Actual lineup: Bob Clunie, John Burnett, Ray Sweeny('56), Bill Seawell, Walt Jessen, Dave Freund
After receiving a BA in theater at the University of California, Davis, David Freund earned an MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. He is a Professor of Photography at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he chaired the Visual Arts program for fifteen years. He has also taught at Pratt Institute and was a Dayton-Hudson Distinguished Visiting Artist at Carleton College, MN.
For his National Endowment for the Arts grant, Freund photographed in and around gas stations in 47 states. He has also received grants in New York from the Creative Artists Public Service Program and the Institute for Art and Urban Resources. During his stay in Syracuse for a Light Works fellowship, Freund curated an exhibition and created a catalog of Photo Post Cards, Penny Publishing, compiled from local collections.
Widely exhibited, Freund's work has been shown at Light Gallery, New York, and the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. His work is in several collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
He has served as consultant for New York's Creative Artists Public Service program and was a member of the National Screening Committee for the Fulbright-Hays Scholarships. A member of the Society for Photographic Education for thirty years, Freund has presented his work, participated on panels, and on various committee and served on the Board of Directors for six years.
Addendum submitted by Dave, June 2005
I sent the career snapshot above before I read others’ life condensations. The following is added at Grey’s suggestion to “put a little meat on the bones”.
For better or worse, my wife Claudia Ciucci and I live in a child-free zone, a 1940s gas station on six acres in a blip on the NY map, Salisbury Mills. For both of us a first marriage, less than 10 years ago, she in her 50s, I older still.
Claudia, a Master Gardener, works her green magic to transform our wilderness; I am engaged occasionally as a plant placement consultant and when the chain saw is required. She is also a mediator and a political junkie, currently employed on a long-term research project interviewing CA state legislators about term limits.
Besides my teaching and photography, since we have no children, I spend time with wine and have become a collector, mostly of stuff in which others see little value, such as 1905-1915 photo post cards, 1930s Japanese matchbox labels, and 1920s-40s hairnet packages and razor blade packaging- many thousands of all these. My idea is that much can be learned from stuff we pay little attention to.
For instance, two of my photo projects have been gas stations and, recently, the all but disappeared old playground equipment we grew up with. Any tales of playground equipment experiences with see-saws, swings, merry-go-rounds, etc. greatly appreciated.
My other big collection is, for want of a better word, scrapbooks, mostly 19th century. Regular scrapbooks not so interesting, but ones that reflect a personal point of view, obsessive behavior and visual/collage imagination satisfy my quest.
