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Guide to the Alissa Goldring Photographs
MS 238
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Title: Alissa Goldring photographs
Dates: 1954-1972
Collection number: MS 238
Creator:
Goldring, Alissa
Collection Size:
5 document boxes, 5 flats
Repository:
University of California, Santa Cruz. University Library.
Special Collections and Archives
Santa Cruz, California 95064
Abstract: This collection consists of prints, negatives, slides and color transparencies of Mexico as well as printed materials. Also
included are photographs of the 1969 UC Extension class "Project FIND" taught by Ansel Adams.
Physical location: Stored offsite at NRLF: Advance notice is required for access to the papers.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Collection open for research.
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permission to publish or to reproduce the material, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Alissa Goldring photographs. MS 238. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of
California, Santa Cruz.
Gift of Alissa Goldring, 2004.
Alissa Goldring was born in Manhattan, and says that "Early on, I was allowed to use the family box camera and then was lucky
enough to be given my first camera (an Argus). Ever since I have loved taking photos and looking at photos." She finished
her formal education in New York City, majoring in art at Brooklyn College. After teaching art in a school not far from where
she lived in Westchester County just north of the City, she moved with her daughter and son to Mexico City on New Year's Eve
in 1954, where she pursued photography for seventeen years. Working as a free-lance photographer, she took pictures of children
and families, and took on jobs for newspapers, magazines, and advertising agencies. The Alissa Goldring Photography archive
covers those years in Mexico, 1955-1970.
While in Mexico Ms. Goldring married again and had a third child. Nonetheless, she traveled as widely as she could, taking
pictures of life in remote mountain villages, farms, balconied towns, haciendas and monasteries. She writes:
"I was fascinated by the Lacondonian and Chomula cultures, Mayan and Aztec ancient holy cities, and by the markets, the beautiful
weaving, pottery and other handicrafts and holiday observances such as the Day of the Dead. Most of the time I used a Rolleiflex,
later a Hasselblad, occasionally a Linhoff. Primarily I worked in black and white with natural light. My photographs appeared
in books, magazines, newspapers and on record covers."
Ms. Goldring moved to California in 1971, settling in Aptos. She took classes at Cabrillo College and UCSC (including one
earlier with Ansel Adams). In 1974 she completed her dissertation on dreams as a doctoral candidate with the Humanistic Psychology
Institute in San Francisco (which later became Saybrook Institute). She is a credentialed Art Therapist and has taught her
method of Dreamplay privately, at the San Andreas Health Council in Palo Alto, the Cabrillo College Stroke Center and Santa
Cruz Aids Project, and has been a guest speaker on dreams at various colleges. After traveling far and wide, she now dreams,
paints and teaches in Aptos, on the edge of the Monterey Bay, where (through her grandchildren) she "vicariously enjoys surfing,
scuba diving and river rafting."
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection consists of prints, negatives, slides and color
transparencies of life in Mexico from 1954-1971 as well as printed materials. Also included are photographs of the 1969 UC
Extension class "Project F.I.N.D. [Project Friendless, Isolated, Needy, Disabled in Santa Cruz County, California]" taught
by Ansel Adams.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Goldring, Alissa--Archives
Photography
Mexico--Pictorial works
Adams, Ansel, 1902-
Project FIND