Jill Corson remembers the year her vision changed, when every window became a kaleidoscope. She found herself peering inquisitively into shops and restaurants, less interested in catching her own reflection than the fragments of people, buildings, cars, and signs that converged in each pane of glass. A camera lens, with its own filters of glass and mirror, seemed an apt medium through which to pass her ephemeral visions.

“This all started when I slowed down and stared for a while,” she says. “Walking with my camera in Atlanta, I relaxed my eyes. Reflection in a store window revealed a new way of seeing the world.

“Suddenly, I saw not only what was before me, but also things beside me and behind me,” Corson says. “Fascinated, I began to make photographs incorporating my new way of seeing.”

Corson’s photographic work is in private collections, and is represented by Meter Gallery and Gallery Stock. She has also worked collaboratively as a performer in New York.

Corson works as the Director of Global Advising for Parsons The New School for Design. She has worked at Parsons since 2004. She formerly worked as President & CEO of the New York Chapter of Advertising Photographers of America (now American Photographic Artists) from 2000-2002.

Corson lives with her family in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Organized by Niki Kriese of ADHT, The Nocturnals is a lecture series featuring Parsons staff-members who are creative practitioners in their ‘off-hours.’ Seven artists will present and discuss their work, which includes visual art, writing, sound, and choreography. While the breadth is rich, these artists share an obsession with the invisible, and a sense of longing for the unattainable. Yet the work does not feel sorry for itself. It is sharp, humorous, self-effacing, and self-aware, while willing to relinquish control long enough for something magical to happen.