Janis Crystal Lipzin

{{Short description|American artist, filmmaker, educator (b. 1945)}}

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| name = Janis Crystal Lipzin

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| image = 20171013 JCL at Hercules NYC.jpg

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| caption = Janis Crystal Lipzin in October 2017

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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1945}}

| birth_place = United States

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| education = Ohio University,
New York University,
San Francisco Art Institute,
University of Pittsburgh

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| occupation = Visual artist, educator

| known_for = Experimental filmmaking, photography, video, audio, multi-media installations, media performance

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Janis Crystal Lipzin (born 1945), is an American artist and educator, working with film, photography, video, audio, multi-media installations, and media performance. Lipzin is known for her work in many media and taught at the San Francisco Art Institute for over three decades. Lipzin's films offer a unique blend of rigorous conceptual structure, formal investigation, and sensual discovery. The Bladderwort Document is a haunting visual fantasia of her life on a farm in the 1970s; Trepanations is a droll meditation on social forces and women's appearance; and Seasonal Forces, Part One creates a fluid and immediate record of the cultural and seasonal changes in the rural landscape where she lives.{{Cite web |date=2014-12-22 |title=Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Films, Program 7 |url=https://bampfa.org/event/big-life-american-history-8mm-films-program-7 |access-date=2024-01-13 |website=BAMPFA |language=en}}She has been an active filmmaker since 1974,{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/606760462|title=Radical light : alternative film & video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000|last=|first=|date=2010|publisher=University of California Press|others=Anker, Steve, 1949-, Geritz, Kathy, 1957-, Seid, Steve.|year=|isbn=9780520249103|location=Berkeley|pages=343|oclc=606760462}} when she became attracted to using Super-8 cameras, in part because of their easy portability and flexibility to make changes to a film up to the moment of projection.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/606760462|title=Radical light : alternative film & video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000|last=|first=|date=2010|publisher=University of California Press|others=Anker, Steve, 1949-, Geritz, Kathy, 1957-, Seid, Steve.|year=|isbn=9780520249103|location=Berkeley|pages=214–217|oclc=606760462}} Her more recent work incorporates both digital and analog film methods.{{cite web |title=A Salon with Janis Crystal Lipzin |url=https://canyoncinema.com/2019/01/24/2719-a-salon-with-janis-crystal-lipzin/ |publisher=Canyon Cinema |access-date=25 February 2021}}{{cite web |last1=Lipzin |first1=Janis Crystal |title=A Materialist Film Practice in the Digital Age |url=http://agnesfilms.com/female-filmmakers/a-materialist-film-practice-in-the-digital-age/ |publisher=Agnes Films |access-date=25 February 2021}} wherein light and photo-chemistry collide and conspire to reveal aspects of our world deserving of more careful scrutiny. Her work blends an enduring interest in the volatility of nature and human events with a sympathy for alternative, hand-made methods that she interweaves with digital processes.{{Cite web |title=Janis Crystal Lipzin |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/janis-crystal-lipzin/ |access-date=2022-04-21 |website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |language=en-US}} Lipzin is based in Sonoma County, California.{{cite web |title=Janis Lipzin Interview, 2009-04 |url=https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gsu_bigjoy_14 |publisher=Digital Library of Georgia |access-date=25 February 2021}}