Colin Greenwood:
There was one point we were playing, I was playing with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and Nick’s playing the piano next to me on stage, and he turned around and he said, are you taking photographs? Because I think he must’ve heard a clicking sound or something, and I was like, no.

Announcer:
From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. On Design Matters, Debbie talks with designers and other creative people about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they’re thinking about and working on. On this episode, Debbie talks photography and music with Colin Greenwood, the bass player for Radiohead.

Colin Greenwood:
Our first few records are more bompity bomb, and then perhaps our later records are more sort of blippity blob.

Debbie Millman:
Let’s say that you’re in a world-famous rock band and you, the bassist, are a shutterbug. For years, you’ve been taking pictures with a small black camera in hotel rooms and bars, backstage, and even on stage. And then the time comes when you release a book of those photos and many unguarded fugitive moments of your band are on display as never before. I’m speaking about How to Disappear: A Photographic Portrait of Radiohead by Colin Greenwood, the bassist in Radiohead, one of the most important, successful, and experimental rock and roll bands of the last 40 years. Colin Greenwood joins me today to talk about his career in music and his brand-new beautiful book. Colin, welcome to Design Matters.

Colin Greenwood:
Debbie, thank you so much for the invitation and for that wonderful introduction.

Debbie Millman:
Absolutely my pleasure. Colin, you were born in Oxford, England, but because your father served in the Royal Ordinance, your family moved to Germany and then to Didcot, Suffolk, Abingdon and Oakley. I believe you attended five primary schools and even lived in Germany long enough to learn the language. Can you still speak any German?

Colin Greenwood:
I spoke some German, and sadly I did it at secondary school, high school, but I didn’t have a very good teacher and sadly not, but I did do French A-level so I can order a baguette in Paris. So the thing about what you talked about all those schools, I guess when you say that, I think you could either become a raging introvert or you just get very good at making friends all the time, and I think that’s a quality that can be part of being in a band too. Like Michael Stipe, there’s a bunch of people, Mark Eitzel, some people I know like that, they were like army brats as you like to say. So I think there’s an interesting correlation there could be perhaps between people who moved around a lot like that and worked in entertainment.

Debbie Millman:
You grew up in a home with music always in the background, and I understand your parents’ favorite records were by musicians including Burl Ives, Scott Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, and even Mozart’s Horn Concerto. That’s quite a range.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, I guess my parents would’ve liked the kind of music that was just sort of described as classical music and more of the pop stuff would’ve been Simon & Garfunkel and me and my brother’s first record was probably Burl Ives’ Junior Choice, which is a American sort of children’s little folk song, “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” do you know that, obviously?

Debbie Millman:
Yes. Yes.

Colin Greenwood:
So those are kind of our first records, me and my brother, growing up in Germany, because there was no television while we were in Germany that was in English. So we didn’t have a television, so we just had to entertain ourselves with records and books and writing.

Debbie Millman:
Your parents brought you, your older sister Susan, and your younger brother Jonny musical instruments and encouraged you to play them, and what instruments did they get you all?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, my sister is a bit older, so her musical contribution, I suppose, is she brought music to the house, so we listened to records that she would buy, whether it’s like Dylan or Beatles or reggae or whatever, post-punk. And then in terms of musical instruments, my brother, I think his first instrument was a recorder, and I had a guitar, and then my brother made a viola and I carried on with the classical guitar. That’s kind of what we did really until Radiohead kicked off when we were in our teens.

Debbie Millman:
Now you mentioned your sister and the music that influenced you. What did that include?

Colin Greenwood:
She brought lots of different kinds of records into the house, which was really great. Like Ska, soul, reggae, quite a Catholic taste, but I would say a record that was big for me, which she probably didn’t bring into the house, was Joy Division. I loved, that was my favorite when I was about 13, but lots of different kinds of music to be fair to her. And we’d sort of bop around the front room and my mother bought a Sony receiver, one of those sound systems, but that was the main musical influences of me and my brother growing up.

Debbie Millman:
Tell us about your Toshiba radio cassette player.

Colin Greenwood:
It was a single speaker, probably about, what’s that? About three-inch size speaker and a little black receiver thing with a cassette. And that was kind of my gateway to my gateway drugs of music and it was cassettes, it was Cocteau Twins, listening to EPs. Everything was on cassette. That was the thing that I found music through. And then after that I had a little tiny little JVC stereo receiver, tiny. I’d call it a beatbox or a boombox, but it was more of a sort of murmur box, it was so small, but it was just fabulous. And since then I’ve spent my life in front of speakers, whether it’s in recording studios or at home.

Debbie Millman:
You attended Abingdon School wherein you had a lot of after-school activities, options, and you took classical guitar lessons with the same teacher as your classmate, Tom Yorke. Was the teacher Terrence Gilmore James?

Colin Greenwood:
He was the director of music at my school and he was actually our neighbor where I lived. He was just a wonder. He is wonderful, inspirational, full of energy, one of these people who’s very driven and positive and I was kind of outside of the music system, I felt outside it because I wasn’t doing music to study. I was just, Exams, I was just doing classical guitar. But he was a fabulous leader for music at my school and I have very fond memories of him.

Debbie Millman:
He introduced both you and Tom to 20th-century classical music, avant-garde music of the post-war era, classic jazz and film scores. And I read that your first experience in a band together was when Tom joined the punk band, TNT that you were in. Was that your first band? I read that you were in three different bands before Radiohead.

Colin Greenwood:
I wasn’t really in that band, TNT, and I don’t know if they were just like a couple of kids at the school. I think Tom did something with it, but it was all early days. And then Tom was in a band after my school when he was at college called The Headless Chickens. They put out a single call, “I Don’t Want to Go Back to Woodstock,” I think, which is fun. But when we were at school, it was just basically Radiohead from the ages of about 14, I guess, and we may have jammed at some other people, but that was kind of the thing.

Debbie Millman:
Why were you only able to play and rehearse on Fridays?

Colin Greenwood:
I don’t know why. It was probably because that was when the music school was free to practice or whatever.

Debbie Millman:
So the first name of the band was On A Friday. After TNT, Tom invited you and Ed O’Brien to start a new band, which was named On A Friday. Is it true that your headmaster of your school once sent you a bill charging you for the-

Colin Greenwood:
60 pounds.

Debbie Millman:
Why would he do something like that?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, as I get older, as most people when they get older, well perhaps some people, they get more sort of hard in their opinions and stuff. My recollection of what happened has sort of softened as I’ve got older and I understand that my Sundays, his house is quite near the music school and we were rehearsing on a Sunday, not a Friday, I think we probably disturbed his weekend, so he sent us a bill for practicing on a Sunday. But the director of music tore it up and left it on his desk, which I think is brilliant. And the facilities at the school were amazing, and I will always be very grateful for that. One of the things they did was this thing I realize now it’s called, do you know active listening? Do you know what that is?

Debbie Millman:
Yes. That’s a little bit what I have to do with the show.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, it’s like an educational tool that was developed maybe after the war. It was a way of teaching people about music, the idea of that you just let it wash over you. So we had these music lessons, which we’d be listening to Tomita’s version of “Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition” or something like that. I realized what we were doing was we were having these lessons in active listening, which is of course what you do a lot when you’re making a record.

Debbie Millman:
And it’s hard. It’s not something that you just sort of tell yourself you’re going to do. I’m going to listen really hard. It takes a lot of training.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, well it takes some energy, but I think maybe what Samuel Johnson said about books could apply to this too is if you listen to something and it’s kind of boring, that’s fine, you can just turn it off like you would say about a book. But I love listening to things that are satisfying in lots of different ways and don’t just sort of modulate mindlessly.

Debbie Millman:
Because Ed already played guitar, you became the bass player.

Colin Greenwood:
Yes.

Debbie Millman:
Did you know how to play the bass at that time or did you pick it up once you were sort of-

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, my mother I think probably got me a bass, a black bass called a Westone DX Spectrum. Most important thing about it was black and I played along with my little Toshiba thing, I managed to plug it into the microphone input of the thing to lots of Otis Redding and Booker T because their bass lines are fairly straightforward and that was a way for me to learn, really. And then other stuff after that. So that’s how I started.

Debbie Millman:
You said that the decision to play bass allowed you to dodge a bullet?

Colin Greenwood:
Yes.

Debbie Millman:
Why is that?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, I think it’s because there’s three brilliant guitarists in my band. I think it would’ve been very difficult for me to get a note in edgeways with all the other people, so it was a good thing. I was fortunate and I’m grateful to everyone for giving me the opportunity to play bass with them.

Debbie Millman:
The first gig you played was at a drunken school party with Ed and Tom and a drum machine.

Colin Greenwood:
Oh yeah, that’s right. It was at West Hinksey Rugby Club. It was with a drum machine, Dr. Rhythm drum machine, and we were stood in the middle with all these sort of drunk sort of, I don’t know, 17, 18-year-olds and it was just the 3 of us. It was quite fun.

Debbie Millman:
When did Phil Selway, your drummer, join the band?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, he was like three, two or three years older than us, so we thought he was cool because he was already in a band, Jungle Telegraph, so we poached him.

Debbie Millman:
And I read that your younger brother Jonny begged you to join the band?

Colin Greenwood:
Yes, that’s right. And we briefly had another keyboard player as well, but then my brother came in, my brother came in to play keyboard. I think that’s what he did, originally. He had a keyboard.

Debbie Millman:
Wasn’t he also playing the harmonica?

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, harmonica, recorder, pennywhistle, maybe there’s one track where the [inaudible 00:12:36] plays viola on an old track. It’s a beautiful song actually called “Chains,” and then he picked up the guitar listing to the Pixies and Lou Reed. We loved this album by Lou Reed called New York.

Debbie Millman:
Did you sense at that time that he would end up becoming the sort of musical genius he is today?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, he’s always been into his music. He had a scholarship when we were at school, so it’s been his thing since he was a little boy, so it’s something he’s always loved.

Debbie Millman:
I read in your book that you’ve never let him forget that it was you that got him into the band.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, that’s right. I call him up every so often, remind him. No, it’s really good. It’s been really nice. We’re not like other brothers, perhaps, in music who’ve been in bands together and might have a sort of fraught relationship. It’s always been very good.

Debbie Millman:
You played your first public gig at the Jericho Tavern on Walton Street in Oxford on August 14th, 1986. You were 17 years old and you shared the stage with your bandmates and 4 other bands, and you write in the book that this experience gave you the ambition to make a life in music. What was it about that night that solidified this for you?

Colin Greenwood:
I think it was just the excitement and the culmination of the rehearsals of being on the stage, the volume, like noise, the sheer sort of physical, visceral sound of everything is so thrilling. It was just great to be part of something in the band that there was then part of a scene in Oxford. In some way, some kind of a connection with all the music that we were listening to at the time, whether it was ska or post-punk or whatever. So it was just a really wonderful way to spend time. As our mother said, she used to say, well, at least it keeps you off the streets.

Debbie Millman:
Didn’t she want you to be a lawyer?

Colin Greenwood:
No, I don’t know what she wanted me to be, but what I loved about my mother’s take on our music is that she didn’t sort of care for it per se, but she called it bompity bomp music. And then when we went to more sort of electronic stuff, which she obviously had heard sort of some modern classical, I think she called it blippity blop. Something like that. And I like to think that’s actually a very accurate description of Radiohead’s musical sort of creative arc.

Debbie Millman:
In what way? How would you-

Colin Greenwood:
Well, I’d say our first few records are more bompity bomp and then perhaps our later records are more sorts of blippity blop, more as in electronic bleeps and bloops, bleeps and … In many ways, I think my mother’s commentary foreshadows a lot of the finest music journalists who’ve written about Radiohead and 20 years ahead. So well done her, I say.

Debbie Millman:
Would you say your bass playing has changed between boppity bop and blippity blip?

Colin Greenwood:
It’s always been trying to find somewhere to fit in, I suppose. But no, I think that’s my bass playing is one of the reassuring sort of reliable staples of the sound, something you can rely on.

Debbie Millman:
Well, I mean if you listen to songs like “15 Steps,” “Weird Fishes,” those songs would not be, I mean, there’s so many songs that wouldn’t be the same without your bassline.

Colin Greenwood:
Very kind of you.

Debbie Millman:
No, no. “15 Step” is one of my all-time favorite Radiohead songs.

Colin Greenwood:
Oh wow.

Debbie Millman:
And I listened to that song to feel the bass, to actually feel, there’s this crescendo when the bass comes in, that just kills me.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, it’s great. Isn’t it fun? Yeah. Well what happened was it was on a, had got a 909 drum machine a few years ago and then we just had it set up in rehearsal and then we just used it as a sort of rough pattern for that and then basically sort of wrote around the pattern, I think it was.

Debbie Millman:
And then “Lotus Flower” as well. That song would not be the same without your bassline.

Colin Greenwood:
Oh, thanks. I think that’s like, I can’t remember. That’s like a keyboard and then I played it, or it’s a keyboard and then I played it live. I can’t really remember whether Tom did a keyboard bassline on that or whether I did.

Debbie Millman:
It sounds like your bass, but that’s just my understanding of it.

Colin Greenwood:
Well, it is live. It’s fun playing live. Yeah, there’s this guy called Joseph “Lucky” Scott who played with Curtis Mayfield, and there’s another guy whose name I always forget, so that’s not very helpful, who played on “Move on Up” “and stuff like that as well. And I bring them up because that would be the kind of thing that I would, in my dreams, aspire to is that kind of playing that combination of groove and melody.

Debbie Millman:
I read that you learned how to play by listening to Duck Dunn, Peter Hook, Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah. And then people who played with James Brown, like Charles Sherrell, and I can’t remember all these other people. And the Motown book about James Jameson, I learned about two-thirds of those, so that was amazing. So bass, it is a very sympathetic instrument. It’s the bridge between the rhythm and the melody, the drums and the voice and the top line, that’s what’s so amazing about the bass is the ability to sort of combine rhythm and emotion, I suppose, and to change the emotional weather underneath the chords, which you can do with the bass as well.

Debbie Millman:
Oh my God, yeah, especially in “15 Steps.” Kills me.

Colin Greenwood:
Thank you.

Debbie Millman:
Now you all, you had an opportunity to sign a record contract, but decided to go, you all decided to go on to college?

Colin Greenwood:
Yes.

Debbie Millman:
Instead of sign with a regular company?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, we didn’t have a contract before university, but we decided to go to university first before we tried to get a contract in that very, very sensible way of thinking, well, if it didn’t work out, we’d have university degrees to fall back on, so that’s why we went to university first perhaps. And also just to have fun and try different experiences. So that’s what happened.

Debbie Millman:
You studied English literature.

Colin Greenwood:
That’s right.

Debbie Millman:
Any particular authors that you found to be?

Colin Greenwood:
I really like lots of modern American writing and I like a lot of 17th-century writing and poetry. 17th century like Milton, Marvell, poetry, stuff like that, Shakespeare, and then I really like modern stuff. I mean, I don’t know, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Edith Wharton, just lots of stuff. Willa Cather, but lots of history as well. So big history buff as lots of people are now with the podcast.

Debbie Millman:
Were you still playing together through college?

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, we would meet up every holiday and we’d rehearse in the village halls around Oxfordshire and we’d keep in touch whilst we were at college sending cassettes, automaton cassettes of new songs that we would listen to and think about and then we’d get together and work on them.

Debbie Millman:
By 1991 you recorded your first demo tapes? The Manic Hedgehog demo was passed to Parlophone A&R rep Keith Wozencroft, and he did that after seeing you play live at Jericho’s and I believe that’s when you got your record deal with EMI, and I think that was another connection that you made.

Colin Greenwood:
I was working in a record store and Keith Wozencroft was going to get a job in A&R at EMI and he was working as a rep selling records out of a rusty white van, so I gave him our demo cassette. I used to give our demo tapes to any record company sales rep who was interested, and they generally weren’t, fair enough, but it was also our management had a connection, so it wasn’t just me and Keith, it was our management. We’re friends with this guy called David Ambrose. He used to be in a band called Brian Auger Trinity. He basically signed us to EMI together with a guy called Nick Gatfield. He used to play with Dexys Midnight Runners. So that was how we sort of got our first contract.

Debbie Millman:
You write in your book that you were probably one of the last bands to sign a traditional record deal, and I’m wondering is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Colin Greenwood:
I mean, I’m sure that other bands would sign record deals after us, and you used to think what would it been like if we had been signed to the record label 20 years earlier or 10 years earlier? Because you could see at EMI vestiges of what the business used to be before, when you had artists like Queen or Beatles or whatever, it was like a big international company. We signed to Parlophone, which was the one half of the company. The other half was EMI, there two marketing labels, EMI and Parlophone.

Yeah, so we signed Parlophone, which was amazing. So we had all these, home of the Beatles, and then through the American company it was Beach Boys, Beastie Boys, any B with Boys in it basically was on capital. So we were going to become the Radiohead Boys in America on capital and obviously just Radiohead EMI in Parlophone in the UK. It was very exciting to be part of this British institution. The records that my sister bought when I was nine, 10 years old, I don’t know if you know the Beatles Red and the Beatles Blue albums, which sort of compilations of their songs, and they have pictures of them looking down over the center like stairwell of EMI office in Manchester Square. Well, that’s where we signed. That’s where we went.

Debbie Millman:
Wow, yeah.

Colin Greenwood:
That sort of artistic cultural heritage is incredibly exciting.

Debbie Millman:
As I was growing up, I would look at those album covers, and I’m sad that album covers aren’t as big as they used to be, but I would get lost in the photographs and I would get lost in the worlds that these bands created with their visuals. Another band that I loved at the time and still love was Yes, and Roger Dean was doing all their artwork for their albums and they were otherworldly. I felt that they were cosmic.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, well, I just met Anton Corbijn with Nick Cave on tour and I think he was doing some project with Hipgnosis, which I want to check out, but I think it must be some kind of documentary that’s out. But yeah, I mean, there’s brilliant. They had the photographs of the band on the stairwells. They had all the artists depending on where you were in terms of, I guess, sales and success, the least popular, least selling ones was some 80s hair bands down by the drinks vending machine in the basement. Upstairs, each floor as you got to the sort of lofty heights of [inaudible 00:24:25] or whatever, you’d get shots of Paul McCartney or whatever, or Beastie Boys or I don’t know, Tina Turner or something like that.

Debbie Millman:
Wow. There was a hierarchy to the stairs.

Colin Greenwood:
That’s what we all aspire to.

Debbie Millman:
Now, your first album, Pablo Honey included the worldwide hit “Creep,” and I don’t want to talk too much about, I don’t want to talk about that song really at all, but I’m curious to know how it felt to go from a small local, hardworking band with your schoolmates to essentially an overnight global sensation. Did it make you feel differently about who you were at the time?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, it was all happening far away. It was like Star Wars somewhere long ago and far away, I suppose, because it was happening in San Francisco and in Tel Aviv and where we had our first radio plays for that song. What it meant, though, was that when we went on tour for the first time, say in America, we never toured in a van with the trailer. Our first tour, we had our own tour bus with beds because we played all these clubs, which you would normally do with a van.

Debbie Millman:
Bringing in your own equipment and so forth.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah. But I guess because we had some money from the record company to advance the touring and also because we seemed to be selling the shows, there was a budget for a tour bus, so we were playing these clubs around America and arriving in a really nice American Eagle tour bus. So we were spoiled really, but it was just the best experience, just fabulous.

Debbie Millman:
You write in your new book that the sugar rush success of your first single probably saved you from being dropped by EMI and granted you the grace to record the album The Bends in 1994. And that album was initially overlooked when it first came out and some dismissed Radiohead as a one-hit wonder, which just sort of baffles me now. Did you worry about the notion of becoming a one-hit wonder at that time?

Colin Greenwood:
No, because I wouldn’t say that we would think about what we do in terms of individual songs. When we were making our second record, The Bends, we spent a long time in RAK Studios in London, which is a fabulous studio, And St. John’s would round the corner from Abbey Road, super famous plays, so many brilliant records and artists have recorded there. Al Green, Robert Plant. We had the time to make that record too, and that was one of my favorite albums.

Debbie Millman:
Mine too. You and the band went on to release seven additional studio albums that have changed rock and roll. You’ve sold over 30 million albums worldwide. You’ve won six Grammys. In 2019, the band was included into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Now, in addition to your work as a musician and a member of Radiohead, you are a photographer and I read that the first book of photography that captured your imagination was the book Vagabond by Gaylord Oscar Herron. What was it that intrigued you most about that book?

Colin Greenwood:
I think it’s that thing where you see a book of photography that’s like the first book that you see. So anything, whether it’s your first record or your first painting or whatever, it stays with you. But I think what I loved about that book was how he managed to make a documentary book about his family neighborhood and sort of turn it into something engaging. And there’s a text as well where he quotes, I think, from the Bible about Cain and Abel, I think. But I think it’s the idea that as a photographer you are basically something sort of solitary about what you’re doing, but at the same time you are capturing other people, collective crowds, or their portraits and things like that.

So it’s quite romantic I suppose, as well, that idea of how you see the world. I loved it. I loved the different types of photography in the book. There’s landscape, there’s groups, there’s portraits, there’s documentary, there’s sort of abstract, but closeup photography, it’s just a great book and I was very lucky to see that. And yeah, it’s very beautiful and I recommend it to anybody, and it was a very influential book as well for Larry Clark. You know Larry Clark?

Debbie Millman:
Yes, I do. I have a photograph of his in my bathroom of naked people.

Colin Greenwood:
Larry Clark’s in Tulsa I think, and Gaylord Oscar Herron is from Kansas too, so not that far away, I don’t think. But I think he was a big influence on all those people.

Debbie Millman:
What motivated you to start taking photographs?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, my friend Charlotte, who was in my band when we were in Kids, she’s a curator of photography and she did art history and then to work at the Victorian Albert and she’s museum in London and she’s written some beautiful books on fine art photography for Thames & Hudson and other aperture. And she very kindly, patiently indulged my limited ability but interest in photography, and I think it’s through her I met some very fantastic photographers, so I have got a lot to thank her for.

Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that the photographs and Vagabond influenced how you captured your experience of the Radiohead crowds, and I’m wondering if you can talk about in what way it did that.

Colin Greenwood:
Well, I think what’s cool about when you take a picture of a group of people, you can get a sense of how music works too in that you can look at people individually, but you can also see how they’re interacting with the people around them, as well as how they’re reacting to the music that they’re listening to or the experience that they’re having. Because when people listen to things or look at things with other people, both those things are going on at the same time. There’s sort of communal collective, and there’s the individual solipsistic as well.

That’s how music and those things work, and they’re amplified by being shared with all those people. So I just really like that and I like photography. I like typological photographs, photographs, collections of things as well. So what is a crowd if it’s not like a collection of people? It’s been assembled and as human beings, as animals, we’re always looking to make connections or combine what we see and make sense of things that are put together in nature, and that’s what you do with crowds, either by seeing what they have in common or what they look that’s different, what’s different about them. So that’s kind of why I like all that stuff.

Debbie Millman:
Was the band your first subject or were you shooting other things before that?

Colin Greenwood:
No, I think it was the band, really. And in fact, the beginning of the book, I’m using a camera similar to the one that, what’s it, Gaylord Oscar Herron was using, it’s like a simple Japanese SLR camera. One of my regrets is I couldn’t have used it on stage because it’s too heavy, but I wish I just kept that one, really. But I still have it. It’s amazing.

Debbie Millman:
I read initially that you took a lot of photographs with remote cameras and GoPros.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, I did. I’ve got those photographs and the colors are kind of cool. I placed them all around the stage before we played, but the point of view is kind of weird because obviously, I couldn’t have them in people’s faces, so I’ve got them on the floor or strapped to some mic stands and things.

Debbie Millman:
What kind of camera do you currently use?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, I’ve splashed out, I was in Australia, and I went to Leica in Melbourne, and they had the shop demonstration of Leica Digital M11, and I’ve been using that and it’s actually, I really like it. It’s my first, well, it’s my second digital camera I suppose. I’ve been using it. I’ve been photographing Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with it, and I think I’ve got some nice pics.

Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that an analog camera records light like a vinyl does sound.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, I suppose an analog camera records light-like photons landing onto a chemical paper, sensitive photosensitive paper or film, rather. And then vinyl obviously records vibrations. It’s kind of similar, but yeah, I think I love both. I mean, I’ve just been listening to two records this morning here. I keep going back to vinyl because I find something about the process of playing a record goes back to that active listening when we were at school, I suppose. There’s something sort of engaged about it that I really like. And then whereas I love digital as well, don’t get me wrong, but there’s just something about records that makes me happy, other than the price.

Debbie Millman:
Well, in addition to the active listening, there’s sort of a physicality to it because you’re constantly having to move the needle back if you’re sort of obsessive listening like I used to do and then turning the album over, and the sequence was so important as well. What two albums were you listening to this morning?

Colin Greenwood:
I was listening to Schubert’s Amadeus Quartet, playing some Schubert, and then I was listening to some lute music played by Jacob Lindberg playing the Rauwolf Lute playing, a guy called Jacob Lindberg. I listened to records of music more than I look at the television. I don’t really look at the television.

Debbie Millman:
You’ve collected quite a lot of your photographs and have published a new book. It’s called How to Disappear.

Colin Greenwood:
Yes.

Debbie Millman:
And it just came out and it is a beautiful collection of your photographs of the band between 2003 and 2016 from the albums Hail to the Thief until the most recent studio album, A Moon Shaped Pool, and the title of your book is taken from a partial title of a song from the album, Kid A, the song “How to Disappear Completely” and the song also contains the lyrics, I’m not Here, this is happening, which I know was inspired by a conversation that Tom had with Michael Stipe. Now, does the title have anything to do with the sort of way in which you were photographed and the desire to not be intrusive?

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, absolutely. You’re completely right. I think it’s a joke. It’s a cheap harm. It’s a gag for the title, I suppose. It’s about the fact that I’m not really in the book. There’s one picture of me in the book that my brother took, and so I haven’t completely disappeared. But yeah, it’s just how to disappear. The joke is, of course, I can’t be in the picture because I’m taking the pictures. I kind of had the title for the book and I had the cover for the book way ahead of anything else because, in fact, the cover of the book, which is all these flight cases that we had all done in purple when we started, because we thought that no one would steal an ugly purple flight case we had on the Radiohead website. We had that for about-

Debbie Millman:
A long time.

Colin Greenwood:
Three years in our really sort of very graphical image to have on the website.

Debbie Millman:
Now, you weren’t taking photographs from the outside in the way that a cameraman might be filming a concert. You were actually in the middle of all the activity and the performances.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
Did you take photographs covertly or did your bandmates or crew or audience see you at the beginning?

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, I never took anything covertly, but I always felt really awkward about taking photographs. I still do probably, but I think a lot of photographers do. I was talking to one of my heroes in New York, a guy called Paul Graham who’s just an incredible photographer, and he said the same thing to me. There’s sort of awkwardness and reticence that he has about interrupting people. When he makes a photograph, somebody, if he’s on the street in New York, he will show them all to see if it’s okay because of course what you can do that with digital, you can show them and then if they don’t like it, you just go, okay, and you delete it there and then, rather than film. I kind of wish I’d been more upfront with it, but I never see it as a sort of career plan because my career was planned to be music.

Debbie Millman:
In my prep for this show, I came across an interview where you stated that one of your regrets is that you haven’t been bolder with the lens, got closer or taken more photographs, and you said you’re shy with the camera. Do you still feel that way or has it changed at all over the years?

Colin Greenwood:
No, I’m still shy, but then I also know that there are things that if you’re interested in something and you think there’s something there, there’s this great title by one of my favorite photographers, Wolfgang Tillmans, It is called If One Thing Matters, Everything Matters. If you see something that you want to photograph, then the question really becomes not should you take a picture of it, I guess you’d have to think about how you want to frame it or what is it about it that you see. My other favorite quote my friend taught me was Nick Knight, you know who Nick Knight is? He’s an amazing, he’s a super famous photographer. You know the cover of Björk’s album Homogenic?

Debbie Millman:
Yes.

Colin Greenwood:
So he did that and he has a great quote, which is one of those things, it’s a very simple thing to say, but could be very difficult or very liberating, is photograph what you see or photograph what you want to see. And all those two statements, they’re two different things or how you combine those two things is what could make a successful image.

Debbie Millman:
You photographed your bandmates in the recording studio, in dressing rooms and tour buses, yawning, meditating. There are even photographs in bathrooms. You shot Ed playing a guitar in a white tile box of a bathroom and Jonny playing a viola in the bathtub. There’s even a shot of Jonny photographing Tom, and they’re all candid, but there’s a real intimacy to them that makes them more than just band photographs. They almost feel private. Was that intentional?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, I love that book. I mean, I’m not making any great claims as a photographer, but like with the music you are obviously influenced or inspired by great photographers. One of my favorite photographers is a guy called Robert Frank. He made a book called The Americans. He was a Swiss-German photographer and he was like a sort of photographic survey road trip of America, and he managed to make this book of photographs that was sort of intimate glimpses, really, of a nation. Do you know what I mean? If you ever see that captured sort of moments across the country. So I’d like to think that, but then I’m not very technically very good. So all the ones that I really wanted to take generally were too, were underexposed or blurry or both.

Debbie Millman:
I am imagining that you’ve probably taken thousands of photographs.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah. And my understanding of professional photographers who I work with, who I’ve met, rather, is when you look at contact sheets, if you have say one image and a role of film that you like, that’s good. I’m very lucky, I suppose. I had some lucky moments where I pointed the camera and it worked out.

Debbie Millman:
The photographs feel like they’re markers in time and evidence to what happened, and they’re sort of cast in time, so to speak. They’re memories, but they don’t feel nostalgic.

Colin Greenwood:
No. Well, I think that a photograph is a recording of something using time like shutter speed of the camera, but there’s another dimension of time, which is the time you leave the image that you take and the next time you look at it, which could be like five years later. And when you look at it, the passage of time has had an effect upon the image, so it’s not actually the same photograph that you took five years previously. And then of course, you can make an edit and combine it with other images. That’s another layer of meaning that you add to it that it may not have had when you took it originally. So there’s all those different processes that are going on, which I think is very interesting.

Debbie Millman:
One of the things that I love about photography is how it gives you an accurate memory of something when you think about your past and it’s just an idea or a thought. You have memories of memories, whereas a photograph stays the same. You might have different ways of interpreting it, but the image is the image frozen.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah. Well, and I think anything, if it works as a, depending on what kind of photography, I suppose, if it works as an image, it sort of will resist becoming dated. Like someone like Alfred Stieglitz who’s probably my favorite photographers, or Berenice Abbott, they can make a photograph that is fresh, freshly minted as the day it was taken.

Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I listened to an interview with you on, I think it was on YouTube where you said that the idea for the book began when you were in a car with Nick Cave in Asheville, North Carolina.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
So how did he help solidify the idea?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, he’s just such a brilliant, engaging, curious, super smart person who, I was in a car. We were doing these shows where I was supporting him whilst he’s playing the piano. So we just had these conversations and I was struggling to find a way into the book and how to start writing it. And then he just said to me, when did you start? When were the pictures starting from? And I said, well, they start from this period, 2003. And he said, well, what were you doing as a band then? And he said, well, we were sort of in the middle of our career from where we are now, I suppose. And he said, why don’t you write about what that was like, what that’s like? I was like, oh, yeah. I told him, I thanked, I think I gave him a credit in the book, and he was surprised. And I had a great chat with Warren Ellis. You know Warren Ellis?

Debbie Millman:
Yes I do.

Colin Greenwood:
The Dirty Three and The Bad Seeds, obviously, and co-writes with Nick, and Warren is telling me about when he wrote his book on Nina Simone’s gum and what that was like.

Debbie Millman:
That book is amazing. I mean, even the idea, let’s make a book about Nina Simone’s chewing gum.

Colin Greenwood:
Yeah, so they’re both really supportive and I have nothing but gratitude and respect for both of them, and I’m very lucky that I’ve had the opportunity to work with them.

Debbie Millman:
A very dear friend of mine is very good friends with Nick Cave, and I asked her to ask Nick for a question to ask you today. So my next question is from Nick Cave. Colin Greenwood is one of the most unassuming and humble people I’ve ever met. I have long suspected that his ever-present camera is a way of diverting attention away from himself and back towards the person he’s photographing. Is this true? Is his camera a way of holding people at bay?

Colin Greenwood:
I don’t know if that is true, because I think that feels like an egotistical act in itself, really. And you know what it’s about? It’s about light. It’s like where lights works and falls and somewhere on someone or something. I mean, I don’t think I use a camera to keep people away because I think you’d have to be quite egotistical to think of it like that, really. And it’s like I’m more apologetic when I pick up a camera. Less sort of self-protective. I don’t think so. But he’s probably right. I don’t have any confidence in doing that, but as I said, I’ve met my heroes. They seem to share that lack of confidence. So no, I wouldn’t want to do that. I love people and being with people, so I wouldn’t keep people at bay with a camera. I don’t think so. Does that give you an answer?

Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. You’ve been touring with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and you mentioned that you’re also taking photographs of the band as well. When you’re taking photographs, do you take a lot of photographs and then decide once you’ve seen them, which are good, or do you have a sense as you’re taking them that this is the moment?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, both. Well, I wasn’t taking pictures on stage because it’s not my band, unlike Radiohead. There was one point we were playing, I was playing with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, and Nick’s like playing the piano next to me on stage, and he turned around and he said, are you taking photographs? I think he must’ve heard a clicking sound or something. And I was like, no. And the other thing is I can’t take photographs with them really, because I’m playing all the time, I have more photographs of the Bad Seeds of Warren, well, of everyone really, except Nick, because I just didn’t want to intrude too much. I’ve got more candid pictures of Nick rather than sort of stage pictures of Nick, if you like, more backstage and working pictures. I don’t have any working pictures, but they’re all such lovely, welcoming, kind, creatively open people who, when they’re dealing with stuff like musical stuff on stage, they all talk to each other. It’s been just a real education and a privilege.

Debbie Millman:
In addition to photography, the book is also a beautiful object. How did you decide on the design and the layout?

Colin Greenwood:
Oh, well, that’s a fantastic question because it’s something I care about and I’m so proud of as well. The book was all printed in paper, and the printing was all done in Verona, and it was designed by this amazing guy called Duncan White. He’s from London, but he lives in France, and he’s a really incredible book designer who’s made some beautiful photography books over the past few years. And he’s also worked with a really famous photography bookmaker called Gerhard Steidl, who’s made some of the most beautiful books in the world.

So he worked with him in Hanover, and I found Duncan through an old friend of mine called Michael Mack, who has a beautiful publishing photographic book imprint called Mack Books, who publishes people like Paul Graham and basically tons of amazing people. And one of my favorite photographers is this woman called Collier Schorr, makes these beautiful portraits. And I briefly was in touch with her in the 90s. And yeah, I’m a big fan of hers, and that’s what’s great about Instagram. You can find all this work still. So the book was very much, we basically did what Duncan said in terms of the design and layout, and I’m just thrilled with it. And it was published by a fabulous house called John Murray, who also published Slow Horses. Do you know Mick Herron and Slow Horses?

Debbie Millman:
Yes, I do. Yeah.

Colin Greenwood:
And my old friend Nick Pearson published it, John Murray, who, he’s one of my oldest friends, and he published people like Jonathan Franzen, Larry Mantel, people like that. He’s just an incredible publisher and editor. So I’m just so flattered and grateful that he would consider working with me. And yeah, the whole experience has been an unalloyed joy from start to finish.

Debbie Millman:
How were you able to choose the photographs and this sort of narrative arc of the book?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, the edit was, we had to have about 350 photographs, and then we boiled it down to about a hundred odd, I suppose. But it was like Duncan, the editor. We had them in a pile of rough prints, but yes, yes, no, no, yes, yes. And then from that rough selection, Duncan basically helped with making edits where the flow of images kind of goes from the studio and the songwriting, the music writing, working on the songs to the recording, to the promotion to the stage. So there’s a nice sort of outwards sort of funneling outwards of the images, which I think is really beautiful. And then it’s interleaved with three sections of text of around 10,000 words where I sort of act as sort of commentary, I suppose, to how we started as a band and describes some of the situations that some of the photographs show you.

Debbie Millman:
I think it’s more than commentary, though. It’s almost diary. It’s very in the moment. What was the process like as you went through?

Colin Greenwood:
Well, I had a sort of setup where I would try and write around 300, 500 words a day, and then I’d send the writing off to Nicholas, who’s famous for his Christmas cake baking, and he bakes two a year, and he basically, the analogy, he was folding what I’d written into the rest of the ingredients. So instead, he was making a sort of Christmas cake with my photography book.

Debbie Millman:
I love that analogy. I’m wondering if you would consider reading a short excerpt of your essay from How to Disappear: A Portrait of Radiohead. I’ve chosen the excerpt because I think it’s one of my favorites in the book.

Colin Greenwood:
I’d love to, and it starts like this. There’s a photograph of Tom with his hands held together in front of him. It’s the end of the night somewhere in America. I can’t be sure where, because the image is so murky and the vast blacked-out caverns are so similar. Let’s say it’s New Orleans Smoothie King Arena, 3rd of April, 2017, around 11 P.M. We finished our second encore, and Tom is here thanking the 20,000 people out front. The white strip to Tom’s left is his black and white Rhodes piano wheeled on and off on a riser like a musical prop. I’ve stayed on stage while the others have drifted off, and I’m standing stage left closer to Ed’s microphone to take in the image of Tom and the crowd. The preceding two and a half hours were full of light and color. Acid blues, greens, and yellows, near-ultraviolet purple that lends everything on stage an extra 3D glow.

There are remote-controlled spotlights, cameras, multiple mirror balls, and film projections from the front of the house onto a stage-wide silvery surfboard screen that is studded with thousands of light-emitting diodes. 30 years ago, you could burn your leg on a floor lamp, and now the white-hot heat of technology runs cool is pixelated and fiercely bright. One day, this back screen will have more resolution and fidelity than the performers in front, but at the end of the show, the stage lights go down, the house lights stay low, and we are finally left alone without our force field in front of all those people.

They have their phones raised up like cigarette lighters for the last power ballad. Their LEDs are lit this time to help illuminate the sudden darkness as the audience records the scene. Many are live-streaming from their phones, thousands of one-person outside broadcast units for the web kids across the world, and all its time zones. These haloed points of light throw up weird phosphorescence-like creatures from the deep hailing each other from inside the black belly of the Smoothie King rippling up from the arena floor all the way to the nosebleed rake of the gods. In another 60 seconds, the house safety lights will flood this scene and wash it away until it ebbs back two nights later at the Dunkin Donuts Center.

Debbie Millman:
Colin Greenwood, thank you, thank you, thank you for making so much art that matters, and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.

Colin Greenwood:
Thank you, Debbie. It’s been fun to talk to you. Thank you so much.

Debbie Millman:
Colin Greenwood’s new book is titled How to Disappear: A Photographic Portrait of Radiohead. And to read more about Colin’s work, you can go to Radiohead.com or WastedHeadquarters.com, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

Announcer:
Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest-running branding program in the world. The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.

The post Design Matters: Colin Greenwood appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Debbie Millman:
When we think of Saturday Night Live, we think of sketch comedy, monologues and musical acts. But the show has also had a profound effect on America’s visual culture. Think of the opening sequences and its stream of still photos. It made New York City look gritty, glamorous, and irresistible. And the guest portraits usually shown between commercial breaks are a spectacular catalog of American celebrity. Many, many of those portraits have been taken by photographer Mary Ellen Matthews. She’s been working as the chief photographer for Saturday Night Live for several decades now, and she has also directed videos for the show. I think it’s safe to assume that she has seen it all and she’s here to tell us all about it. Mary Ellen Matthews, welcome to Design Matters.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I am so excited to be here. I can’t tell you, I’m overwhelmed.

