Leslie Schmidt
University of  Arizona, Tucson

Leslie Schmidt received a B.F.A. in 1988 from the Rhode Island School of Design.  She is currently an M.F.A. candidate at the University of Arizona, where she assists in teaching  the basics of black and white photography to nineteen-year olds.  Her work is presently concerned with the masturbatory aspects of such interior design magazines as, Metropolitan Home, HG  and ElleDecor.  She states, "I think they're a sort of pornography for the alienated and badly situated. I mean, what are they but a succession of photos of beautifully furnished interiors, empty of actual people, containing only their artfully arranged residue. Images onto which one might endlessly project a fantasized, idealized life, gracious and bountiful and free of the complications and messiness of residing in one's own actual life and apartment." Leslie is also engaged to be married.