undergrad years, I fell in love with the work of Man Ray and the surrealists. From them, I learned about the art of play with a sophisticated approach. This led me to move to Paris for a year after college where I spent countless hours surrounding myself with textiles at Marche Saint Pierre in Montmartre and the Marche aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignacourt in pursuit of vintage treasures.
When I moved back to the states, I started shooting more lifestyle work and felt like something was lacking in my photography. Then, through a stylist, I discovered Palace Costume. It was love at first sight. The first item I rented from Palace was a sweet pink dance costume probably from the 1950's. I rented it for two weeks and photographed it on three or four different models over that period of time.
I saw that each person brought out a different story to the costume and the costume brought out a different story in each person. This had a profound effect on the way I approached story telling through photography. The illustrative properties of costume and textiles helps me to paint the pictures that I see in my dreams.