Debbie Millman:
I also want to let our listeners know that for the first time ever, Maximus Toretto Blueberry Millman Gay, the family dog is here along with us, and I’m really excited because believe it or not, my first question for you is about your dog, Daphne.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Daphne.

Debbie Millman:
I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about Daphne and also why the name Daphne? It’s sort of an old-fashioned name.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
She came from Alabama. I adopted her. She came with the name Daphne. So I’m imagining that she came from Daphne, Alabama, which is, I didn’t know that. But a good friend of mine is from Alabama and told me that there was a Daphne, Alabama. He said she must be from Daphne, Alabama. She’s a Catahoula and a Heeler mix.

Debbie Millman:
You grew up in Madison, New Jersey. Your dad was a photographer and he even had a dark room in the basement of your house. So it sort of seems like your whole life was destined.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It was there. It was down in the basement. He was a hobbyist, not a professional. So I grew up with the smell of fixer and all the chemicals, and I used to stand on this little box and watch him develop all the photos. He would give me and my brother and sisters little contests like, “You get one frame only. Give us the camera and say, and you get one frame only.” And then he would develop them and then say who the winner was.

Debbie Millman:
How often did you win?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I won once. I took a picture of a flag blowing on a big pole. I mean, I’m going to say it was minimalist. It had a lot of patriotic energy to it.

Debbie Millman:
Do you still have that photo anyway?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I don’t. I’m sure it’s somewhere. We have a big box of stuff that someone needs to go through.

Debbie Millman:
Now, I know you have three sisters and a brother.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yes.

Debbie Millman:
Where are you in that lineup?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I’m the youngest of all of them.

Debbie Millman:
And he only let you win once?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Just once. That’s out of my memory, but I’ll have to double check all that.

Debbie Millman:
Now, how much did your dad teach you and how much did you learn by reading and teaching yourself?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
He taught me a lot, actually. He would love to show me the camera and tell me about the F-stops and the shutter speeds and how it all worked and put it in my hands. So that was a lot. And then to do what your dad is doing, that’s all you really want to do is to get your hands on what he’s doing. There’s a lot of photo books around like the classic time Life mag, the books on photography and the war photography and still life, and just things that you-

Debbie Millman:
Family of man.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Family of man.

Debbie Millman:
Right?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yes, exactly.

Debbie Millman:
And those sexy photos. Every now and then you’d see one. Oh my gosh.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yes, yes. And pull it out by yourself sometime and just be like, “What is that?” But yeah, so those made a big impact on me and just pouring through those books. And wishing there were more. So going to the library, taking out more photography books and just seeing the big bright world out there of what can be done with the camera.

Debbie Millman:
Did you also learn how to develop your own photos at that point?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. Well, I guess I just more watched him. Gosh, I’m losing the language of it now. I hate to say it, but taking the film out of the spool and putting in the chemicals and then of course the dark room process. But I still have the enlarger somewhere, and it’s one of my dreams to get that up and running one of these days.

Debbie Millman:
In addition to photography, I know you were an avid athlete. So you were a swimmer, a diver, a surfer, an equestrian, and an active gymnast.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Not active anymore, but yes, during my whole life I was, yeah.

Debbie Millman:
What kind of gymnastics were you doing?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I was doing it all. That was where you could find me down the gym at the YMCA.

Debbie Millman:
So like balance beam and horse, and barns?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Vault. All around. So vault, parallel bars, balance beam, and floors.

Debbie Millman:
That’s incredible.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
And I went to college for it, so after sophomore year it was like, “Maybe you should rethink this a little bit.” I got a scholarship and I had to keep going and doing it, but then it was like, “Oh, there’s beer in boys and frat parties and stuff.” And you shouldn’t be on that balance team anymore.

Debbie Millman:
So were you actually considering becoming a professional gymnast? Did you have aspirations to go to the Olympics?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, yeah, I guess professional. There was no such thing, I guess, as a professional. But did I want to be? Of course, but it just was not in the card, so I think I took it as far as I could, but I loved it so much. It was just my life for a long time and all those horses I’ve been riding pretty much my whole life.

Debbie Millman:
What kind of surfing and what kind of diving?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, surfing I took up later in life and I have a little bungalow out in the east end of Long Island, so I learned out in ditch planes and Montauk and shout out to Dalton who taught me how to surf. So that’s been a great way to be athletic in this stage of life out there and be in nature. There’s nothing else like it. There’s nothing better.

Debbie Millman:
You mentioned college. You went to East Stroudsburg University and you also, in addition to your gymnastics scholarship, you studied media technology and film. What kind of media technology? Did you also study photography?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. There was a lot encapsulated within that title. Graphic design, photography. We had to make a film, but photography was one of the things of course I loved the most.

Debbie Millman:
Did you move to New York City immediately after college?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I got an internship at MTV and that was 1989, I think. And when MTV was just huge-

Debbie Millman:
Yeah, absolutely.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
So to peak-

Debbie Millman:
[inaudible 00:06:44] MTV time.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
To peak, peak, peak.

Debbie Millman:
How did you get an internship at MTV? I couldn’t get an internship at MTV. I couldn’t work for free at MTV. I wanted so badly to work there.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Come on. Did you apply?

Debbie Millman:
Well, I had a lot of friends. No, I didn’t apply because I was always afraid of failing and not… But, yeah.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, it was the whole thing. I had a really good counselor I’m going to say. Forgive me, I don’t remember his name, but he was so supportive and got me up close to those people and I had to go for an interview, a couple of them, and it was a big deal. I mean, to get it was huge. So I commuted from Madison, New Jersey, and that’s about an hour, whatever. But it was studio production and I would have to walk all these tapes back and forth to the office, to the production, and I was in the studio, so I would help talent wrangle the VJs.

Debbie Millman:
Yes.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Adam Curry.

Debbie Millman:
Yeah. He named podcasts. What he came up with the name podcast-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
You know it’s funny-

Debbie Millman:
… in 2003 or 2004.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
… I just was talking to a friend of mine saying how excited I was to do this, and she said, “God, when did that start?” You’re hitting me that it’s Adam Curry.

Debbie Millman:
Adam Curry. He came up with the name.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Unbelievable. Well, this is kismet right there.

Debbie Millman:
Right?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Alison Stewart, who’s a big NPR, I listen to her.

Debbie Millman:
Yeah, absolutely.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
And-

Debbie Millman:
Martha Quinn.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Martha Quinn, Downtown Julie Brown and Kurt Loder.

Debbie Millman:
Kurt, of course.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Was a big deal. But what was my point?

Debbie Millman:
Working at MTV as an intern.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, yeah. So being in the studio, so they would have all these bands and musicians come in, and once George Harrison came in and I remember it just goes on and on.

Debbie Millman:
So you also had a job in music publicity at a record label? I believe it was called TVT.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
TVT, yep.

Debbie Millman:
And so was that the job that you had after MTV?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
After MTV, I also at the same time interned for K-Rock, which was a rock and roll radio station that had Howard Stern 92.3 back in those days. And I was an intern there. So I did two at once. I was like, I was in the city, I might as well go there to there and get all this experience. Well, this is a story.

Debbie Millman:
Excellent.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
So when those two things were done, I had a resume now, which wasn’t too bad having those two things on it. So I just wanted to work at a record label at that time. I had to print them out and I had them in a folder and I put on this suit like you went to Strawberry or something, and got-

Debbie Millman:
Dressbarn.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
… the Dressbarn.

Debbie Millman:
Ross.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
And I got the blazer and the long skirt, and I had the thing. I was walking around to every record label in Midtown and I saw this big movie set. I’ve never seen one before in my life, and I walked up to the guy. There was a guy who had these kind of headsets on and a microphone thing. He was in charge behind these ropes and I said, “What are you doing?” I kind of asked him about what he did and said, “How do you do that?” He’s like, “You got to know someone. Keep moving.” Did not want to have any conversation with me. And then I hear, “Excuse me, miss. Miss?” And it was Bill Murray in the middle of the cordoned off area and he said, “Can you help me or can you take a picture of me and my friends?”
He had a little camera and I said, “Well, sure.” Took a picture. And I said, “Can I have your autograph?” I had my resume. And he was like, “Are you looking for a job?” I said, yeah. He goes, “Do you want to work for me?” I was like, “Sure.” And he put that into motion, took me aside, put me in somebody’s hands to say, “Start her tomorrow as a PA.” So that was a big whirlwind. And then I was walking to a payphone to call my mom to tell her, as you do back then, you’d call on the payphone, and I’m telling her, and then Robert Plant and his band, I think were the Honeydrippers at that time, were walking by looking super rock and roll. And this was on 42nd Street by [inaudible 00:10:47]

Debbie Millman:
Grand Central.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Grand Central, yeah. So they were walking to a souvenir shop and I saw them walk in. I was like, “Got to go click.” I walked in and I asked him for his autograph, and he said, “You’re looking for a job?” And I said, “Yep.” And then he’s like, “Well, go to Atlantic Records. Talk to so-and-so. Tell him I sent you.” So that didn’t pan out, but working on a movie that was called Quick Change did. And that’s how I became friends with Bill Murray. And it had nothing to do with SNL.

Debbie Millman:
Right. I mean, that’s the part that I think is so serendipitous that you ended up… I mean, he had to have come back as a guest host-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
He did.

Debbie Millman:
… in the time after while you were working at Saturday Night Live.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
He did. He did.

Debbie Millman:
What did he think of this sort of way in which your lives sort of intersected?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I think I might have told him, left him a message or something. I had a way to contact his people or something and just said, “Just so you know.” So it was pretty funny when he saw me there, but I think he knew a little bit.

Debbie Millman:
After the movie with Bill Murray, I read that you then moved on to the camera department on other productions. What other movies did you work on back in those days?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I worked on a TV show, I think it was called Emergency 911. It was on NBC. I was in the camera department and they used to call me the camera tomato, which I thought was hilarious, but it probably wouldn’t go very far these days. I was a film loader and I worked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I think that was it. There might’ve been another one. I fell into TVT somehow. I don’t remember from there to there, but I think I just went back to going to the record company.

Debbie Millman:
What did you imagine? I mean, this was such heady times, those late ’80s into the early ’90s in New York City, and the whole notion of the way music was evolving.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It was so exciting.

Debbie Millman:
What did you envision your life was going to be like as an artist?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I knew that I wanted to be a photographer and I thought being at a record label could get me closer to the bands. Of course, everybody wanted to shoot the bands and be at the show and do the hang and just get that creative push from all these amazing musical artists. So I thought that was a good entree, and that’s what happened is I got into TBT and I was working. They had a thing called the Sullivan Years and they bought the rights to the Ed Solomon Show. So me and another guy had to go through all of the audio and put them in categories, which was sort of fascinating. But very stationary.

And then I would go out at night and shoot all the bands because you’d get all these invitations to do so. And being an independent label, there were so many bands you would get to see. So that’s what I did. And then I had to leave because I wasn’t really doing my job.

Debbie Millman:
Oh, you were more interested in doing what you loved?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
Were you ever worried or afraid that you couldn’t make a living as a photographer? I mean, those aren’t-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Sure.

Debbie Millman:
… sort of slam dunk careers.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Sure. Doing fashion and doing those big shoots seemed so, so far away at the top of the mountain for sure. And you just wonder, how am I going to get there? How am I going to figure this out? And doing what I was doing at the label and working in music got me very far into that world. But yeah, I had a job, thank God at the time. So I left. And the reason I left was because… I mean, I became a publicist and we had Nine Inch Nails, and that was all very exciting. So that was a whole other part of it all.
But the reason I left was because I think I was asked to leave number one, and again, I walked across the street, there was a payphone, and I went to check my answering machine. That’s what we had. Didn’t you remember doing that?

Debbie Millman:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Like beep, beep, beep, beep.

Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. My dad was appalled that I had an answering machine. I got an answering machine in my first apartment in 1983 and he couldn’t believe that he had raised a child that was so narcissistic that she needed to know who called her when she wasn’t home. He was like, “Can’t they just call you back?”

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Right, right, right.

Debbie Millman:
Dad, just get with the times.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Right. He’s not wrong though in a way.

Debbie Millman:
Right.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
So then that happened then you’d be like, “Okay, I got to check my answering machine. I got to check my answer machine.” So I checked my answering machine and a friend of this other publicist, Jennifer Gross, who’s amazing, left me a message saying, “I know you’re into photography. I’m leaving this job with Edie Baskin at Saturday Night Live. Do you want to interview with her? That was the same day I walked across the street. I was like, “Bye.” And then I changed. So that was serendipitous also. So I interviewed for the job, and then I ended up working for Edie Baskin.

Debbie Millman:
What was that like?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Amazing. She was so wonderful to me as a mentor as to get to know what the show was and what this job was to be the photographer there. Obviously, she set the tone with all her photographs and images.

Debbie Millman:
You joined Saturday Night Live as Edie Baskin’s assistant in 1993.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Mm-hmm.

Debbie Millman:
Now, Edie was the photographer who created the bumper images that are seen before and after the show’s commercial breaks that feature the episode’s host and also introduced the musical guests.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yes.

Debbie Millman:
Now, why is called the bumper?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Because it bumps into commercial or it bumps into the show. There’s a reason for it. And each local market, because it’s live television, it has to have a place where it all meets to go back to the show.

Debbie Millman:
Interesting.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
And some linger longer like in Kansas City, it may hang there for a minute, but sometimes in New York it goes boop, and it’s out. So it just depends how it goes.

Debbie Millman:
Now, Edie initiated using her photography as a graphic element in the show. She used unusual techniques to bring the photos to life that included hand coloring the photographs. Talk about what it was like to work with Edie at that time, at this moment when Saturday Night Live was also really in its heyday?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah, in the ’90s.

Debbie Millman:
Or it’s second sort of Saturday Night Live 2.0 after the original troop.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
And then the time it went through in the ’80s when Lorne left for a little bit and then it came back. And things started to change as far as the techniques that were becoming available. So she was very experimental with that, a Polaroid transfers and all kinds of things. So to be in the studio at that time when the cast was such a… I mean they’re all heyday, but it was the Adam Sandler and Phil Hartman, and just to know that time was amazing when I first started and see her work with the host and the cast, and Lorne. There’s no better way to get to know the show and what it means to everyone.

Debbie Millman:
What does an assistant do to a chief photographer? What did you do with Edie?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, we help set up the lighting. Just support getting things. Well, then it was film, so getting the film down to the film lab. Oh my God. I’m like, what was it called?

Debbie Millman:
Duggal? I know that that was one of the major ones.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
That was part of it. That was part of the post-production. But we used US Color, which is no longer there, and that was on Bleecker Street. And so go and pick up the clips, which clips were, you would just take a tail of the film and make sure it was developed right and then you’d say, “Okay, push at a stop, take it down a stop, whatever.” So just getting her that stuff and then help her edit the session and get the stuff to the post-production. Creatively just help her and watch what she was doing and help her in the shoot and change lenses and put the blue lighting, take it down and all that kind of stuff. Wardrobe, hair, all that.

Debbie Millman:
What was the biggest thing you learned from Edie Baskin?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, just a sense of Cool. That was the stamp on Saturday Night Live was like, you get a stamp that sets SNL that meant this is how New York life is. This is how we do it here.

Debbie Millman:
You became lead photographer at Saturday Night Live in 1999 when Edie retired and you said this about the transition. “All I wanted to do is make her proud, but also keep the sense of cool and what this show is trying to convey, and just keep up that level of work.” Do you feel like you’ve done that?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I hope so. I hope so.

Debbie Millman:
Did she ever tell you that you had?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah, for sure. And Lorne has said so. The fact that I’m still there says, yeah. No one is looking for a pat on the back or anything of that sort there, because it moves so fast and we have to just keep on our own feet, just keep the show moving forward. And week after week, you get to start over again. The tabula rasa like you get to start again and do better and go like, “Okay, I know what didn’t work last time, and now we get to do it again,” which is amazing. It’s not the train that just keeps moving. It stops and you get to get off, shake yourself off and come back on again.

Debbie Millman:
Speaking of Lorne Michaels, Edie first met the creator and executive producer of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It’s hard to say, right?

Debbie Millman:
Yeah, a little bit. She met him at a poker game at the Chateau Marmont while visiting friends.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
How cool is that?

Debbie Millman:
It doesn’t get cooler. It just doesn’t. Well, maybe meeting Robert Plant on the sidewalk that might be-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
In a souvenir store.

Debbie Millman:
Exactly.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Sorry, Robert, I called you out that you were shopping in there.

Debbie Millman:
Tchotchkes, who doesn’t love them?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Right.

Debbie Millman:
So that led to her getting the job as the show photographer. How did you first meet Lorne, and what was that experience like?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Edie must have introduced me. She was super supportive and putting her trust in me, hopefully gave him that trust.

Debbie Millman:
And does he have any involvement in the shoots that you do? Does he watch, participate, choose?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Not so much. And I think that’s a testament to his trust in all of us. Obviously, he’s very involved in the sketches and how those go down as far as the writing and how it looks and the costume design. But I’ll take that back a little bit. Tom Broker is our insanely talented costume designer. I’m sure he’s trusted as much as I’m trusted or the set design is. Lorne looks at everything, and if there’s something he’d like to change or improve on, he’ll let you know.

Debbie Millman:
Since 1999, you’ve taken photographs of every single host and musical guest. A short, short, short list of these include Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Adele, lady Gaga, Dave Chappelle, Kim Kardashian, Billie Eilish, Jennifer Lopez, Paul McCartney, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, and pretty much every major comedian, actor and musician alive.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Let’s not forget about people like Senator John McCain, Senator Al Gore at the time.

Debbie Millman:
A couple of presidents.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, they weren’t a host, but they were on the set. So there was a lot of behind the scenes photography that goes on too, which I incorporate now. I incorporate my staff who are amazing. So they’re down there doing that these days. Will Heath and Ros O’Connor, Rosalyn O’Connor and Alex Schafer, little shout out there.

Debbie Millman:
Now, is it true that you only get between 20 and 90 minutes with the guests each week?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
And you have to create four to five concepts with wardrobe, hair and makeup along with props and sets?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. I mean, I love to do the concepting and come up with these kind of hair braided ideas or redo a photo and a very famous image that we put our own spin on. So I do have the support of, again, Tom Broker and my staff that helps me put that together and all the prop department. But those ideas come when they come. I try to do as much prep as I possibly can, but then if I’m on a cab, I’m in a cab on the way up, and I was talking to a friend of mine and I was like, “God, Sarah Silverman, she’s so funny. What else is there?”

At that time, I was trying to go outside of the building or just use, not just the studio, but go outside, just pushing it a little bit. And the idea of putting her on a ladder and dressing her in a maid’s costume to have her dust off the NBC studio sign came to me. So, “Tom, can you help me? And can we get the building services? Can we put her up on a ladder?” And so those things happen to us late in the day sometimes.

Debbie Millman:
Now, do you do different setups? So that was clearly a sort of home run with Sarah Silverman. Do you do other setups and then say, “You know what, we like the one on the ladder best,” or do you do sort of all in the same realm?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I love to mix it up as much as possible, but sometimes you don’t have enough time. So in that day… By the way, I almost got fired for that one.

Debbie Millman:
Why?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Because I didn’t really clear it with the building, and we did just take a ladder outside and stick her up there. That building is owned by certain people who didn’t… And it was kind of dangerous. But it was okay. I just couldn’t do that again. But we did that and then we were walking to the building and I thought it’d be funny if she was flashing us and Tom had a gorgeous over code and she’s flashing. So it’s very much in the moment. As much as you can plan for it, sometimes it just has to be the moment.

Debbie Millman:
From what I understand, you go back and forth between photographing the host while the musical guest is practicing and then vice versa. So it feels very much like Mrs. Doubtfire like you’re going back and forth into major dinner parties.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, they’re rehearsing and we’re shooting. Like when Paul Rudd was on with Paul McCartney, we’re trying to shoot, but Paul McCartney is rehearsing. So there’s that amazing, amazing moments. There’s so many amazing moments.

Debbie Millman:
Now, I read that Paul McCartney is one person that you were really nervous about photographing.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. But he is so lovely, just the most-

Debbie Millman:
Did he talk to you about Linda McCartney, his wife.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. I think he sensed that I was very nervous, and he said, “You know my wife is a photographer, don’t you?” I was like, “Yes.” And so he sat down on the stool and just was talking to me about her, but he just wanted to talk about her too.

Debbie Millman:
How do you develop rapport and chemistry, and trust with such big stars?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, I think it’s our job to do that because a lot of people, if they haven’t done it before, imagine their nerves coming on this institution and making their mark. So it is a gift to do that. If it was a sterile environment and not having that job also to kind of take the sting out of all of it would be something else. But I just want to make somebody happy and comfortable and make it quick and easy and fun and be part of our family.

Debbie Millman:
Do the artists that you shoot, are they competitive about the shoots? I want something funnier than Paul Rudd or I want something more glamorous than Adele.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, that’s funny.

Debbie Millman:
Do they start to get competitive about what they love?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Not so much.

Debbie Millman:
How they’re portrayed?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Not so much. But sometimes someone will say, “That was really funny.” Because they’re all up in the hallway. They’re not all, but every host signs a photo and we put it up the set. They are all represented. So sometimes they’ll point to something and you go like, “Okay, you want to go there?”

Debbie Millman:
Do you ever get guests that are curmudgeonly or don’t want to be photographed or snap, snap, let’s get this over with.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Not really. I think everybody is so happy to be there. As much as I’m so happy to be there, everybody is happy to be there. That’s a gift for sure.

Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that you don’t want your SNL subjects overthinking this part of the show and it should be super fun and super easy, and it’s an open invitation to get kooky. That requires a lot of comfort and trust. If you’re doing something for 20 minutes or 40 minutes or 60 minutes. How do you encourage them to do that that quickly? Or is that just something that’s sort of part of their job description?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I don’t think so. I think that I’m giving them the invitation to get a little, like. I’m not going to say freaky, but a little kooky. Okay, I will use that word. But here’s a bunch of props and here’s what we’ve done before. If you’re comfortable, I can throw you this rubber chicken or whatever. So I use that because I’m kidding. But that’s a cheap comedy joke, of course, the rubber chicken.

Debbie Millman:
I was like, “Didn’t Steve Martin do that?”

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. But we can just do beautiful portraits too. It’s whatever anybody’s comfort zone is.

Debbie Millman:
How often do the artists come to you and say, “I want to look like Gilda Radner”?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Totally.

Debbie Millman:
“I want to look like Paul McCartney”.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It’s happened for sure, because these have a reputation of we have the best costume and hair, and makeup department and props. So we can do anything pretty much on the turn of a dime. Well, I’m sure some people wouldn’t think so, but we really do our best to do that.

Debbie Millman:
Talk about the props and the costumes. How do you know what to collect? How do you know what to get?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, my first foot out the door is just to keep it kind of highbrow. I don’t want to get goofy. So there is just a zone that I stay in and I try to anyway… And it just keep collecting ideas and keep my brain fresh and look around for inspiration and read up and research who’s coming on and see what else they’ve done before and maybe what would apply to them or where they would like to go.

Debbie Millman:
You said you think of your photographs as billboards.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Mm-hmm.

Debbie Millman:
Why is that?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, because it’s a moment in the show. Well, first of all, because they’re horizontal. Everything is horizontal, which is a very challenging thing to put a vertical person in a horizontal space sometimes.

Debbie Millman:
I hadn’t really thought of that. That’s right.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
And then so we have this space 16 by nine, and then you have the logo, which is such a fun thing to incorporate in this space. And the negative space is great to use and plopping that on. So in my mind, that’s what I’m thinking about. Where’s the logo going to go if we go tight, twisting it this way, that way? So I’m always thinking about that billboard, that moment. And I guess I say billboard because it’s horizontal, but it also is a placard for the show.

Debbie Millman:
Do you ever find that format something that is in some way holding you back, or do you find a freedom in that?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Sometimes. Yeah, I do think, how can I do this differently? Yes. So that’s TBD.

Debbie Millman:
How do you approach the narrative arc of the eight photographs that you used during the show? So you have usually two photographs of the musical guest. If they do two performances and that’s sort of the way they’re about to go on, and then you have the other six of the host. Do you plan a story or a vibe or an attitude? It almost feels like it’s story good.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. Sometimes it’s either six or seven. Depending on-

Debbie Millman:
Oh, it’s not eight?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Eight or nine, sorry. Yeah, just depending on how the commercials fall. Sometimes they can add another one. The good nights, which is number nine, is always… To me, it’s like the whole show is wrapped up and maybe it’s a little nostalgic. Maybe it has a little bit of mood to it, or it’s joyous, so I can change things by the time it gets to air, seeing how dress goes. And maybe it does want to be joyous. Maybe it does want to be a little bit more serious and contemplative. But depending on the person and how the show goes. But yes, I do try to go from one to nine in a way that makes sense.

Debbie Millman:
You’re able to do something really remarkable in this very short amount of time. You have about three seconds that people are looking at that particular photo, maybe a little bit longer as you mentioned in Kansas. How were you able to create something so memorable on screen that goes by so quickly?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, it’s my job, I guess. But I’m working with somebody who is present there, so it’s 50-50. Or maybe it’s even 70/30. I’m not sure. They’re giving me a lot, so I have to give it to whoever is on the other side of the camera a lot of the time. I love doing the post-production, adding the color, the zang, the zip, the zoop, whatever it is. I find so much joy in that part of the art of it.

Debbie Millman:
Do you shoot in both black and white and color?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
No, just color. Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
And you shoot everything at Studio 8H and NBC headquarters at 30 Rock?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Mm-hmm.

Debbie Millman:
Do you have your own studio or shoot on the SNL stages or how does-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
On the stage studio, sorry, stage 3A I think it is, which is our primo stage, which we like. I do a lot of video too for social media and the open of the show. So we have two sets. We have the still set and the video set. And sometimes we can’t go… Depending on how the show is going to be rehearsed. If they have a set that’s going to come in that day there, we have to move. So on my way up, I’m like, “Will, where are we?” He’s like, set 3A, or we’re a 6A, which is behind the music set, which is tighter. So it is what it is. I have no control over that.

Debbie Millman:
Now, you shoot both digitally and also analog, and as you mentioned, you now also shoot video.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I don’t shoot analog too much. No, no.

Debbie Millman:
Oh, no? Not at all anymore?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Not really. Well, first of all, we changed from shooting on Tuesday to Thursday. We don’t really have the time.

Debbie Millman:
Wow. So you’re shooting on Thursday-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Thursday afternoon.

Debbie Millman:
… for a show that airs 48 hours later?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. But oh my goodness, they’re doing film pieces Friday night of the edit turnaround. So everything gets more and more compressed and doable as our skillset gets better.

Debbie Millman:
You talked about back in the analog days, loving the feeling and the magic of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s processed. How has shooting digitally changed the way you shoot?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, it’s how we all shoot now. Outside of SNL, I do a lot of advertising for entertainment, movie posters, things like the key art. And we want to see what we’re getting as we go. The client wants to see because we can make some changes. I don’t really look at a monitor when I’m doing our shoots at SNL because it’s so in the moment, and we just keep going and going and going. So for me, I don’t really use the monitor or the digital technology too much to my advantage. When they leave the set and they get changed, then I look at it and then we kind of go like, “Maybe we’ve moved that light down or whatever.” But I’m much more in the moment kind of person.

Debbie Millman:
I saw that you did your most recent SNL cash shot with a massive eight by 10 camera.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Technically-

Debbie Millman:
Maybe not the last cast, but the one before.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
With Kate McKinnon.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Kate McKinnon.

Debbie Millman:
I saw her in that shot. What was that like?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
That’s fun to do. It’s always fun to use a large format camera, and I think we’ve done our staff photos on that too. But it’s just you’re taking the technique and putting it back to more of analog what you’re saying. And we’re using film, the slides. It’s much more technical and much more considered, which is really fun to do. And it’s really great to go back to that when we have the opportunity.

Debbie Millman:
You shoot the photos for the different intros every year that Emily Oberman at Pentagram Designs. And she’s been doing that almost as long as you’ve been the chief photographer. What is that collaboration? How do you work together with a designer or other artists?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
She and I come… We concept together. So just for example, last year since we were coming out of COVID, we wanted… It was a big, big deal for everybody. And the year before that, when we were in COVID, we had to stay in the building. We couldn’t go more lin 20 feet outside of the building, all those rules. So that was a big challenge. So now everything is opening up. What are we going to do? We were brainstorming together and the idea of doing it at Chelsea Hotel came up.

So we talk about each vignette for each cast member. We had Mike Diva who works at SNL at the film unit. He was with us too in this journey, and he directed it. And we were the creative directors. So I think we were such a great team, and I think we nailed it.

Debbie Millman:
It’s my favorite thing-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It’s so much joy, right?

Debbie Millman:
… in the premiers is to see the new opens.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah, I know.

Debbie Millman:
I love looking at them.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I know. I love doing it too. I mean, it’s a lot. When we are in it like when we do it, I always say, “Emily, I’m never doing this again.” She’s like, “Yes, you are.”

Debbie Millman:
Yes, you are. Next year at this time.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I love it. I can’t wait to do it again.

Debbie Millman:
How do you feel about the logo evolution?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
There’s so much love for the logo, and I love placing it. We’re using SNL. Are we going this way? That way? The color. It’s great to see it evolve, for sure. And now with the 50th anniversary coming up, so there’s a lot of discussions with that.

Debbie Millman:
50 years. I remember when it launched. I remember in the ’70s when it came on the air. I was so excited to stay up late on Saturday nights.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I know. I remember, I loved… Well, my brother and sisters loved Jackson Brown, so of course I did when as a kid. And I remember 1975 trying to stay up and watch Jackson Brown, and I remember falling asleep. Couldn’t stay up.

Debbie Millman:
Yeah. You also shoot photographs for weddings and rock and roll tours. I know you toured with Aerosmith. You’ve shot the weddings of Scarlett Johansson?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
No, no, no.

Debbie Millman:
No?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Alec Baldwin.

Debbie Millman:
Tina?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Tina Fey.

Debbie Millman:
Amy Poehler?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yup.

Debbie Millman:
With Tyler.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Kate Hudson. Yes.

Debbie Millman:
What is it like shooting a wedding? The one time I shot a wedding for a friend, they got mad at me because I cut off everybody’s feet.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It is so much pressure because it’s one moment, right?

Debbie Millman:
Right.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
And the bigger the wedding, the more pressure it is. But they were all wonderful and they were all great experiences, but it is a heart stopper for sure.

Debbie Millman:
I just think that with all the sort of bridezillas out there, it must be a very stressful experience.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. That’s why I don’t really do them anymore.

Debbie Millman:
What about tours? What was it like to tour with Aerosmith?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, it was amazing. It’s like being on a movie. So I did a lot of production stills too, which was another phase of my film career. When you go on these things, when you’re working on a movie, you’re just part of this cocoon and you’re there for three months and you know everybody. The whole world just falls away, and it’s just amazing. And same thing with a tour. You’re just part of that like you’re insular and you see the trucks coming down and you see the guys opening the thing. You’re setting up the lighting. It’s a miracle every day.

Debbie Millman:
I want to talk with you about some of your favorite shoots and some of my favorite of your photographs. And you’ve said that of all the performers you’ve worked with, your favorite is Will Ferrell and that all your dreams come true when he walks in the door. Why is that? Why is that?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I mean, yes, that’s true, but there’s probably a few added to that now. I mean, you can just mold him. He’s so rich for ideas. And John Mulaney has become one of those people too. And Scarlett is one of those too. They’re just willing. And obviously they know the show too. So there’s that.

Debbie Millman:
How do you get someone like Will Ferrell to stick their head in a garden of flowers? Like, “Hey, Will, here’s an idea.”

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Because he’s that kind of guy. And did you ever see the one of him as Bo Derek?

Debbie Millman:
Yes.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
So sinking the head in the flowers wasn’t as much as putting on a little swimsuit.

Debbie Millman:
Actually, the imitation photos are some of my favorite. Whose idea was it for Aubrey Plaza to become Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Well, it was my idea. I’m going to say that, but weirdly that day, she was there because she was special guest with Sam Smith. She was a part of his musical performance. Because I pitched it to Aubrey, and she was like, “You know she’s here.” I was like, “What?” So it was amazing that she was there.

Debbie Millman:
How do you know when you’ve nailed it?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, that’s a good question. You just do. You just do. When it just feels right. I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that because it’s…

Debbie Millman:
Just some instinct?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. Because there’s an opportunity to find the gold in the moment that I have with her. Is that it?

Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I love knowing how people know that something is finished or done or good.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Right, right. She had the attitude and it just felt like she could embody that famous image, and she totally did.

Debbie Millman:
So I want to ask you about a couple of others. Reese Witherspoon cross-eyed with a bee on her nose.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, yeah. Cute.

Debbie Millman:
How did that happen?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I just thought of… Because she just seems like such a cutie pie, but something… I was thinking maybe it was a profile. It was on her nose. And then she kind of found that, I think. And also there was this famous Shirley MacLaine image, I think.

Debbie Millman:
Yes.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Maybe that was part of it, but I feel like she found that herself.

Debbie Millman:
Harry Styles in a tutu.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh my goodness. That was on his wardrobe rack. And he was like, “Who has a cigarette and a glass of champagne?” And away he went.

Debbie Millman:
Don Cheadle as a flower.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I know I thought of that for him. I just saw him as just a badass flower.

Debbie Millman:
And so how do you approach him with an idea like that? Like, “Don, I’m seeing your face in the center of a daisy.”

Mary Ellen Matthews:
But I think like wouldn’t you want somebody… I mean, you’re a performer-

Debbie Millman:
Yeah, of course. Absolutely.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It is a little scary. He might just say, “You got to go.” But I drew it. Actually, I still have it on my bulletin board. I cut out his face and I drew this flower and I put a stick flower and he was like, “I get it.” Thankfully again, Tom Broker had a flower back there in somewhere in the archives, and we made it happen.

Debbie Millman:
Adam Driver eating a skunk.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
That was all… I just had it on hand. So it’s nice to have these big table full of props and somebody finds some kind of moment with it.

Debbie Millman:
Larry David break dancing.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, yeah, that’s right. In the track suit. Yeah. I think we had to Photoshop that a little bit. For sure.

Debbie Millman:
I was going to say that could not possibly have been Larry David.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
But you put somebody in a scenario that they usually aren’t in and if they’re game for it, great.

Debbie Millman:
Now, was that Alec Baldwin as Marlon Brando in the Godfather?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yes, with the stuff.

Debbie Millman:
That’s incredible. It was incredible. That is an incredible photograph. He’s incredible.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
It’s all him. I mean, you went for it.

Debbie Millman:
I read that one of your favorite photos features Andy Samberg in a martini glass, which is a great photo, which I read was an idea you’d been kicking around in your head and you couldn’t find the man for the job. Were people saying, “Good idea. Not for me.”

Mary Ellen Matthews:
No. I just was holding it back. I just thought I got to put someone in an olive costume and put them in a martini glass. I don’t know where that came from, but he was the guy. And the pimento cap.

Debbie Millman:
And then Edward Norton in the painting, Nighthawks, which is a very famous painting by Edward Hopper. I heard that when you shared the idea with him, he jumped out of his skin with just wanting to do it. So were you also saving that for the right person?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah, probably. Probably. But that was like, we got to do this. And that was a lot to do, four characters. So if we have time for four or five looks to do four characters, and if you divide it up, that eats up a lot of time.

Debbie Millman:
And he was all the characters.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
He was all the characters and the wigs and everything. So we made a little hut by the set. Instead of going back to his dressing room, and we just got put him in all the things. As an incredible actor as he is and artist, he knew how to get there fast.

Debbie Millman:
Last one, Rihanna playing poker, smoking a cigar.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
She was like, “Hell yeah.”

Debbie Millman:
Were those her nails or did you put them on?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Oh, they were hers.

Debbie Millman:
Incredible.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
Just incredible.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
She’s amazing. Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
How has Instagram changed or impacted the kind of work you do? You said that you were doing video for social media.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. Just because content is needed, right? For any artistic venture, we need content and for show to keep relevant and keep fresh, we want to keep doing that. So I thought of doing these little vignettes of these guys and gals, the musical guests and the host, and making that part of what we do for the show. Sometimes it’s very in the moment also, but it’s just we let somebody fly like here’s this area. We need a minute of slow motion video. Here’s the concept. Sometimes it’s thought out and sometimes it’s in the moment.

Debbie Millman:
You have been the chief photographer on Saturday Night Live for 28 years. It’ll be 30 years the same year as the 50th anniversary of the show.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I have to do the math because the 28 years I’ve been there I think was when I worked for Edie.

Debbie Millman:
Well-

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Just about.

Debbie Millman:
… still counts. Okay. What do you envision for this next sort of big milestone? 30 for you, 50 for the show.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. Well, we’re all kind of sitting back and thinking about that, what it means to all of us, but there’s going to be a big week or just a big year, I should say, for the show and for everybody who’s been there. We’re all looking at each other going, “It’s 50.”

Debbie Millman:
Do you think about doing other things?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah, for sure.

Debbie Millman:
What do you think about doing?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
I want to go into more fine art photography, which I’m sort of setting myself up for now, and just thinking about not being in 8H, which is really… It’s a big thought.

Debbie Millman:
Well, I don’t know anybody that could do the kind of work that you do. You have really helped to create the visual language of our time. And I saw that in 2010, you had an exhibition of your photography at the John Varvatos store in the old CBGB building on the Bowery. Have you thought about combining a monograph of your work?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yes.

Debbie Millman:
It seems so overdue, Mary Ellen.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
That’s in the works too. It’s definitely in the works. We are in talks about that. And a lot of other stuff because it is a big year, the 50th, and we’re all looking back at our work and how are we going to celebrate what we all have done? I want to celebrate the production design, and I want to celebrate the writers, and we all want to celebrate each other, so that’s part of it.

Debbie Millman:
What’s so remarkable about your work… And I think this will be my last question. What’s so remarkable about your work is that you take different photographs of different people, in different settings with different costumes, in a different sort of attitude every week. You’ve done that now for the last couple of decades, but they’re unmistakably yours. You can tell when it’s a Mary Ellen Matthews photograph.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Why?

Debbie Millman:
I want to ask you that? How does that happen?

Mary Ellen Matthews:
If it’s not a serious, quiet moment, I just want to project joy and bring that spark out and the sort of sparkle of the moment. And sparkle is not a good word. It kind of cheapens what I’m trying to say, but there’s a moment and we’re together. I’m honored to have this time with whoever it is, and I want to make them look the best and bring out the joy that we are so lucky to be there in that moment, at that time. We get to share it.

Debbie Millman:
Yeah. It’s almost like you are able to capture the spirit of somebody on the very best day.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Yeah. All right. I’m stealing that.

Debbie Millman:
Okay, good. Mary Ellen Matthews, thank you so much for making so much work that matters.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Thank you.

Debbie Millman:
And thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.

Mary Ellen Matthews:
Thank you for having me. I was very nervous, but I could talk to you for another two hours.

Debbie Millman:
Wonderful, wonderful. For more information about Mary Ellen Matthews, you can go to copiousmanagement.com and see lots of her photos and you can follow her on Instagram at Mary Ellen Matthews. This is the 18th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

The post Design Matters: Mary Ellen Matthews appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Debbie Millman:

In the world of design, advertising, and photography, Peter Arnell is a pioneer. His work with high profile clients, including Donna Karen, Samsung, Home Depot, and PepsiCo, have put him at the center of some of the most successful and sometimes controversial campaigns of recent decades. His energy is legendary, and it spills over into collaborations with artists, architects, and performers, including Frank Gehry, David Hockney, Michael Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Tina Turner. A new two volume monograph brings together the extraordinary diversity of his work. It’s called Peter Arnell: Projects 1980-2020, and we’re going to talk all about the book and his storied career today. Peter Arnell, welcome to Design Matters.

