Diz Bensley

Diz Bensley died last week.  He was an art teacher.  He was many other things: a father, husband and grandfather; but I remember him as an art teacher.

As such Diz helped me, and thousands of other students, understand that first comes learning to see, then making art.

His “Visual Studies” class was a magnificent piece of pedagogy.  I’m not sure I realized how great at age 14 when I took it.

Students spent half their time in an art studio, learning the traditional media of the moment: pencil, paint, clay, metal; drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture.  The other half was spent learning to see — using black and white photography as the medium.

To emphasize the focus on learning to see, versus chemistry and fancy gear, all students used the same imported manufactured-in-China plastic camera.  The camera had a low-quality plastic lens, one aperture adjustment, and shot on 110 film.  Ansel Adams-quality output was neither the objective nor was it particularly even possible.

Instead, we were challenged to look for patterns (“Syncopated Series”) in fences or window frames or marshgrass.  To see shapes in the interplay of shadow and light.  Symbols.  To find extraordinary visual phenomena in the plain old world around us.

To teach us how, Diz and his partner Lolo Hobausz invented a technology which synchronized magnetic tape with a  set of Carousel slide projectors.  A scripted lesson, including music and sound effects, was captured on tape along with subsonic pulses which triggered the stack of projectors — as I recall there were 12 of them in the large Kemper Auditorium where the most sophisticated “slide tapes” were shown.  As we learned to see, a magnificent show across a panavision-width screen, accompanied the learning.  From simple cross-fades to split image effects and cascades now seen on Jumbotrons the world around, Diz reinvented the learning experience.

I saw thousands of great works of art in those darkened rooms — many (most?) of them Diz Bensley’s own images.

Diz and Lolo also operated Dizlo Studios, a fashion photography house.  In the mid-70s he moved Dizlo into space in the Phillips Academy Audio Visual Center, and created an advanced photography course where he taught the techniques of the professional studio to 11 and 12th graders.  I know of two of my closest friends from back in the day who became professional photographers.

I spent three terms in class with Diz Bensley during my high school years.  As a senior, I learned his “slide tape” technique and used it to present my “portfolio” of photography work.  It enabled me to touch others, and to give them memories, which they recall to me to this day.  That is a gift, and I shall be forever grateful to Diz Bensley for it.

Please share your memories of Diz Bensley in the comments section below.  I will share them with my friend Chris, Diz’s son, and his family.

Below is a photo I’d hoped to give to Diz, when I resumed taking pictures a year-and-a-half ago, to thank him for what he gave me.  I never got to give it to him, and that makes me very sad today.

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