about
Cherl T. Harrison, Associate Professor of Art at High Point University (retired in 2018), has taught traditional darkroom photography, the history of photography and drawing for forty years at HPU and Brevard College. With a background in studio art, she also taught other courses including printmaking, painting and art history. Most of her education in photography was with Arnold Doren at the University of North Carolina (Greensboro). She holds a BFA, M.Ed and EdD all from UNCG after beginning her undergraduate studies (Fine Art - Studio Art) at Ringling School of Art. Youth culture has been the prevalent subject in her photographs and writings including a dissertation on "Punk, Art and Education" (1990). Being in college during the 1970s women's movement resulted in a greater awareness of gender issues. Doren was among the first professors to emphasize the inequities pertaining to recognition of female photographers. Like Doren I discussed with my students many issues about gender prejudices. In 2012 Cherl published an article on Wikipedia, "Arnold Doren" and in 2015 a hard cover book "Doren and Photography" celebrating the lessons learned from his extraordinary collection estimated at 100K photographs. He kept written records on his collection that included examples from 1830s to 2003. Cherl Harrison has created a website for Arnold Doren and Merry Moor Winnett as tributes to her primary mentors. Cherl Harrison has participated in photography exhibitions from 1976 to 2018. Currently she is working with the family of Merry Moor Winnett (1951-1997) to help publish the work, life and importance of Merry.
