Cecile Cottom

Cecile Cottom is married to a friend of mine. Matt Cottom and I both rented studio space in a building in downtown Rochester, NY. It seems like a hundred years ago, so much has changed since then, but Matt and I renewed contact after we bumped into each other in New York City a couple of years ago. I knew he was married to a woman from Marseille and when I found out I was going to be in Provence, I asked Matt for contact information on Cecile and her family. As luck would have it, Cecile was in Marseille and I asked her to come to Lacoste as a guest of SCAD and talk to students about her work and theirs.

Cecile is a talented photographer who works both in the commercial and fine art worlds. She spent two days at SCAD-Lacoste and was articulate and probing in her discussions. Her project, A Priori, is a beautiful document of people born in the 1970's. She takes the simplicity of a static studio portrait environment and, through her sensitive eye, has produced work that has incredible depth and variety, while at the same time is constrained by the limitations she has placed on herself.