Artist Statement for Penny Knobel-Besa

Penny Knobel-Besa enjoys creative photography in all areas whether she is sharing her knowledge teaching the Art of Photography or taking fine arts photographs, family portraits, weddings, or senior class photographs she tries to bring a unique prospective to her work.  In the past she was named "Maryland Photographer of the Year" and received a national award for her photography.  She has won many awards local and regional, been a press photographer for theatre and had her photos published in the national award winning magazine "Antietam Review".  If you love taking photographs contact her to see when her next class starts or if you want unique wedding or senior class photos.

 

Her background is in theatre where she was an actress, director, playwright, and founder of Maryland Theatre Arts Company and a Kids Theatre Arts Academy.  She is a graduate of Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland, master from University of Baltimore, and post graduate work in theatre at Yale University and John's Hopkins writing program.  In 1993 she produced a children's musical off Broadway in New York which was picked up for possible development as a motion picture.  She retired from theatre to pursue photography in May 1998.

 

In order to call yourself a photographer you need a body of work so she decided to give herself a gift of two months to drive across the US and Canada and later another month to do the south resulting in her driving alone for 18,000 miles camping along the way.  She was interviewing and photographing women in Laundromats hoping that you would hear the voices while you viewed their photographs hanging at the exhibitions.

Unfortunately there was too much noise for the tapes to be used but several of the photographs have been published and included in several exhibitions.

 

She most recently had an exhibition at Frostburg Museum, Allegany College,

Hazen Gallery, and also in Austria and throughout the Maryland area.   Her

work can be found not only at Arts at Canal Place but the LaVale Gallery in Cumberland, Maryland, Rocky Gap Resort and Lodge, and at her own place "Sanctuary Studios" which she shares with her sculptor/painter husband

Hilmar Gottesthal.   Visitors are always welcome.  There is an Allegany

Artists Tour every year the first two week ends of November.  Brochures are available at her studio and canal place.