Peter Arnell:

Oh, thank you, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Debbie Millman:

Peter, you’ve written about how the earliest memory you have is still painfully clear, and you’ve described it as, “A snippet of a lost and forgotten eight millimeter film jerking all over the screen in front of an old Super 8 projector.” Can you share a little bit more about the memory and how it has impacted you since?

Peter Arnell:

I think that memory, which I think affected my work and my life, was seeing the riderless horse at the Kennedy funeral. And I didn’t know a lot of things that I know now years later, about the boots of a soldier in backwards, and what a riderless horse was, et cetera, et cetera. But what was fascinating was just during the news reels, it was quite amazing to see tens of thousands of people in crowds everywhere staring at this horse without any rider on it. And it must have affected me dramatically because I think I spent the rest of my life looking for what’s not there.

And I think when you are in the creative business, it depends on what era and what decade we’re talking about, but I think in the early days, I was always trying to do things differently by staring not at what’s there, hence the competition, but looking at new ideas or points of differentiation by seeing what’s not there. And it also, of course, creates a tremendous amount of curiosity. So when you start to look at both the process of developing an idea, as well as actually expressing an idea, a way to articulate in a very simple fashion the right question to the audience, the way you do it is by, I think, removing the very obvious, or the very expected that the customer, or the viewer, would expect in a piece of communication, and add a billboard, et cetera.

And I think that that impact of that riderless horse probably stuck in my memory somewhere, what are all these people looking at? What are they staring at? What is this celebration or sadness all about? And so as I went on in my career, I think we’ve been known here for launching campaigns and products and services without ever even showing the product in them, because we believe strongly that if you could create a conversation that touches people’s feelings or emotions, they will go much farther and deeper to a potential customer who, in the end, we are really asking to join our brand, not really buy the brand. That kind of long-term thinking, I believe, and that approach came from those early visuals of that funeral of Jack Kennedy.

Debbie Millman:

Your parents split up when you were very young. From what I understand, your father disappeared. Your mom wasn’t able to raise both you and your sister, and you went to live with your maternal grandparents. What is your relationship with your parents like now?

Peter Arnell:

Well, unfortunately it’s been quite a while since we put Nathan and Ada to rest. But I think the dramatic effects of all of these breaks or cracks in one’s life, I do think affect ultimately how you operate or think in life. I don’t know how they affect the psyche, I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’m sure all those things had tremendous effects on the way I operate, the idea of collecting how I try to keep everything, maybe the fear of loss, I’m sure they’re connected up somewhere.

Debbie Millman:

You collect quite a few different things, these are just a few things that I’ve read about, dried leaves and twigs from a memorable autumn trip, bottle openers from places you love, matchbooks, paper napkins, photos, postcards, and all sorts of mementos that help you remember a place, a time, and a feeling. And you’ve said that your purpose for collecting is for saving your life, literally and figuratively. And Peter, has somebody that has also over the years done quite a lot of collecting, including repurchasing my childhood library and all the toys I played with, I really fully understand the desire to do that. What was the first thing you started to collect?

Peter Arnell:

At 65 years old, I’m not exactly sure of what the first thing was, but I think it was matchbox cars. I still have a couple of them, I have a BP, British Petroleum, lime green and blue tow truck from that, and I have a British Leyland, a white ambulance. But the collecting I do helps me in building a library of thoughts and ideas that touch me at some point that I believe are applicable at some point later in my life, and that’s really what I do, all the things that I collect have a direct relationship to some event or some experience that I had in my life, as you mentioned. But it’s quite random, and it tends to be a lot of objects that relate to my journey.

I have these bags that are called, they’re in files called PPT, people, places, and things, and I bag and tag everything. I mean, if I showed you my desk right now, to your point, I just picked up a incredible collection of new leaves on my trip to Paris a couple weeks ago. And I don’t stop there, many times, I then work on displaying them and figuring out how they can actually be presented so that they can be shared with friends and family. So the house is filled with thousands and thousands of very odd things from all over the world.

I think that when I was an adult, I think probably in my early 20s, I started to study Eames, and I was fascinated, I was, by the incredible collections that they had, and how-

Debbie Millman:

You’re talking about Charles and Ray Eames, right?

Peter Arnell:

Yes, yes, and how they affected their designs. They were living with childhood memories and books and scrap art, and things they collected from all over the world, and masks, and it goes on and on and on. So I guess in a way that legitimized what I was doing. It does get quite complicated because then you have to find space for all of it, and space in New York City is not so available, so you have to find systems. I have a big storage facility out in Long Island, way out in Smithtown, that’s around 9,000 square feet, where everything from as far as I started collecting lives there. And it’s not just objects, it’s also how many magazines of how many ads that I ran an ad in, or it’s a swatch of some material that we developed, or it’s a prototype and a model, it’s everything and anything, I don’t throw anything away. In fact, we have no garbage cans in my office.

Debbie Millman:

Really?

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, we have one in the kitchen, which is, of course, needed, but I don’t know where that came from, it certainly makes things a bit complicated at times for everybody in the studio. But I just think that everything has beauty. Everything in life has beauty, if you seek it you’ll find it. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a crumbled piece of paper, and those days that I worked with Frank Gehry, watching him create the most extraordinary architecture from simple ideas or notions of building things on his desk, to broken things to artifacts, they all have value and they all have beauty, and there will be a time in everyone’s life where those things can and should be applied. So by keeping all of that, and keeping it well and preserving it and cataloging the fashion that you can access it, I found that to be a very calming situation for myself.

Debbie Millman:

Your grandparents lived between Brighton Beach and Coney Island on Shore Boulevard at the end of Sheepshead Bay. You’re a native New Yorker, I am too. We’re also in the same exact generation, you’re just a year or so older than I am, so I remember how all of those wonderful neighborhoods felt back then. At the time, I read that you thought of yourself as a New York street rat. Why?

Peter Arnell:

Well, maybe I need to explain first what a New York street rat was for me.

Debbie Millman:

Okay, because I know what they’re like.

Peter Arnell:

I come from very humble beginnings. My grandfather was a fishmonger in the Fulton Fish Market. If we wanted to do something, if we needed money, we had to find a job. I folded newspapers at Shelley’s Luncheonette on the corner of Neptune and Shaw Boulevard, I pumped gas at the Mobile station, I worked at Juniors cleaning dishes in lower Brooklyn. You had to hustle all the time in order to keep things going, or keep up with things that maybe, at that time although small, were dreams.

I think the streets also, in the late 50s, early 60s, were a place of community, in neighborhoods like Sheepsheads Bay, and especially around that area, by Manhattan Beach and Brighton Beach, there was a great sense of community, and people lived, weather permitting, on their stoops and in front of their homes, and that was the gathering place. People followed and watched people’s patterns, and when they came and when they went, and the policeman was on the horse and the horse was parked by the little building that was there on the island, temple-like building where the police officers used to sit watching the neighborhood. People entertained themselves by going to schoolyards and playing basketball and stick ball.

So when I say street rat, I refer to myself as someone who got savvy quickly, learned a lot about life and experienced things on the street. The home apartment, 3D, was a little tiny apartment. It looked bigger then than it really was in my mind as a child, but it was a small apartment, and the bed was right by the kitchen in the little pantry area. So being out with friends and by the bay, and the activity and the community and the Mister Softee, and all this stuff that was going on back then, it got me really comfortable with the streets in the sense of that’s where one would learn, one would grow, one would have experiences. So I refer to myself as a street rat just because most of my knowledge and experience on how to approach things, or how to move things through a timeline, come from those days on the street, watching, observing how things moved and how people were, et cetera.

Debbie Millman:

You mentioned your grandfather being a fishmonger. He was a Jewish immigrant from Russia, and he became a fresh water fishmonger in the Fulton Fish Market, and I understand you often accompanied him to his work, helping him pack trays of fish with ice. You’ve written something really beautiful about the experience and I wanted to share it with our listeners. You state, “We woke up before midnight to pile into my grandfather’s cream and butterscotch colored Buick Skylark for the ride to the Fulton Fish Market at the South Street Seaport. It was a thrill at that age, heading toward the gleaming skyline of Manhattan, though the ride often lulled me back to sleep before we rolled over the Brooklyn Bridge.

“We pulled off at the first exit in Manhattan and parked in grandpa’s regular spot under the bridge. My grandfather would yank open the driver’s side door of the Buick, that always woke me up. A boy of 14 or 15 or 16, still half asleep, I looked up at the Wall Street skyline, and at the span of the bridge stretching back towards Brooklyn, murky and mysterious and majestic, shrouded in mist. It was the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen, and it’s burned, engraved, into my imagination.” And you went on to write that the bridge like was a gateway to a fantasy land, and I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about how the bridge became that gateway to the fantasy land. What kind of fantasy land?

Peter Arnell:

If you lived in the outer boroughs, making a trip to Manhattan was like going into the big city. I mean, everything scale-wise seemed extraordinary. To this date every time I cross the Brooklyn Bridge I get a rush. I think that Roebling had an extraordinary vision. When you cross a body of water, the act itself on a bridge, especially back then, I believe was quite violent, because the East River, as it opens up the Atlantic Ocean, et cetera, it’s just this very calm, beautiful, elegant stream that is incredibly turbulent, but at the same time, from a visual point of view, quite beautiful and harmonic. And then you see this massive piece of architecture in a funny way divided, and it’s the most bizarre set of architectural elements of Gothic, it’s Renaissance, and he’s got everything going on there, along with modern technology to span this river.

And I think I understand it all, and I felt it all from an early age. And so I think it became this arrival into the big world, into adult world every time I crossed it, and this lingering to really be on the other side from Brooklyn, which some people might not call the suburbs, but they were back then, into the big city. And Lower Manhattan, with all Wall Street, and the movement, and the energy down at the fish market, and the boats and the harbor, it was breathtaking. It did offer me, in the end, an incredible contribution to my entire career.

My grandfather parked his car a bit away from the fish market, because the people who really couldn’t afford parked under the bridge. And of course the reason why people didn’t like to park their car there was there was pigeons and they did nasty things on your car all day, so if you parked your car under the areas where the pigeons were, the car was ugly and smelly by the time you went to pick it up. But that’s where he parked it, and he parked it very close to the, it must have been about 10 degrees off of the angle of the bridge, and that view, which I’ve seen so many times in so many different lighting conditions and weather conditions, it still remains to me one of the most beautiful images of discovery, of design, power, presence, of anything in the city.

And I remember one night I had the good fortune of meeting Donna Karen and her, at the time, head of marketing, and there were just two employees, I think, at the time. She had just began, it was days into her new career after leaving Anne Klein. And she went on and on and on about New York and all the things that I loved. I got along with her very well. It was late in the afternoon, and I thought to myself, my God, she’s talking about designing clothes for people who live in that place of which I understand and know very well, and the way she described it, and the way she described her dream and her ambitions, kept on leading my mind back to that spot with grandpa in the Skylark, looking up at the bridge.

So that night with a little Ricoh Instamatic camera, when the moon’s up high, 400 black and white Tri-X film, with the light bouncing on the river, it picks up the light quite beautifully. And I wanted so badly, I was being offered an opportunity to pitch for her business. And Kalman, I believe, is the other from M & Company.

Debbie Millman:

Tibor.

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, Tibor, who is one of the most brilliant people we know in our industry, God rest his soul. And it was him and I pitching, and I guess it was a very anxious Peter that night. And I went out, I went back to there. I also have been known to go there, there are benches there now, and speak to grandpa. Still to this day. But I went out, I shot a picture of the bridge at night, in black and white, in a period in the early 80s where color and fashion and red lips and big hats, and all this vivid stuff, imagine the antithesis of that was a photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge at about 10:30 at night, and I just was convinced that she would get it. I was convinced that she would understand that I knew how to launch her company. And I ran to Ja Brunell, he was a man who made Veloxes. I don’t know if you remember back when he did these Veloxes.

Debbie Millman:

Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

Peter Arnell:

And with Optima type put New York under Donna Karen. She had been talking about, in the meeting, about Maud Frizon shoe boxes, and how they said Maud Frizon Paris. So I put all that together and I took this picture, and then I ran to her the next day. I showed it to her, and she started crying. She had the same emotional, incredible reaction to just this stupid black and white photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge, which I’m sure even that angle exists in postcards and tourist sites and everything forever. But it was the fact that we were displacing that to represent a hot new fashion company, of which the product wasn’t even designed yet, in a world that was all color, in black and white, no models, no clothing, and I guess in that conversation I just said, “This is it.” And she said, more importantly, “This is what I really believe is my image.”

And I’m not sure if I knew, or she knew, or anyone knew what we were up to at that point. I think we get too much credit for seeing and thinking things through with such depth, I think a bit of history and memory and informed intuition, and there’s a whole bunch of things operating, and then you’ve got to have the chutzpah to push it forward. So I went up there, God knows what she would’ve said, and then that began really my career in communications advertising. She gave me my first real chance.

I think that night, through Donna’s dream, and something that happened in the room between the two of us, the street rat was alive and well. The street rat was trying so hard to knock on the door of opportunity to say, I don’t know anything about fashion, and I know less about clothes and models and shootings and advertising, I don’t know that world. I was writing books at the time on architecture, and doing graphic design at Bergdorf Goodman for 300 little line ads to make money.

And at that point, it didn’t matter if I knew fashion, nor, in a way, did Donna care about that. It was just this other world we stepped in around ideas and thoughts, and if you always are holding on to the things that are so meaningful in your entire life, they will come back, not to haunt you, but to support you in a very, very powerful way. Especially in the arts and in communication arts, because the world turned into an entire visual economy with Instagram and social media, and everything, but back then, there was a process involved. There were croppers and layouts, and we’d have computers, and we had to use scissors, and all this other good stuff.

Debbie Millman:

Wax machines.

Peter Arnell:

Wax machines and T-square, everything. So the hand was involved, it was a craft, how you print a picture. So I think she felt that night that there was some connection, some bizarre connection between me and that bridge, my history, which I never talked about that night, nor with her for a long time. And being the grandson of an immigrant, and her being the granddaughter of an immigrant, it’s the whole thing. And her family growing up in the sewing, the garmento business, and mine, it’s all that stuff, and it began a journey of 40 years of extraordinary opportunity and luck to be invited into other people’s great work and collaborations, and so forth.

Debbie Millman:

You started working with Donna Karen in 1984. I graduated college in 1983. And I am a native New Yorker, I was born in Brooklyn as well, I lived in Queens, I lived on Staten Island, and I went to school in Albany. When I graduated I knew, the only thing I really knew for sure was that I wanted to live in Manhattan, and came and lived in a hovel, in a tenement building in Manhattan, and struggled to find my first jobs doing layout and paste-up in magazines, and was a magazine rat, for sure. My dream at the time was to work at Vanity Fair. But I have to tell you, I remember, I actually remember the first time I saw that Brooklyn Bridge ad, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you.

I was sitting at my desk at my little rinky-dink office, doing my little rinky-dink layouts with X-Acto blades and wax and whatnot, and I turned the page and there was this bridge, this almost hazy black and white Donna Karen New York, and I was hypnotized by it. I was hypnotized by it. And it became this aspirational little world I wanted to embody and live in. And went to Bergdorf Goodman, and it was so out of my reach, and so beautiful. That’s how powerful that ad was for me, for millions of women, especially the young working women of New York at the time that were really being seen as this generation of young women in the workforce for the first time.

You ultimately created an identity and a world for Donna Karen that created one of the most successful fashion brands of all time. You went on to create Donna Karen New York, which was another huge blockbuster success, and a career was ignited. What did you imagine when you were a kid that you wanted to do when you grew up? Because kids like us didn’t think about design, we didn’t even know about design.

Peter Arnell:

First of all, thank you for, it’s very beautiful what you said, and it touched me. People who purchased magazines back then, they just couldn’t wait until they come out, many couldn’t afford them. The September issue was always too big to carry, and it was the fights with the publishers about where you position that, and all this stuff, and what sections were good. And it’s so funny because of all the things I ever did in my life, that was the one project that I did where there was no cropping, there was no meetings about approvals, there was no discussions of where it’s going in the magazine. I think I was just so overwhelmed and proud that someone would actually print something that I had, in my own little way, contributed to this massive, incredible force called Donna Karen. She was, without exception, a leader of a generation, not just in fashion, but in spearheading the aspirations and drives for tens of thousands of women in university and Parsons and FIT, and she was really the guts of 7th Avenue for 20 years.

So when you speak about it, I have to say, I think I was acting much more as a documentarian that day than I was as an advertising person. I was acting as a New Yorker, respecting and demonstrating the values of our great city, but as it was slightly displaced over into fashion and into an ad, it exploded. And if you really think about what you’re saying, she started a business with, I want to say we had $14,000 budget that year, and she had less than a million dollars to start the whole business, so it was incredible, if you think about it, that such a powerful idea came to be known as a brand that then became this very highly regarded and very effective tool that’s taught in schools for those things that I did back then.

But they didn’t come along with a plan, they came along just with maybe, at the time, a fear that I would lose the opportunity to do something great and get an account. They came with relying on my childhood, and going back, not forward, to something that I really did believe was a gateway, and in the end it was, to my entire career. I mean, that bridge ends up becoming the reason why I go on for 40 years of getting all these chances to do interesting things. And I don’t believe that as a child I could have seen or put that together. I think that my father, my biological father, Alvin Arnell, did a book called Standard Graphical Symbols. It was when I was one year old, or something. But he designed what we now know as emojis for electrical, structural, and mechanical engineering, and he did a book, it was like a AIA standard graphical symbols for the engineering world.

So I have to say I did grow up with, there was something there in my genes or DNA, or in the environment or something, there was something there, even if it was for a short period of time. Of course later on I studied him. But I don’t think I ever had any thought about what I wanted to do when I was a child. And I would argue I don’t even know what I want to do today. At some point, I realized this incredible life of making and creating things permits me entree into so many worlds all over the globe of so many different industries and so many different challenges and solutions, whether they be Special Olympics, or whether they be Chrysler, wherever I work or have worked, that I’m able to roll my sleeves up and learn. And I think I ended up putting myself in a perpetual school. I’m always in school learning.

I’m not sure how much I know, but somehow I was able to aggregate friendships and associations, experiences, and they kept on building and building, and then at some point people believe in you, and they go from, “What do you do?” To, “I like what you do,” to, “I’d like you to do what you do for me.” If I had to do it all over again I would probably do some things over differently, because as you grow and expand at that young age, you just don’t have the capacity or experience or knowledge to know how to manage much of it. Now older, looking back 45 years, you see things so differently, you see things so differently.

Debbie Millman:

What are some of the bigger things you would’ve done differently?

Peter Arnell:

When you have nothing and you’re fighting, and you’re in a world, Madison Avenue, just nobody, it was a small little tiny company fighting against BBDO, and all these big giants, and my God, you just go. You just go, and you just are blind. Any opportunity was an opportunity, and you’re just banging down walls, and you’re ranting and raging, you’re just trying to get stuff done, and so on. And all of that, in the end, just a waste of time. One services one’s own growth and fuels it much better by looking in the mirror and reflecting on certain realities, and trying to understand and have gratitude for yourself before anything else, as a human being.

And I missed a lot of that stuff because I was going so fast, and building so fast. I mean, imagine 22 years old and you did that Donna Karen thing, and then years later, shortly thereafter, I was credited for coming up with DKNY, which was a massive shift in the fashion industry, because prior to DKNY, second lines were built as a cheaper fabrication of the first line, Anne Klein, Anne Klein 2, on and on. This idea of the other side of the same woman, that a woman who likes caviar also likes pizza, that women are spending a few thousand dollars for an outfit, could also enjoy putting on jeans and running barefoot, whatever. So that idea of extending the brand, and then taking Donna Karen New York, taking those letters out, it changed again. And I was young, and I was just on fire. We went on to work on second lines, and A line, and we were like B for beanpoles, it was almost like a comedy.

And then in the middle of it we were running to Paris, we were hired by Mr. Arno to work with Mr. Lacroix to start a couture house. And I was in Paris all of a sudden, and we were on fire. And when you’re on fire and when you’re growing and when you’re going that fast, you’re really blind to so much, especially when you’re young and don’t have experience, I think you tend to step over, or step around, things that are important in life as building blocks to character and knowledge, and so forth. So I would have gone through it differently by slowing down and enjoying more of it, less of a street rat and more of a well-mannered citizen of society, so to speak. And then we kept on growing. I mean, it didn’t stop, it went on forever. We were just lucky. And most people in our space, who was talking about brand in the early 80s?

Debbie Millman:

No one. Oh, well, if they were, they were accusing you of being a sellout and doing the devil’s work.

Peter Arnell:

Right, right.

Debbie Millman:

As I was accused. Do you think that if you knew what you know now about the speed in which you grew, the work that you would do well, the work that would be criticized, would you have done anything different, or do you feel that that has all led you to this moment? I once asked Seth Godin what he would tell his 30-year-old self, and he’s like, “Nothing, because if I did anything any different I wouldn’t be right here right now.”

Peter Arnell:

Yeah.

Debbie Millman:

He wasn’t talking about talking to me, he was talking about where he is in his life.

Peter Arnell:

Sure. I mean, there’s a certain, they always say 30% of my OCD triggers 70% of all else I do, you know what I mean? So if I wasn’t the same person, of course. But yeah, I was fearful of too many of the wrong things.

Debbie Millman:

Like what? Don’t go over that too quickly.

Peter Arnell:

I should have had more confidence in what I believed in in regard to my work than worrying about outside criticism or competition because the work. However, I was lucky enough to arrive at this ongoing month after month, year after year, successes around being associated with the early days of Nespresso capsule, and Listerine pocket packs, I mean, it goes on and on and on, The Gap with Mickey, Banana Republic, and the naming and launching of Allure for Mr. Wertheimer, Chanel.

Debbie Millman:

I mean, some of the greatest work of the latter half of the 20th century, without a doubt. Martha Stewart Everyday, Michael Jackson’s Invincible, Hanes Hosiery with Tina Turner, the list goes on and on and on.

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, so I think that I would’ve probably found more opportunity. I always think that the more time you have, and the more reflection you have, the better the work’s going to be, and I think the first thing is that I’m almost sure that almost, without exception, everything I’ve ever done could have been better. I see now many of the opportunities to have gone all the way, but I think there was a few there that I had reached a certain point that worked, so I was okay, and everyone was happy, and the client was content, et cetera. This idea of pushing yourself and working hard to just always try to seek the truth in a solution, there is an essence and a truth in every message and in every company’s culture that if you hold a mirror up correctly to, and you angle it to the audience, you will see there’s a spot there, a sweet spot.

Steven Spielberg said to me once that you really need to believe that sharks don’t have soundtracks, and that always stuck in my head about Jaws, that do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, I think without that soundtrack the shark wouldn’t have been very threatening. So I think there’s always this kind of expectation in the marketplace where people find the mix between familiar and the unexpected, the sweet spot, to be magical. And I think that, I wish almost 100%, that I would’ve spent more time in front of the camera, I would’ve tried to play with the leading on a piece of type for more hours, it goes on and on and on. So you only saw, and even if those things were whatever one would consider successful, were successful solutions for clients I had, I would think at the end the real hero in all that was the client who allowed those things to get to the marketplace, because many of them were so unbearably difficult to believe in or to follow.

There were many, many times where the art of the sale is as important as the art of the idea, which is as important as seeing the vision of what’s not there, and then putting all that together and solving a marketplace problem for a client, which then has to compete, and on and on and on, it’s very complex. And then when you put the billboard up, it doesn’t have your phone number, you can’t explain anything to anybody, it either works or it doesn’t work, in a split second, in a business where communication has to just get it, like Think Different, or Just Do It, just in a split second you get it, you have a community or you don’t. They do take time to build, but in the beginning if you entrench a brand in the right lane, right from the beginning, I think they are forever propositions, they don’t really need to change.

And so I think I could have done better many, many times, schedules, budgets, time, clients, relationships, all affect the result that ends up in the marketplace. It’s not just the idea. The other thing is that sometimes, I think as I got into my 40s, I don’t know if it was just psychological or age, but I felt like I was listening less and hearing myself more, and I think that tends to lead to problems, because you start out with Donna, who’s banging her chest about New York City, and then you do a picture, it’s so clean, simple, elegant. I came out of this background of editing and writing books on architecture, James Sterling, Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, Aldo Rossi, all these books that I wrote and edited and laid out, that’s how we started our career in the studio.

And so I’m very academic. The academic side of me uses up, many times, too much time, versus the intuitive creative side, the artist side. And then when they bang heads the academic side always wins because it knows too much. And so I would do a lot less of the academic and a lot more of, again, I would not be fearful of making sure all my boxes were checked off, and everything was so picture perfect in both presentation as well as execution, and more time on the values that I would’ve built in, or the ideas, how to mask them. And I was very much also at that time into the win versus the journey with a client.

Debbie Millman:

Oh yeah, yeah.

Peter Arnell:

It was the 80s, it was Wall Street, it was the pitch, and then I would lose interest after a certain period of time. So I did hold onto, and worked for years with Samsung and Donna, and I had very long relationships, but they were few, and most of what I do and did were assignment based. So if you design the Pepsi logo, you do it once, then you finish, and that’s it.

So a combination of living in that world of either fixing or finding identity or expression, communication, idea, solution, strategy, marketing, whatever, and the pace of it all, and the hungry Peter, who was always looking for the next, and the world changing dramatically from the East Coast, to Silicon Valley and technology, all this was going on for… I mean, think about my life, was 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, each decade is just filled with major shifts in societal, crazy bell curves of amazing introductions, innovations, and movements that I was a witness to. So I was wanting to move and always keep up, and always stay in shape, and practice exercising the brain. But you get in your own world at a certain point, you closed down, because that’s your mission, is to survive, grow, contribute, win, be the best, and you lose sight sometimes of, not sometimes, but many times of the other parts of life that are truly valuable and also feed that.

Balance was never my thing. Someone said to me, “How do you vacation?” I said, “I tried that once, it didn’t work for me,” and it really is the case. I usually go to bed around 11:00, 12:00, 1:00, and I usually get up about 3:30, and I’ve done that most of my life. I’m known for not sleeping, I like to do two days in one, I like to win, I think that’s important. I don’t drink, I don’t go to nightclubs or bars, or things like that. So I work, and I still think I’m the grandson of an immigrant scared to not be able to pay his bills. I think it’s the same person who is just there always if you follow, it just never changes

Debbie Millman:

Your life now, and the work that you’re doing now, is very different than the work and the life that you had in the early part of the 2000s. You sold your business to, I believe it was Draft, and then bought it back, and then sold it to Omnicom. I also sold my business to Omnicom, so I understand what that was like, and then left. You had a breakup with Omnicom. And this all was around the time you redesigned Pepsi and then Tropicana. What happened with Tropicana?

Peter Arnell:

This might end up becoming the most famous podcast ever in the history of marketing if I answer this, not only truthfully, but accurately.

Debbie Millman:

Well, if you change your mind and you want to take it out, we certainly can, but I’d love to-

Peter Arnell:

No, no, no.

Debbie Millman:

I should tell you, Peter, I should tell you, I don’t know if you know this, so full disclosure, I really should have told your people before, but I worked on the design that you redesigned that Tropicana went back to, so there’s this incredible symmetry to this right now. But I don’t do that kind of work anymore either.

Peter Arnell:

So I’m going to try to give you a very simple narrative. So the chairman at the time, the chairperson and the president were enamored by our studio and the work that I was doing, and we got a lot of work from Pepsi. In fact, we got every brand, Mountain Dew, and I think the only thing we didn’t do was SoBe. Gatorade, excuse me. And Indro was, at the time, super excited about design. That was her thing, she went out to speak to Steve Jobs, she had a meeting with him, and she was really on the right track for many reasons. Indro came to her office one day and showed me a champagne glass. She wanted everything modern and clean and cleaned up, and so forth. And I tell many people this, but can you imagine, how does a designer get accused of having authority to change all the factory lines throughout the entire world? It doesn’t go down that way, it really doesn’t.

Actually, the way it goes down is you’re given an assignment and direction on a brief, and you follow it. And if the client is tough on that brief, you follow it by just illustrating with your talent the values or the objectives that are in that brief, which is what we did. And if you don’t want to pay to change the factories in the line to get a pet product, see through plastic, because it costs too much money, it’s a big investment, tooling and this and that, then somebody raises their hand and says, “Just put the juice up there. Put it in a champagne glass, it’ll look rich and valuable.”

So that instruction came from the company, that is the truth. And then we went ahead and we did thousands of images and pictures and layouts of moving all that thing around, we moved that around a lot, and they loved it. Not only did they love it, but how does in a big corporation, something get registered and trademarked and printed, manufactured and distributed, because an art director, no. So we were an easy fall, the lesson I learned was you need to do what’s right, that idea that was presented was never right. The idea that was presented was to redesign the packaging, which we did, which came out with Trop50, there was a clear pitcher-like bottle that I designed that came out years later, the half the sugar Trop50 version of that.

Debbie Millman:

Which still isn’t on shelves.

Peter Arnell:

Yes, yes, yes. But it all exploded, and then there was an article in the Newsweek with Danny Lyons that was hysterical, accusing me as public enemy number one in the design world. It just went on and on and on. And then the New York Times had this editorial with a straw coming out of my head saying idiot. So they got, what I understand, six or eight letters, and the gentleman who was running the company in Chicago, who was appointed by the chairman of Pepsi, he wanted to do what he wanted to do, and he really probably believed that it was a mistake to change the packaging. So within weeks there’s a famous Stu Elliott article that comes out talking about the campaign, and it was all about squeeze and love, and all this beautiful black and white photography, and the whole thing. And then weeks, days, I don’t remember, a week and a half later there was an article that Pepsi’s pulling the whole thing.

It was probably not necessary in the end. However, I think the lesson I took away from it all, back to my point about believing in myself, and fear and all this, was I should have just raised my hand early on. Although you’re in these contracts with clients, you can’t say anything. But I just should have kept my mouth shut and just simply say, “Things happen, mistakes happen in life, and people make the wrong choices.” Instead I said something like, publicly, “They paid me a ton of money, if they don’t know what to do with the work, that’s their problem.” I don’t think that went over big.

Debbie Millman:

Yikes, yeah.

Peter Arnell:

But certainly I got a lot of notoriety for being the biggest asshole ever. But I said what was on my mind. So I think at the end, the reason why it might have never been a success is because the strategy behind it was, in a way, a facade, because when you don’t have a shelf stable product, the colors change during the season, which is very hard for the consumer, and is it good, not good, et cetera, and then you end up with a lot of confusion. So if I had thought about it, I probably would’ve raised my hand and said to the management of Pepsi, “I don’t think that’s a good idea and I’m not going to participate in it,” but the pay was good.

Debbie Millman:

Having spent most of my career in fast moving consumer goods, I know exactly how hard it is to push back with a client that’s on a deadline, and you have a lot of people to pay, and you have a lot of sure deadlines that you have. And it’s funny, Peter, because at the time, of course, I was very dismayed that the package that my company had worked on was going away, and when I saw the packaging and I read the strategy I was like, this is not a bad strategy. Rather than show an actual orange, why not show what’s in the orange, the actual juice? And I remember talking to Paula Scher about it, one of the partners at Pentagram, and she was like, “Don’t gloat, Debbie, because this is not good for design. Because if we give in to people that are trying to keep change from happening, what kind of innovation will ever be allowed?”

And it’s always stayed with me, she’s one of my dearest friends, and for her to say at the time, and she was right, she was absolutely right, because as we see now, there’s almost no brand identity that’s launched these days that isn’t on some level picked apart and accused of being genitalia, people talk about it being female genitalia or male genitalia, and it’s the same logo, or looking like a swastika. So this happens, I think that people have become so terrified of anything that’s uncertain, that when they see something at shelf, nobody goes and says, “Oh my God, could you look at that? M&M’s redesigned, I’m going to try them now.” They go to the shelf, they see something’s changed and they think, why is that different? Am I getting less M&M’s for more money? Look what happened with the recent brouhaha about M&M’s.

Peter Arnell:

Right.

Debbie Millman:

But in any case, everyone has an opinion about everything, the very same identities that people ring their hands over, a year later when they are redesigned, the very same people ring their hands over it again.

Peter Arnell:

But it’s interesting because Paula’s right, we’re professionals. We work hard, we really care about our craft and how things really are put together. And we’re in an industry where everybody has an opinion about everything. I don’t know at what point someone felt maybe in our lifetimes we should have had more Paul Rand’s, because he knew early on he needed to be a tough one to get things through, and he was a tough one, as you know, he was a monster at both the pitch, as well as the control of the product. And everyone’s a designer, everyone’s a photographer now, everyone, everyone, but there are differences in the end, aren’t there? And when someone raises their hand and says no, in a way they don’t have a right to say no.

However, the world today has changed, and in a way they do have a right to say no, because their voice matters. In a way the industry and its value has been so demeaned because the authority, professionalism, quality, the power of the talent that’s out there, you talked about Pentagram, and the extraordinary artists, graphic artists, communication experts, video editors, brilliant talent, real talent, they have been undercut by someone shooting something on an iPhone, and other things, that I guess, in a funny way, I guess the sign of our times, but in a way the industry has let itself do that.

I always believe that what I do has incredible long-lasting value and it’s an investment, and I’ve always believed that, and I’ll always believe it. Not because I think my work is good or bad, there’s many, many others who do much more extraordinary work than I, in my entire career there’s always been giants around me, from powerful art directors to brilliant people. However, I’ve been always able to explain to people that what we do here is IP, and it has value, and it becomes the absolute flag, the banner, the lead of one’s organization in so many ways if you could actually integrate that into every touchpoint of a company and its dealings with consumers.

But there aren’t a lot, if any of me, ever, and still today, who actually go to the mat on the point that what we do might not be the best, or even close. But its competency is very high, its approach is very smart, and ultimately its results work. So it has value, it has the same value as an investment one would make into a corporation if it’s done right. So we maintain the industry’s original thinking that design is good business, as Paul said, and you think about all the corporations, CBS and Dorfman, and Seagram and Meise, and all these incredible iconic designers in all architects, that built these corporations, images, Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright, and they all had the same thing in mind which is go to a visionaire, or somebody who sees how to capture, either by mirroring or contributing newness, or freshness, or evolution, or reimagining something, and let them build it, let them expose it, let them have the time to develop it.

I think that’s why Bilbao became the building, and will always be the building of the century, because it permitted a world to understand that good design, and the power of supporting good design, can change a country, can change a city, can change the meaning of art. It has so much ramifications. Those movements, whether they be deco, Bauhaus, [foreign language 00:56:43], whether they be Cassandre doing a poster for a boat or shoes in Paris, or Dubonnet, whatever, those legendary moments don’t have a place today in our world. Those iconic moments, you go to the Museum of Modern Art, just 15 years ago, you would’ve seen design celebrated completely different.

And it’s not a sign of our times at all, it’s a sign of somehow technology, or Andy’s 15 minutes of fame mindset, somehow has taken over the craft and art of industrial graphic brand and packaging and corporate, the things that create the language, the visual and verbal language development for corporations, for products that have always been on the forefront of leading and growing companies, have somehow become secondary, or not even important in the way that a print shop isn’t important anymore, or Gar Lelard at Lab 57, printing black and white photo, it’s all gone. Most of it is gone.

And so that’s okay, you have to move all your times, but talent that exists, and great talent that exists, and professionals who have talent in the industry of corporate identity and branding and communications, the world and the industry needs to celebrate them more, and for the right reasons, because they move the economy, they grow businesses, they create extraordinary progress for enterprises. And we learned that from Steve Jobs, didn’t we? We learned that from Steve Jobs, that design was important. We’ve learned that from Braun, we’ve learned that from Knoll, from Florence Knoll, we’ve learned that from so many incredible giants of design industry, Jony Ive, God knows what this man has done to contribute to the landscape of design.

But somehow in most places it lost its value, and I will never let go of the relationship between the business of that business and the business of design, and those things to me connect strongly. And so I think the other and most important thing to say is that the economics around the industry need to come back in a very strong way, and people have to really start to generate the delta between the common and the unique, the highly available and the very, very exclusive talents that exist there to allow these superstars in the world of design to flourish in their own right and be successful and progress as they have toward others, and customers, and so forth. And I see that went away, but for the industry, like in architecture, architect’s roles, contractors took over and they became less the authority on their destiny in the built environment.

So I don’t know how we got off on all this subject, but it’s probably only to say that on the third point, regarding what would I have done different, I probably would’ve just said, “This thing isn’t for me.” Because at the end, if you really look at what we did with Tropicana, it wasn’t a great design. There was nothing magical or innovative about any of it.

Debbie Millman:

Well, the cap, the cap was.

Peter Arnell:

Well, I haven’t gotten to the cap yet.

Debbie Millman:

Okay, okay.

Peter Arnell:

But God bless you for raising it. But the graphic arts of it was just a glass with juice in it with, the world said, poorly placed type. But the cap was a great idea, the cap could have been their Snap, Crackle and Pop, it could have been the Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz, it could have and should have, and still could be. That idea of the hours and weeks and months of working with the packaging container companies to master the click of that cap and the squeeze to always touch the orange, and then I became like a buffoon explaining it to everyone. I was rattled, I came to a meeting late and went on a video, I was like, “And you touch the cap.” It wasn’t done the way I would do it today.

Debbie Millman:

For our listeners that might not be aware, the cap, because this was quite some time ago, I guess about 15 years ago, the cap was actually half an orange, and it was a dome, and it looked like an orange, and it was ingenious. It seems like you’ve learned a lot since that time. I was really intrigued by your inclusion of all the work that you’ve put in to your book, it’s been 40 years. First time ever you’ve published this monograph of your vast body of work. It’s a two volume hardcover book with a beautiful slip case. It’s 848 pages, it contains over 2,600 photographs and illustrations of hundreds of clients and collaborations. And it’s not just the greatest hits, it’s the work, it’s the life, it’s the evidence of a life in design and advertising and branding, with hundreds of projects, including projects for Unilever and Con Edison and Reebok and PepsiCo and Chrysler, and Commissions from Martha Stewart and Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Tom Brady. Did you leave any work out?

Peter Arnell:

I did.

Debbie Millman:

You did?

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, 25 to 30% of the projects didn’t get in.

Debbie Millman:

Wow.

Peter Arnell:

Because it was just growing and growing and growing.

Debbie Millman:

Also, you had to get their permissions, right? Didn’t you have to get permissions from everyone?

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, I don’t know if you realize, most of the photography in the book is my own.

Debbie Millman:

Right, I was thinking about that, because I did a book where I had to get permission from Coca-Cola for some of the images, and it took a year.

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, no, it took a while to get everything, all of the homework in order. But the photography stuff is always complicated, and we’ve always been very good at making sure that I have the rights to publish the work. But I think the big mission in that whole book is, because at the end of the day you like the work, you don’t like the work, isn’t really the point, and I’m not sure if I ever did anything important or relevant enough to be in a book like that, and that’s the truth. But it just seems like I tried my best every time, and I think the book just represents a journey of trying my best. That’s the most you can ask for from anybody.

Debbie Millman:

Absolutely.

Peter Arnell:

And I think that when I wanted to take pictures they said, “Put the camera down, you’re not a photographer, you’re not a designer, you’re not a car designer, how could you be at Chrysler designing cars?” It’s just that world. But I don’t know, it’s been a big life, I probably have another 20, 30 years to go. So I’m not going to stop, I’m working on Fontainebleau now in Las Vegas.

Debbie Millman:

Well, they’re a repeat client as well, right? Didn’t you work with them 10 years ago?

