Jones joins integrated media

Nancy Jones, MHCC’s new co-director of the Integrated Media photography program, aspires to push students to pursue their goals, follow their dreams and continue to learn each day, even after they leave the classroom.
The Northwest newcomer notes that life and art and education are essentially linked, something she has discovered during her own journey. She plans to share that passion with her Mt. Hood students.

“I don’t like people who think that the classroom is just a vacuum and is not connected to the rest of the world, because your brain is with you always,” Jones said.
As a high school student, she faced the challenge of dyslexia and negative attitudes. “My guidance counselor told me that I was not smart enough to take photography, and I believed him. But, I still had my little camera,” she said.
Jones always felt that art was her calling, but did not realize it also could be a career, she said. “I didn’t know that it was an option. I knew that artists and photographers existed, and I knew that their stuff was out there, but it was like, magical. Mythical.

“After a few years of bouncing around, I wanted to do something creative. I wanted to be in charge of that creativity,” she said. She returned to school to study motion pictures and television.
Jones is originally from Ohio, and has lived in several states, including New Hampshire, Vermont, Colorado and California. Before coming to MHCC, she taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

She said she enjoyed taking jobs that involved travel.
“My camera sort of has been my tool to get me places where I want to go. I’ve had items crossed off my list in life. I’ve been paid to travel and take pictures,” she said. “I got to photograph Neil Young, that was one of my big leads.”

Jones tells her students that “photography and art are very much like science. There’s such tremendous amount of failure built into it, you try and you fail and you try and you fail– until you succeed, and then you start something new and you try and you fail and you try and you fail, until you get there,” she said.
“I think you have to advocate for your own ability so that people will see your work. A lot of photographers, like myself, are introverts, so there’s the element of teaching introverts how not to be shy,” she added.

Jones relishes the chance to personally connect at MHCC. “I have these students for two years and I get to watch them grow,” she said. That’s very unlike the Boston art school, where students came and went without close ties. “I didn’t really know anyone, or their whole journey,” she said.
Jones chose to take on a new teaching job largely for personal reasons. “My life situation changed radically, and being the only parent to a 2-year-old daughter, I couldn’t take the jobs that I had if I had gone back into the creative field because I couldn’t be on the road for a week in Mexico, flying back and forth to New York,” she said. “So, it was a perfect idea to move forward and keep teaching.”

She is confident she brings valuable skills to MHCC and her students. “I picked Mt. Hood because I believe in the future of community college and I can offer the student body a background of a master’s degree in fine art and a heady education, as well as a technical background working in creative services,” she said.
“I know both sides of the fence. I like being here. I had an ideal opportunity to stay at a prestigious institution, but offering my services to a community college setting, I’m giving someone the tools to go work and elevate them in the direction where they want to go,” she said.

Jones urges others to keep an open mind – and open eye – while they explore and plug away.
“The cool part about life is that you could be following your dream and get someplace and you’re like ‘Whoa, my other dream was right over here and I didn’t even know it was there,’ ” she said.
“I feel like you get little rewards along the way for your perseverance, and everything sort of happens for a reason.”
Nancy Jones is online at: www.nancyellenjones.com.