Documentarian Laura Vazquez cut two years of footage into a 40-minute film, but the real challenge was finding a way to represent the life of an internationally renowned artist without treading into watching- paint-dry territory.

Vazquez, an assistant professor in the department of communication, followed artist Ruth Weisberg for two years from California to New York and back again. The end result, “Ruth Weisberg: On the Journey,” will be shown at 7 p.m. on Feb. 26 at the Art Building’s Jack Arends Hall. A question-and-answer session with Weisberg and Vazquez will follow the screening.

-Vazquez had known Weisberg for many years prior to filming, but it didn’t make the process any easier, she sad.

“It’s very difficult to figure out how to represent this living subject. This life existed before I got here, and it will go on after because she is a very prolific artist,” Vazquez said. “I am going to take her art, which is fixed on a gallery wall, and photograph it and digitize it and put it in my documentary. I’m telling people how to look at it and what to see, and that’s a huge responsibility for me.”

Weisberg, who is dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, said she felt some trepidation as well.

“At first, you are very self-conscious and gradually you forget about the camera, and I think that’s the advantage of Laura’s methodology,” she said. “She was so persistent and a friendly presence.”

Vazquez said persistence paid off.

“I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this, and I am thrilled with how it turned out,” she said.

Weisberg said she agreed.

“I think the documentary gives people a terrific background in both the scope of my work and what I feel passionate about and interested in, so they are in a better position to ask some really good questions than a normal audience,” she said. “I really hope the questions will be very good ones and we can get in a dialogue that is a little more profound than your average Q and A.”

In addition to the screening of Vazquez’s documentary, Weisberg’s art will be exhibited Feb. 22 to 28 at the Art Building’s Graduate Gallery.

“This is a marvelous opportunity for students who are interested in art and the documentation of art to talk to an internationally known artist about her work,” Vazquez said. “Her art is very much about the past and the present. She does a lot of work with contemporary figures in a historical setting and that is a really interesting crossover that weaves a web of memory and history.”

Weisberg had nothing but praise for Vazquez.

“If I were to paint DeKalb, she would be in the foreground,” she said. “You have a real gem there.”