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, I’ve done many things from Mr. Soffer at Fontainebleau. I think we started our relationship over 20 years ago. There was the Miami, and then there was the original Vegas, and then Vegas one stopped for a while because of financial turmoil, and then now it’s back and we’re reopening at the end of this year. But I’ve always done really simple things in the end, because in such a complexity of problems and people in the world, and competition, how do you take complexity and convert it into simplicity? Is a really very, very difficult job, consistently.

And I’ve been happy to be with my same photo assistant, Rune Stokmo, for coming up 36 years, and Dan, who’s the president here, who’s been with me for 22 years, and Yuko, who’s been here for 32 years. We’re still with a lot of the, what I call the old timers, the founders of the business. So we’re lucky to be here, and next step is the opening of Fontainebleau, that’s the next moment in my career here. I’m sure that’ll be met with an interesting public opinion, to open up a first casino and resort after. There will be a lot of stuff that’s interesting.

Debbie Millman:

Peter Arnell, thank you so much for making so much work that matters, and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.

Peter Arnell:

Yeah, thank you so much for today, it was just such a pleasure to talk to you.

Debbie Millman:

Peter Arnell’s latest book is a two volume monograph called Peter Arnell: Projects 1980-2020. You can learn more about Peter, his work, and his book on his website, peterarnell.com. This is the 18th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters and I’d like to thank you for listening, and remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

The post Design Matters: Peter Arnell appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Debbie Millman:

So this month’s theme for Creative Mornings is abundance. And Milton Glaser once said, “If you perceive the universe as one of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be.” And Milton goes on to say that he always thought that there was enough to go around. “There are good enough ideas in the universe and enough nourishment.” Dario, you’ve stated that if there’s an abundance of something, that you share it, have you always had this mentality around the notion of abundance?

Dario Calmese:

I’m not sure. I think, sometimes… I have this feeling that whatever you have just offer it to someone else, I think it’s a way of showing gratitude, actually. It keeps the river flowing. I think it’s coming from a scarcity mindset of hoarding and holding onto that actually limits you and limits life and limits the things that you’re after. But in sharing, in giving, it just keeps the energy flowing. And I think even, we were talking about the Institute of Black Imagination, and it all started with me inheriting 2000 books from a famous artist, Geoffrey Holder. And somewhere on the inside I was like, “Oh my God, I would love to just be lost in these books and hold onto these books, and pull from them and reference them.” And I don’t even define it, but something inside me knew that I just couldn’t, right? I had to share it. I had to share this knowledge. I needed other people to have access to this information. And so that actually is what undergirded the Institute of Black Imagination. So yeah, I think there’s something inside that says, give.

Debbie Millman:

You have an abundance of identities. And we talked about identities a little bit before our interview. You’re an artist, a photographer, a sculptor, a writer, a podcast host, a teacher, a show and casting director, and the CEO of The Institute of Black Imagination, all of which I’d like to talk to you about today. You’ve said that you think we all have multiple identities, but because we often align ourselves to specific identities and professions, it keeps us from other modalities of being. And I was really intrigued by that notion because it’s sort of the opposite of abundance. When we are holding on to an identity, it forces us to remain sort of intact as opposed to growing and evolving. And I’m wondering how you were able to break that trap and sort of have these expanded versions of yourself.

Dario Calmese:

Well, one, I have to first of all, thank my parents. My parents really allowed for me to simply be curious and explore all the things that I found interesting. If it was microscopes or telescopes or chemistry sets or piano lessons or karate, I was able to explore all of these things. And I think on some level it came down to just pure curiosity. If I’m being totally honest, I’m just really fascinated by, what is possible? And you try some things and they don’t work out and you try other things and they resonate and you want to go with it. And so that’s something that I’ve done. I’ve literally just followed things that I was interested in most of my life, and luckily supported by my parents and supported by friends and communities that have allowed me to do that.

Debbie Millman:

You grew up in North City, Missouri, which is in the suburbs of St. Louis, and you’ve talked about how you were raised in a predominantly white neighborhood. Your father is a pastor, but also a substance abuse therapist. And your mother is a nurse, but also a seamstress. Now, is it true she sewed all your clothes?

Dario Calmese:

She didn’t sew all of my clothes, but she sewed a significant portion of them, particularly my church clothes. I don’t know how many people here grew up in a Black Baptist church?

Debbie Millman:

Raise your hands.

Dario Calmese:

Okay. So you all know what the pastors anniversary is, and it’s something that we have every year. We would get dressed up and whatever, and my mother would literally allow me to imagine and design whatever I wanted. So I remember one year, MC Hammer was huge in the ’90s, and she made me this incredible MC Hammer suit with the big baggy pants and the bolero jacket.

Debbie Millman:

I had one of those too, by the way.

Dario Calmese:

Oh okay, see. I actually just met him last week in San Francisco.

Debbie Millman:

Wow.

Dario Calmese:

Random. He offered me a Mentos and said he wanted my boots.

Debbie Millman:

As one does. I understand that your mom is quite the style maven and instructed you on all the do’s and don’ts of dressing. She taught you things like your belt should always match your shoes, was wondering if that was still the case?

Dario Calmese:

No belt.

Debbie Millman:

Do you still heed her sartorial instructions?

Dario Calmese:

Actually, she now heeds mine. She sends me photos from dressing rooms. She’s like, “Oh, what shoes should I wear with this? Bracelets, earrings.” Yeah. It’s interesting, my mother and I have always had this style dialogue for my entire life. And even when she was sewing, that was our connection. She would, I got it honest, I’m also a procrastinator. I’m trying to be better.

Debbie Millman:

How, with all of those multi hyphenate titles, can you possibly think you’re a procrastinator?

Dario Calmese:

I don’t know, I’m always just like… Well, I’m actually much, much, much better. But my mother would be up until five o’clock in the morning sewing my sister’s cotillion dresses and I would just be sitting there watching her. Our basement, you can open the door and the stairs go down, and it’s open, and so I would just sit on the stairs and just watch my mother sew until five o’clock in the morning. It was just this thing we had.

Debbie Millman:

My mother was also a seamstress, she made all of my clothes growing up. We had no money, so that was the only way that I could get any kind of new clothes. I learned how to sew as well. I just want to let you know, bragging a little bit here everyone, I won the home economics award in high school because of my sewing ability. My red corduroy overalls were among the most popular of my constructions, just letting you all know, that had an appliqued butterfly embroidered on the front panel. She also taught me how to draw, because she used to draw images of all the clothes that she made because she was a professional seamstress, she made clothes for other people. She would draw those outfits.

You’ve stated that the women in your family were some of your early influences and inspired a bonafide interest in the worlds of art and fashion. But you also come from a family of musicians and have said that you discovered your voice as a tool of expression at a very young age. And I’m wondering if you could talk about what that means and how you were able to do that?

Dario Calmese:

It really started in elementary school, growing up in a creative family. And yes, my grandmother, my paternal grandmother, I really consider the font of all creativity, she was also a singer, played piano, a writer, a ceramicist. And all of her children, including my father, have tons of these gifts and they talk about them and things like that. But in elementary school, it really came from me being bored in church while my father was preaching, and I would just read the hymnals and I was memorizing hymns while my father preached because I was not paying attention. And then…

Debbie Millman:

We won’t tell anyone.

Dario Calmese:

And then in fourth grade, or even third grade, I was in elementary school and we were in music class and it was Black History Month so we were going to sing a spiritual for Black History Month, and it was Wade in the Water. And when it came time to, the verse came or whatever, I just started singing it because I knew it. And my teacher was like, “Oh my God, your voice.” And I was like, “What?” And she was like, “You need to sing the solo for the program.” Or whatever. And that was when I first began that this was something maybe that other people didn’t have or whatever, because everyone in my family sings, it was never anything that felt quite special. And over time finding that, and maybe this is something that we all have, is not understanding the power of our voice or not understanding that we have a unique perspective on the world that people want to hear.

And so I discovered that in many various ways. And if you think about all of the identities, it’s really me saying the same thing in different languages. Each medium allows for a certain type of communication, and I think that is where that really comes from. And really finding later that writing was an incredible way to also, not only find one’s voice, but to also really kind of weave together seemingly disparate ideas and then share them with somebody else so they can follow along with your thought process.

Debbie Millman:

By the time you were 10 years old, you were already studying the piano, you also studied classical voice, acting and dance, beginning in your teens. You began performing professionally by the time you were 15, what kinds of productions were you a part of?

Dario Calmese:

So my first professional show was A Chorus Line.

Debbie Millman:

What part did you play?

Dario Calmese:

I was in the ensemble.

Debbie Millman:

Oh.

Dario Calmese:

Because I was 15, but it was at a professional theater. So in St. Louis we have a theater called The Muni, and it’s America’s largest and oldest outdoor theater, and it seats around 14,000. And yeah, I went to audition and I made a friend there at the audition who taught me how to do a double pirouette, I had never even heard of that before.

Debbie Millman:

Can you still do it?

Dario Calmese:

I can still do it.

Debbie Millman:

Ooh, the gauntlet is down.

Dario Calmese:

I can do a triple. No, I’m kidding. I mean, I can. And then other things like Missouri Honors Choir, all of those things that one does as an ambitious little kid, it’s early.

Debbie Millman:

At that point, what did you want to do professionally? Did you want to be a performer?

Dario Calmese:

I don’t think I really knew. I enjoyed it, but I actually always thought, and this is so strange, but I always thought that academics and art were silos and that I had to make a choice, and so I was always kind of straddling this line. But as far as what I wanted to be, I actually thought I was going to be a psychiatrist. Yeah, I was going to be a counselor.

Debbie Millman:

You went to school for psychology. You got your college degree in psychology and mass media at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. What provoked you or motivated you to think about being a psychiatrist?

Dario Calmese:

You know it’s so funny, my father’s a therapist, and as much as I did not think that I was my father, I’m totally my father.

Debbie Millman:

I hear you.

Dario Calmese:

And I think you’re surrounded by these things when you grow up, what your parents do, and they really influence you. And both of my parents really were in professions of service, and I really loved psychology because I just loved the human mind. But I also loved like pissing people off. And this is something I used to do to my elementary school teachers all the time, and I’m sure they were just over it, but if I didn’t see you snap, I didn’t trust you. And so I would push people to the point where whatever facade they had up, as teacher or something, once I saw that I was like, “Okay, they’re a human being.” And so I think psychology, the mind, these are things that were always very interesting to me.

Debbie Millman:

So you were an early provocateur?

Dario Calmese:

Si. Yes.

Debbie Millman:

I read that when you got to college, you started questioning everything you’d ever been told about yourself. This included your own sexuality, what it meant to believe in God, and even music and art. What type of epiphanies did you have about who you were?

Dario Calmese:

So I went to the small Jesuit school called Rockhurst University, there were a couple of things. One, I remember we were in maybe art history class or something like this, and we were learning about the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and I’m sitting there hearing about this amazing, amazing what we would call a cathedral with the largest man-made dome, and I’m like, “Why am I just learning about this?” I was like, “I was a good student and I’m curious, and why am I just learning about this, in college?” And I’m like, “And this is a very specific school right?” I’m like, “If I was maybe at a different school or maybe even a state school, we may not even be studying this.” So it opened up that there was this entire other… I started to see the limits of my education, which I thought was vast, and started to see the very Western European lens through which I was educated, right?

And then you start thinking about, oh wait, I was getting up at six o’clock in the morning for AP European history and we didn’t talk about the Eastern world. We didn’t talk about these things. And I think I was really upset, “How could this have been kept from me? What are you talking about?”

But I would say the biggest epiphany, so again, my father’s a pastor, I grew up in the church, I was taught that the Bible was the unmitigated word of God, it was from his mouth to the page. And we had to take theology and the teacher asked us to bring the American standard Bible to class. Now if anyone here grew up in the church, you know that there’s multiple versions and multiple translations of the Bible, and then if you have the wrong translation, you just kind of like, make it work. And so I was just like, “I’m not buying a new Bible. I’m just going to bring this good old King James to class. It’s going to be fine.”

And then the teacher says, “Turn to second Maccabees.” And I was like, “I’m sorry, what?” I mean, I literally looked over to another student and I was like, “Wait, what? There are these other books of the Bible? And nobody told me?” The Apocrypha, first and second Maccabees, The Book of Wisdom, The Book of Light. And then we’re learning about Martin Luther and them taking… Anyway, I won’t get into the construction of the Bible.

Debbie Millman:

Please do.

Dario Calmese:

I mean, we don’t have a lot of time except two… But for me, it all came crumbling down. It all came crumbling down. Because that was the one thing that culturally was the through line of my entire life, of my community, of my identity. And all of a sudden the ineffable had a chink in it. And any information that we learn, we’re walking through life with certain paradigms in place, kind of like a room, and when something new is introduced, either you rearrange everything to make space for it or you reject it so that everything stays the same. The easy things to do is just to reject the new and let everything stay the same, but that was an undeniable thing. And so to let that in, everything had to change and everything came into question. And then I saw the hand of man in what I thought was the hand of God.

And not only that, I remember talking to my father excitedly about these books that I had discovered. Discovered. And I was like, “Dad, oh my God, I was reading The Book of Wisdom. It’s amazing. You’ll be able to find some really great sermons out of these scriptures. This is amazing.” And he was like, “Oh no, those are the forbidden books.”

Debbie Millman:

How did you manage through that type of conversation?

Dario Calmese:

Well, I also started to see that religion in those who were leaders in upholding it, also weren’t interested in the truth. They were interested in maintaining, right? And I was just like, “But if you are who you say you are and you’re about this life, if you got new information about something that you’re passionate about or you love, wouldn’t you want to know it, wouldn’t you want to share it? Wouldn’t you want to enlighten other people?” And there was just like a wall of rejection to it. And I was just like, “Oh, okay, got it. So even this isn’t as real as I thought it was.” So when the core of your kind of existence or faith is shattered like that at 19, everything, everything is up for question at that point.

Debbie Millman:

How did that impact the type of work you were making?

Dario Calmese:

It’s so interesting. I never really made that connection, but I think that impacts everything that I’m making. I don’t take anything at surface level, I’m always interrogating systems, I’m always looking for what’s not being said and questioning everything. I think everything is worthy of being questioned. So yeah, I mean everything.

Debbie Millman:

After you graduated, you decided to move to New York City and allowed yourself one year to pursue professional performance. What kind of performer were you envisioning yourself at that point?

Dario Calmese:

So I was doing musical theater mostly, and I did some soap work. If you dig deep enough, you can find me on All My Children. But yeah, I literally decided to… The decision was to move to New York for one year, try out the acting thing. If I’m terrible, I’m going to go back to grad school for either cognitive neuroscience or psych assessment, which is designing psychological tests. Or if I’m good, maybe I’ll stick with it. And so yeah, I just kept going and was able to travel the world, but it was mostly musical theater, singing and dancing. And in that space, as much as I loved it, I found that there was more that I wanted to do and more that I wanted to say. And so as much as I loved it, once I got into it, I was feeling the limitations of it. And so a pivot came into photography.

Debbie Millman:

In that traveling that you did, you took a three week trip to Europe where you purchased your first DSLR camera, which you’ve stated, bridged the gap between your technical side and your artistic side. And when you returned to New York, you continued to work as a performer, but then began collaborating with your colleagues and friends to take head shots and create stylized portraits. At that point, you decided to go back to school to get a master’s degree from SVA in photography. But despite your degree and accomplishments and a level of professional success, you don’t consider yourself to be a photographer?

Dario Calmese:

Yes and no.

Debbie Millman:

Okay.

Dario Calmese:

And I think that this goes back to kind of like identity, and to let you all in on a conversation that Debbie and I were having pre-interview. We were having a conversation about identity, and that identity isn’t necessarily who you are, but identities are things that you hold, you are the vessel that holds these different identities. And identity is something that comes from the outside, people are telling you how you are seen versus you defining it for yourself. What we call identity is really one’s interest in an identity. And to be seen as a photographer, it’s like a yes and, more than I am not a photographer.

So with photography, I just find that it’s just not the whole story. So I’m a photographer, but I’m also not a photographer. For me, it is not what I live and breathe and move in 24/7, although I’m always looking at images. I love taking images, it is a mode of expression for me. But photography is… We all are flowing rivers, and what does it mean to be defined by how one feels when they step into it in that one moment, three seconds later it’s going to change. And I think that’s really it, I felt really hedged in by that.

Debbie Millman:

Since graduating, you’ve had a number of different jobs and opportunities. You worked as a staff photographer for Essence Magazine and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In 2013, you became the casting director for Kerby Jean-Raymond’s Pyer Moss fashion shows, and then went on to become the director. And you titled the 2016 show, Double Bind, which was acclaimed for its messages going beyond fashion, not surprisingly, to address depression and Black Lives Matter. And you said this about the topic matter. “The Black experience in America is the ultimate double bind. It’s a place where natural born citizens, promised life, liberty, and property, live an immigrant experience in the only land they’ve known as home. A place where Black culture is praised, commodified, and appropriated while Black peoples are marginalized and serve as scapegoats for the ills of American society, and we can’t escape and we can’t talk about it.” Five years later, six years later, do you feel the same way?

Dario Calmese:

See, that’s why writing is good. You can really get at the thing. I was like, “Yes, that is it. That’s it.”

Debbie Millman:

I thought so too.

Dario Calmese:

I was like, “That is it.” It just so clearly articulates it. Are we still there? Yes. Yes, it is, because there hasn’t been a reckoning for, not only this country, but I think particularly for white Americans. When we talk about oppression, when we talk about even racism, so much of it is about a denial and a lack of a confrontation. I mean, I think this goes back to the psychology of it. In order to change, you have to confront a truth in order to move past it. And America, and it goes beyond America, has yet to really reckon with and reconcile that past. And it’s ultimately the journey that we’re all on, we’re all on that journey of becoming. And I will say that I speak this not from a place of listlessness or even tragedy, but from a place of hope. Martin Luther King says that “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” And I wholeheartedly believe that.

However, and we were talking a little bit about Afropessimism earlier, and I won’t get too much into it, but essentially the notions of Afropessimism says that the Black experience or Black suffering is one that cannot be repaired because Blackness is the boundary line between who is human and who is not. And so Black individuals actually serve as the boundary line between who is human and who is not. And so as long as that boundary line is needed, I’m unsure of how well or how far we’ll really be able to go. But I do see and understand and witness quiet moments of care and humanity every single day. And I think on an individual and a citizen level, there’s just more heart there. There’s more heart there. And we also have to sep… Now I’m going on a tangent, but let me circle back. I just want to say we do also need to separate the citizen from the state, right? Because state actions and institutionalized parts of racism make it sometimes really difficult for individuals to act in the way that they want to.

Debbie Millman:

Absolutely.

Dario Calmese:

So, we’re also dealing with systems, and this kind of goes into design.

Debbie Millman:

Was this part of your decision to create the Institute of Black Imagination?

Dario Calmese:

Yes. So the Institute of Black Imagination, like I mentioned, came about with me inheriting these 2000 books from Geoffrey Holder, but also really see, I mean, if we want to get to the why is… Still in New York.

So you mentioned that I grew up in the suburbs in this predominantly white neighborhood, but we started out in East St. Louis, which is where my parents are from, which is on the other side of the river. And you can Google East St. Louis, it’s a really great case study in geographical racism. But I grew up with my cousins four blocks away from me, and I moved when I was five. And as I grew up, I really began to see, firsthand, what environment does to life outcomes. And I started to see our lives diverge. I got to exist in this place of abundance and resources, and their lives took a very statistical route. And for me, this is really what undergirds the Institute of Black Imagination, because it was very clear to me that it was designed, it was designed.

Where we grew up was not designed for us to thrive in. It was not designed for us to dream in. It wasn’t designed for us to imagine in. And I also saw what was possible when one just had access to resources, to information, to tools. I’m a witness of it. I am a product of it. And so when creating the Institute of Black Imagination, it’s like “What does it mean to create a space to give access and resources to individuals to allow them to dream, allow them to imagine as well.”

Debbie Millman:

In 2020 via the institute, you developed a podcast to incorporate Black and Brown voices around broader concepts of design. And in a recent episode with anti-disciplinary designer, Adam Sally, you stated, “Design is a tool we use to bring our thoughts into space time.” One of the most beautiful lines of yours that I’ve read. And I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what you mean by that.

Dario Calmese:

Sure. It’s my favorite topic. I mean, I’ll circle back and then I’ll go forward. In 2016, I was in Athens, Greece, and I heard this phrase during this conference that all design is predictive, meaning that the designer is predicting or dictating how an end user is going to interact with any given design. Rarely is there a modular or an adaptive function on the user end. It was like a throwaway line, but it completely changed my life. I literally walked out and looked at the world and realized that this was all designed, and it was-

Debbie Millman:

In looking back at your childhood and the sort of divergence between you and your cousins, it’s…

Dario Calmese:

But literally, and it sounds so basic, and we know it, but everything you’re looking at right now was once an idea in somebody’s head, the shoes, my pants, this stage, the sidewalk you walked on, the subway you took, the streets, this building, the lights, your glasses, the microphone, my gloves, the table, the cup was all immaterial. I mean, there’s a lot of creative people here, right? And so you know what it means to bring an idea and translate it into space and time. And so for me, I was like, “Oh, that is what design is. It’s the series of mechanisms or processes to bring thought into materiality.” And then I asked the question, I was like, “Oh, well, if this is all designed, then who designed it?” And that’s also a pretty easy answer. And then we realize that we’re actually living in embodied ideals. We are surrounded by thought, literally solid thought. We are moving in thought at all times.

And so then what does it mean to then open up that lane for other individuals to dream and imagine? And what I also love about that concept is that it makes the world feel really light, because it’s just thought, it’s just an idea. This building is just an idea that’s no more valid than the idea that you have in your head right now. The monarchy is just an idea, you can literally just think of something else tomorrow.

Debbie Millman:

Right?

Dario Calmese:

Seriously. And so the world-

Debbie Millman:

It’s incredibly powerful.

Dario Calmese:

The world doesn’t feel so heavy. You’re like, “Oh, you could just change your mind.” That’s what happened in COVID, everyone just had to change. And it was crazy how swift, you’re like, “Oh, we could just make another choice.” And for me, that I think is extremely powerful. But yeah, it’s just a translation of thought into space and time.

Debbie Millman:

Dario, in 2020 you also made history, as Tina mentioned in her introduction, as the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for Vanity Fair in its 106 year history, which is just so heinous in so many ways. Nevertheless, you made the history with your portrait of Oscar winning actress Viola Davis. You didn’t know you were the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for the magazine until you asked. Did that surprise you? It surprised me. I couldn’t believe that in 106 years, there was not one. Not one.

Dario Calmese:

Was I surprised? No. Did I even find it heinous? No. It’s like, if you know American history, is this a surprise?

Debbie Millman:

Talk about predictive.

Dario Calmese:

For me? It’s just like… And I wasn’t even upset. It’s interesting that I meet so much outrage when people hear that, and I’m like…

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. Why are we surprised? Is really the question.

Dario Calmese:

You know what I mean?

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, I do.

Dario Calmese:

And I also really took it as, this is a team of people, because it also wasn’t reactive right? So I had been shooting for Vanity Fair for a year prior to, so if there are any photographers in the room, it was almost a very traditional kind of photography progression. Working for a magazine, you start shooting front of book portraits, you start doing other things, and you kind of work your way up to hopefully a cover. So outside of the historical and racialized context, it was pretty kind of straightforward in that regard. And also that they weren’t choosing me in reaction to, it was like, “No, we’ve been working together for a year.”

I think that it’s a truth for us that none of us created the world that we find ourselves in, we all inherited this. We inherited these systems, these ways of being, these thoughts, these social constructs. There’s not one individual in this room that is directly responsible for anything, including the team at Vanity Fair. They can’t speak to their history. They were not even alive when the magazine came. And one of my favorite questions of the two pages on my website, because I can’t, but on the contact page it has one of my new favorite questions is, what will you do now, knowing what you now know?

Debbie Millman:

What will you do now, knowing what you now know?

Dario Calmese:

And ultimately, that’s all we can be responsible for.

Debbie Millman:

Your portrait of Viola Davis was monumental not only because of its beauty, but also because of what it represented. It wasn’t just a photograph. And you credit the pose for the image to Black women artists such as Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weems, who often photograph subjects from behind. But it also referenced another significant photograph, which we’ve been hearing quite a lot about recently. But this was actually before any of that sort of came to the cultural zeitgeist. Can you talk a little bit about the reference?

Dario Calmese:

Yeah. So for those not familiar, I referenced a portrait of Peter Gordon, it’s called Whipped Peter, and it’s a pretty famous image of a runaway slave with scars on his back. And in doing research for anything that I’m doing, I keep just a catalog of images, thousands and thousands and thousands, thousands of images. And when I get an assignment, I just go through them and I don’t even think about it. I just start pulling things that make sense, that resonate for some reason. And that was one of them. And I actually found the image to be, at least his pose, to be one of strength and quite beautiful. And it was actually quite a fashion pose because he is really trying to show the scars on his back, outside of the just horrific nature of the image.

But I was also challenged, and I actually don’t think I’ve ever spoken about this, but Samira Nasr, who’s now the editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, was still the fashion director at the time of Vanity Fair, she was making her transition at the time. And I was showing my reference images and my mood boards, and she said, she’s like, “I just want to challenge you to also think about women and how women want to be represented, a modern woman in this world.” And so we all walk through life with certain privileges, and I get to walk through life as a cis male presenting individual, I am not a woman, nor have I lived that life. And so that for me was one, of checking my own privilege, but then two, realizing like, “Oh, actually I need to go to see how Black women represent themselves, how they want to be seen.”

And so that’s when I really went back in and started looking at the work of Lorna Simpson. I mean, familiar with, but researching again the work of Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weens, and I started to see this… Alma Thomas as well. I started to see this repetition of the face away from the camera, and I thought that was really interesting. I was like, “What?” And it was crazy because when the cover came out, so many people were also comparing it to the Simone Biles cover that Annie Leibovitz did for Vogue a couple of weeks prior to, and they were lambasting it. And I did not think that that was going to be the reaction I was thinking, I was like, “Here’s another image of a Black woman with her back to the camera.” That’s actually how I interpreted it.

Debbie Millman:

They weren’t lambasting Dario’s image, just to be clear.

Dario Calmese:

Oh yeah, Annie Leibovitz’s. And so that’s actually what I was thinking about.

Debbie Millman:

Well, you’ve said that your shoot with Viola was a love letter to Black women, but I actually think it’s broader than that, I think it’s a love letter to humanity. But part of the issue that arose with the comparison of the Simone Biles photo to your photo of Viola Davis was the issue that some white photographers have shooting non-white skin, and the notion that white people don’t know how to adjust lighting for non-white subjects. And you’ve addressed this with a recent project that you were commissioned to do with Adobe. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dario Calmese:

Yes. So Adobe reached out and asked me to design presets for Lightroom, specifically geared for people of color. And they had deep skin tones, medium skin tones, and lighter skin tones. I was given medium, and it was an amazing process. It was an amazing collaboration, particularly in that medium skin tone range. You’re actually not just dealing with people of African descent, you’re also dealing with individuals from Southeast Asia, that’s a range that goes across. And it was really, really beautiful to really explore and work with a team that was extremely excited, super excited, super helpful, extremely generous, to really get down to the nuances of what it means. And I think the critique of white photographers is just a lack of sensitivity. It’s just a lack of sensitivity to nuance.

And I think even with Annie Leibovitz, who I actually admire her photography, and I think she’s an incredible photographer. She just has that filter she puts on everything to make everything look like you’re in the 1800s, like a Emily Bronte like situation. And it makes white folks look aristocratic and wind swept and just makes Black people look ashy. And so it’s just make that adjust… The sensitivity to adjust, right? And I think what undergirds that is also love and care. Like saying, “I see you and I want you to look your best,” despite my voice, despite the way I want you to be seen.

Debbie Millman:

And it also gives us the ability to have an abundance of viewpoints.

Dario Calmese:

Absolutely.

Debbie Millman:

Dario, the last thing I want to talk with you about is your fellowship.

Dario Calmese:

The last?

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, Unfortunately.

Dario Calmese:

Okay.

Debbie Millman:

I wish we had another hour or more. You’re wearing this hat that says Loeb on it, and you have a Loeb/ArtLab Fellowship with Harvard University. How did this come to be, and what kind of work are you doing in the fellowship?

Dario Calmese:

So I am, yes, at Harvard doing a Loeb Fellowship right now. And to quickly explain about the Loeb Fellowship, it’s a fellowship, they choose around 9 to 10 people from around the world working in and around the built and natural environment. And my work in defining design, I think so universally and broadly, it allows for different entry points to talk about design. And so the fellowship allows you to take any class you want to at Harvard and m MIT for a year.

Debbie Millman:

And you’re taking like eight classes?

Dario Calmese:

I went down to six.

Debbie Millman:

Oh.

Dario Calmese:

I’m exploring design through all of these different lenses. So taking classes in urban design, 3D printing and robotic with ceramics, additive manufacturing, taking Latin. Because for me, then language also becomes design, because language is also a tool that you’re using in order to translate your thoughts and speak to your own reality. And like any design tool, it allows for and disallows for certain things. And so for me, wanting to get to at least one route, there’s multiple, but getting to the core understanding and the meaning of words, for me was really important. And then also taking classes at the Kennedy School, philosophy of technology adaptive leadership, which is really looking at, philosophy of technology looking at society and the state from a systematic level through the lens of Marx and Heidegger and Hegel.

But then also leading from the inside out, which is about, we spoke earlier about identities, what are those lines of code that we’ve been taught about ourselves? What it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man, what it means to be Black, what it means to be American. And seeing that we are all individually operating algorithms that are made up of these codes. And so for me, that’s also design, right? What it means to be a woman is a design construct that was designed before you got here, but was not designed with you in mind. And so what are the limbs? What are the legs, the feet that you’re cutting off in order to fit within this preexisting design construct? And I find that so many of our frustrations, I think in life, in the world, internally, are about that friction between who we are, the core of our essence versus this meeting of this preexisting design construct. And I think that even goes back to why being defined as just a photographer is like, “I have hands and legs, and you just want the trunk.”

Debbie Millman:

And makes it easier for other people to create the construct of who you are.

Dario Calmese:

And I’m not interested in reducing myself for other people’s level of understanding.

Debbie Millman:

Bravo, bravo.

Dario Calmese:

There’s a really great word, procrustean. Do you know this word?

Debbie Millman:

No, I don’t.

Dario Calmese:

procrustean. It’s actually that act of needing to literally sever your limbs in order to fit into something. The morphology of it is, there’s a Greek myth of this guy Procrustes, and it’s called a procrustean bed, and it had a certain length and height, and he would tie you down to the bed, and if you didn’t fit, he would just cut off the parts of your body until you fit onto the bed. And so…

Debbie Millman:

Sounds like an episode of Criminal Minds.

Dario Calmese:

So it’s procrustean, yeah.

Debbie Millman:

How do you see what you’re learning, influencing what you’re making?

Dario Calmese:

Oh, I can’t wait actually. So for me, this process has been really one of ingestion and seeing how it will inform. So I haven’t really focused on the doing so much, but more on the taking in of input. But what I’m excited about, really is just to have more vocabulary, just to have more vocabulary in order to speak to the things that I see in the world and be better at translating them to other individuals. And so that’s really what I’m up there doing is, I say, “I’m just up there putting more arrows in my quiver.”

Debbie Millman:

Dario Calmese, you are remarkable. I want to thank you for making so much work that matters. And thank you for joining me today on this very, very special episode for Creative Mornings at the School of Visual Arts Theater in New York City. Ladies and gentlemen, the remarkable, the brilliant, Dario Calmese.

Dario Calmese:

My absolute pleasure. Thank you.

The post Design Matters: Dario Calmese appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Speaker 1:

This is Design Matters with Debbie Millman from DesignObserver.com.

Speaker 1:

For 14 years now, Debbie Millman has been talking with designers and other creative people about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they’re thinking about and working on.

Speaker 1:

On this podcast, Debbie Millman talks with Pete Souza about his years as the Obama White House official photographer.

Pete Souza:

I acknowledge I’m not the greatest photographer in the world, but I think I was absolutely the best photographer for this particular situation.

Speaker 1:

Here’s Debbie.

Debbie Millman:

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Debbie Millman:

Pete Souza has taken photographs for National Geographic, Life Magazine, and other dream outlets for any journalist. He’s covered wars, and he shot covers for magazines, including Newsweek and Fortune.

Debbie Millman:

During the Obama years, he was the Chief Official White House Photographer, and his book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, was an instant number one New York Times bestseller. In 2017, Pete Souza started posting images of the Obama presidency on Instagram with captions that indirectly comment on the current occupant of the White House. He now has over two million Instagram followers, and he’s just published a new booked titled Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents.

Debbie Millman:

Pete Souza, welcome to Design Matters.

Pete Souza:

Thanks for having me on.

Debbie Millman:

Pete, is it true that President Obama not only badgered you into marrying your long time girlfriend, he actually also helped you pick out the ring?

Pete Souza:

This is a true story.

Debbie Millman:

Give us a little bit more. Tell us more about that.

Pete Souza:

Well, he got to know my wife a little bit, and there was a time we were on Air Force One on a long overseas trip, and we usually hung out in the conference room and occasionally played cards with him. And for whatever reason, he just started on me. Like, “Why haven’t you gotten married?” And he said, “Look, we’ll hold the wedding in the rose garden,” and I was like, “No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want you to do that.” And he goes, “What? That’s not good enough for you?”

Pete Souza:

So, yeah. He actually … It is true.

Debbie Millman:

Did he officiate?

Pete Souza:

He officiated, but the President of the United States was not allowed to legally marry someone in the District of Columbia, so we had the White House chaplain at the very end came and did the final few words.

Debbie Millman:

How wonderful.

Debbie Millman:

You were born in New Bedford, and grew up in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Your mom was a nurse. Your dad was a boat mechanic. You have memories of playing sports every single day after school, and have described yourself as a sports fanatic. At that time in your life, did you have any artistic inclinations at all?

Pete Souza:

Not that I am aware of, and it is true, I will point out that I was a sports fanatic, but I was not a good sports fanatic in terms of my abilities playing sports.

Debbie Millman:

I understand that when you weren’t good enough to play, or I guess when you didn’t make the teams, you maintained a connection to the teams in some capacity. Can you talk about what that was?

Pete Souza:

Well, for the varsity basketball team, I was the statistician, so I’d keep track of points, and rebounds, and then there were a couple players on the team that I thought I was better than. And so it was oftentimes after practice I would play them one-on-one and beat them, which sort of made me feel good, but that was about it.

Debbie Millman:

After high school, you went to Boston University where you studied public communications, and I think you had aspirations to be a sports writer, is that correct?

Pete Souza:

Yeah, because I thought because I liked sports so much, and I thought that would be a cool thing to do. I read the Boston Globe every day. The New Bedford Standard Times had a pretty good sports section. But then in my junior year, I took a photography class, Photojournalism One I think it was called. And then the bug hit me right away. I think the first time that I was making a print in a dark room under those red safe lights, and you’ve got your tray of Dektol developer, and as the image started to magically appear on the paper in that tray, I was sort of hooked right then and there.

Debbie Millman:

Was that when you decided I want to be a professional photographer?

Pete Souza:

Sort of like sports, I wasn’t any good when I started out at photography, but I knew that I wanted to continue doing that right away.

Debbie Millman:

You graduated cum laude in 1976, and subsequently sought photography jobs at local newspapers. What made you decide to go into newspaper journalism versus focusing on fine art photography?

Pete Souza:

I was in the journalism school, and the way I was being taught photography was through journalism. I had an internship my senior year at the Associated Press in Boston, and covered news and sports events, so that was sort of like what I knew. If I had gone to this school, or the New England School of Photography, or something with more of an artistic curriculum, maybe I would’ve ended up doing landscape photography. Who knows. I just like photography, and I think journalism became the specific type of photography that I did because of the circumstance that I was in.

Debbie Millman:

I understand that, though you were applying to jobs at local newspapers, you had a pretty hard time finding one at that time, and you got rejected quite a bit. Do you have a sense of why at that time you were getting rejected so much?

Pete Souza:

Because my portfolio sucked is why.

Debbie Millman:

That simple, really? Was it that bad?

Pete Souza:

I mean, it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t that proficient either, and I remember I was stringing … Well, I went to work for my uncle’s business as a shipper, packaging stuff up to ship out for like a year, but at the same time, I was doing occasional freelance assignments for the local newspaper in New Bedford, and was hoping that they would hire me full time, which they didn’t. Yeah, so it took me awhile to get to the point where I was any good.

Debbie Millman:

You then decided to go to Kansas State University to get a master’s degree in journalism and mass communications, and it was the first time you’d ever gone west of New York, and you said your family thought you were crazy. What made you decide to choose KSU?

Pete Souza:

Well, I started looking at … There’s a magazine called Editor and Publisher. I don’t know if it still exists, and on the back of the magazine, they had these classified ads for jobs, and teaching jobs, and professional jobs, and I would look at that every … I can’t remember if it was a weekly or a monthly. And they had an advertisement in there for a teaching assistant in basic photography, and I thought, well, maybe this was a way that I could teach the basic skills of photography while I got a graduate degree. And I talked to the host professor on the phone, and he basically sold me on the idea of doing this. And so he kind of hired me on the phone, and I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Debbie Millman:

One of your first big jobs was at the Chicago Sun Times. What did you imagine that you were working toward at that time of your life? What were your goals?

Pete Souza:

Well, before that, I had worked for two small daily newspapers in Kansas, and then I went right to the Sun Times. I went from a 6,000 circulation daily newspaper where I was the only photographer to a 600,000 circulation newspaper where I was one of 25 photographers. So it was great to have a seasoned staff that I learned so much from. [John White 00:10:50], [Richard Dirk 00:10:51], people that I had admired for a long time as photojournalists. And I was in a city where there was a lot of news, which I had not really experienced at small town Kansas newspapers. And there was major league sports, and so I was having a ball, and I had no intention of going anywhere anytime soon. Things were going really well. I was getting what I thought were good assignments. I was enjoying what I was doing. I loved Chicago, and I thought that was going to be a home for quite awhile.

Debbie Millman:

But the White House called.

Pete Souza:

But, yeah … So when I was in Kansas, I was trying to move up to the Kansas City Star as a photographer, and there was … A photo editor at the Star was a woman named [Carol Greenwalt 00:11:45], and I interviewed for a job with her. She didn’t hire me, but she sort of kept track of my career, and then she ended up becoming the White House photo editor under [Michael Evans 00:11:58], who was Reagan’s Chief Official Photographer. And then in the middle of Reagan’s first term, they had an opening for a White House photographer to work underneath Michael, and Carol called me one day out of the blue and said, “We want you to apply for this job.”

Pete Souza:

And it was one of those things where … You know, a phone call that had a lot to do with changing the rest of my life, so I ended up taking that job, and worked at the White House until the end of Reagan’s term. My last day was January 20th, 1989. And so that was a great experience to the White House, to being an inside photographer, to understanding how to act and behave around national politicians, and so on, and so forth.

Debbie Millman:

You’ve said that your personal politics didn’t exactly mesh with President Reagan’s. Did that worry you when you first joined the White House team?

Pete Souza:

Well, when Carol first called me, I told her I wasn’t interested because I thought things were going so well, and I didn’t really think that highly of Reagan at the time. But I thought we all hoped that our pictures live in history, and I thought what better way to provide images for history than be inside at the White House, and what difference would it make whether the president was a Democrat or a Republican?

Pete Souza:

And so I sort of put those thoughts aside, and went to work there, and I actually admired President Reagan. He was a decent human being. He respected other people from all walks of life, and to me, the policy part of it was not that significant in terms of what I was doing, which was photographing for the historic archive.

