Guy Housewright, administrative assistant in University Advancement, is shown with the artistic photographs he created for the reception area on Sadler Hall's third level. Photo by Amy Peterson.
An administrative assistant in University Advancement, Guy has a lifelong interest in photography in general and photographing abandoned buildings in particular.
His horizons expanded even farther during a summer vacation to the Northeast where he was able to roam freely through empty and dilapidated hospitals and state mental asylums that have been closed for decades. “Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts are littered with these old hospitals that are located in out-of-the-way areas where most people have not been,” Guy explains.
The resulting photographs are striking in their artistry, soon to be on display at this year’s Main St. Arts Festival downtown April 19-22. Guy says he got the confidence to enter his work after selling a number of prints at last year’s Arts Goggle on the Near Southside.
Co-workers in Sadler Hall had already noticed, however, and commissioned a few artworks for their office walls. Large photographs of TCU buildings and landmarks decorate the reception area of the Advancement suite on Level 3. Vice Chancellor Kathy Cavins-Tull, Vice Chancellor Don Whelan and Dean Demitris Kouris (College of Science & Engineering) have already expressed interest in using Guy’s painting-like photographs in their offices as well.
A poster created for this year’s Honors Convocation April 19 features one of Guy’s shots of The Commons, “texturized” with another shot of peeling paint on a wall.
Guy uses a Pentax digital camera, using a High Dynamic Range technique to “stack” several shots of the same image taken at different F-stops. He manipulates them in PhotoShop on his computer to achieve a broader spectrum of color in the finished photograph. The images are then uploaded to an online company that prints on canvas and Guy stretches them onto wooden frames.
When he entered the competition to be chosen for the Main St. Arts Festival, he says he waited until just before the deadline in late October to submit the required five photos, plus an artist’s statement. In mid-November, he was notified he was one of 12 chosen in the “Emerging Artists” category from among 40 entries.
Since that time, he’s had to produce “a whole lot of prints” to be able to well-stock his booth at the downtown event next week. He’s also worked at making his space distinctive by utilizing antique medical equipment to add authenticity to the striking hospital/asylum artwork.
“How well this goes determines if this is something I can do,” Guy says. A graduate of L.D. Bell High School, he worked in the TCU Bookstore in the mid-1990s then moved to California for a decade before returning to campus in 2007.
He is majoring in English, with a minor in photography.
