Photography is more than a means of expression for Tyler Hewitt, a longtime professor at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills.
It’s a calling for Hewitt, whose portfolio is bolstered through walks in downtown Chicago where he photographs buildings, scenes and people.
“It keeps me connected to both my city and the world,” he said. “It keeps me grounded in the world.”
Hewitt is set to retire in about a year, but his photography will outlast his vocation as professor of Studio Art, where he teaches photography, darkroom techniques, digital and two-dimensional design and, in the past, art appreciation.
Many of his photographs and photos with mixed-design elements will be on display at a retrospective exhibition Sept. 23 to Oct. 25 at the Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery in the Moraine Valley Community College Fine and Performing Arts Center, 9000 W. College Parkway. There will be a reception for him Oct. 1, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The gallery will display his photography and his digital design or digital collage photography created from 2023 to 2026. The atrium will feature a display of Hewitt’s “photo-based methods,” including cyanotype (photographic process that creates a blue image) prints, grid-like collages made 2014-2016, and collages made this year on flattened cardboard boxes.
When he talks about his photograph or the process of taking pictures, Hewitt seems to become immersed in the beauty of it all.
Even using a darkroom for processing pictures gets him excited, though he fears it’s a dying art.
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“I love doing darkroom,” said Hewitt. “People who do it enjoy the craft of photography.”
Hewitt pointed out the differences between images produced in the darkroom and those made digitally can be subtle, but there’s a slightly different surface texture to the photos.
Teaching is central to his life’s work, too.
“It keeps you active in a community of artists,” said Hewitt. “Not only having colleagues in the art department, but also having my students. I’m constantly seeing students developing their ideas, taking media and figuring out how to make images that are meaningful to them. To me, it’s a very strong inspiration to keep working.”
Students and colleagues will miss him once he retires.
“Tyler is a very talented instructor, remarkably skilled at engaging with students; helping young artists see their creative process as a way to explore life, their interests, and the world,” said Erik LaGattuta, a professor of Art at MVCC as well as the school’s Visual Arts coordinator. “The department has been privileged to have a faculty member with Tyler’s breadth of knowledge about photography, including traditional techniques, alternative processes, and contemporary digital techniques.”
Hewitt grew up outside of New Lothrop, Michigan, a small town 20 miles northwest of Flint. One summer when he was 14 he and his sister had a chance to set up and take down an elementary school art project, which started his interest in the field. He did his undergraduate work at Eastern Michigan University, majoring in social work and minoring in child development.
“A lot of what the (social work) degree did was tell you how to talk and listen to people so they know they’ve been heard,” he said.
After a stint as a nursery school teacher, he attended Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a nationally ranked school, receiving a master of fine arts degree.
He moved to Chicago in the late 1990’s, saying it had the second biggest art scene outside of New York. He taught photography at Daley College and worked at a gallery before getting his job at Moraine Valley.
Today he lives in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood, where he says there’s a small “contingent” of MVCC staff.
The Palos Hills college runs two sessions of digital photography each semester and one annual session teaching film and darkroom techniques.
Hewitt said his photography has helped him explore Chicago and throughout Europe; one of his favorites is a picture of passers by in front of a Paris laundromat. More recently he began embellishing his photos with collages and other elements.
But as an artist, taking photos is just the starting point.
“If you’re an artist, photography is a means to an end,” he said. “You’re taking this image to a different place.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.