Debbie Millman:

Did you have-

PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:14:04]

Pete Souza:

… for the historic archive.

Debbie Millman:

Did you have to develop a certain objectivity, or was that something that didn’t really come up in the kind of work you were doing?

Pete Souza:

I approached it as a photo journalist would, which is you’re trying to photograph and make authentic pictures that are true to what has taken place. I don’t know how … I guess if you, because you didn’t like his policies, you maybe get a picture of him picking his nose. I mean, I never understood what that means. Objective or non-objective. You’re documenting what’s happening, and policies really don’t affect the way you make a picture, I don’t think.

Debbie Millman:

After your tenure with Reagan, you became one of the first photographers to cover the war in Afghanistan, which you did for the Chicago Tribune. While there you traversed the 15,000 foot Hindu Kush mountain pass on horseback in three feet of snow. You also saw the dark realities of war, death, destruction, devastation. How did that impact you?

Pete Souza:

The thing that was interesting that Afghanistan was that it was the first war really, were pictures, because of the advance of digital technology, you could transmit them back to the US hours later, after you made them with your satellite phone. So there was a immediate reaction from the readership of the Chicago Tribune. I went with a correspondent named Paul Salopek. Paul and I had a couple of close calls with rocket propelled grenades, and sniper bullets and things like that.

Pete Souza:

By the way, we were there before there were any US troops on the ground. The US had started their air campaign already, and we were usually hooked up with the local Northern Alliance, the soldiers that were fighting against the Taliban. A couple times are right there on the front line with them. I never considered myself a war photographer. I sort of ended up right on the front line almost by mistake. I realized that I was not that good at it, because it takes a certain kind of person to be able to keep their shit together while really bad things are happening around you. I realized that, that probably was not for me.

Debbie Millman:

I can’t imagine how anybody could keep their shit together in that kind of condition.

Pete Souza:

Well, there are people that can.

Debbie Millman:

In 2004, you were shooting Washington DC for the Chicago Tribune and you were asked to cover the then Senator Barack Obama’s first year in the Senate. What did you think about that assignment? Had you ever heard of the senator at that point? Or did you have a big impression of him?

Pete Souza:

You know, he had made this big speech in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention. At the time I was with the nominee John Kerry, traveling with him for the Tribune. The day that Barack Obama made that speech, Kerry was not yet at the convention. I think we were in Nantucket, as a matter of fact. So I didn’t see the speech, but I heard about it after. Then when he was elected to the Senate, and Jeff’s Zeleny, reporter said, “Hey, we should do this. Look at his first year in the Senate.” I sort of read up on him a little more, and the New Yorker read published a long profile about him, which I read.

Pete Souza:

But, I hadn’t seen him on video to see what he looked like or how he interacted with people, until the day I met him. Which was in early January-

Debbie Millman:

When he was sworn in.

Pete Souza:

Yeah, it was a few hours before he was sworn… I met him at his hotel before he had gone up to the capital, which was the first time that I had met him.

Debbie Millman:

What was your first impression of him?

Pete Souza:

You know, the first day of your Senate career is a ceremonial day. You’re sworn in, you get your office, you have some receptions, you meet with this person, with that person. Very ceremonial. His family, who stayed in Chicago, came to DC that day, both Sasha, and Malia and Michelle. And a couple things struck me. One, he was very at ease even though I was taking pictures throughout the day.

Pete Souza:

I’ve got this picture of him in his office with Sasha and Malia, and he’s biting into a big sandwich, and he’s got this big wad of food in his mouth. Sasha and Malia are just doing their thing. It as if I’m not even there, I mean it’s such an intimate picture and I had only known him for like three hours. As a photo journalist, you always hope to have a subject like that. One who isn’t suddenly startled by the presidents of a camera.

Pete Souza:

He sort of just went about his business as I went about my business. Which was, I thought unusual a new national politician. Then over the next few weeks to see the way he interacted with people, not only the way he spoke when he was giving a speech and seeing how people reacted to the spoken word. But then seeing he would interact with people directly, and was very respectful to every person he met. You could see the excitement in the faces of some of the young people, especially the young African American kids. All that was very noticeable just in the manner of the first few weeks I spent with him.

Debbie Millman:

Did you have any idea back then of what he was capable of and how far he might’ve send in politics?

Pete Souza:

Yeah, I mean I think it came in with a lot of hype. Then you never know. People ask me who’s going to be the Democratic nominee in 2020, and I say you never know who is going to do well under the glare of the national spotlight. But certainly ,I could see that he would at least someday run for a bigger position than senator. I didn’t know if that would be Governor or President. I sort of tried to keep that in the back of my mind, having been in the White House with Reagan and noting what the presidential bubble is like.

Debbie Millman:

What do you mean by the presidential bubble?

Pete Souza:

There’s this apparatus around you, secret service. Everything is kind of stage managed in terms of for security reasons. You can’t just leave the White House and go for a walk and go to Starbucks, or Dunkin donuts or whatever. You can’t do that when you’re president. You could do that when your senator, especially you’re a freshman senator. So I was trying to make pictures in my mind that I thought, if he ever became president, these would be cooler pictures in 20 years there would be timeless.

Pete Souza:

But as you look back on them you’d see, some of my favorite pictures of John Kennedy are ones when he was running for president and nobody really knew that much about him. There’s nobody else around, he’s the only one ad on the airport tarmac, things like that.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, you see the person.

Pete Souza:

Yeah, so I was trying to keep that in the back of my mind. I’ve got this series of pictures of President Obama in Russia. We went to Russia with him and Senator Lugar from Indiana on a congressional delegation. I’ve got these pictures of him in Red Square, President Obama, where he’s walking through the Red Square and nobody is looking at him, nobody knows who he is. I knew that those pictures, when you look at those now, they’re really kind of cool to look at. Because here’s this guy that became this president, national figure, everybody knows who is now. At the time, he’s running around Moscow and not a soul recognizes him.

Debbie Millman:

When Obama did become president, his spokesman Robert Gibbs, asked you to be President Obama’s official photographer. You accepted on the condition that you would have complete access. Had that not been the case prior in the White House, when photographers were covering the president.

Pete Souza:

So first, President Obama asked me through Robert Gibbs to become his photographer. Gibbs, we all know him as White House press secretary. But in reality, he was his closest aide. He was as much an advisor as he was a spokesman, and I did say that to him about the access. I remember Robert’s reply was, “The president gets it.” I think the amount of access that you get when you’re the chief official White House photographer is totally dependent on the relationship that you have with the president. Ultimately the president decides how much access you get.

Pete Souza:

It was very beneficial to me to have had experience previously in the White House, as well as having had for four years of professional relationship with Barack Obama. So, he knew me. I was more or less from his generation, and he had a lot of young people around him. I think he liked having somebody from his generation around him. He saw how I worked. I always tell people, “I acknowledge and not the greatest photographer in the world. But I think I was absolutely the best photographer for this particular situation,” because of all those things.

Debbie Millman:

You shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and Mark III at the White House, and estimated in 2009 that you shot around 1,000 to 1,500 photographs in an average day. Recent totals for both of Obama’s terms coming in around 2 million images. I read that you sought to minimize your footprint at the White House, and President Obama himself has described you as having a remarkable talent for making yourself invisible. How did you go about doing that? 1,500 pictures a day hardly seems like you could be invisible doing it.

Pete Souza:

No, but by a small footprint, which, I mean at the time the Canon 5D was what I thought was the quietest professional digital camera that existed. So that’s why I chose to use that camera, and I didn’t use a flash. I would not use motor drive, rapid one picture after another. 1,500 pictures in a 12 or 13 hour day is really not that many, I don’t think. I just had this ability to go about my job and not disturb what was taking place in front of me, knowing when to give him some space. These are all things that you can’t write down as bullet points and say, “Here’s how you do it.”

Pete Souza:

A lot of it is intuition. I think physically, it would have been better if I had been 20 years younger. But I think I also had the advantage of being older in that, I sort of felt that I belonged there. I wasn’t gonna have anybody telling me that I didn’t belong there. I knew how to approach things, where I wouldn’t get kicked out of the room.

Debbie Millman:

One of your most well known shots was President Obama and his team, including Secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, watching the bin Ladin raid. One thing you said about that image that’s really stayed with me is this, “The most powerful people in the room were in that room, and they were essentially helpless, resigned to just watch something play out.” Pete, what was it like to be there in that room when it was happening?

Pete Souza:

Yeah, no, it was very tense. We were in there for about 40 minutes, 42 minutes I think it was. Yeah, I mean this was a decision to launch this raid that was arguably the biggest decision of his presidency, because things could have gone really bad. If we go back to history when Carter sent in helicopters to Iran to try to rescue our hostages and helicopters crashed, some of our guys were killed. This was a risky mission, and this was a decision that could have ended his presidency if it not had ended well.

Pete Souza:

I was aware of all that in the back of my mind, as this day progressed. You just didn’t know how it was going to end up. Well, he ultimately had made this decision and his staff supported him. But then once the mission itself was playing out, they had no role in it. It was out of their hands, and yet they were being able to monitor this raid is it happened. So I think that’s what accounts for all the tension-

PART 2 OF 3 ENDS [00:28:04]

Pete Souza:

… as it happened. So I think that’s what accounts for all the tension, that you see in their faces.

Debbie Millman:

All told you said that the photos that stand out to you the most are the highly personal moments, such as when Washington, D.C. was buried in a snowstorm and President Obama went outside and played with his daughters. You were the only other person there. That’s when you saw him as a human versus a president. Over the eight years you shot him in the White House, how did you see President Obama change over the course of his tenure?

Pete Souza:

His hair got a little grayer.

Debbie Millman:

That’s true.

Pete Souza:

But the core character of the guy didn’t change. I mean from the … from that first day that I met him in January 2005 until we’re flying away on a helicopter last January, the character of him didn’t … I didn’t think changed at all. He grew as a person. There’s some things you can’t prepare for as president. For instance, the first tragedy that probably happened during his presidency were the shootings at Fort Hood. He had to go there and console all these families. You can’t teach somebody how to do that. I could see the uneasiness in him, not knowing what people expected from him, when really all they wanted was a hug, or to be able to show him pictures of their loved one that had been killed.

Pete Souza:

I saw him have to do that too many times in his presidency, but he sort of got to the point where he understood why he needed to do it, and I think became more comfortable in doing it, which is kind of a sad thing to say, really, that he had to do that so many times, that he became comfortable. But I can’t imagine anyone having to do that, time and time again, and how much that takes out of you emotionally, to meet these families, and those circumstances.

Debbie Millman:

After your tenure at the White House, you released the book, Obama, an Intimate Portrait, which soared to number one on the New York Times Bestseller List and is one of the best selling photography books of all time. You needed to be able to parse through the two million images you’d taken over the eight years of the Obama Administration, down to the three hundred that were included in the book. How were you able to do that?

Pete Souza:

Yeah, no, that was a big challenge, because I wanted to try to include most of the historical things that had happened during his presidency, but then also show some of the small moments that really show what he was like as a person. And then also show some of the aesthetic pictures that I had made of the presidency, pictures of Air Force One, the helicopter, scenes like that, and try to just have a good narrative throughout the book. It was not easy to do and ultimately it just became a gut check on what I thought were the right set of pictures. I’m sure that if I wait another 10 years to try to put together the same book, it would be slightly different because I would be thinking about things, thinking back on things maybe differently. Things would have happened in the world that maybe effect what was important then, you don’t realize that until 10 years later or something like that.

Debbie Millman:

Today you have two million followers on Instagram and your posts are incredibly telling. When our current President signed the executive order banning refugees from the country, you posted an image of President Obama smiling as he played with a refugee girl. When Melania Trump famously swatted away Donald’s hand, you posted a photo of Michelle and Barack joining fingers. There could not be a more diametrically opposed juxtaposition. What made you decide to do this?

Pete Souza:

I thought it was my civic duty. I had worked for a guy for eight years that I respected, who respected the rule of law, who tried to make decisions based on facts, who was respectful to other people. The person that succeeded him was none of those things. I didn’t feel that he was respecting, that President Trump wasn’t respecting the Oval Office, the Office of the Presidency, I didn’t think he understood what it meant to be an American, and I thought that it became my civic duty, in my little small way, to point this out.

Debbie Millman:

You’ve said that when your account was first described as throwing shade, you had to look the term up, especially since it was in reference to curtains in the White House. What was that like when you first discovered what throwing shade meant?

Pete Souza:

Well, the post that you’re referring to is a couple days after the inauguration and I had seen a picture of the re-decorated Oval Office. There were these gold curtains. Instead of two flags in the Oval Office, there were like 20 flags or something and it looked like a Saudi palace, not the Oval Office. I was appalled. So I posted a picture of President Obama by the Resolute desk, with the red curtains in the background, and I think my caption was something like, kinda like the old curtains better.

Pete Souza:

I admit it was a double meaning and I didn’t know if people would pick up on that. They did. The very first post, someone said that I was shading Trump. Over the subsequent weeks I would do my little snarky captions and responses to a Presidential tweet or story and I was getting all these calls from reporters wanting me to do an interview, and I turned them all down, ’cause I just said look, my Instagram feed speaks for itself. I thought it was more powerful, just let it stand.

Pete Souza:

But people started doing stories anyway, despite the fact that I wasn’t being quoted and there were several headlines, Souza throws shade at Trump, or trolling was another word. So I sort of knew what trolling meant, but I didn’t really know what throwing shade meant, so I did look it up.

Debbie Millman:

You have a brand new book now based on that work and it is called, Shade, a Tale of Two Presidents, and it takes its name from that experience. The book places images of President Obama and elements of President Trump alongside tweets, news pieces and quotes and as you write in the intro, “In this book I take a turn to full transparency and let it all hang out. You can call it shade. I just call it the truth.” You then go on to state that, “With this book you are standing up and shouting out, as you can’t be subtle any longer.” Pete, after years of making impartial political statements through your official photographs, was it daunting to be putting yourself out there in this way?

Pete Souza:

It was only daunting in that I started this while I was putting together my other book. So I felt that I had two separate lives going on, two separate work lives. One, I was trying to do the best documentary, photography book on a president that had ever been done. So that was occupying most of my time. My side job was starting these shade comments on Instagram, and they were two completely different things. But now I sort of … now that I have a book out, I mean I have to talk about it, and the book is actually … the big difference between the book and the Instagram feed itself, is on the Instagram feed, I sort of leave people guessing what I’m referring to sometimes. They have to pay attention to the news. I often get comments from people that they see my post and they have to Google what Trump did that offended me or that I’m responding to.

Pete Souza:

Well in the book, it’s very direct in that the left page is a Trump tweet or a news headline, or a series of news headlines and the right page is my response I gave on Instagram or a similar one. There’s some actually new material that wasn’t on Instagram, in the book, but I try to keep that sort of flow of here it is, here’s the Trump craziness, on the right side here’s my response.

Debbie Millman:

It’s an interesting, political, cultural and somewhat satirical book and in a lot of ways it’s not satire at all, it’s just truth. Is it true that you blocked Kanye West from your Instagram feed?

Pete Souza:

No.

Debbie Millman:

Oh.

Pete Souza:

I don’t think he follows me on Instagram. I just did that as a … I often … sometimes I think people take what I say too seriously and that was just sort of like tongue in cheek. I don’t think Kanye follows me on Instagram. I don’t think Kanye knows who the hell I am.

Debbie Millman:

Well, he should. I have one last question for you, Pete. It’s about another Instagram star you have a connection to. Charlotte the Tortoise?

Pete Souza:

Yeah.

Debbie Millman:

Tell us about Charlotte the Tortoise?

Pete Souza:

You know one thing that happens when you get kids, and they get pets as children, and they eventually grow up and leave the house, but they leave their pets with you. So, Charlotte, who we’ve had for 20 or 21 years …

Debbie Millman:

Tortoises live a really long time.

Pete Souza:

Yeah. Was not my pet, it was Patty’s kids’ pet. They grew up, they left the house and Charlotte stayed with us and Charlotte was named after Charlotte’s Web and I had always been taking pictures with my iPhone of Charlotte all these years, but then I started posting a few on my Instagram feed and people started going crazy. So I thought it was time for Charlotte to get her own Instagram feed.

Debbie Millman:

And it’s @charlottethetortoise on Instagram.

Pete Souza:

Yeah.

Debbie Millman:

Quite an entertaining feed as well. Very different feed, but wonderful to follow. Pete, thank you so much for being on Design Matters today and thank you for documenting the world with such significance and beauty.

Pete Souza:

Well, thanks for saying that and thanks for having me on, I really appreciate it.

Debbie Millman:

You can see more of Pete’s work at PeteSouza.com. Pete Souza’s latest book is Shade, a Tale of Two Presidents, and an exhibit of his work is being shown at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City. This is the 14th year I’ve been doing Design Matters and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

Speaker 1:

For more information about Design Matters, or to subscribe to our newsletter, go to DebbieMillman.com. If you love this podcast, please consider contributing to our Drip Kickstarter community. Members get early access to the podcast, transcripts of every interview, invitations to live interviews, Q and A sessions with guests, and a brand new annual magazine. You can learn more about this at D.rip/Debbie-Millman. That’s D.rip/Debbie-Millman. And if you really like this podcast, please write a review in the iTunes store and link to the podcast on social media. Design Matters is produced by Curtis Fox Productions. The show is published exclusively by designobserver.com and recorded at the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding Program on New York City. The Editor-in-Chief of Design Matters Media is Zachary Petit and the Art Director is Emily Weiland. Generous support for Design Matters Media is provided by Adobe XD and Wix.com.

The post Best of Design Matters: Pete Souza appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Debbie Millman:

Catherine Opie is one of the most preeminent artists of her generation and has made some of the most indelible images of our time. Her intimate photographic portraits of queer communities in Los Angeles and San Francisco put her on the map in the early 1990s. She also works in landscapes, both natural and urban. Her black-and-white photos of empty freeways and strip malls hold up a haunting mirror of contemporary America. And once you see some of her self-portraits, I guarantee they will stay with you forever.

Her work has been featured in hundreds of major museums, gallery exhibitions and public collections all around the world. For the first time, the body of her work has been published in a stunning new monograph published by Phaidon. It includes over 300 images as well as essays written by the likes of The New Yorker’s Hilton Als. She joins me today to talk about the evolution of her extraordinary career. Catherine Opie, welcome to Design Matters.

Catherine Opie:

Thank you so much, Debbie, and design does matter. So I’m happy to be here.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. Catherine, I understand that you still have a Garfield stuffed animal and a third-place bowling trophy from the 1970s on display in your studio.

Catherine Opie:

Well, I actually think it’s 11th place, which even makes it more humorous in my mind.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. OK. Why do you still have these objects, and why on display?

Catherine Opie:

Well, you can see me. I have a shelf behind me … if people were on Zoom, they would be able to see a shelf behind me that had numerous books and little things. And recently my mom was cleaning out her house and we’re about ready to move her to another place that is for a living at 85 in a really beautiful way. And she brought me this trunk of objects, and when I opened it, it was just, I had these shelves and I thought, Oh, well, I’ll just have this weird Garfield stuffed animal and one can’t throw out their 11th place plaque of bowling from Sandusky, Ohio.

Debbie Millman:

No, I agree. I have to confess, I have a little trophy from sixth grade coming in third place in the three-legged race. And that is also important.

Catherine Opie:

So you did a little bit better than me.

Debbie Millman:

Well, yeah. Just the only evidence of my athletic prowess I will ever have in my life. So yeah. Catherine, you were born in Sandusky, Ohio. Your mother was a gym teacher until she had children. Your dad ran his family’s art supply company. Is it true he also had one of the country’s preeminent collections of Republican political memorabilia?

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. Both—and Democratic, actually.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, both. OK.

Catherine Opie:

It was a large overview of political paraphernalia, including all the Lincoln karyotypes. So it was quite an extensive, fairly important collection actually.

Debbie Millman:

What has happened to the collection?

Catherine Opie:

He sold it upon us leaving Ohio. And I think that that person donated it all to the Smithsonian. My father’s obituary had said that he donated it to the Smithsonian, but my father was a frugal businessman and I think he sold it to somebody who then donated it.

Debbie Millman:

And I understand he gave you an embroidered commemorative ribbon made after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Is that true?

Catherine Opie:

Yes, that is true. I have that upstairs here in the studio in this special little box that is actually a family business box, Opie craft. And it’s kind of his treasure chest that he sent to me before he passed away so that I would have these different little moments including … he always carried an Ohio buckeye in his pocket for lock. So it’s just this little treasure chest of things that included the Lincoln ribbon because Lincoln happened to be assassinated, unfortunately, on what is my birthday, April 14.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, wow. Now was your father a Republican?

Catherine Opie:

My father was a Republican up until Obama ran. And when Obama ran, my father’s switched to being a Democratic voter for the reasons that the Republican Party was no longer the Republican Party that he believed in. And he did not like the conservatism and he believed that women had a right to choose. And he believed, having a lesbian daughter, that I had rights and so forth. And so the Republican Party that he grew up with was no longer an affiliation that he wanted to have.

Debbie Millman:

He must’ve been extraordinarily proud to know that your work was hanging in the Obama White House.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. No, he was. I mean, he was very proud of me. One of my biggest nervous moments was both him and my stepmother coming to the 1995 Whitney Biennial opening because it was the first time I was ever in a major museum show. And obviously my queerness was very much on display there, but he just rode along with it in a very good way, and surprisingly so.

Debbie Millman:

Well, I want to talk about the exhibit in a little bit, but I want to start first with your first experiences with photography. I understand at 8 years old, while in the fourth grade, you wrote a book report on the photography of Lewis Hine. Why Lewis Hine, and how did you first find out about him?

Catherine Opie:

Well, it was actually not on Lewis Hine, it was on the photograph of the girl from the Carolina Mills. And it was in my social studies book and I was reading about child labor, and I was supposed to be writing a report about child labor and the history of that in the U.S., but I spoke about the photograph and what the photograph told me. And it made me realize that also, probably growing up with all this political memorabilia around me, that history is made within an image culture. And so I had that awareness apparently and asked for a camera on my ninth birthday so I could be a documentary photographer.

Debbie Millman:

So you always knew what you wanted to do and to be?

Catherine Opie:

In a way, I guess. I mean, I guess so. It seems now that it’s hard to believe that that was really what I was going to decide to be, but at that moment it was important to me, and the camera was bought for me for my birthday. And I used it throughout my life to document my life. And that is including … even when we moved to California, I used my babysitting money to build a darkroom in our house, where I ruined the family tiles of the bathroom with chemistry. Design does matter. Your mother gets mad at you if you get fixer and developer all over bathroom tiles.

Debbie Millman:

Well, it was a spare bathroom.

Catherine Opie:

It was my bathroom attached to my room. So it was a perfect way to make a darkroom. I spent a lot of hours in there.

Debbie Millman:

I understand that you went about making friends when you moved to San Diego or outside of San Diego by taking photos. And I believe this is also when you had your first crush, is that correct?

Catherine Opie:

I did. I had my first crush on a very beautiful … a woman who was a profoundly amazing actor by the name of Surrey Monet Flack. And she lives in England at this point, but she was my first major crush where I was still trying to figure out certain things, but just couldn’t not be around Surrey. And I grew roses and I would bring her a rose every day. And so it was pretty crush-worthy, actually. Although Surrey didn’t realize that I had a crush on her. I met up with her later in England and said, “I was completely in love with you in high school.” And she was like, “You were? I thought you were just my best friend.” I was like, “Oh, well.”

Debbie Millman:

You knew from a young age that you were gay, but have said that the lack of role models around you made coming out a difficult process. And you and I are the same exact age, both born in 1961. And so I didn’t come out till much, much later in life. And so I fully understand that difficulty. What was the most difficult aspect for you?

Catherine Opie:

I think then, until I moved to San Francisco, again, I didn’t have it surrounding me. I was called names in high school. I was called a dyke. I was harassed in that way. Being homosexual scared me. I thought that I wouldn’t be accepted in society. I carried that fear and internal homophobia within me. And it didn’t happen legitimately until I moved to San Francisco and I was sitting on a curb with my best friend, Dean, at that moment in time, Dean Moser, who I had met at a residence club that I was working for my room and board while I went to San Francisco Art Institute.

And Dean thought I had a crush on him. And so Dean said, “Cathy, there’s something I have to tell you. I’m gay.” And I was like, “Oh, well, I am too.” And that was the first time that it was actually spoken. And then there was no hesitation after speaking it.

Debbie Millman:

What’s so interesting to me in terms of looking at your body of work is despite the difficulty that you might’ve experienced and the inner homophobia, you did seem right from the very beginning in your body of work to … embrace isn’t even the right word, but celebrate your sexuality and your gayness.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, no. I think that I did, but it wasn’t right away actually. It took some time. I mean, there was the side person, Cathy Opie, who then everybody who is a friend calls me Cathy. Cathy Opie published in On Our Backs magazine, not Catherine Opie. So I took on these different kinds of personas I suppose to, again, create different compartments of my life. And then I guess that’s in some ways having multiple closets in one’s house. And I think that really beyond being Cathy Opie and On Our Backs and celebrating that through queer culture … it wasn’t until becoming a part of ACT UP and Queer Nation that I decided to make my work publicly about my queerness.

But I would have to say that a good portion of my work was trying to be a very serious street photographer in San Francisco. And then my queerness within my work at CalArts was actually the dissemination and observation of master plan communities in Southern California, which I kind of grew up in from moving from Sandusky to Rancho Bernardo, Poway, California, and watched that turn into master-plan community. So I think the queerness was always also involved in the relationship to “how do we fit in this world?” And if there’s this kind of separation in relationship to idea of community, then how do I portray my community? And I think it was a quandary for quite some time.

Debbie Millman:

The quandary, also, I think, began even before you committed to photography as a profession. At one point after you graduated high school you considered becoming a kindergarten teacher and even went to Virginia Intermont College to study early childhood education. I mean, in thinking about the pathways of a life, you were on that pathway.

Catherine Opie:

No, yeah, I was. I profoundly loved children. I really, really love children. And I suppose that’s even the other aspect of queerness is, how was I going to become a mom? Because that was always what I wanted to be; even as a child, I would tell my mom that I was going to have 12 children, for some reason.

Debbie Millman:

Wow.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, that would have been too many. So kindergarten, I was a camp counselor for a long time and I really liked kids. So I just imagined that I would be a pretty fun kindergarten teacher.

Debbie Millman:

A year into your studies to become a teacher you called your mom and said, “I’m an artist and I need to go to art school.” How did she respond? I mean, both your parents really encouraged you to be this kindergarten teacher. How did they respond to you wanting to be an artist?

Catherine Opie:

Well, my mom was the one who was supporting my ability to go to college. My father was … he was financially capable, but chose to not financially support my endeavor of receiving a college degree. He kind of believed that when you turned 18, you were on your own kind of guy.

Debbie Millman:

How generous of him.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. Right? So my mom, that was hard for her. She actually took a loan off of her car that she owned outright for me to go ahead and move to San Francisco. And I picked San Francisco Art Institute. And I wasn’t thinking about San Francisco as being a very gay city. It was just in California and a really good notable art school that had Ansel Adams and Minor white and Dorothy [inaudible], and the legacy of that program in terms of photography is actually why I chose it. And mom supported it. She said, “OK, but I’m only going to be able to pay the tuition, Cathy. This is a really big tuition.” And just so you know, in 1981, it was about $7,000 a year.

And she was able to get me all the way through paying the tuition. And I did get some scholarship money, and then grad school was, again, up to me. So if I was going to go to graduate school, then I had to do it on my own.

Debbie Millman:

You left San Francisco to pursue your MFA at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. You said that that transition sucked.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. It really did.

Debbie Millman:

In what way did it suck?

Catherine Opie:

Well, I was leaving a community that was profoundly also becoming decimated from AIDS. And I all of a sudden moved back into a very hot Southern California environment in the middle of a master-plan community that I had exited when I was basically 19 years old. And to be all of a sudden going from the Bay Area of this incredible city, and it’s the first time I had ever lived in a city, back to the suburbs where it was really hot and I couldn’t wear my leather jacket year-round like I could in San Francisco, and being newly possessed of my queerness, my being a dyke … it wasn’t even queerness. I don’t even think we used the word in 1985, but my being a dyke, and what that meant for me.

Even though I had Catherine Lord and Millie Wilson and amazing people around me at CalArts who celebrated that and definitely added on to my ability to understand theory and feminism, and had Douglas Crimp come through the school, [and an] enormous amount of people at that time period, it still wasn’t San Francisco.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. As a way to cope, you started photographing a planned community that was being built across the road from your apartment, which ultimately became part of your thesis portfolio. And this work included photographs of “matching model homes, plots of land and billboards advertising in the United States where the children are apple-cheeked and tow-headed and the parents are as straight as Ken and Barbie.” What provoked this particular direction of your work?

Catherine Opie:

Well, at first I didn’t have a car because I was moving from San Francisco and my car had been totaled and I just decided to walk with my camera. And so I was also trained as more or less a street photographer in San Francisco. So in Southern California, there’s very little street. And so you just start wandering, and I’m a big proponent of wandering. I talk about wandering quite a bit. And I recognized what was being built was actually what I watched being built in my teen years, and decided that it was something that I could try to talk about.

Debbie Millman:

In the meantime, you began to contribute photographs to lesbian magazines. You mentioned On Our Backs, whose name was a response to the anti-pornography feminist journal Off Our Backs. How did you first discover the magazine?

Catherine Opie:

Well, living in San Francisco, you’re basically embedded in … at that point, Valencia Street in San Francisco was the kind of lesbian area. The Castro was for the boys. Valencia Street was for the women. We had Artemis Cafe, we had Osento Bath House, we had Amelia’s, which was the seven-day-a-week lesbian bar. So you had all of this happening all at once. And I’ll tell you, the women who would go to Amelia’s were also the women who were being photographed by wonderful photographers like Jill Posner and Susie Bright, and all of the sex-positive in terms of starting On Our Backs was right there at that time.

And so I just decided, “Well, I want a picture on On Our Backs. I’m a photographer. I’m a lesbian. Why shouldn’t I try to actually do that as well?”

Debbie Millman:

Those magazines introduced me to my own private realization that I was gay at the time, although it was another 25 years before I publicly came out. But other magazines that I have in my collection that I thought you’d enjoy, I’m sure you know this one. And then Caught Looking, which was—

Catherine Opie:

Oh, Caught Looking.

Debbie Millman:

… just an extraordinary publication. At the time, you also joined a woman’s S&M society called The Outcasts. It’s co-founded by the activist and academic Gayle Rubin. But you’ve said that S&M was never sexual for you, and have described it as the scariest, most violent secret impulses that could be followed and validated and made almost cozy in an atmosphere where you could always say “no.” And you go on to say that you needed to push yourself to get over the enormous amount of fear you had around your body. Where do you think that fear came from? What was that fear about?

Catherine Opie:

Well, it’s personal and it’s not on the record in terms of personal, but there was some childhood trauma on my part. And I think that there was an enormous amount of healing that this community brought to me in relationship to trauma. And you’ve never read this in an interview. So, I’m saying it right now for the first time. And it’s been very hard in a certain way to be quiet about this during the #MeToo movement, but there’s reasons. And the reasons are, is when you make self-portraits that I made, people easily equate that to, “Oh, well, that’s why she made that—she was traumatized as a child.”

And I try to, very hard, again, that kind of compartments that I put things in. In this society, we’re very easy to connote things and to take things and blow them out of proportion in a way that’s not authentic to one’s own experience. So my authenticity to my own experience into my childhood was definitely worked out on an emotional level very much so through the leather community, but at the same time, the publicness of that is not necessarily something that I feel I need to have completely spelled out in the world.

Debbie Millman:

I completely understand. For years, I was in the closet and also would not disclose my own early childhood trauma with sexual abuse. Primarily because I never wanted anybody to say that anything I did was because of that or that I was damaged in some way because of it or that I would be judged because of my own inner homophobia in those decades. But I know that the kink community essentially saved the life of my wife, Roxane Gay. She’s very public about the fact that if it weren’t for the kink community, she wouldn’t be alive today.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. No, and I feel very much the same without having to lay out all the details of my past, but that was an amazing place to be able to work out so much.

Debbie Millman:

Thank you for feeling that you could trust me with this. That sense of community that both you talk about and that Roxane has experienced, that seems to be the most important aspect of being involved in the BDSM scene, and that it was also political. It was as political as much as it was sexual, as much as it was community. And I read that you often talked philosophy in the dungeons.

Catherine Opie:

Well, Gayle Rubin is great to talk to. I mean, I remember at one point asking Gayle for coffee and just wanting to talk about the amazing experiences of the transition of so many butch dykes transitioning to male. And I wanted to have like a real philosophical conversation with her in relationship to AIDS and the kind of work that she did in relationship to the gay male leather–called sex clubs south of Market. And so when you have actual role models and brilliant people that were surrounding me at that time period and very sex-positive people, there was really interesting deep discourse in relationship to what we were doing and what we were holding, and also consensuality. I mean, I wish everybody had that education, in some ways.

Debbie Millman:

Yes. Yes. Some of your early work for On Our Backs included photos of your sex toy and leather collection, and a beautiful image of a woman standing while urinating. And in 1987 you created a self-portrait titled Cathy, which is a black-and-white image of yourself wearing a strap-on, dressed in a negligee, a stride, a bed. And at that time you vowed you’d never be a voyeur within your own community. But I’m wondering, did you ever feel shy about sharing this part of yourself in such a public way?

Catherine Opie:

Not anymore.

Debbie Millman:

Did you at that point, or …?

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, I think that I did. I think that I was still protecting my parents and my family. I think that it takes a long time to figure out how you should be as a person and what is OK to be out in the world in relation to also this weird protective bubble one puts around their biological family. And then at a certain point, I just realized that my family is my chosen family. That even though I have a profound sense of love for my parents, that I was also not going to remain in the closet. And that that was not a healthy position for me.

And so I just decided to go for it, but I didn’t put that image out actually until the 2000s. I mean, that’s the thing, is I went back into the archive. And I also probably thought that some of the black-and-white work from Girlfriends that I did, it was maybe too close to Mapplethorpe. And I needed to create my own identity within the leather community as a woman that was separate from Mapplethorpe, because we both also have similar aesthetics. We really like to highly aestheticize our material in a visual kind of classical way. And so that work in the 2000s was fine to pull out, where in the ’80s, when Robert passed away from AIDS until 1989, it was too close.

Debbie Millman:

Is that why you stayed away from using a square format?

Catherine Opie:

Well, I used a square format a lot in all that private work. I mean, it was all shot [inaudible]. Yeah, no. And the archive has that because it’s a camera that I really enjoyed using. Including in the new Phaidon book, you’ll see an image of me with my grandfather’s Rolleiflex as a self-portrait at one of the beginning pages where it was 1983 or ’84, and I’m in New York City and it’s a self-portrait with my grandfather’s fedora with a big overcoat holding a twin reflex. So that work existed and it was going on and I was making it. But when I decided to make work of my own community, I felt that I needed to create a different way of thinking about documentary.

And so with Being and Having, which was the first studio photographs of mine with women with fake mustaches, my friends with fake mustaches and looking straight into the camera, by using that yellow background consistently with the consistent framing, [it] created a conceptual positioning to portraiture that I felt was a way to shift from on necessarily a comparison to Mapplethorpe.

Debbie Millman:

That work, Being and Having, really shot you to fame. What made you decide to shoot them all on a golden yellow background?

Catherine Opie:

Well, it was in my living room in Silver Lake. I lived on Sanborn Ave. How I made all my early portraits was in my living room. I didn’t have a studio. Yellow is a hard color in relationship to skin tone, but the other thing is, in terms of the diversity of skin tone of my friends in relationship to inclusion, yellow was the best to make it pop. And I would often have all my friends get their mustaches, and we would make the portraits because I was shooting with a four-by-five camera, and we’d make the portraits, and then we’d just hang out afterwards.

So it was also in a small living room, and Silver Lake, I didn’t have the ability to change over all different colors of seamless … nor was I thinking about seamless in that way at that point. It wasn’t until I started making the portraits the year after, which began first as a collaboration with my good friend from CalArts, Richard Hawkins, who’s a fellow artist, where we started making portraits of our mutual friends at that point. And then he realized that it was my body of work. And he just said, “This is yours. Go with it.” But he introduced me … really thinking about Holbein and what nobility is and what that is within our community. And we had amazing extensive conversations about that.

And Richard is a very brilliant person who I felt just helped lead a pathway for me in terms of continuing to photograph the community after I made Being and Having.

Debbie Millman:

I understand that the title of the show Being and Having was a play on psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s idea that men have the phallus, while women as the embodiment of erotic desire and art are the phallus. And when I was reading this, I’m like, “Was this dude serious?”

Catherine Opie:

So this is serious. And I have to tell you that the title came from the woman with her arms crossed over her chest, peeing, in On Our Backs. So she is an amazing philosopher from Toronto, Canada, by the name of Anne Marie Smith. And she was one of the head political philosophers and teachers at Cornell, but she was my lover at the time. I met her in Canada at a bar and she had been making postcards with a friend that were really awesome erotic postcards from this collective in Canada. And, I’m sorry, I don’t remember the collective’s name anymore, but I was in the bar going, “Hey, do you know who made these?” And then the woman I was talking to said, “Yeah. Myself and my next-door neighbor did.”

And then it started a very long friendship and love affair with Anne Marie Smith, including the portrait that’s on the bed, the self-portraits on our bed. When she came to visit me in California while I was in grad school, that was a student’s installation in their studio. And they let us have it as a little private palace so to speak during her visit.

Debbie Millman:

Wow. Wow.

Catherine Opie:

So it all gets wrapped together. That’s the beautiful thing about community, is you meet people and you’re in this kind of … in the ’80s, you’re going through so much as a community, especially in relationship to politics and AIDS and visibility. And just all of these inner weavings are really also a part of my ability to think and begin to figure out how to make work.

Debbie Millman:

20 years after you took the Being and Having photos, several were used to accompany the opening credits of “The L Word,” the original version of “The L Word.” What did you think when you were asked about their using your photos of women in drag for the titles?

Catherine Opie:

It’s funny because there’s another photograph that you probably know because you’ve really researched me and you know my work, but for our listeners, it’s a photograph from the series Domestic of two women in a swimming pool, Miggi and Ilene. Ilene was the producer of “The L Word.”

Debbie Millman:

Ilene Chaiken.

Catherine Opie:

Ilene Chaiken. So for my first show at Regen Projects, her and Miggi hosted my opening dinner party at their house. And so when she approached me, we had already forged a friendship in the art world and I just thought, Yeah, go for it. You’re making a show. Let’s use lesbians with mustaches in the title. And I think that that is also a different kind of radicality of Los Angeles because of the kind of lipstick lesbian positioning of Los Angeles as a city, that I thought it was actually pretty brave that she wanted to do that, and it connoted also another part of the community in LA that might not be actually represented within the series.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. I love those opening credits. What do you think of the reboot? Have you been watching it?

Catherine Opie:

I haven’t yet. I have to get on that. I haven’t watched the reboot and it’s just because there is so much to stream. And then during the pandemic, there was a lot to stream, and I’m just not caught up on “The L Word” yet, but I will. It’s in my queue. It’s in my queue.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. I’m loving it. I’m absolutely loving it. And just seeing Bette and Tina together, not as a couple, but just seeing them in the same room on the same sofa makes me happy. Catherine, you created three portraits in less than a decade, three self-portraits in less than a decade, that propelled you to even greater awareness and fame in the art world and beyond. And I’d like to talk to you about all three, if that’s OK.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah.

