The Daily Bulletin

Yola Monakhov Stockton, assistant professor of art and design and coordinator of the photography and documentary studies program, led a free cyanotype workshop for Buffalo’s East Side residents on July 23 and July 30 at a community center located within New Mount Ararat Temple of Prayer on Jefferson Avenue. 

Three Buffalo State College photography students assisted Monakhov Stockton in organizing and overseeing the event. Twenty individuals—from young children to elderly residents—participated. The workshop, created in partnership with artist Renee Brown and her organization Dreamspace, was intended as a healing activity for the community most affected by the May 14 mass shooting at the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue that killed 13 people and injured three others.  

Both three-hour workshops focused on a photographic printmaking process and a restorative activity called “Remembering in Blue,” which was inspired by the literary genre of the blues poem. The process involves coating craft paper with a working solution of light-sensitive chemistry and allowing it to dry in low light. While the paper dried, participants prepared materials for printmaking, including drawings on transparency, cut-out shapes, and objects of personal significance. The prints resulted in blue-and-white images that will be included in two exhibitions this fall: the campus’s Anne Frank Project and at the Parsonage gallery in Searsport, Maine.