Goldring, Alissa

Biography

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."

From the guide to the Alissa Goldring photographs, 1954-1972, (University of California, Santa Cruz. University Library. Special Collections and Archives)