Debbie Millman:

The first is titled Self Portrait/Cutting. You created this piece in 1993 and it’s a photograph of you from behind, facing away from the camera. You’re shirtless. There’s a drawing carved into the skin of your back featuring two stick figure women smiling and holding hands. And behind them is a house with some birds flying and it looks like it could be a child’s drawing. And you’re standing in front of what looks like a baroque-type wallpaper. What did this photograph represent at the time?

Catherine Opie:

Well, at the time it was something that I actually, it was a photograph out of mourning. My first domestic relationship, and the only one I had ever had before being with my current partner and wife, Julie Burleigh, was with a woman, Pam Gregg. And I was utterly in love, and we built a house and we got two puppies and we were living the domestic dream. I imagined in my mind that it would go on for a long period of time. That the two puppies would potentially turn into children and all of that, which was still hard in 1993 to imagine, very difficult in 1993 to imagine.

And then blood as a substance is the substance that was feared. And one of the things that I did say in that quote that S&M was never sexual wasn’t actually completely true because Pam and I met in a leather context, and ended up being lovers. And I’ve had other lovers within the leather community in that context. So there is a bit of kind of pleasure in terms of sexuality mixed into it in terms of my history of relationships. But Pam broke up with me and I was devastated. And for a year I spent doodling on a pad. And I would doodle these stick figure girls with the house with the sun coming out of the clouds as a sense of optimism that I will find love again.

And then I decided to go ahead and make it a cutting and make it a portrait. And I was in the process of making the other portraits at that time. And it was just a profound sense of loss and longing, not just for me personally in losing my first domestic relationship, but the notion of loss overall, in terms of the AIDS epidemic and watching it decimate all of these couples and community. So even though there’s two stick figure girls with skirts, I wanted to make a very complicated universal piece that went beyond my own personal sadness of the loss of my domestic relationship. And that is what I came up with.

Debbie Millman:

Can you talk about how the artist Judy Bamber carved the illustration into your back? What was that like for her?

Catherine Opie:

I think she was really nervous. I mean, it’s actually on videotape. We have both cuttings documented on videotape. We don’t have Self-Portrait/Nursing, but we have the cutting on my backend pervert documented. Self-Portrait/Cutting happened in Los Angeles in my new living room in what we called Casa de Estrogen, which was predominantly a lesbian apartment building in Koreatown on Catalina Street. And so there was an amazing history there, Jenny Schmutz who lived above me. And it was just an incredible group of dykes and their motorcycles that all lived together in this apartment building.

And then my good friends Mike and Sky, who I had photographed, were there to support Judy. And my other good friend who was the photographer Connie Samaras, took the dark sides out of the camera and operated the four-by-five camera because there wasn’t … it’s a self-portrait, but it couldn’t be done on a tripod with a cable release because it was four-by-five. So Judy practiced on chicken thighs before she practiced on my body.

Debbie Millman:

I hope there are photos documenting that series.

Catherine Opie:

And what’s amazing is Judy is one of the most precise painters ever. I mean, her work is unbelievable. If you don’t know her work, look up her work. And we’re born on the same day in the same year. So we both share April 14, 1961. And she was one of my best friends. And I wanted an apprehension in the cutting. I wanted it to not be done by somebody like Mike or Sky who would have been able to do it perfectly. I wanted the blood to kind of, almost as if the surface of the skin was scratched, but at moments the scalpel would actually make a mark that was more definitive. And it was never meant to be a permanent cutting. I guess it became obviously a pretty iconic portrait.

Debbie Millman:

And then in 1994, you created Self-Portrait/Pervert. This time you’re sitting in front of a black-and-gold brocade. Your hands are folded in your lap. You’re facing the camera. Your head is completely covered in a black leather gimp mask. You’re wearing leather chaps. And the word pervert is carved in bloody, kind of oozing, very ornate letters across your chest, and the body modifier Raelyn Gallina cut the word into your skin. And then two of your friends from a piercing shop lined your arms 46 times from the shoulder down to the wrist with two-inch needles.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, I think they were 12-gauge needles. But I remember we wanted the gauge to be big enough that it would create the appearance of body armor in a certain way. And that I wanted the cutting and the needles to be completely precise because I was thinking about a whole binds kind of Henry VIII portrait in a certain way. And I was thinking about what the word pervert meant in 1994 in my community, especially when there was a beginning of a divide within our own community. And this is very specific, it’s not just for what pervert means from Jesse Helms, the holding of Mapplethorpe photographs on the Senate floor, but it also came from internal homophobia of our own community of, again, the sex workers, the people who practice S&M were also perverts, and that there are portions of the gay and lesbian community that are “normal.”

And I didn’t like the notion of normal. I’ve never liked the binaries of normal or abnormal. I’m more interested in the complexity of sexuality and desire. And so it was that moment where in the same way my friend Steak tattooed dyke on the back of her neck that I was going to have Raelyn do this cutting. And that was done in San Francisco in a studio while I was making the portrait series. It was attended by an enormous amount of my friends, including the incredible trans historian Susan Stryker. And the needles were done first, and then I sat in the chair and Raelyn did the cutting. And then I put the hood on and we made some without the hood and some with the hood. But I really didn’t want my face because I wanted the notion of visibility to be placed on language.

So what does the word pervert mean? How do we deal with language? Is this enough of a pervert for you? And it’s also really beautiful, and then you actually have to deal with the beauty of it as well? Because it’s not dripping blood. It’s done in such a way that it just looks like almost a red tattoo, but it is blood coming to the surface.

Debbie Millman:

Well, there is a real elegance to the photo with the way it’s constructed. Had you been very involved in body modification at that time as well? How hard was it for you to have 46 12-gauge needles put through your skin?

Catherine Opie:

Not that difficult, actually, because I think that when you prepare yourself it’s totally different. If I’m walking through the house and I stub my toe on furniture, I sit there and I weep. I’m really angry. I can’t believe I’ve hurt myself. But when you’ve already been in the leather community and you are doing this and the dungeons on your own, you know what you’re doing. And so your mindset is different. I mean, if somebody goes to the doctor and gets a shot, the only thing that is hurting is actually the fear of getting the shot.

So our kind of relationship to fear is so complicated as human beings. And I was never afraid because I knew that my friends were professionals. And Raelyn was a professional and that they had done this time and time again. And I had done a lot of play piercing and a lot of cutting in a private setting. And so I was very definitive in knowing what I wanted to do and had the mindset to go through it.

Debbie Millman:

Did you experience any of the euphoria that sometimes occurs during body modification?

Catherine Opie:

Oh, absolutely. No, your endorphins are going off the rockers. And it was funny because if you watch the videotape, there’s one moment where I have the group Dead Can Dance playing in the background because I love that kind of meditative music. And you’re breathing and you’re going through it and then Raelyn decided to stop for a moment and try to pop a pimple on my chest that was driving her crazy. And at that moment I lost my focus and then I started moaning a little bit more once she went back into the cutting. The cutting is much harder than the needles to go through. Needles are fairly quick, but definitely cuttings take enormous amount of concentration. And that’s partly why I didn’t want my face in the picture is because the endorphins are going off. With my glasses off my eyes are slightly crossed. And the first thing that people look at in portraits is people’s faces usually. And it, again, it had to remain on the body and about the body.

Debbie Millman:

The image was first shown to the public in 1995 at the Whitney Biennial. And you’ve said that since then you’ve struggled to look at that photo now. How come?

Catherine Opie:

Well, it’s not necessarily a struggle. I haven’t said a struggle. It’s a photograph that I don’t need to live with. It’s a photograph that I made and that I’m proud of and that represented that moment in time. I had several collectors at different moments say how powerful that piece is to live with, and that it’s in their bedroom and they wake up to it every morning. And I guess I started thinking, could I wake up to that every morning? But one of the things that I love about photography, it defines the sense of time.

And within the defined sense of time of that, going back to that geeky kind of [inaudible] notion of the decisive moment, Pervert is a decisive moment on my part, but that doesn’t necessarily define me as a 60-year-old woman now. So the frozenness of my time in my community. I’m so profoundly honored that my friends and I, myself, chose to use ourselves in relationship to community to make and work on a body of work that created a certain history and a certain idea of visibility. But that doesn’t mean that we’re held in that time in the same way that we’re held in the time in terms of the making of the work.

Debbie Millman:

Before I ask you about the third self-portrait, Self-Portrait/Nursing, I want to ask you about your thoughts on domesticity in your work. And you’ve said that Self-Portrait/Cutting was about the relationship between queerness and domesticity. I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what that notion between queerness and domesticity is or was?

Catherine Opie:

Well, throughout history people fall in love. And throughout history and relationship to homophobia, especially after, say, the roaring ’20s, so to speak. And when the puritanical notion of homosexuality ended up entering the religious indoctrination of not being acceptable, and so forth. And the Bible misinterpreted and so forth. When you fall in love, you often want to live with the person that you fall in love with. And so domesticity was always literally a part of the notion of having a relationship and being in love and opening up one’s home of cohabitation.

And to then be denied that both on legal fronts as well as just rhetorically within our society is incredibly fraught. And so this notion of coming out of the closet always made me laugh because a closet is a domestic space. A closet is where one another’s clothes co-mingle if you don’t have your own walk-in closet, which I don’t. But a closet is where a co-mingling of the everyday happens. And so domesticity has always been a part of love and relationship and trying to build a life and a home with another person.

Debbie Millman:

After Cutting and Pervert, you drove across the U.S. in your RV photographing lesbian families, women who had children, who lived in groups, couples engaging in everyday household activities across the country. And you titled the portfolio Domestic. Were you looking for something specific in that body of work?

Catherine Opie:

Well, that body of work also was … I had been in a relationship then for three to four years with another amazing queer photographer, important lesbian artist on a historical level who should be. She’s in books like Stolen Glances. Her name is Kaucyila Brooke. And we were about ready to buy a house together. We were going to do it. We had been in a three-year relationship where she ironically was living on Sanborn Ave., where I ironically lived with Pam, my first domestic relationship. And I was still in Casa de Estrogen down in Koreatown.

And I just decided to go ahead and celebrate the notion of domesticity while getting an RV and going around the country and making these photographs. But they were also in conversation with [inaudible] and MoMA in terms of pleasure and terror and domestic comfort. They were also a way for me to create a different kind of conversation around family. That it’s not just couples, that it’s also lesbian households. That the body of work reflected a different notion of family within my own lesbian community. And Kaucyila broke up with me while I was on the road making this.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, heartbreak.

Catherine Opie:

More Cathy. I’ll be pulling out a violin and more heartbreak, right?

Debbie Millman:

Oh no, I’ve been dumped. So I feel it. I get it.

Catherine Opie:

So that happened. And then I was left printing all of this work as my next body of work. And once again, my attempt at having domesticity was a failed attempt, just as the cutting on my back. And I basically picked up my life at that point because I didn’t get a full-time job at UCLA that I was up for, for teaching. And I was dating a woman in New York, Daphne Fitzpatrick, another artist that we had met in Australia, and started a mad Australian road trip in romance with each other. And there was a job opening at Yale, and I thought, Well, let me apply to Yale. And I ended up getting the job and moving from LA because of absolute heartbreak with my relationship. And that was that. And another chapter began.

Debbie Millman:

Prior to teaching at Yale, I know that you were awarded a fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, which is where you met your current partner, Julie Burleigh.

Catherine Opie:

Yes. Yeah.

Debbie Millman:

Who is also an artist. So I think you moved back to LA in an effort to be closer to her, is that correct?

Catherine Opie:

No, no.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, OK. So tell us how that happened.

Catherine Opie:

The story goes on. The love story goes on. The love life of Cathy Opie.

Debbie Millman:

Some of these intimate moments were harder to find.

Catherine Opie:

Oh, exactly. So I had met Julie at Wash U when I was teaching there on the foreign fellow, and she became a friend. But I thought that she was really amazing and she blew my mind. Julie was straight and I was dating Daphne Fitzpatrick in New York. And my whole life was just super discombobulated in a way. And so it was funny because I remember Daphne going, “God, you talk about Julie a lot. You really do.” And I’m like, “Yeah, she’s this really awesome woman. She’s my new friend.” Basically Daphne broke up with me as soon as I moved to New York, which she was very wary … she was like, “I hope you’re not moving to New York for me.” She was very clear that I shouldn’t be moving to New York for her.

And that was fine. I just really liked her. And I liked her. All of us are still all best friends today. They’re my posse in New York. Incredible group of lesbian artists that are now at this point where we have over a 20-year friendship with one another. And so then I kept talking to Julie Burleigh when I lived in New York. And Julie ended up being my date to my show at the MCA in Chicago that Elizabeth Smith curated. And she kind of knew, being my date, that we were going to share the same hotel room. And Julie—we fell in love. And I said, “By the way, I’m in the process of trying to get pregnant.” And she was like, “Oh, OK.”

And she had already raised a daughter. She was a single mom from the age of 18. And this was the first time in her life that she was being independent and living away from Sarah. And so it was kind of an incredible statement to say that I’m trying to get pregnant. And she was like, “OK.” And then we ended up, she moved into LA when Oliver was three months old. So I got headhunted. I was asked if I was happy at Yale by UCLA by Jim Welling. And I said, “Why?” And he goes, “Well, I’m going to open a position. And I would like you to apply for it.” And UCLA was always a dream of mine. And I thought about, OK, I live in Brooklyn, I want to have a baby. I’m going to have to move to New Haven. I can’t be two hours away from a newborn.

So all the stars aligned again for me, so to speak. And I got pregnant in New York and moved back when I was eight months pregnant. Julie and I bought a house over a three-day period of time in West Adams. We had three days to buy a house and we did. And then I moved into that house. And then she moved in when she finished her teaching position and Oliver was about three months old.

Debbie Millman:

And you’ve been together ever since.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. It’ll be 21 years this November.

Debbie Millman:

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Well, the birth of your son, Oliver, and the part he plays in your third self-portrait … I want to talk to you about the piece Self-Portrait/Nursing. But before I ask you about it, there was one thing that I read that I thought was so interesting when you were trying to have a child: A number of your butch friends were shocked that you were trying to get pregnant and have a baby. And you said this at the time: “Why can’t I be butch and have a baby? Why can’t I acknowledge the fact that I’m a biological woman and I have a vagina that can do shit.”

Catherine Opie:

Pretty much so.

Debbie Millman:

And so I’m wondering if you have any perspective on why it’s so hard for people to accept the fluidness and expandability of gender and orientation.

Catherine Opie:

Society, quite honestly. Roles are presented to us. I mean, you were born the same year that I was born, 1961. We had to learn how to read from Dick and Jane.

Debbie Millman:

Yep, we have.

Catherine Opie:

It’s a construct. It’s a construct that you have to break. And a lot of people have a hard time understanding what it is to actually break a construct, so to speak, of what is dictated to us through this notion of normality in society.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. It’s taken me this long, it’s taken me 50-plus years to even feel like I have the beginnings of some answers. And as I approach 60, I’m still struggling with truth and authenticity. What it means to be fully out in the world in every way.

Catherine Opie:

Well, and it got slammed back at us in a completely different way in relation to the last administration that we all just had to live under. I mean, talk about Draconian measures again, to go from an enlightenment of the White House being lit in rainbow colors from the Obama administration to what we just had to go through and are continuing to feel the ramifications from in relation to hate and homophobia within our society. Progress has been made, but that doesn’t mean that it’s still not frightening times to live in.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, absolutely. I’m doing a lot of work right now with Lambda Legal, and there’s real concern that there might be cases that come to the Supreme Court challenging marriage equality, which seems just inconceivable.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. And I say there’s an enormous amount of us who actually have been able to financially do fairly well in life. And I’m always a proponent of starting a different church for all of us queer folks. And that if they want our tax money, that it goes to that church. And then when they acknowledge us as actual part of citizenship and equality, that they can have their tax money, but I’m all for no taxation without representation at this point. I’m over it.

Debbie Millman:

Sign me up, Catherine. Sign me up. Sign me up.

Catherine Opie:

I just have to figure out a name for my non-church church.

Debbie Millman:

I can help you with that. Self-Portrait/Nursing, it’s the third portrait, correct?

Catherine Opie:

Yes.

Debbie Millman:

You are shirtless in this picture as well, but for the first time you are showing your face to the camera. You’re holding your son, Oliver, in your wonderfully tattooed arm. You are looking into his eyes as he’s nursing. You’re both sumptuous and tender. And it’s been described as a butch-dyke Madonna and Child. And I’m wondering was that your intention?

Catherine Opie:

Well, I’m butch. I mean, I have short hair, but the history of the body is very important terms of this portrait in the classical sense. I mean, because design matters. I’m in a [inaudible] chair. It’s actually called the chieftain chair. It is a chair that in the house that I usually sat in to nurse Oliver. So it was important to bring it back to the studio, and then the red, just again, using that fabric with the gold threading. And it is funny because I finally just had my first trip to Rome. I mean, it’s kind of crazy that I had borrowed so much culturally from a certain history of power in the Roman Empire, especially in relationship to imagery.

But when I walked through the gallery [inaudible] from the Cardinal [inaudible] house and all of these other things and saw the wallpaper which I was using fabric backgrounds, it was funny because I knew that obviously through art history that those were tropes that I was using. But until you’re actually in front of something, until you’re actually bearing witness, you don’t realize the influences. And it was Madonna and Child. And I saw an enormous amount of Madonna and Child while I was in Rome. The Catholic church and the representation of Madonna and Child is one of the best marketing campaigns ever.

Debbie Millman:

Tell me more. Tell me more.

Catherine Opie:

And then all of a sudden to have the queer body be able to have a baby, to be able to be butch, to be able to live in their identity, for the scar of Pervert to still be existing on the body, ends up allowing you to begin to articulate, and again, look at that great marketing campaign of Madonna and Child in a very, again, different way. So how do we make something iconic that ends up culturally being able to engage in the construct of culture in itself through history? And those are things that I’ve always been interested in in terms of making work. It’s fascinating to me.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, absolutely. Did you realize at the time that Pervert could still be seen? Was that intentional?

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. It’s a scar. It’s there. It’s slightly raised.

Debbie Millman:

Still?

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, yeah.

Debbie Millman:

Awesome. In 2011, several months before she died, you were commissioned by the actress Elizabeth Taylor to photograph her home in Bel Air Los Angeles. How did that project first come about?

Catherine Opie:

Well, she actually didn’t commission me. We shared the same accountant, who’s still my accountant to this day, Derek Lee. And Derek for years kept saying, “Elizabeth Taylor is my client. If you ever want to do anything, I could propose something to her.” And I kind of looked at him and I said, “Well, I don’t really do celebrity.” And then I had done the body of work inauguration of going to DC for three days and making a body of work in a book and a portfolio out of the first-ever elected African American president in the United States.

And I was thinking a lot about what is a portrait? How do we begin to think about a portrait? And I also had photographed quite a bit for Dwell Magazine, which were portraits of people’s incredibly interesting homes. But inauguration is in conversation, and I love having conversations with other artists. It’s in conversation with Eggleston’s Election Eve, where he went around Georgia and photographed just the landscape as Carter was becoming president of the United States. And then also Eggelston photographed Graceland after Elvis passed.

And I was thinking about, “OK, those are two different kinds of portraits. Those are really interesting ideas. And I’ve often used landscape in relationship to portraiture too. It’s something that I’m profoundly interested in.” And so I went back to Derek and I said, “Yeah, I want to make a portrait of Elizabeth Taylor through her home, through her belongings. And would that be something that you could propose and I could get access to?” And so I met with her personal assistant, Tim, who I became very close with through the process, because during the process Elizabeth passed away while I was still photographing the house. And it was a profoundly amazing experience.

I never met her, but I feel like in a weird way, I was granted kind of the last portrait of Elizabeth Taylor. And it didn’t have to be done with her before camera, but it became much more intimate and much more tactile in relation to her home. And the home was immediately dismantled and sold upon her passing.

Debbie Millman:

You photographed 3,000 images of her possessions and her private spaces, her vanity table set with loose sight containers of carefully organized eyeshadow in her sitting room, her blue velvet sofas—which I assume were supposed to be mimicking her eyes—her Christmas decorations, which she specifically asked that you do, shoes and boots and more shoes, her lavish clothes. What was that like for you? How did feel doing that?

Catherine Opie:

It was really quiet and I really appreciate quietness. I would go in, the house was so soft, lush. I lived in West Adams. And I lived on a rowdy, rowdy block that was pretty much run by the gang the Bloods. And it was car racing and squealing tires and music. And it was a lively, lively neighborhood. And all of a sudden, a gate would open and I would go into this driveway and go through this front door of a house that was lushly carpeted. And you used such great descriptive terms, but it became this place that I could slowly watch the light unravel in each room. I had time.

It was close to UCLA. So I would often go after I was done teaching and spend the afternoon. They always offered me lunch. The staff was incredible. Her whole entire office was in her home. I really loved her cat, Fang. Fang and I became really good friends. It was a reprieve from a lot of chaos in my life that I could slowly unravel through a six-month period in making a portrait. And one doesn’t normally make a portrait in six months, they make a portrait within 40 minutes of somebody visiting the studio.

Debbie Millman:

How would you describe Elizabeth Taylor through getting to know the objects in her life?

Catherine Opie:

That she was passionate as a human being, that her objects held memories for her, that they also were about her love of shiny sparkly things, but that also a stuffed animal that somebody would bring over to her would hold as much importance. She was a generous person in my mind. And the generosity that she and her team displayed to me was obvious in everything that was cared for. She was also really independent and savvy and understanding of a woman of her generation. And when she was born that she could hold power. And that also she could hold power with her voice as an activist. And she was an activist at a period of time that we really needed.

Debbie Millman:

Yes.

Catherine Opie:

And if she was the person who was actually able to get Ronald Reagan to say “AIDS,” to say what was happening … and that was her who did it as well as starting the early fundraising. That within all the softness and the lushness, there was utter power and a position of humanity that I just have an enormous amount of respect for.

Debbie Millman:

In one photo of Elizabeth Taylor’s vanity, there seems to be a line written in lipstick on the mirror.

Catherine Opie:

Oh yeah. Colin Farrell.

Debbie Millman:

And I think it reads, “the quest for Japanese beef.” What is that about? Where is that line from?

Catherine Opie:

Well, Colin Farrell became very close with Elizabeth and would visit Elizabeth a lot. And he went in her bedroom, and in her bathroom mirror after visiting her wrote in her lipstick that he was going to take her out for Japanese beef. And so that remained on the mirror because actually there wasn’t any expectation of, I mean, I was getting ready for them to bring all the luggage out into the foyer because she was going on a big trip to New York. And I was going to have the opportunity to photograph what it looked like when she packed her bags for a big trip, which according to her assistant, Tim, was a lot of luggage because she always wanted to have the choices around her.

And then the next thing I heard was she was hospitalized. And then we rapidly tried to get the blue room together, which is represented as one of the last moments in the book of this blue room that almost looks like angel wallpaper because she was going to move back downstairs. She wasn’t able to go up the stairs any longer. And she would come home from the hospital to this room and it was described to what she wanted the room to look like. And so we were racing around getting that done, and I was still in the house photographing as all of this was happening. And then she passed.

And so the blue room never got to be realized with Elizabeth in it. And so that’s one of the reasons why it’s photographed in that way, as well as the jewelry abstracted, was the day that Christie’s came to take the jewelry, Tim and everybody called me and said, “This is the last day that the jewelry’s going to be in the house. Do you want to come by?” And so in the morning we came by with her son, just gorgeous, and we took a couch pillow out and we laid some of the jewelry on a couch pillow for it to sparkle back to Elizabeth. And I made these abstract photographs that feel almost also like an homage to her passing.

Debbie Millman:

Feel extraordinary.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. It was one of those extraordinary experiences of somebody who was obviously one of the biggest famed Hollywood movie stars, but who also led an extraordinary life helping others.

Debbie Millman:

The last project that I want to talk to you about today is your 2018 film, your first film, The Modernist, a 22-minute movie containing 800 photographs about a frustrated artist who, unable to buy their own home, starts burning down beautiful houses. And I believe that this is also, this film is also in conversation with another film that preceded it that was also created with still photographs. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Catherine Opie:

That would be Chris Marker’s film La Jetée, which was made pretty much after you and I were both born. It was made in 1962. And the biggest fear in 1962 was nuclear obliteration in relation to the Cold War. You have to think about the Cuban Missile Crisis and other things that were happening historically at that moment in time in which Chris Marker made La Jetée, which is about love and longing and memory. And it’s kind of a pseudo sci-fi film made out of stills. But it’s an incredible political poem to that time.

And I wanted to do a conversation in terms of that, maybe at this point in time the notion of nostalgia and Modernism as a utopic dream has also failed us. So using my good friend who I photographed for years, Pig Pen, whose real name is Stosh Fila … Piggy and I have a very, very close relationship. And I asked Pig Pen to star as the protagonist of this film. And it was also the last piece that I made in my West Adams studio behind my house because I had moved finally, I was going to move to a bigger studio.

And so it is about the fact that I will never be able to afford a case study house or any kind of house, which was supposed to be affordable at this point in time in which they were made. It also mirrors the time period of when La Jetée was made. And so it’s a quandary. It’s a quandary to where we are at this point in time, but it also is a trans body. It’s a queer body. And we all know in terms of economics that one of the hardest economical groups is lesbians, actually, in order to be able to own property or prosper in any way, because we still do not have wage equality in this country. So it was trying to put in all these ideas of a lot of other bodies of work that I’ve mapped out all into one piece.

Debbie Millman:

Pig Pen is one of the two most photographed people in your body of work. Can you talk a little bit about why you keep coming back to photograph them?

Catherine Opie:

Pig Pen is just one of the people that I’ve just really, really loved in my life as a friend. I mean, I have gone through so much with Pig Pen. We have gone through losing so much in our community to performing together with [inaudible] to just our bodies are entwined on a very emotional friend way. I would do anything for Pig Pen and Pig Pen would do anything for me. And I think it’s really, really important to also say, because it has been brought up in a number of interviews about Pig Pen being one of the most photographed people as well as one of my best friends, is that I think that a lot of people view this as a potential muse. And I don’t view my friendships as muses or who I photograph over and over as muse.

I might really enjoy looking at them, but by no means are they muses; there are friends that I honor in relation to kind of image making. I have a harder time with this notion of muse.

Debbie Millman:

That’s so interesting. It would never have occurred to me that Pig Pen was your muse. If I had to pick anything or anyone that was a muse to you, I would say it would be culture.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, exactly. Thank you for saying that.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, yeah. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me. Was it different directing, so to speak, a film versus taking a photograph because it is a film made of photographs? I’m just wondering about that relationship.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, no. I think that it wasn’t. And it was interesting because I have a longtime assistant, Heather Rasmussen, who’s just amazing and does everything for me. And it was harder for her than it was for me, because she would say, “Do we need to storyboard this? How are you going to do this?” And I said, “It lives my head. What am I going to do? Draw stick figures, because that’s about all I can draw anyway?” And I said, “No, this piece lives in my head.” And I knew that I wanted to create a sense of multiple cameras. I knew that within the stills I wanted it to, I wanted to rack focus and then bring things into focus. I knew that I wanted to use the newspaper as a platform of what comes in our lives and how we deal with it.

Debbie Millman:

Really well done, by the way.

Catherine Opie:

And I knew that this was … I knew that the protagonist was an artist who lived in their studio and that’s all that they could afford. And through this, they were making a piece. And their piece extended with the incredible amount of fires that always happened in California too. So fire in itself is one of the most feared elements in California. We have major wildfires burning right now, but what it is also in terms of notions of loss, in ideas around what we all have lost through not being able afford to buy a house, to live on the fringe of one’s ability in society. What Modernism was supposed to apply. Then you have stores like Design Within Reach, which is, we all know in our joke of our community, it’s designed without reach.

Debbie Millman:

Whole Foods is whole paycheck.

Catherine Opie:

Right. Whole Foods is whole paycheck. So this idea that we could live this utopic notion of what Modernism was going to give us and this was also formed in relationship to devastation, culturally, in terms of World War II. It’s like when you think of who moved here and who was designing houses from Shindler on, it was really even abrupt writing for Hollywood films. That is so interesting to me, also, as a place of a Los Angeles and what is iconic about the idea of better health here in LA is no longer affordable to live in this city. We have over 50,000 people unhoused right now in this city.

Debbie Millman:

It’s really quite astonishing to see what’s happening in the parks and on the sides of highways in Los Angeles. It’s just completely inconceivable that as a culture and a community, we could allow this.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. It’s devastating. And I needed to speak about that, and I didn’t. We all assumed that Hillary would get elected. But I actually didn’t have those assumptions. I actually saw of the percolation of what we went through in the last four years. And I felt an incredible need to talk about the times that we are living in.

Debbie Millman:

You were recently appointed the departmental chair of the UCLA Department of Art.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah.

Debbie Millman:

Congratulations.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. Thank you.

Debbie Millman:

And this comes after your appointment as the university’s inaugural endowed chair in the art department, a position that was underwritten by a $2 million gift from the philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick. And I was really struck by the goals that you’ve outlined as department chair, which include raising scholarship funds to ensure an arts education is actually accessible to all students, which seems like the real centerpiece of what you hope to be able to do. Can you talk a little bit about what changes you’re hoping to make to create more accessible education for students in the arts?

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, one of the greatest things about UCLA is it’s a historically amazing art department. We are a public university. Being a public university, we do not have the same kind of funding opportunities in relation to getting students. And it’s getting harder and harder to get our top choices because we have places like Yale who also then not only do full scholarships, but then they actually do a stipend to live upon as well. I think that those who can afford an education should actually pay for an education, but I am completely opposed to going into debt for education.

So I was very careful about my words in my interview in the LA Times where I laid out my goals, because my goal is that art students are able to leave with a degree debt-free. And in order to do that, I need to raise money for scholarship to create a larger endowment so that we can accomplish that for both undergraduate and graduate students. We need to further endow more positions in the art department, and that is specifically for adjunct. It is also unsustainable for adjuncts to be living in the way that they live now. And I was adjunct for a long time.

Debbie Millman:

Me too.

Catherine Opie:

It is not sustainable not to have medical insurance and it is not sustainable for somebody to potentially live on $20,000 a year here in Los Angeles. That’s not sustainable. So I’m really interested in sustainability in terms of also how much the adjunct community brings to the overall amazing education opportunity for both our graduate and undergraduate students. And we need to celebrate that versus make it a detriment for them.

And so by endowing more positions, we can create an ability to potentially give two- to three-year contracts that include medical insurance. And then we’re allowing a pool of really amazing young artists to be able to have their first opportunities to teach at a university like UCLA, and then hopefully be able to gain employment in other places. So it’s a two-tiered thing in relationship to students leaving in debt, but that also, that we are kinder and more responsible to those who give us so much within the department.

Debbie Millman:

How do you manage your pathological life with your art and life as an artist?

Catherine Opie:

There are those closets again, right? The compartments. I mean, at this point, it all seems like it just flows together. It really does. And I think I’m pretty good at time management. I have a really good assistant who really helps me extraordinarily. And at this point, the experience of making the work and the knowledge and relationship to what I want to make and the experiences that I try to put forth to figure out what I’m making all feel incredibly fluid. They’re not fraught. I think that I would say that in the ’90s and in my 30s I had more anxiety. And at this point I am beyond mid-career artists because I’m 60 and I’ve been making work in the art world for now 30 years.

And I think that I’m really just excited about the continuation of being able to talk about what I see around me during my lifetime and live out my life with the love of my beautiful family and friends. And I’m really hokey and going to cry about that right now because it is, I’ve worked really, really hard. And that is the hard thing about having multiple closets, so to speak, and sometimes there were too many clothes. And I feel that I’ve been able to pivot and move and be aware and continue to feel that I’m tied into the things that are interesting for me. And I have the incredible support of being able to have the longevity that I’ve had in relation to being an artist. And I wish that everybody had those kinds of experiences.

Debbie Millman:

Catherine, I have one last question for you. It’s not particularly profound, but it is one that I’m highly curious about.

Catherine Opie:

I like curiosity.

Debbie Millman:

Is it true that you’ve been watching the soap opera “Days of Our Lives” since you were 7 years old?

Catherine Opie:

You got that right when I was taking a sip of water.

Debbie Millman:

Sorry.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah, yeah. I could tell you everything that’s happening right now up to date with “Days of Our Lives,” but it’s—

Debbie Millman:

Oh my goodness.

Catherine Opie:

I have. I literally have. I could tell you about all the characters, all the history of the characters. I’m a walking encyclopedia of “Days of Our Lives.”

Debbie Millman:

Why? What is it about “Days of Our Lives”?

Catherine Opie:

It’s something that I watch with my mom. I guess that they, I don’t know, they became another place of a dysfunctional family for me, all the drama. If that drama was the drama, then do I have to think about my own drama, so to speak. And then you just get tied up in it in a really dumb, hokey way. And it’s something that I could talk about with my mom. Yesterday, I called her with this, literally a conversation I had yesterday. “Mom?” “What?” It’s like, “OK. If Lani is really the daughter of this character and Abe is the father, does that mean that they had sex when Abe was going out with the sister?”

That’s literally a conversation I will have with my mom. And she’s like, “I don’t know. We’ll just have to see. It’ll have to unravel.” So it gives a little touching point for mom and I in this shared history of these characters in the life of Salem. And then I’ve run into the characters in LA. And I even had one of the characters come to my studio for a studio visit. And I’ve always wanted to make still lives. I’m putting it out there on Design Matters, maybe you can help me make it happen.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, I would love that.

Catherine Opie:

I want to make still lives of the set of “Days of Our Lives.”

Debbie Millman:

OK. This is going to happen. You heard it here first, listeners.

Catherine Opie:

Do you watch the soap—

Debbie Millman:

Isn’t that with the one with the—

Catherine Opie:

Hourglass.

Debbie Millman:

Hourglass? Yes.

Catherine Opie:

Yeah. It’s the hourglass. And so are the days of our lives.

Debbie Millman:

Catherine Opie, thank you. Thank you, thank you for creating such important, extraordinary work. And thank you so much for joining me today on Design Matters. It’s just been an honor, an absolute honor.

Catherine Opie:

Well, thank you. It was a fantastic interview and I really appreciate it.

Debbie Millman:

Thank you. Thank you. You can see a survey of Catherine Opie’s work in her extraordinary new monograph simply titled Catherine Opie, published by Phaidon. This is the 17th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.

The post Design Matters: Catherine Opie appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Debbie Millman:

“Creative director” is a catchall job description. In the case of Fabien Baron, it doesn’t catch all that he has done in his illustrious career. He’s designed some of the world’s biggest and most prestigious publications. He’s designed books and perfume bottles and furniture. He’s shot and directed films. He’s created some of the most memorable ad campaigns of the last 40 years for clients including Calvin Klein and Dior and Balenciaga. And he’s created singular groundbreaking looks for Harper’s Bizarre, Vogue Italia and Interview. Vanity Fair once called him the most sought-after creative director in the world, and indeed he is. Today, he joins me on Zoom from Paris, France. Fabien Baron, welcome to Design Matters. Bonjour.

Fabien Baron:

Bonjour. You have such a lovely voice.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, thank you. Fabien, the photographer Glen Luchford has insisted that you are the Elvis Presley of graphic design.

Fabien Baron:

Oh my God.

Debbie Millman:

And I’m wondering if you know why he stated that?

Fabien Baron:

No, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t.

Debbie Millman:

Do you know that he even said it?

Fabien Baron:

Well, I know Glen quite well. From those days, the back days when I was at the Harper’s Bazaar and I hired him to work on the magazine and to do some stories. And there was one story actually that he did that I really liked. What he did was Kate Moss going around the city and 42nd Street and just taking very [inaudible] type of pictures that were really amazing. That’s how I met with Glen.

Debbie Millman:

Maybe it’s the breakthrough groundbreaking part that he was referring to. Fabien, your father, Marc Baron, was a legendary art director in Paris. He worked mainly with two publications. He was the founding art director of the left-wing daily Libération, and the sports daily L’Équipe. Is it true that you were a newspaper delivery boy for the—

Fabien Baron:

Well, not a delivery boy, but I’ve worked under my father, so I was really the go-to guy to do anything at the magazine. It would be doing at the time, photo stats, which were taking the pictures and blowing them up different sizes.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. I was a stat girl at my student newspaper in college.

Fabien Baron:

Oh, really? OK. Good. So I used to do that and I used to do mechanicals and putting all the mechanical part of the magazine on pages. And I was doing a lot of Letrasets. I don’t know if you remember that.

Debbie Millman:

Oh yeah. I still do them, just for fun.

Fabien Baron:

I used to be really good at it. I used to be really good because you had to pick the size. It had to be 100%. So I used to be really good at it. I could type something exactly to the length I want, in the size, by just guessing. So it was a fun game.

Debbie Millman:

Knowing that about you now, I could see how that training helped in the creation of some of your typographic constructions. There is a sort of puzzling to them and placing them all together in a way that if I don’t think he knew how to do that by hand, you wouldn’t be able to do it on the computer.

Fabien Baron:

Yes. Actually, the first time I did this kind of graphics, I did it with a Xerox machine. And I was at Italian Vogue at the time. We didn’t have computers or anything, so we had to work everything manually. So I used to take the font and use the Xerox machine and blow them up on the Xerox machine and collage the pieces by cutting them out, basically.

Debbie Millman:

You said that your father was super bright, super smart and very educated. But I also understand that he was quite hard on you in your early days as a designer. In what way?

Fabien Baron:

I guess he wanted me to learn, and learn the proper way but also learn the hard way, because he wanted to make sure this is something I was going to do and something I was going to love. And when it’s hard and you’re still in love, that means it sticks. So I guess he was really tough in the way that we used to work. I was responsible for everything. Every time there was a mistake, it was me, even though it was not me. So he just wanted me to be responsible for everything. So it was not very gentle, let’s say. And I guess at the time, it was not like it is now. Now, you have to be extremely gentle with people and you have to be extremely polite, extremely proper. He was not like that with me, at least.

Debbie Millman:

I read that your father felt that the objective of graphic design was to get the reader involved with the editorial content of the publication, and you talk about this quite a lot. But at the time, you were also reading Francine Crescent’s French Vogue, and you were enthralled by the photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. Did you feel that that was in conflict with what your dad was teaching you?

Fabien Baron:

No, actually. I didn’t feel it was in conflict. I think it was good, proper balance. His teaching was quite journalistic. It was quite like classic journalism. And at the same time, felt like … I think access to magazine, like French Vogue and all these photographers and looking at those visuals, I was really intrigued how you would create such visuals. So it was something that I was really very looking after. I would devour those magazines when they would show up in the house, because the visuals were exceptional and I really had no idea how you would put this type of visuals together, how you would create them. The photography part and after, how you would come up with those ideas, those concepts and everything. I was looking at that, extremely intrigued. At the same time, what was important at the time, especially in newspaper, is to pass the information the proper way. To make sure the reader would understand what you’re trying to say.

Debbie Millman:

After a gigantic fight, I understand you left home and his supervision and you moved into your own apartment. And at that point, you stated that he was still your hero and you still looked up to him, but it took years before you were both fully reconciled. What did you fight about?

Fabien Baron:

I don’t remember. I don’t remember what the fight was about, but I know that I left that day. I don’t recall at all. Isn’t it the case most of the time? You don’t remember what the fight is about, what you remember is, did I leave or didn’t I leave?

Debbie Millman:

The feelings.

Fabien Baron:

Yes. I definitely left, and it was a while before … not that long either, because I liked him and he liked me. I was quite upset. I was not so happy about it, to be honest. It’s not a good memory, that part, but it was time for me to go. Some kids, they leave their parents nicely and some don’t leave their parents nicely.

Debbie Millman:

Ultimately, you’ve said that the relationship with your father gave you a sense of how to treat people.

Fabien Baron:

Yes.

Debbie Millman:

What do you feel that he most taught you in that regard?

