The Drapery

• Photographer
  Eric Kunsman
• Agency / Studio
  Rochester Institute of Technol

From my series "Thou Art... Will Give..." In 2003, one of my University of Arts professors, Heidi Kyle, introduced us to the American Philosophical Society's conservation lab. Almost as soon as we entered the conservation lab, I noticed three books titled 'Eastern State Warden's Logbook: I opened it idly. The Warden's entries brought the Penitentiary to life for me. While my photographs from the earlier visit captured a lot of the physical presence and feeling of the Penitentiary, it was the writings that started to, literally, flesh out the functional and human effects of this experiment.

Eric T. Kunsman (b. 1975) was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Currently, he is a photographer and book artist based out of Rochester, New York. Eric works at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as a Lecturer for the Visual Communications Studies Department at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and is an adjunct professor for the School of Photographic Arts & Sciences. He currently owns Booksmart Studio, which is a fine art digital printing studio. His photographs and books are exhibited internationally and are in several collections.