Heinecken in Retrospect

In the fall of 1973, I was admitted to UCLA grad school. I had been advised to take a course from the extraordinary teacher Robert Heinecken. The classroom was overflowing with students clamoring to study with him and I felt fortunate to be admitted. Soon came the day when “the master” was going to demonstrate making a test strip. Because the photo lab was small, Heinecken instructed his lab tech, Heidi Katz to set up the classroom as a darkroom. He exposed the test strip several times and then put it into the developer. Nothing happened. So he tried it again, and again nothing happened. Thinking that something had contaminated the developer, he instructed Heidi to change the chemistry. We reassembled and again he tried to make a test strip. Again, nothing happened. Finally, someone realized that the enlarger had never been plugged in. The point is that during the exposures, no one had noticed. I decided that if “the master” could do that in the darkroom, I could do anything I could imagine, and I did.

Heinecken became my mentor and thesis advisor at UCLA during my graduate years. He had an unusual ability to understand and energize a broad spectrum of people and the breadth of artistic statements made by his students is testimony to his generative influence. He also had a transgressive imagination which resulted in his challenging institutions and conventions and opening up areas of art content that had been taboo or unimaginable. In the presence of his generous and generative spirit the next generation of artists emerged who became educators and producers. He changed the direction of my life and I feel so fortunate to have studied with him and to have known him.