Fabien Baron:

I think what he really gave me is a good sense of what this job was about. A good sense of, deep down, you have to remain a journalist, to a certain degree. In anything you do, it’s going to make sense, it’s got to be understood, and it’s got to be clear. But also, I think he gave me a discipline and a work ethic that I don’t think I would have gotten if it was not through him. The level of discipline in which I work is quite surprising for some people, I’ve heard. I’m very keen. And it’s a search to perfection, into trying to really find that place, which is difficult to find, that really … I think perfection is quite a good word, even though you understood that you cannot obtain perfection, but you can come close to it. And it is because you can’t obtain it that you continue to search for it.

Fabien Baron:

But that puts you into a certain category of people that you understand that this becomes your life and that you’re going to be professional about it. A little bit like an athlete. I’d do anything to make it right, basically. Just like an athlete would wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning if they need to train. So I’m very similar. I’m ready to do anything to make this right. So part of why I get results is because of that discipline. I think if I wouldn’t have that discipline, I wouldn’t have done that many things. I would have been very hesitant into trying new mediums. And I think it’s that rigor, but also that need and that search to perfection that allowed me to experiment and to try new mediums quite easily, without hesitation.

Debbie Millman:

You attended arts appliqués in Paris for a year before dropping out. What made you decide to leave school at that point?

Fabien Baron:

I felt I was wasting my time. I knew pretty much what I wanted to do. And I don’t know if I wanted to be an art director because my dad was an art director and I wanted to show him that I’d be a better art director than him, or if it was because I really knew the calling. So that one, I still cannot answer, really, but I knew what I wanted to do. That’s for sure. So knowing so clearly what I wanted to do, I didn’t want to waste my time. It’s part of being the athlete in me, that, “OK, let’s go run. Let’s not waste time.”

Fabien Baron:

So even though I had a good time that year and I had very good friends, and it was lovely to be at school and to experiment different experiences and do different work because this art appliqués, they teach you graphics, photography, textile, drawing, painting, modeling. They do so many different things, and that was quite interesting. I didn’t feel I needed to do it. I needed to work right away. I was already, even with my father, helping him doing certain things. So I felt like, I’m going to do this a couple of years, I’m going to waste my time. Might as well go to work and go at it right away and really learn the real job that I want to do.

Debbie Millman:

You also got your first camera when you were 17 years old, and you stated that while art direction is how you make your living, photography remains your personal love.

Fabien Baron:

Yes.

Debbie Millman:

What motivated you to become a professional creative director versus becoming a professional photographer at that time in your life?

Fabien Baron:

I guess that’s my father. I think if my father would have been an architect, I probably would have said, “I want to be an architect.” I think that’s what it is, because right now you would tell me, “Would you like to be an architect?” I would say yes. There’s so many things I would like to be. And I think the mediums of anything that touches with art in general, they all kind of overlap. I learned throughout the years and experimenting with different mediums that actually, the most important thing is not the medium itself. It’s more the point of view that you have and how you want to express it. And certain mediums are easier to express your point of view than others. So the photography was something that I felt really close to myself, probably because of those French Vogue photographers, Guy Bourdin …

Fabien Baron:

And actually, the first time I got my camera, the things I was doing is I was going with my sister around trying to do a Guy Bourdin picture. I would make her pose in some things very similar and I would do pictures like that, with saturated colors. I didn’t have a flash, so it didn’t work perfectly, but I was experimenting and I was really intrigued by the imagery side of magazines rather than the journalistic side of magazines. So my training was being very journalistic. There was this other side that actually was not taught by my dad. That was the old process of image-making. And that started by taking pictures for myself. And then as I went along, it got more and more, I got involved on the art directing side of making an image.

Fabien Baron:

Then I became the art director that was good with type and good with images. So there was a definite conflict because of the photographers and the level of photographers I ended up working later on, for me to also be a photographer. There was a conflict of interest, to some degree. “Why this guy’s being on set with us? He’s seeing everything we do. And then he’s going to go take pictures and maybe he’s going to take pictures like us.” So there was this conflict going on and I wanted to be really respectful of that. So I never really involved myself as a photographer in my early years as an art director. It’s much, much, much later on that I decided, “Oh, OK. But maybe I should do a story.” And that step was a really hard step for me to take.

Debbie Millman:

Why?

Fabien Baron:

Because of what I just told you, that conflict of interest. I was afraid that photographers would start seeing me as a competition rather than seeing me as someone helping them.

Debbie Millman:

Did you find that that was the case?

Fabien Baron:

No. No, it was not. That was all in my head, I guess. In the meantime, I did a lot of personal work. That’s why I put m
yself doing landscape photography, and started doing work that was not fashion related. At the same time, it just happened to be that way. I think it was good because it allowed me to experiment with something else, something that was not fashion, something that was not related to a model and related to a style.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. Well, you’ve said that when you are confronted with restrictions, you sometimes do your best work. And so maybe this restriction of not doing photography in fashion gave you this opportunity to explore something that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Fabien Baron:

Yes. I also forced myself into doing the step and repeat, meaning taking a picture and going over and taking the same picture, same picture, same picture, and trying to look for that perfection of it and to see the difference between each one of them.

Debbie Millman:

So I would say that your ocean pictures certainly do that.

Fabien Baron:

They certainly do that. And they’ve been going on since 1983 and I still catch myself doing some sometimes.

Debbie Millman:

In 1982, a girl you knew from New York came to visit you in Paris and you ended up falling in love. You then decided to move with her back to New York. So you sold your motorcycle, you sublet your apartment. And with only $300 in your pocket, you moved to New York City. Was living in New York something you had always hoped to do, or was this a spontaneous decision after falling in love?

Fabien Baron:

The way I grew up in France, actually, the way most kids my age grew up in France, they were quite Americanized in many ways. The music was coming from the States and from London. The movies were all coming from America. The culture was very much an American culture, and anything that was new was coming from there. So I felt I was not … you know when you’re in the courtyard with the other kids playing? I felt I was in the other courtyard basically getting the scraps from the good courtyard.

Debbie Millman:

Oh yes, I know that feeling well.

Fabien Baron:

I thought it was much better to just check it out in the U.S., especially New York. There was this aura around it, around New York at that time in the ’80s. That was really amazing and I just wanted to go there.

Debbie Millman:

I’m a native New Yorker, but I didn’t move to Manhattan until 1983. So I know exactly what you’re talking about. I’m about a year or so behind you. And New York at that point seemed to be this mystical, magical place. Aside from your girlfriend, you knew only one person in New York, the great Véronique Vienne. She’s also been on the show. The art director at the time from Women’s Wear Daily. Did she help you? Did she help you get settled in the magazine community?

Fabien Baron:

What happened is, actually, I was freelancing in this magazine in France, this fashion magazine in France, and Véronique Vienne was asked to come and redesign the magazine. And when she came, she had a graphic formula and right away I kind of attacked her and worked with her really rapidly and tried to show my skill. She was really impressed that I would understand so quickly what she wanted to do. We got on on the right foot, but rapidly, I told her, “I really want to come to New York. I really want to come to New York. Can I come to New York?” So I bugged her to come to New York, and she basically invited me. She had very little choice. I was relentless.

Debbie Millman:

What a surprise.

Fabien Baron:

Thinking back of it, I was kind of like, my God. Seriously. I was really insistent. And she invited me, even though she was about to move to California. And she invited me and I stayed with her, and I worked at Women’s Wear Daily, and I was an intern there. And I stayed two months, and then I went back to France. In the meantime, during my time in New York, I met this girl that you’re mentioning. And a year later, she showed up in Paris, and that’s when I decided, “Oh, let’s go back to New York and check it out.” And I went back and then I just knew her and her partner at the time. I had $300. I called him up, and Véronique Vienne was already in San Francisco, so she was not part of this.

Fabien Baron:

But he basically organized a meeting for me with a couple of people in New York. But one of the meetings was actually with Alex Lieberman., which was a great meeting. And I knew who he was, I was very impressed about who he was, and had the meeting. And when I came to see him, at the time, he was on the Vogue floor; he had an office there. We met and he spoke French right away. He said, [inaudible]. And he was right because my English at the time, let me tell you, was not that good. So we spoke in French and he was very fond of French people and very fond of my work because I showed him my portfolio at the time. And he said, “What do you want to do?”

Fabien Baron:

I said, “I would like to become an art director. I would like to work in magazines. I’d love to work at Condé Nast. And he said, “Well, have you heard of this magazine? We’re starting this new magazine. It’s called Vanity Fair. It would be very nice if you want to meet with the art director and see if you guys get along.” So he sent me to, at the time, the art director was Lloyd Ziff. And I met with him and we talked, and he liked me very much and logically had the job. But then I got a phone call from Alex Lieberman, who said, “Well, Lloyd Ziff is not going to stay with us any longer, so the Vanity Fair gig is not going to happen. Don’t disappear. You’ve got to stick around here. I’m going to find you something else in the meantime.”

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. So I graduated college in 1983, and in 1982, Vanity Fair had been relaunched. And I thought it was the most glorious magazine in recent history. Just the idea that this was a beautiful arts and literary magazine that David Hockney’s socks and feet were put on the cover. Phillip Roth was on the cover. I desperately wanted to work at Vanity Fair as well. And being a very young designer coming from a state school in New York, I knew the chances were very slim, but I sent my portfolio into Condé Nast as well. This is 1983, so this is a year later after you. And I got a call back from Charles Churchward, who was then the art director.

Fabien Baron:

That’s correct.

Debbie Millman:

I didn’t meet with Charles though. I met with human resources, and the resources women did not like me, so I didn’t get the job. But the idea that the art director at the time thought there was something in my portfolio really, really buoyed me for quite a long time. So it’s so funny how life has its circuitous turns. One thing I didn’t know about you at all and had no idea, Fabien, I read that your first job in New York was actually at Johnson & Johnson.

Fabie
n Baron:

That’s correct.

Debbie Millman:

Working on a new design for their internal magazine. I was shocked when I learned this.

Fabien Baron:

That is correct.

Debbie Millman:

How did that happen?

Fabien Baron:

That’s through my friend. He said, “Hello, I heard Johnson & Johnson, they’re trying to do an internal magazine and they need a design.” I did the design for them, and it was great. I was paid in cash.

Debbie Millman:

Nice.

Fabien Baron:

Yes.

Debbie Millman:

Speaking of being paid in cash, after looking at your portfolio, didn’t Alexander Liberman love your photography so much that he ended up buying—

Fabien Baron:

Yes, because—

Debbie Millman:

$3,000 worth of photography of the Brooklyn Bridge? Tell us about that.

Fabien Baron:

Yes, oh my God! During that meeting, there was all the work I’ve done in France in magazines, but there was also the pictures I’ve taken myself and some of them in New York. He saw these Brooklyn Bridge pictures, and they were doing an article in House & Garden on the Brooklyn Bridge. I think it was for the centennial or something at that time. I don’t know exactly. It got to be for that. I remember they said, “Oh, you got to go see Rochelle Udell, she works at House & Garden. Let me give her a ring, and you got to go to see her and show her those pictures.”

Fabien Baron:

I went to see Rochelle Udell. She was at House & Garden. She looked at the pictures and she said, “Oh, these are lovely. Can we keep them for a little bit?” Then they took four or five pictures. Then I got a phone call from Condé Nast saying, like, “Oh, actually, the pictures, they’re going to be running.” “Oh really?” “Yeah, and they pay $3,000.” I was like, “You must be kidding.” I couldn’t believe … basically, that was my first experience as a photographer working for a publication in America.

Debbie Millman:

Then when you went to Self, you also worked with Rochelle Udell, is that correct?

Fabien Baron:

She also worked for the magazine. She became a little bit like a miniature Alex Liberman. She was working in, I think, at GQ, she had Self magazine. I think she was also up at Mademoiselle. She was like Alex Liberman’s right hand. She would come in and look over all the pages, and then Liberman would come in and look at the pages. We have to make sure everything was well-organized. Each picture was supposed to be from this side, which was very small, to a double-page side, and then he would play with things.

Debbie Millman:

Incredible.

Fabien Baron:

It was really like, my time at Self magazine and GQ working with Mary Shanahan as the art director at GQ, and my time at Self magazine, really couldn’t wait for this moment where Liberman would show up and Rochelle would show up, like shuffling everything around. Some part of it probably just to shuffle and part of it to make more sense of the stories. I learned so much about what you can do with a story. How you can, with editing, with sizing, with putting things one way and another, why would that be better, and that, to me, tied it up so nicely with all the things that I learned from my dad about the journalistic side of how you put something together. So it’s complete, so it makes sense, so there’s a logic to it, but there’s also an artistry about it.

Fabien Baron:

When I was there at Self, it’s not that Self was a fantastic magazine, that’s when I really said, “Wow, I’m really liking this. This, I can.” I was eating it up like there was no tomorrow and I loved it. I loved it. When Alex would come, like some of the designers would put pages together and I was the smaller guy in the corner, and I would think, “I wonder how Liberman’s going to change that. Maybe he’s going to do this, maybe he’s going to do that, maybe he’s going to …” It was really intriguing to see him come and change everything around.

Debbie Millman:

What an education.

Fabien Baron:

The most intriguing part was that every time he was right, he was right. People were so upset, you have no idea. The designers were crying over, not they’re crying literally, but so upset that the layouts were changed and everything. I was thinking, But he’s right. We had arguments. I had arguments with some of the staff. I remember, “But it’s much better. It makes sense. Now, it makes sense. The story is better.” People, they get really attached to their own work, I guess.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. What a magnificent thing to be able to witness and to learn and be part of. Alex moved you to GQ, and you mentioned that you worked with art director Mary Shanahan. I read that she, you’ve said that she helped you clearly understand how an image can function.

Fabien Baron:

Yes.

Debbie Millman:

I’m wondering you could talk a little bit about what that means, and what she taught you.

Fabien Baron:

I think she was the one who just put the period on top of the ‘i’ by saying a few things, like pushing this idea of the point of view that everything comes down to a point of view, everything comes down to a vision and to a way to express that vision in a very simple manner. I think that I learned that from her. She was very, very definite about that.

Debbie Millman:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Fabien Baron:

That, I think really, I felt like, “Oh, I’ve completed a circle here.” I have the understanding of how to pass information in a proper way, in a practical way from my father and being a journalist. I understood the artistry and the shuffling and what you can do with an image and how you can say something in this way, if you make the image this size or in this way, if you make the image this size, a little bit like the complete approach to the buildup of a magazine. But then I learned from Mary that this is great, but what is it that is inside the image and what is that point of view? Now, to pass on that information as an art director onto the photographer so that point of view is palatable, relevant and on point. After that, I felt like, “Ooh! I could be an art director.”

Debbie Millman:

You’ve earned your stripes.

Fabien Baron:

Then I left Condé Nast.

Debbie Millman:

I know, I know.

Fabien Baron:

Then Liberman was really pissed.

Debbie Millman:

After a year-and-a-half at GQ, Betsy Carter, the former editor of Esquire and the newly minted editor of a brand new magazine called New York Woman invited you to become the founding art director. I remember when the magazine first came out. I actually had a friend who worked there as a copy editor, and there was so much excitement about the launch. I read that you had many epic battles over the tone of the magazine. You wanted it to be cool and clean, and they wanted it to be warm and cozy, which seemed very odd for a New York Woman–type magazine. How did you manage, looking back on it? How would you describe that time?

Fabien Baron:

Wow! Yes, I remember now that you’re mentioning that. Yes, that’s true, I had a couple of battles with some of the staff. But not with Betsy really, because I think Betsy understood. It was late ’80s New York City. Come on! At that time, the city was the coolest.

Debbie Millman:

Ah, yeah!

Fabien Baron:

It was the place, it was the center of the world. Anything, anything that was happening was happening in New York. Of course, I wanted the best photographers. Of course, I wanted the thing to be the coolest thing possible. Yes, there was, it was American Express who was doing the magazine.

Debbie Millman:

They were the publishers, yeah.

Fabien Baron:

The publisher was a bit corporate, let’s say, but we went against that. I think, yes, I definitely wanted the magazine to be cool, to be quite fashion-y at the time. I remember that’s the first time I worked with Peter Lindbergh, who was at New York Woman, and that’s the first time actually Peter Lindbergh worked in America. Then other photographers—like Patrick Demarchelier worked there, Denis Piel, Max Vadukul, Jean Francois Lepage, Jean [inaudible], photographers at that time, they were working for Franca Sozzani. They were working in Europe, more actually European photographers, strangely enough, because also Mr. Liberman was not happy, he had left Condé Nast. He said he had plans for me, and I didn’t wanted to wait for those plans, and he was really upset. He was really upset, and I couldn’t use any of the photographers that were working for Condé Nast, so I had to go in Europe and get the photographers from Europe, the cool ones.

Debbie Millman:

Right.

Fabien Baron:

That was a battle, and I was winning that battle, and it was really cool. I was bringing like all these newer, interesting photographers, and the magazine got noticed. We got noticed.

Debbie Millman:

Oh yeah! The magazine was stunning. I have been waiting to ask you this question for 30-something years—the logo, New York Woman, very long, elegant, serif face. The ‘W’ in Woman was larger than the rest of the letters and often in color. On the third stroke of the ‘W,’ the ascender was cut off.

Fabien Baron:

Huh?

Debbie Millman:

Tell me what the decision was about that, to remind you of something I have been obsessing about for—

Fabien Baron:

Oh my God. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Debbie Millman:

I know you’re not, I know you’re not. OK. Here you go. See?

Fabien Baron:

Yes.

Debbie Millman:

See?

Fabien Baron:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Debbie Millman:

How do I do this? This is backwards. There.

Fabien Baron:

The last one.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, there was no tail.

Fabien Baron:

I think there was—

Debbie Millman:

The ascender, it was on every issue, so it’s intentional.

Fabien Baron:

Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t part of the logo. That was only letter.

Debbie Millman:

I’ve been obsessing about this, you haven’t [been] thinking about it.

Fabien Baron:

I don’t think that was the only letter that was doing that. The ‘M’ must have gone—

Debbie Millman:

In the logo, it was.

Fabien Baron:

The ‘M’ must have gone that way too, no?

Debbie Millman:

Let’s see.

Fabien Baron:

The ‘N’ as well, no?

Debbie Millman:

I’m looking online to see.

Fabien Baron:

No?

Debbie Millman:

Nope. Just that pesky little leg on that ‘W.’

Fabien Baron:

I don’t know why. Listen, I have no idea why.

Debbie Millman:

The ‘W’ and the ‘W’ in New also didn’t have it, but it was slightly connected to the ‘Y’ and the center in the ‘Y’ in York. Look at it and tell me, because I need to understand your thinking.

Fabien Baron:

I remember clearly that I didn’t like the fact like New York was written that big and that the name was New York Woman. That was too long, and I wanted to make New York small inside the Woman. I wanted that to be the logo.

Debbie Millman:

That makes sense, yeah. Well, I just needed to ask you that question. OK. You’ve mentioned crossing Alexandra Liberman, and you said that he was very upset that you left. He told you that he had big plans for you, he was cross that you left, but he was really cross later, really cross when you turned down the job to work at American Vogue. He revealed his big plan.

Fabien Baron:

Yes, because when I left, he was cross indeed. But he always said to me that the best way to move up in Condé Nast is to leave Condé Nast. They took him back to Condé Nast. That’s what I told him when I left for New York Woman. “Bu
t remember, Mr. Liberman, you told me that the best way to go up in Condé Nast was to leave Condé Nast and come back, so maybe I’ll come back,” and that was that. That was my conversation with him. But in the meantime, he really had blocked me from using any of the photographers, which was good sport, fair.

Fabien Baron:

Anyway, after New York Woman and while I was doing New York Women, because I think that was a year-and-a-half, he called me in his office and he proposed to me to become the design director, art director of American Vogue, and I refused. I turned it down.

Debbie Millman:

Why?

Fabien Baron:

I turned it down because I felt the magazine was not in the right place. It was not the right moment. I didn’t feel the editor was doing the right job at the time. I always felt you have to work with the right editor. If it’s not the right editor, it’s not going to be right. Even though in the right position, you get the right title, you’re in the right place, but if the editor is not good, it’s not going to be good. End of story. At that time, it was Grace Mirabella, and I think she felt like she was on the last leg. I think he wanted me there to help out, to redesign the magazine, to give it a boost, to do something with it.

Debbie Millman:

For Grace.

Fabien Baron:

I felt like, Wait a minute. If I go there and this is not happening, it’s not going to go well, and that’s it. I turned him down. It was quite ballsy for me to do that because usually you don’t turn down Alex Liberman. He was a little bit upset. Then a week or so after that, I got a phone call, and I don’t know if it was related through Mr. Liberman or not, but I got a phone call from friends from French Vogue. They were asking me to be the art director at French Vogue. I turned it down as well. I felt like I didn’t want to go back to Paris, giving up on America now, because going back to France would have been like, you have to go back, you have to be there.

Fabien Baron:

It’s not like it is now—you can work from anywhere on the planet with a computer. You had to be physically present to make something happen, and I was really not in the mood for that, to be back in Paris and work again in Paris. It was too early. It was, I think, four years or three-and-a-half years after I was in New York, and I didn’t feel like I had made it in New York yet, so I turned it down. Again, I was not liking what French Vogue looked like. I was not liking what was going on with that magazine at the time for whichever reason.

Debbie Millman:

Did Alexander Liberman think that you were crazy turning down both French Vogue and American Vogue?

Fabien Baron:

I didn’t discuss it with him, but I remember—

Debbie Millman:

Did your friends and family think you were crazy?

Fabien Baron:

Yes. My friends that worked in the business and everything, say, “My god, are you crazy? You just turned down two Vogues? That’s insane. You’re crazy. You should have taken that first one, you should have taken American Vogue.” Nevertheless, two weeks later or three weeks later, I got a phone call from Franca Sozzani, who was just hired to redo Italian Vogue, and that I took on the spot.

Debbie Millman:

Because of Franca or because of the opportunity with Italia?

Fabien Baron:

Because of the editor, because, exactly, because the editor, because Franca was someone that was really admiring for what she had done at Lei and Per Lui and she was doing such a good job. We’re using the same photographers. She was using Steven Meisel. I was using Steven Meisel. She was using Peter, I was using Peter. I felt we had the same vision about things, and she was like a real, true renegade in the way she would approach a magazine. To me, that makes sense. That part is like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe she’s calling me.” She was the one I was really admiring. It was not difficult for me to say yes. I didn’t even think about it, I said, “Yes!” She said, “So would you come to Milan and work?” “Yes!” I took the job on the spot.

Fabien Baron:

I didn’t even think if it was complicated, if it would be a pain in the ass to be in Italy, I just took the job because it made sense. What was interesting in all this, in the whole process, is to turn down two Vogues to get a third one and to get the right one at the moment, because Italian Vogue was the right one at that moment. Because what happened is afterwards, Grace Mirabella got fired from American Vogue, so that would have been my loss. French Vogue, the same thing happened at French Vogue. Someone replaced whomever was the editor at that time. The whole thing collapsed, and Italian Vogue, on the contrary, was a huge success and new thing. Sometimes you really have to follow your guts and your feelings about something and not get impressed by names and by surroundings. So I’m glad I made that decision.

Debbie Millman:

Did you think that you’d be able to have more impact working with Franca at Italian Vogue?

Fabien Baron:

Oh, totally, totally, because I think she gave me carte blanche in the way the magazine could look. She gave me carte blanche, but everything she was saying was bringing my ears some amazing music. Everything she was saying was right on the money. She really was the one that opened my vision and allowed my vision to be expressed in a very, very direct way on the page of a magazine. She really was the first one who said, “OK, do it.” She was beyond me and she pushed me. She didn’t settle for halfway. All the people around her in her team, like Grazia D’Annunzio, that was the editor-in-chief at that time for the editorial part of the magazine, everybody at the magazine were thinking the same. You felt part of a team, and that boat was led by Franca Sozzani in a way that it was impeccable. We were a perfect team going forward, going with the same goal and all in the same direction, and it paid off. Franca became definitely the most sought-after editor in the world for fashion and style. She had a way of putting things together that was unlike anyone else.

Debbie Millman:

Those magazines now are really considered collector’s items.

Fabien Baron:

Totally.

Debbie Millman:

The magazine became a laboratory for edgy, experimental photography and design. You stated that when you were working with Franca is really when you learned about fashion, and I was wondering if you could share what was the biggest thing she taught you?

Fabien Baron:

I remember it was Franca, she would take me around to see all the designers. I would go to the shows with her and she would take me around
and have the discussion. I remember when we first did, we did the first issue, she said, “OK, come with me, and we’re going with the magazine to see Mr. Armani.” We went to Mr. Armani and we presented the magazine to him and she was talking all in Italian; I was understanding enough, a little bit of it. I learned Italian afterwards, but it was really interesting to be put directly into the people that were making the fashion, like the designers, to be really working directly with them and to be part of the fashion system so directly. I think the way she was working, she was working in unison with all the designers.

Fabien Baron:

She would like do all these stories on them. She was really … how can I say that? She was like the head of a table and she would deal the cards. For designers, being in Italian Vogue was very important. It meant a lot. To certain photographers, shooting their story and their clothes, I think was very important at that time. It was really meaningful. She was holding the deck of cards and she would play hard. She was really a good leader. She was the voice of Italian fashion in many ways. To be in contact with her directly there was all what it meant, was all the people that is market editors, the fashion editors or it is all the people working for the designers, you would understand the structure and how fashion was built.

Fabien Baron:

I remember going to Miuccia Prada. I think this discussion with Franca there and Miuccia talking to Franca in Italian saying, “I’m thinking I’m going to do a woman’s collection,” to Franca. She was in bags only at that time and she had taken the business from her parents.

Fabien Baron:

I remember very clearly the discussion she had with Franca, and I was there. I remember I asked her, “If you ask me, I would say, of course you should do it. Of course, you should do it.” Because me, I am a French guy that lived in America and came to work in Italy. You can do anything. Everything’s possible. I also told her, “Yeah, I think it’s great that you do clothing. Why not?” She was like, and that’s how Franca was involved in this type of discussion with the designers. I think she was really, when you see someone like Miuccia Prada who had such an influence in the world of fashion, she had that importance. I remember meeting with Dolce & Gabbana. I remember meeting with everyone.

Debbie Millman:

Heady time.

Fabien Baron:

It was fantastic. It was fantastic. It was two years, but after two years of that, of being at Italian Vogue, I think it was really difficult for me to go back and forth and to still deal with my clients. I had some freelance clients in New York. I was like two weeks here, two week there. At that time, it’s not like I was flying business; it was not easy. It was much more complicated. You had to be hands-on, and I would be in Italy two weeks and I had to get my life there but I was also like in New York. It was complicated, it was complicated. After two years of it, I left Italian Vogue to pursue other things.

Debbie Millman:

Baron & Baron was born in 1990. You came back to the United States.

Fabien Baron:

Yeah, that was after Interview magazine. I went back basically and my friend Glenn O’Brien said, “Oh, you know, they’re looking for someone at Interview magazine.” I thought, she’s a new editor, Ingrid Sischy. She was at Artforum. Would you be interested?” I took the job.

Debbie Millman:

You’ve had a real on-again, off-again relationship with the magazine. She first hired you in 1990, Ingrid, but she fired you a year or so later because, this is what I’ve read, “the graphics were dominating the magazine.”

Fabien Baron:

Yes, I guess.

Debbie Millman:

Then in 2008, you returned with Glenn O’Brien and took on the editorial director role, which you had until 2018. What was that first year-and-a-half like working to reinvigorate Andy Warhol’s magazine?

Fabien Baron:

That was a very interesting time in the life of the magazine because Andy Warhol just died, and Ingrid Sischy was taking over the magazine, and we wanted it to be different. I don’t think me and Ingrid got along really well, like in the direction in which the magazine was supposed to go. We didn’t see eye to eye, and that’s where I was like a missing … like Franca Sozzani, I was missing Franca, for how distinctive and how precise and how on-point she was. Now, I felt like everything she was saying like, “Oh yeah, that’s golden. That’s OK. That’s working, that’s working.” When, on the other hand, Ingrid’s ideas, I didn’t feel were applicable for magazines in the same way. She had an approach that was not something I was understanding. It was not my cup of tea, but in a way, but still, it was interesting because graphically and the way the magazine looked was interesting.

Fabien Baron:

I was fine with that, but I guess she didn’t think it was fine. I guess we didn’t get along. We didn’t fight. She didn’t understand what I was about and I don’t think I really appreciated what she was about either at that time. We got to know each other better after. She was still at Interview; I was, I think, at Bazaar by then. I grew to respect her and she grew to respect me as well. We had different point of views, and that’s fine. That’s why it’s important to go back to the point of view. For a good magazine, one point of view, you cannot have different points of view. That’s when the magazine becomes schizophrenic and un-understandable for people. I guess that, when that first Interview I did, even though I really liked what it looked like, it didn’t make sense for what it was, for what she wanted to do, so I think it was better we didn’t continue together.

Debbie Millman:

Was that the first time you’d ever been fired?

Fabien Baron:

Yeah, it was. It was a strange feeling. I was upset at first, but then [inaudible] or whatever, like we had to move on. That’s why right away I started my company. The day I left Interview, I started my company. Because I was doing a lot of freelance anyway; I had clients, I was doing Barney’s, Valentino advertising, some Giorgio Armani advertising. I had met all these designers in Italy and I was doing a lot of freelance for them. It was all the other things, I felt like, “Let me start my company. Maybe I don’t want to work for magazines. Magazines are complicated.” They really take everything under your feet. They really grab all your energy. They require a tremendous amount of work. They’re not that good. I was really disappointed with magazines in a certain way, and so I said, “I’m not going to work for a magazine again. I’m going to start my company.”

Fabien Baron:

I started my company, got successful right away, which was good, and I’d moved on. I’ve moved on quite rapidly. I remember going to the shows and seeing Ingrid and I was fine. “Hello, Ingrid, how are you?” Blah, blah, blah. Didn’t hol
d a grudge; I was fine, I’d moved on. That’s when I got the phone call for Harper’s Bazaar. After, I think, a year after I left Interview, something like that.

Debbie Millman:

Right. Before we get to Bazaar, I want to talk to you about just a few projects that you did back at the beginning of Baron & Baron. One of your first jobs was with Isimiaki. You designed his first fragrance. You’ve said that fragrances are the strangest accounts to work on, that they’re the most abstract form of advertising that there is. I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about why you feel that way.

Fabien Baron:

At that time, when Isi called, I know that Isi loved what I was doing at Italian Vogue. He said he was really impressed in the way I was putting the magazine together, and he said, “We got to find a way to work together.” I said, “Sure, lovely, that’d be great.” Then I started my company, then I get a phone call from him. He said, “Fabien, we should work together. Have you ever done a fragrance bottle?” I said, “No, I’ve never done that, but that must be so interesting. I’d love to do it.” Yeah, I love fragrance. I love the object by itself. It’s the item that most people or a lot of people get access to; I find it very Democratic. It’s one of the first things you can buy from a designer brand, is the fragrance or lipstick or makeup or beauty item. I felt that it was really interesting to participate into the vision of a designer and into creating this object that, if successful, can becomes quite cult. Right?

Debbie Millman:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Fabien Baron:

And generational. I was thinking at that time, like Chanel No. 5. Oh my god! What did he do for Chanel? It’s unbelievable. I was really, really, really intrigued by the question of Isimiaki in a bottle. He said, “Can you come to Paris?” I said, “Sure, I can come to Paris.” He put me on the plane and I was in Paris, and basically, we talked and went on to design the bottle.

Debbie Millman:

Which is one of the most successful and long-running designs in fragrances of our time. You’ve since designed over 40 different bottles for 40 different fragrances and have stated that one of the problems with developing a new fragrance is the name, and have jokingly stated that all that’s left are names like “fief,” “memory,” “jealousy” and “pirate.” Have we actually ran out of names?

Fabien Baron:

It’s incredible. To name a fragrance is so complicated.

Debbie Millman:

Actually, I think the name “jealousy” could be interesting.

Fabien Baron:

No, “jealousy” is not bad, actually. But you know what? I’m sure that name is taken.

Debbie Millman:

I’m sure it is.

Fabien Baron:

Someone owns it. Every single word in the dictionary is taken.

Debbie Millman:

It’s crazy.

Fabien Baron:

Either you go to whomever owns it and buy it back or you can put words together.

Debbie Millman:

Shades of Jealousy.

Fabien Baron:

Yeah, Shades of Jealousy, yeah. Naming a fragrance is a nightmare. I’ve named a few and it’s a nightmare. It’s really—

Debbie Millman:

Naming anything is a nightmare. I’ve named some pharmaceuticals and it’s a nightmare.

Fabien Baron:

Oh yeah, and all the words, the words are taken.

Debbie Millman:

Yep.

Fabien Baron:

Words are taken. It’s like, something visual, you can do something new. It’s not like you can invent a word, even though the car industry, that’s what they do.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah.

Fabien Baron:

That’s why some industries, they have to invent words that don’t exist.

Debbie Millman:

Right. That’s the easiest way now. To create a name is to just make something up that has never been uttered. Oftentimes though, that’s hard because it ends up sounding so foreign that nobody really has any attachment to it.

Fabien Baron:

Yes. The problem with the fragrance is it needs to strike on an emotional level immediately. That’s the tricky part. Any emotion in the dictionary is taken for sure.

Debbie Millman:

Right.

Fabien Baron:

15 times around by 15 brands.

Debbie Millman:

Yep. You also helped Calvin Klein relaunch, because I also didn’t know at that time that his fragrance had launched to very little fanfare. You helped him relaunch CK One and then went on to help shape everything for Calvin for several decades. Fabien, is it true you introduced Calvin to Kate Moss?

Fabien Baron:

Yes, I did. What happened with Calvin, he called me when I was at Harper’s Bazaar and he asked me to do his logo. He said, “I need a logo to put on the back of the jeans, and I want it to say “CK.” Can you come up with something?” I designed that CK logo, and he liked it very much. That’s how my relationship started with him. Then he started to, “Well, can you look at different colors, that logo, because if we do [inaudible].” I came up with a whole range of colors and a whole thing. Then he called me for something else, and then another thing, and then, “Oh, can you look? Na, na, na. We are doing a jeans campaign,” and I started working on a campaign. It went gradually, but surely, in a space of six months. I came from not knowing Calvin Klein into almost living with Calvin Klein.

Fabien Baron:

It was an amazing experience because this guy, I just think like him. I just loved it. Everything he was saying, he’s like, “I know what you’re talking about. I know exactly what you’re saying.” He was so unafraid to try things that were not the proper thing to do and to do things in a way that were very visible, but with an extreme sense of aestheticism and a very precise way to execute it. He understood media. He understood how to communicate visually a dream that people wanted.

Debbie Millman:

How did Kate Moss fit into that dream? Because she was quite an unusual model for that time. She was not the face you would have associated with high fashion. She was short, or not short as in, in the grand scheme of things, but shorter than most models.

Fabien Baron:

What happe
ned is we had put Kate Moss in the first issue of Harper’s Bazaar, in our first issue, with Linda on the cover but Kate Moss opened the first story of Bazaar. She was already our, like Bazaar’s mascot. Then Calvin called me again and said, “Oh, Fabien, I would love to use Vanessa Paradis for my jeans ad, but she turned me down.”

Debbie Millman:

Wow!

Fabien Baron:

I look at Vanessa Paradis and I look at the picture that he had showed me, to see it was a picture of Vanessa Paradis sitting down on a gray background and crouching down with a pair of jeans and a white shirt. I think she wore a T-shirt or something. She was just slouchy, and I said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” I said, “OK.” I brought in Kate Moss. What I did is I told Kate Moss to come in the room and said, “Can you sit on the floor just like that picture?” She sat on the floor just like that picture in front of Calvin Klein and Calvin Klein turned to me and goes like this. I said, “Yeah, yeah. See?” He hired her.

Debbie Millman:

History was made.

Fabien Baron:

He loved her. But also, the thing is, Kate at that time was, there was something very innocent about her, but there was something very mischievous about her. There was everything. She was like a flower about to explode. I don’t know how to explain it. She was oozing cool by just being there. Whatever she was doing, she could sit, she could stand, the way she would move, she was oozing cool. Calvin went crazy on her in a second, put her under contract immediately, and that was it. That was the Kate Moss and Calvin Klein moment.

Debbie Millman:

She’s written about how everyone thought she should fix her teeth but you. What did people think were wrong with her teeth?

Fabien Baron:

I don’t know. I don’t know. I said, “Kate, you’re crazy. I love your teeth. That’s part of you, don’t change it.” Her beauty is her imperfection.

Debbie Millman:

Right.

Fabien Baron:

Her beauty is that she’s petite. Her beauty is, she has a little bit shorter legs. Her beauty is that she’s a little bit [inaudible], she’s a bit crooked. She’s a bit like … it’s her imperfection are making her this most amazing person. Her soul is worn on the outside, and that you read that and that’s what you see. You’re charmed. You’re definitely charmed by her. She’s definitely charming.

Debbie Millman:

She wrote a wonderful, wonderful foreword to your monograph.

Fabien Baron:

Yes, she did. That was so nice.

Debbie Millman:

About you’re comrades and being mischievous together, which is really lovely.

Fabien Baron:

Yes, yes.

Debbie Millman:

You’ve mentioned Harper’s Bazaar a few times. I remember the day I got my Harper’s Bazaar, your first Harper’s Bazaar, “welcome to the age of elegance,” with the ‘A’ in Linda Evangelista’s hand. It is one of the most glorious magazine relaunches of our time. You worked with the legendary editor, the great, the late, great Elizabeth Tilberis. You and Liz completely revived Harper’s Bazaar, and in doing so created what many believe to be the most beautiful magazine in history. You’ve said that Liz Tilberis’ real talent was that she was not scared of talent.

Fabien Baron:

Yes.

Debbie Millman:

Do you find that people in leadership positions are fearful or intimidated by greatness?

Fabien Baron:

Yes, definitely.

Debbie Millman:

Especially in the fashion industry, I would imagine, where it’s so, holding onto a job is so hard.

Fabien Baron:

I think a lot of people in the business see talent as a competition to their point of view. I think Liz was smart enough to surround herself with very, very talented people, and she would take everybody’s point of view and make it her point of view. That’s where she was amazing. The only thing you wanted to do. In all her abilities to do anything, she would do that with a smile and with lots of love. The only thing you wanted to do is to please Liz the best.

Debbie Millman:

Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

Fabien Baron:

And to give her what she wanted. She would let you use your own talent to achieve that, and that’s amazing. She didn’t ask you to be someone else.

Debbie Millman:

How competitive was Harper’s Bazaar at that time with the redesign and relaunch of Vogue that was happening with Anna Wintour?

Fabien Baron:

It was war.

Debbie Millman:

OK then.

Fabien Baron:

It was war. I think the number of contracts between Hearst publications and Condé Nast publications for the photographers, the fights we had to get to the photographers because we needed the photographers, it was really, really the most competitive time in magazine making probably that ever existed. I did enjoy it, and I think we gave Anna Wintour a run for her money, for sure.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, without a doubt. How did she react to Linda Evangelista being on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar?

Fabien Baron:

She didn’t like it because the minute Harper’s Bazaar was happening, the veto was, the Condé Nast veto, was imposed. It was like, “This is it. This is war.” The models wouldn’t give up. We had to do what to do, everything we had to do. We had to put photographers under contract, we had to talk to models, we had to talk to everyone. You got to do it, it’s very important, we’re going to put you on the cover, and will you do it? Everybody was petrified to go against Condé Nast, but we did it.

Debbie Millman:

Right, and you did it well. The interesting thing about Harper’s Bazaar under your tenure with Liz was that it juxtaposed two words that you generally didn’t see together. It was elegantly provocative. You were able to be controversial and edgy, but also at the same time, very elegant and almost formal in that.

