Barbara Kristaponis
For twenty years, I ate, slept, thought, dreamt, swam, debated, worked video. There was my own video work that I loved and labored over. And the work to get this work done: I wrote grants, bartered my lighting skills for one inch edits, schlepped for independent filmmakers in return for use of a Nagra, studied lighting and TV engineering in Maine, freelanced as lighting camerawoman, editor, interviewer, line producer, director, and producer for educational and industrial productions. I also organized women's video teaching workshops, taught lighting to college students, ran video editing workshops for union film editors, curated film and video screenings, traveled as camerawoman on two documentaries in Africa, spent hours eliminating shadows from faces with glasses and dusting bald heads, directed a psychiatry?video unit for six years, and lectured on video and psychiatry in the U.S., Canada, and Finland.
My video art work has been partially supported by foundations like NYSCA, NEA Dance, Poets & Writers, W. Alton Jones Foundation, and Julius Eastman Foundation, but mostly funded by myself. Shown in festivals in the States and Canada. My art has never supported me, nor did I expect this really, except for the three golden years, so to speak, in Lake Placid, 1973?1976, where I was actually paid to experiment as an artist with video and form a workshop center for students and the community.
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"Barbara Kristaponis." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/barbara-kristaponis.
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Barbara Kristaponis worked in video for twenty years, producing her own work while writing grants and freelancing in lighting and production; she bartered lighting skills for one-inch edits and use of a Nagra. She traveled as camerawoman on two documentaries in Africa, organized women's video teaching and editing workshops, and directed a psychiatry?video unit for six years while lecturing on video and psychiatry in the U.S., Canada and Finland. Her work received partial foundation support including NYSCA and she was paid to experiment in Lake Placid 1973?1976 where she formed a workshop center.
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Last modified 18 June 2011