Fabien Baron:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Debbie Millman:

I read that one of your mottos, and I don’t know if it still is, but one of your mottos at that time was to minimize maximally, and I was wondering if you can talk abo
ut how you know when something is minimized maximally.

Fabien Baron:

Wow! I said that?

Debbie Millman:

Yes.

Fabien Baron:

I think deep down I’m a minimalist and yet, like fashion, Bazaar came about in the grand years, where fashion became more poor and more normal and more real. But then after that, glamor came about again. Fashion is not automatic, it’s a maximal thing. It’s not plain and simple, if you see what I mean.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah.

Fabien Baron:

Even though you have some Jil Sanders and people like that that embrace that profession, but in general, it’s a world that is not subtle. Bazaar, we tried to stay somewhere classic, therefore understandable, yet we pushed it quite far in some of the ideas that were extreme. It was extreme yet it was classic. There was always that balance, and elegance was always a part of the game, that it needed to be absolutely beautiful. I felt like you could package any idea—even if it was an odd concept of something difficult to understand, if it was packaged in a beautiful way, people would understand it better. It would be closer to them. They would be more acceptable. Maybe that’s what I call minimal maximalism.

Debbie Millman:

Minimized maximally. Liz Tilberis very tragically died of cancer. You left shortly thereafter because you were so heartbroken. Glenda Bailey took over and it was recently announced that she would be leaving after many decades. A new editor has just been announced. I read that you were in the consideration for the editor-in-chief position. Is that true?

Fabien Baron:

Yeah, that’s what I heard too, but I never got a phone call, so I think it’s—

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, all these different rumors that go around.

Fabien Baron:

Yes. To be honest, I would have not taken it.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. I figured, reading some of your more recent thoughts, which we’ll get to about the magazine business, that didn’t seem likely that you’d want to do it.

Fabien Baron:

No.

Debbie Millman:

Back to the ’90s, one of my other favorite projects that you worked on around that time, and one that I also own, the French version, is Madonna’s Sex book. Steven Meisel was photographing the book and both he and Madonna wanted you to art direct it. In your 2019 monograph, you talked about how one of the objectives was to give it the right kind of “crazy tabloid elegance.” You couldn’t make it too wild-looking without making it look cheap, and if you made it look too crazy, the right crazy, you had to ensure that the crazy was not going to be ridiculous. How crazy was it to work on that job? What did you think of the ensuing hysteria?

Fabien Baron:

I had a great time. I had a fabulous, great time working with her. She was unbelievable. She was so—

Debbie Millman:

Was she naked most of the time?

Fabien Baron:

She was naked, yeah, not most of the time.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah?

Fabien Baron:

Some of the time she was definitely naked, yeah. It didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me at all.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, I would think the opposite.

Fabien Baron:

I’m French. Right? I’m French.

Debbie Millman:

Think how fabulous, but there was a lot of nudity; it was nudity everywhere. Did it ever get lurid?

Fabien Baron:

No, no, I don’t think. We took it as a job. It was like with working on a film or something. I think like when you’re on set and you have all these people, nudity is not something that is intriguing really, to be honest. It’s a job. You look at it as a job, you don’t look at, “Oh my God, she’s naked.” We didn’t care. We were here to do something, and being on set doesn’t allow other thoughts. No, it didn’t bother me one bit.

Debbie Millman:

There was a lot of Robert Mapplethorpe influenced S&M, BDSM.

Fabien Baron:

Yeah. She wanted to cover a little bit of everything. She wanted to have that bit, the S&M bit. She wanted the weirdness, she wanted the underground, she wanted the overtly pop culture, she wanted all the different aspects of sex, she wanted to cover everything. To be honest, I found like it was treated like a journal in a way, like her thoughts, thought process. The visuals were like, some of them very sophisticated, some of them very trashy, some of them very pop, some of them very cartoonish, some of them very hard; there was everything in it. It was like a collage of all these different visions done and packaged again by the same people, like a photographer, an art director and a writer. Glenn O’Brien, myself and Steven Meisel.

Fabien Baron:

These different expressions of the subject matter that ended up being like, the package was together in a good way. It held together nicely, the voice, the whole thing. The voice and the point of view, and visually, it was really controlled and really fun in many ways.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, I think it’s still—

Fabien Baron:

And the scandal.

Debbie Millman:

Oh my God, the scandal.

Fabien Baron:

Then the scandal when it came out.

Debbie Millman:

You couldn’t find it. I was finally able to get the French copy. They could not get an English copy. I got a French copy, which I still have. I was so enthralled with that book, Fabien, that at that time the internet and email and all of that was first taking off, usernames. I used the name Dita as my username. Madonna’s name in the book was Dita; I used that name. I just remembered that as we’re talking, I was so enthralled of it. But really, as racy as it was and as controversial as it was, and looking back on it now, it doesn’t seem that way, but then it was, every single photograph is beautiful. Every single photograph is beautiful in that book.

Fabien Baron:

Well, it’s Steven Meisel.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. In your monograph published by Phaidon, it’s a 400+ page stunning exploration of 30 years of your own work. One thing that surprised me in reading it is your statement that w
hen you were younger, you really loved being controversial and you were never afraid, and today you find yourself to be more careful. I’m wondering what is behind that change.

Fabien Baron:

If you see what’s going on politically, don’t you think you have to be careful?

Debbie Millman:

OK. OK. I see. I wasn’t sure if you meant taking creative risks or being less maybe politically correct.

Fabien Baron:

I don’t think it’s a good moment for that. I don’t think it’s, the climate doesn’t allow controversy. I think controversy is not read as controversy. Controversy is read as something extremely offensive and actually can put your career down today. You have to think really twice before you say something, before you do something a certain way, before you use certain visuals. You have to think about everything. Everything can become a weapon against you, so you have to be very careful, I think. Somewhere it’s good; in many ways it’s good and it’s necessary, in other ways it’s less good because I think it takes out a lot of the creative factor. It’s never innocent when you do something, but there’s a certain innocence in creation that doesn’t put automatically things that you say or do in context of a political or geo-sociological environment of a certain time.

Fabien Baron:

I find certain artists don’t live in their time, yet they get judged per the environment and the context in which they work. That could really endanger the vision, these kind of restrictions or self-restrictions one has to put on themselves to a certain degree. Being controversial today, no. It’s very risky, there’s that reason. The other reason is, I guess, you learn. I think when you’re younger, you want to shake the tree, you want to bother the people that are older, you want to create your own little revolution. Then you become wiser and you don’t want to shake the tree, you actually want to protect the tree. You want to make sure it’s trimmed properly. You want to make sure it gets water. You want to make sure, all the other things you want, you want to care, and you want maybe pass along the knowledge that you’ve amassed through the years, and you want to pass that along to someone else. Your behavior, your mental behavior is shifting and changing. That’s the second part of this.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. You’ve stated that the era of the fashion magazine has come to an end. Why do you feel that way?

Fabien Baron:

It feels that way, because it seems magazines … do people look at magazines still? Do people buy magazines? Do we feel in the age of technology, in the age of portable phone, tablets, anything digital, do you feel that turning the page of a magazine is something relevant for today? Or is it better to swipe?

Debbie Millman:

What do you think?

Fabien Baron:

I think it’s about swiping. It’s not about turning pages of a magazine, to be honest.

Debbie Millman:

Do you think that—

Fabien Baron:

You may turn the page of a book.

Debbie Millman:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). But do you think that—

Fabien Baron:

But of a magazine, I find magazines not relevant in my mind, I don’t find them … even though I miss them. I do miss putting a magazine together. I miss working with photographers on editorial stories, but I don’t feel it’s relevant. I don’t feel it’s the proper tool to communicate fashion today.

Debbie Millman:

Do you still subscribe to a lot of magazines?

Fabien Baron:

No.

Debbie Millman:

Which ones do you still subscribe to? Could you share?

Fabien Baron:

No.

Debbie Millman:

No?

Fabien Baron:

No, I don’t.

Debbie Millman:

Oh, none.

Fabien Baron:

I don’t subscribe. No, I don’t.

Debbie Millman:

I used to subscribe. I had a subscription to Vogue for 18 years. I paid for it and there was a glitch with the payment and then I repaid, and then all of a sudden Bon Appetit took over from House & Garden, so I got the balance put on Vogue. I had it for 18 years and then it stopped, and I don’t miss it. I still think about it and I’ll look at it online from time to time, but I don’t miss it. I don’t know if it’s because Grace Coddington left. I don’t know, but it’s just not the same.

Fabien Baron:

I think it’s different time. I think what we were doing at that time in the ’90s, that was relevant. It felt like it was something.

Debbie Millman:

It felt like there was a connection. When Dominique Browning was editor of House & Garden, the first thing I would read was her editorial. The last magazine for me to go was Harper’s Bazaar.

Fabien Baron:

It’s the talent of all this. I think people are just hanging on the branches desperately trying to still hang on the … I don’t know, I’m not into it. It’s funny. I think to do something that makes sense, it needs to be relevant, it needs to be a medium that is relevant. We’re more intrigued into … with all my clients, we don’t talk about the page that’s going to go in Vogue, we talk about the Instagram posts. I hate to say this. Even though I’m not … it’s a shame that it is the Instagram post, but it’s what it’s about. My question that I put to myself now is like, “How am I going to make that Instagram post much better than all the other Instagram posts? I want to make this relevant, I want to make this work, and now I’m going to make this important,” and that’s what I’m trying to do.

Debbie Millman:

Do you enjoy it as much?

Fabien Baron:

It’s different. It’s a different process, it’s a different exercise. Do I enjoy as much? I don’t know. I don’t even ask myself the question, because I think you learn through working. I’ve been working so much you realize that most of what you do is problem-solving. Problem-solving that it is on the page, on a screen, or on a billboard, or in a book or as a moving image, you’re problem-solving. I became a problem-solver.

Debbie Millman:

Fabien, I don’t think so. I think that you became a problem-maker for other people because your work was so much better. That’s what I think great designers do. Even if you’re trying to do—

Fabien Baron:

Really, that’s nice.

Debbie Millman:

When you’re trying to make an Instagram post that’s better than anybody else’s that has never been done before, you’re a problem-maker for everybody else that can’t.

Fabien Baron:

Well, I don’t know about that, but I know that’s what I do all day long. I’m being put in front of a problem by a client and I’m trying to resolve the issues that … and try to make the best solution out of it. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with that and I enjoy that. It’s like a great math problem; it’s also interesting, but it’s true the things have shifted. It’s not about magazines. Is it about a book? It could still be about the magazines that are treated a little bit more like an object, something that is less throwaway.

Debbie Millman:

Right.

Fabien Baron:

I’m talking about like maybe the bi-annual magazines.

Debbie Millman:

Visionaire.

Fabien Baron:

Purple, like in the oldies.

Debbie Millman:

Are you aware of Stack magazines? It’s a subscription service out of the UK, and they curate sending indie magazines once a month. Really, really, really well-done, and I love getting them. They’re never large-circulation magazines, but it’s really interesting to see what some people are doing. I’ll send you a link, it’s Stack magazines. They pick the magazine, you get what they pick once a month. You get a magazine, it’s really great.

Fabien Baron:

That’s interesting.

Debbie Millman:

Then you stay on top of—

Fabien Baron:

You get an object? You get the object?

Debbie Millman:

An object, the actual object, yeah, the actual magazine.

Fabien Baron:

OK.

Debbie Millman:

There are some extraordinary efforts being made these days. They’re small, but they’re really, really good.

Fabien Baron:

Yes. I’m sure. I’m sure. I’m talking about magazines as a large, with a large audience, like the Vogue, the Bazaar, that level of magazine. Ultimately, we love small independent magazines because they have a voice and they have a point of view and they have something they want to say. At the same time, they do it with no money and they let the photographers run with the ball and they undermine themselves before just to get certain people inside their magazine. It’s a little bit a free-for-all, and then on the other hand, a very commercial magazine is the opposite. You have to do exactly what they want as if you were doing advertising, and your voice as a collaborator is not appreciated or you’re here to fill in the gap. It’s one or the other. I don’t think there’s any place where you feel like the collaboration and the point of view from the team inside the magazine is forward in a way that is meaningful. I don’t know a magazine like that today.

Debbie Millman:

The one magazine I still really enjoy reading both online and in-hand is The New Yorker. I still think that they’re doing—

Fabien Baron:

They were very smart the way they did it through subscriptions. They decided it’s not about the advertising, it’s about the quality of the product, and for that quality you’re going to pay a certain amount of money to get the magazine, and it paid off for them. It’s the one magazine at Condé Nast that is successful.

Debbie Millman:

Good. In your monograph, you state that while you’ve devoted most of your life to becoming a good art director, you now want to dedicate the rest of what time you have left to film and photography. Tell me why.

Fabien Baron:

I think, like I said, it goes all the way back to my dad. I’ve learned art direction because I think he was an art director. He would have been a filmmaker, I would be in film. I realized that all the mediums are very much their own thing, and it’s your point of view mixing with that medium that creates something exceptional. That it is magazines, building houses, painting, sculptures, filmmaking, photography, I think it’s all the same. I think what you have to say is the important part. How are you going to say it is also the important part. The medium in which you communicate these thoughts is just that medium. It has its own vocabulary, it has its own language. It’s a little bit like, let’s say a magazine is French, a film is English, it’s another line. It’s like learning another language.

Fabien Baron:

But basically, what you have to say is the same. Like most big artists, they just repeat themselves. I had the luck to be able to play with different mediums and to pass from one medium to the other, from magazines into books, into fragrance, into furniture and into film. I’ve done film for about 25 years now, a lot of commercials, started doing those commercials … one of my first commercials was for Giorgio Armani, and then one for Calvin Klein; I did many, many, many for Calvin Klein. And on and on and on. I just love him.

Debbie Millman:

What you did for Moncler, by the way, was extraordinary.

Fabien Baron:

Oh, thank you.

Debbie Millman:

I tried to write a little explanation in anticipation of asking you some questions about it, but I decided that it might be easier for you to just share with my listeners what you actually did for Moncler, and that magnificent film in The Icebergs.

Fabien Baron:

Actually, the Iceberg thing was a project that I had made for a long time. I went to, it was part of my sea pictures and I was always, always intrigued by ice and by icebergs, and these amazing landscapes that felt like they were another planet. I went to Greenland once, and I took my camera and I have a special technique when I do pictures. I do very long exposures. Very, very long exposures, sometimes three, four minutes, and I took my big camera at that time. Like it was an 8 by 10 camera. I went, schlepped it all the way to Greenland, and realized when I stand on land and the iceberg is actually moving. I get my pictures back from my trip in Greenland and you barely see it. You see the little ice moving back, but the big things you felt that that thing’s not moving.

Fabien Baron:

But then you get the picture back and you see a little blur and it’s got, “Ugh! Everything is a bit blurry. Oh my God.” I think, I said, “I love this. How can I take a picture of an iceberg that is not something that looks like amazing pictures from National Geographic, tha
t feels like my picture, and has that amazingness, something special?” The only thing I could think about is that you need to light the whole thing. You need to light it like a theater stage, like you would light a street or something, because it’s big.

Debbie Millman:

Right, but there are no electrical outlets out in the Arctic.

Fabien Baron:

Yes, so I said, “Oh my god, that’s complicated. That requires a big production,” dah, dah, dah, dah. Then, years passed by, and Remo calls me, he said, “I love your pictures. I love your pictures of the sea. Is there something you … what would you do? If I would ask you to do something for me, what would you do?” I go, “Oh, you know what? I know exactly what I would do.”

Debbie Millman:

Especially given the brand.

Fabien Baron:

I would do—

Debbie Millman:

Warm coats.

Fabien Baron:

I would do icebergs. I would go to Greenland and shoot icebergs, but I would light everything at night. He said, “OK, let’s do it.” Basically, he allowed that dream to happen.

Debbie Millman:

That’s amazing.

Fabien Baron:

That was the most amazing journey and the most amazing job I was ever, ever assigned. I loved that job. Me, the fashion guy being lost in Greenland, minus 20 degrees with my camera and my huge strobes, like massive strobes that were on boats, on other boats and trying to take these pictures of icebergs. It was heaven. Thank you, Remo, for this. It was a really extraordinary experience. It was really great.

Debbie Millman:

Is there anyone in the fashion or publishing business that you haven’t worked for that could cajole you to work for them?

Fabien Baron:

I doubt it. To be entirely honest, I think … we were talking about film, we were talking about what I’ve learned through the years, working in magazines, you learn how to build a story. You learn how to make stories. You learn how to become a narrator. Then, as I worked in film and doing commercials, you learned that same spirit of narrative, but you deal with visuals, you deal with the art direction, you deal with hair and makeup, you deal with sound, you deal with special effects, you deal with color, you deal with movement, you deal with action, you deal with so many other layers. I find the film the most complete method of expression that, to me, is relevant for what I want to say today. I’ve put, to be honest, most of my efforts towards that lately, and I do a lot of films. I do about 20 different films per year that I direct.

Fabien Baron:

I’m about to launch into a feature film, and I’m in the works for that. This is something that’s going to happen. That’s what is next for me, to be honest. That is what’s going to replace, definitely, it’s going to replace the magazines. It’s the same thing, but it’s just bigger. It’s just bigger. It’s bolder and more, and the narratives bigger, and the expression is bigger. I’m someone with ultimate control in everything I do, and what I love about film is that you spend months and months trying to put something together that is in total control, but the minute you say “action” and the film is rolling, you totally lost all the control, and all the magic starts to happen.

Fabien Baron:

All these things that you put together, we’re really calculating everything. This can happen, this can happen, you’re going to say this. That’s going to be said, you’re going to say that word, you’re going to be like, the color is going to be like that, dah, dah, dah. You say “action” and it’s like, you’re like the child in front of an image and something is happening in front of you that, “Wow! It’s magic.” That, I think, to me, is the maximum. I think that’s where I’m going to focus the rest of my life, into doing that, and my photography work, and hopefully exhibits and things of my work that I’ve been collecting for the past 35 years without doing any exhibits, without doing any prints. I have an archive that is huge that I’m putting together and starting printing.

Debbie Millman:

That sounds exciting.

Fabien Baron:

Two things, and really, that’s where I want to go.

Debbie Millman:

Congratulations. That sounds magnificent.

Fabien Baron:

It’s great. I’m really happy about that. It took me a long time.

Debbie Millman:

Yes, it seems to, yeah.

Fabien Baron:

To get to that point.

Debbie Millman:

That seems to be the way it goes, I’m finding. My last question: How does your father feel about your career?

Fabien Baron:

My father passed away a couple of years ago, about seven years, eight years ago, and he was very pleased, he was very pleased. Of course, we were like this.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah, I can tell by your face how happy that makes you.

Fabien Baron:

We were very, very, very, very close. I think for dad, for someone like him that really fought all his life to get where he was, and he was in a great place when he died, I think it was very, at first, threatening. I was threatening. Then I think he embraced me, and then he really supported me and very much like he totally embraced what I was doing and was very proud. Yeah, so he passed away and I miss him. I do.

Debbie Millman:

Now you can infuse his work and yours into your four wonderful children.

Fabien Baron:

Yes, I do.

Debbie Millman:

Yeah. Fabien Baron, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for making the world a more provocative and elegant place. Thank you for joining me today on Design Matters. It’s been an honor.

Fabien Baron:

It was a pleasure. It was a pleasure, and thank you for having me. I had a really good time.

Debbie Millman:

You can see more of Fabien Baron’s work at baron-baron.com and in his magnificent monograph, Fabien Baron: Works 1983–2019. This is the 17th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. Remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

The post Design Matters: Fabien Baron appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

When I first met Chase Jarvis, I was the editor-in-chief of PRINT magazine, and Debbie was the magazine’s editorial and creative director. We were putting together a special issue on San Francisco’s designers, artists, activists, writers and makers, and Jarvis had offered up his CreativeLive studio for the weekend for a comically intense two-day photoshoot involving the likes of Jessica Hische, Liz Ogbu, Scott Dadich, Tim Ferriss, Clement Mok and … 66 amazing others.

It was, in a word, exhausting—and I wasn’t even clicking the shutter on the Hasselblad; that was John Keatley. I interviewed everyone we photographed, including Jarvis, who subsequently was interviewing a medley of our guests in a neighboring studio for his Chase Jarvis LIVE show. Seeing the indefatigable pace at which he worked—all within the CreativeLive HQ warehouse, an empire he had built from the ground up—was to witness Jarvis’ lifelong drive in action, and helped frame the many places his talent has taken him. Jarvis went from amateur snaps in ski bum towns to the forefront of professional extreme sports photography; he created a pioneering iPhone photo app; he’s shot celebrities; he’s interviewed hoards of the foremost minds in creativity; he co-founded CreativeLive, and has long been on a mission to democratize access to the arts via the innovative online platform.

And through it all, one gets the sense that he’s not just blowing smoke—he believes in the power of creativity. He believes in the work he produces, and what his work might help others produce. And over the years and through the woods, he has absorbed and distilled a medley of Jarvis-isms for creatives.

In chorus with this week’s special live episode of Design Matters, here are 26 such nuggets, alongside some biographical reflections that serve as pins in the map of his own journey.

—Zachary Petit, Design Matters Media Editor-in-Chief

“If you don’t write your own script, someone else will write it for you.”

//

“My childhood was a very creative childhood. My parents would give me a block of wood and I'd go play in the backyard for hours. I sat at the adult table because there was no kid’s table.”

//

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve been a lover of pictures. I had these junky disc and 8mm cine cameras. My interest in all that probably developed from an early realization, a near obsession with the idea that we could capture time, capture stories and moments with tools and a bit of film.”

//

“My grandfather died two days before my college graduation, which was a terrible, terrible thing. He dropped dead of a heart attack. The silver lining in that was I got his cameras. I was gifted his cameras. It was this permission to go explore the world.”

//

“I bailed on a career in professional soccer, I bailed on medical school and dropped out of a Ph.D. in philosophy to become a photographer. That obviously was very radical. … The reality is there aren’t a lot of parents running around telling their kids to be artists or to be creative.”

//

“I also think my educational path points to an all-too-familiar pattern within our culture—one so widespread it’s become an epidemic. Namely, that degrees have become a metric for carrying ‘meaning’ for our parents, earning ‘approval’ of others. Frankly, that whole narrative is total B.S.”

//

“I had an incredibly supportive family and yet I still spent years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars chasing everyone else’s dream for what I was supposed to become rather than chasing my own. It was when I finally quit that path and pursued my own calling to become a photographer and an entrepreneur that I really felt alive. This perspective has been instrumental in my life ever since. It felt like waking up from a sleep state. This ‘aha’ moment suddenly helped me become aware and empowered.”

//

“The people I try and surround myself with, they know that intuition is the mechanism through which to book your own ticket.”

//

“I was literally breaking in—as in breaking and entering into the local community college to develop my film for free between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. I was learning from books. It was very difficult to get meetings with other people who were the best in the craft because they didn’t want to divulge their secrets, and it was a very closed, limited mindset. So through hacking my way and figuring it out, literally taking a picture, writing down my exposure, taking another picture, writing down my exposure, such that when you get your film back, you could actually figure out what the F you were doing.”

//

“I’m a hard-working culture junkie who knows that it’s the greatest time in history to be a photographer or creative. It’s the first time in the history of the world that creatives are also distributors. And that’s very profound if you think that up until recent history, permission was required for us to be able to share work at any sort of scale. We had to get permission from galleries, from ad agencies or photo editors to be able to have our work out there. And now anybody with access to a computer can show their work in 200 countries around the world.”

//

“It’s fair to say that I would not be where I am now without the internet. I think the same can be said for nearly every successful artist these days, whether you’re talking Ai Weiwei or Mackle
more or everything in between. The democratization of creativity enabled by online tools and the ability to reach millions with the touch of a button has surely changed the trajectory of creativity forever.”

//

“I have very few regrets because it’s a policy of mine to chase down anything that might become one.”

//

“Stuck in a cubicle? Not living your dream? Whatever you’re doing on the side of your ‘real’ job, whatever you’re doing with your free time—that’s what your soul is angling for in your next gig, job, career, life. So how do you make that dream career come true if you’re already in a full-time gig? It’s all about nights and weekends. If you want it badly enough, you’ll find the time.”

//

“Focus on being world class at something that you’re deeply passionate about because it’s just going to get hard. Once it gets hard, you have to care deeply about it if you want to push through. That’s going to keep a lot of other people out.”

//

“Create, share, repeat. The secret weapon to succeeding (in whatever way ‘success’ means to you) as a photographer is to create personal work. Follow what fascinates and inspires you. Make something real and then share it with the world. This is the most brutally simple recipe for standing out, for making your mark. But there’s a catch: This work has to be all you. It can’t be a project you undertake to please others or an idea that you tried to fit into a recognizable mold. Get weird, get your hands dirty, chase your very own heart. It’s in creating from there that your work has the chance of turning out solid gold.”

//

“Let’s say I finish a job and instead of buying a new couch or a new car with the money, I put that into a personal project. I’m going to be able to create a cool body of work that is going to make me feel alive and bring the most out of me creatively. And that work will be responsible for me getting my next job, maybe getting a cooler job, and having my personal brand equity and my personal value as a creative be higher than the last job that I did. … I would advocate that throwing money at personal projects is in many ways a stepping stone or a ladder to growth and evolution.”

//

“There is no recipe for a great picture. It is this challenge that keeps me interested in doing what I do.”

//

“Just do something creative every day. When you sprinkle chocolate sprinkles on your cappuccino, do it in a pattern. … Be mindful of being creative.”

//

“Creativity is the new literacy. Whether you’re taking pictures, building a business, managing a hedge fund, there’s a ton of creativity involved. Art is but a subset of creativity.”

//

“Craig Swanson and I founded CreativeLive based on our shared belief that the world deserves—and needs—access to new models of education, as well as a community of peers and collaborators. Moreover, the future of work, life, community, technology, family, everything, will be driven by creativity. The sad reality was that when we looked around, the status quo education and work structures not only traditionally excluded, but even punished, creativity—the very thing that unites us all and drives us forward.”

//

“The best thing for me to do is forget about my need for inspiration and go out and live a little more. Get uncomfortable. Live some other art. Travel. Walk the earth and get into adventures. … For me, getting inspired is ultimately about forgetting about looking for inspiration, because in that mode, you’re always judging. And when you’re judging, you’re not nearly as open to some inspiration that might crack you upside the head. Escape and engage.”

//

“Life is about human connections, not photography. Photography is simply a means to express ourselves, and if we’ve got nothing to express and no one to share it with in a way that touches others, it’s pointless.”

//

“Devour popular culture. Consuming the works of others inspires me. And it’s not just museums and the ‘establishment.’ I devour magazines, books, street art, performances, music, etc. All things that make me think critically (and whimsically) about the world. Inspiration can come from anywhere.”

//

“Moderate expectations. Make it a habit not to judge yourself on your creative output. Sometimes your creativity is on fire. Great news. Other times, it’s not. It’s hard sometimes when you make art in a professional commercial capacity because you’re paid to be ‘on,’ but you’ll save yourself a lot of grief if you make it a habit to be cool to your psyche when your creative mojo isn’t firing on all pistons.”

//

“We’re living in a world that is more photographic than ever before, and we’re never going back.”
 

The post Design Matters Live: Chase Jarvis appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Alfred Hitchcock stood before him in his trademark black suit and bowtie, brandishing a limp plucked goose, complete with Christmas ribbon tied around its neck.

Albert Watson clicked the shutter.

It’s an iconic image that brilliantly captures the filmmaker and his flair for the macabre, and when Watson shot it, it was one of the the last times he’d feel nervous in his work. Today, the Scotsman is a legend in the craft of photography. But in 1973 he had never shot a celebrity when Harper’s Bazaar reached out and asked him to capture Hitchcock for an article in which the culinary-minded director shared his preferred recipe for how to cook a goose (literally).

The photo made waves—and it inspired confidence in the lensman. This episode of Design Matters, recorded live at Adobe MAX 2018, explores that shot, and everything that came after.

As with all of the live episodes of the show, here we present a curated collection of some of our favorite quotes from the interviewee, in this case focusing on Watson’s craft, character and a medley of things in between.

—Zachary Petit, Design Matters Media Editor-in-Chief

*All of the original sources are linked on the last word of each quote.

//

“I came out of four years at graphic design and then two years at film school, doing my master’s degree. So I came out as a director. If you look at the work, it’s split into those two categories: It’s either [cinematic] or graphic.”

//

“At the beginning of my career, I was often shooting hospital supplies, not celebrities. Bedpans are not easy to do because of the reflections.”

//

“When I am talking to young photographers I have this analogy: When you first get into a car it seems impossible. You’ve got to look in your mirror, switch on, coordinate clutch and breaks, be aware of what’s behind you and what’s in front of you—so it seems absolutely impossible and just too difficult but if you want to drive, you’ve got to learn it. I was old school. I felt a responsibility to learn the techniques of photography. The technical was painful for me. People say, ‘But you’re so fluent,’ but it wasn’t like I loved it. I was not one of these photographers where they love technical things. I was interested in the end product. Ultimately it was what the car can do for you and where you are going to go.”

//

“The technical aspect should be 5% and then 95% should be creativity.”

//

“Are you a fashion photographer? Are you a ‘this’ photographer, a ‘that’ photographer? In the end, I’m a photographer.”

//

“I’m in the Cairo Museum basically photographing gloves, socks and other Tutankhamun artifacts, then I’m flying to Paris for a French Vogue cover plus couture pictures. That’s what I am and what I do. People did have a hard time in the beginning, because they could never pinpoint me. I said, ‘In the end, it all looks like me because it is me.’”

//

“A lot of times you look at a young photographer’s book and in a weird way it looks like my book UFO. You see it especially right at the start if he has a photograph of his girlfriend, a photograph of his grandfather, a photograph of a sunset, a photograph of the car on a beach, a still life. There’s a little bit of everything and I think the weird thing with me was that I never really lost that love of a little bit of everything. … The way I see it is I discover a road, it goes straight and then it takes a curve; then it’s in a forest and then it’s up a hill and you follow that road and at the end you finalize an image. I am working naturally.”

//

“Every so often there is a journey a shot will take from a magazine to a book, a book to a gallery, a gallery to a museum. It’s not so easy for a shot to make it all the way through—but if the shot is strong, it will.”

//

“The soul and the essence and the power of the picture has to be in the taking.”

//

“I’m never casual. I’m always pretty determined about finding things. Basically I’m always looking for things. Any good photographer should always be looking for something, you know. If you’re casual you’re not going to be successful in what you find.”

//

“A nightmare shoot can evolve into an iconic image. … Frustration and excitement go hand in hand, but that is exactly what makes what I do so interesting.”

//

“The photographer’s best weapon is not his lighting, not the cameras. It’s communication skills.”

//

“I think [photographers] should always be looking for intensity and power. I mean, I don’t know any great photography that is not powerful in some way or another—even sometimes a snapshot can have a sense of power, or mystery, or spontaneity, but it should always have a characteristic, some characteristic. … Sometimes it’s very difficult to see why that picture is so powerful and sometimes it’s just there because it has some mystery and a quality, a soul to it.”

//

“A good photo can reveal the inner self.”

//

“When I did the shot of Steve Jobs that was on his book cover, I said to Steve Jobs, &lsq
uo;Just imagine you’re across the table from a lot of people who don’t like your ideas, but you know that you’re right.’ He said, ‘I'm good at that.’ And that’s exactly what he did in that shot.”

//

“I’m always looking for things which are dead simple, if possible—very, very minimal so you’ve got nothing left but to work with the person. Sometimes you can put people in an artificial situation and it makes kind of a memorable shot. But because it is artificial, in the long term I’m not sure I’m a big fan of that. … I like working with people, just with their facial expressions. The face can run through 20,000 expressions, you know?”

//

“Fashion photographers in my opinion are sometimes a little bit guilty of not really strongly thinking about the makeup and the clothes, and so on. Whereas sometimes a NASCAR photographer, he can tell by the sound of the engine what the car is. You should know the difference between a low-level silk, a high-level silk, or regular cotton or brushed cotton. You should know these things.”

//

“Digital can turn someone who wasn’t a photographer into a photographer but it can’t turn a photographer into a great one.”

//

“[I’m] a big fan of the computer; it’s another arrow in the quiver, as it were, in the service of the mood and feeling. No one complains that actually Van Gogh’s sunflowers aren’t quite the right color for a sunflower. He was working emotionally with his paints. Artists use what tools they have to convey the ideas they need to convey.”

//

“I’ve done a vast amount of commercial work, which helped the creative work because it focuses you. When you get some time off you make damn sure you use it well.”

//

“When I get behind the camera, time disappears. I enter a state of euphoria.”

//

“I’m critical every day of what I do. You can always be better.”

//

“The photographer is part magician; he can do wondrous things with lighting, he can alter things and make things stranger and weirder, and more appealing or even less appealing. The photographer can be the master of his own destiny.”

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He was just a tourist.

And like so many others that day in Moscow in 2005, Barack Obama visited Red Square. Clad in khakis and a dark short-sleeve polo shirt, he slung his jacket over his shoulder as the iconic St. Basil’s Cathedral loomed behind him. Throngs of people strolled by, chatting, smiling, laughing, their eyes perhaps falling over the young senator as they passed, but only for a lost moment. For the last time in Russia, and soon the world at large, not a gaze lingered—Obama was completely and wholly anonymous.

Photographer Pete Souza raised his camera, and clicked the shutter.

Viewed today, the photograph fits in nicely with some of the others from that era—such as, say, the one of Obama working away, alone in his windowless basement Senate office.

“I was thinking, OK, if this guy ever becomes the president of the United States, it would be really nice to have a set of pictures that shows him as this freshman senator,” Souza told GQ. “So when we were in Russia, [I realized] that if he ever became president, this would never happen again ever. No matter where he went in the world, he would always be recognized.”

Like Obama, Souza was destined for the White House. And yet Souza grew up without the perpetual presence of a camera, the tool that would get him there. Rather, also like Obama, Souza’s childhood was characterized by an obsession with sports. The son of a nurse and a boat mechanic in South Dartmouth, MA, Souza played one sport or another every single day after school. Meanwhile, at home, he was always presciently drawn to the photographs within his books, sometimes finding greater weight in the stories they told than the text itself.

While Obama fantasized about a future in pro basketball, Souza envisioned himself in the sports realm as a writer. While attending Boston University and studying public communication, he figured he’d give a photography elective a go his junior year. And in that classroom, something amazing happened: For the first time in his life, he had come across a discipline that truly interested him in an electric way—he describes it as being like magic to him—and moreover, he wanted to keep studying it. To get better at it.

After graduating summa cum laude, he eventually left for the Midwest to pursue his master’s in journalism and mass communications at Kansas State University, and then found himself shooting for some small newspapers before landing at the Chicago Sun-Times. There, the opportunity of a lifetime arose: A friend of Souza’s was working in Ronald Reagan’s White House as a photo editor—and he wanted to know if Souza was interested in becoming a photographer there. Though Souza’s politics weren’t exactly in alignment with Reagan’s, he said yes. Soon he was in Washington, DC, where he remained, photographing and documenting Reagan’s presidency, from 1983–1989. His work from that era includes several now-iconic images, such as the black-and-white overhead shot of Reagan at work in the Oval Office; the president hosting Michael Jackson; John Travolta and Princess Diana dancing alongside the Reagans; Reagan working alongside his Soviet counterparts in a historic bid to end the Cold War.

Upon leaving the White House, Souza remained in DC and became a freelance photographer for the likes of National Geographic and Life, and also shot for the Chicago Tribune—which was about to give him an extraordinary assignment that would shape the rest of his life. The gig was simple enough on the surface: They wanted him to document the first year of their state’s new U.S. senator, who had emerged from the Illinois Senate. Souza met Barack Obama at his swearing-in in 2005. Struck by the man he was photographing and getting to know, Souza figured Obama would probably remain a senator for six years or so, then would run for Governor of Illinois, and then, eventually, president. He had no idea how fast his rise would actually be.

In 2009, after Obama had been elected president, Souza was about to start a new semester teaching photojournalism at Ohio University. His phone rang. Obama’s spokesman was on the line—they wanted Souza to be the new Chief White House Photographer. Souza pondered Lyndon Baines Johnson’s photographer, Yoichi Okamoto, who he considers the master of the form; Souza believes he was the first to truly document a president for the historical record. And he did so brilliantly, producing excellent images and commanding excellent access … which Souza did not fully enjoy in the Reagan administration. Souza told the Obama camp he would accept the position—on the condition that his primary job would be to document Obama for the sake of history.

They agreed. And soon enough, Souza found himself back in the Oval Office, waiting for Obama to walk in and begin his first official day on the job. On every subsequent day, Souza arrived at the White House at 8, and began documenting Obama when he came down from the residence around 9, accompany him everywhere he went until the president ascended the stairs to bed at night.

The images that exist as a result are indeed historic, and a testament to Souza’s mission, craft, trust with his subject and total devotion to his role: There’s the intense photo of Obama and his crew watching the Bin Laden raid unfold. There’s the photo of a black White House staffer’s son asking if he could feel Obama’s hair to see if it felt the same as his own. The image of Obama and Michelle, forehead to forehead in an elevator, following his inaugural ball. Obama playing basketball. Fist-bumping a soldier in Iraq. Running in the East Wing with his dog, Bo. Moving an Oval Office couch back into place himself after a photo shoot. Marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in commemoration of Bloody Sunday.

From the massive appearances to quiet backyard family play, Souza was there. (He has said he didn’t take a single vacation during the president’s first term because he was afraid he’d miss something.) Obama has said that aside from his family, the person he spent the most time with during his administration was Souza. Obama was also key in getting Souza to propose to his longtime partner, Patti Lease … and, naturally, he helped pick the ring out, and was present at Souza’s marriage in the White House Rose Garden.

After Obama left office, Souza released Obama: An Intimate Portrait, and it became one of the bestselling photo books of all time. President Trump’s tenure began, and has remained, as stark a contrast to Obama’s as it could possibly be. For many in the country, it was a brutal whiplash. It was written a
bout. It was discussed at length on TV. But nobody really brought it to visual life with as much simplicity, poignancy and often hilarity as Pete Souza did on his Instagram account. The formula is simple: Trump does something in his Trumpian way and it makes news; Souza presents an image from his historical archive of the Obama era that illustrates the contrast. For instance: When Trump denied Russian election meddling and was photographed cozying up to Vladimir Putin, Souza posted an image of Obama confronting Putin on the international stage. When Trump trashed relations with Angela Merkel, Souza posted a photo of Obama embracing the key U.S. ally. When Trump enacted his travel ban, Souza shared an image of Obama visiting the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque.

Over and over Souza was described as “throwing shade” … a phrase he had to research to decipher what everyone was talking about. And yes, he was indeed throwing shade—and he embraced it for his new book of presidential juxtapositions, Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents.

But it’s not just about the momentary laugh, the brief escape. (Yes, there is that.) Souza, who has lived and breathed two historic administrations day in and day out, is uniquely situated to spot the stark differences in the political theater of today—and present them back to us with simple images that speak volumes beyond words. By doing so, he offers visual affirmation that a better system existed only a couple short years ago that didn’t thrive on vitriol, dischord and division. He reminds us that what might increasingly seem, by way of exhausting repetition day in and day out, normal, is anything but.

In conjunction with his books, Souza partakes in the promotional events that all authors must, and they admittedly do not come easily to the lensman, who is much more comfortable behind the scenes with his camera. But at these gatherings, an interesting phenomena has cropped up. Rather than people simply listening to a dry lecture or reading and then quietly trudging along in line to get their tomes signed, the events are filled with emotion. With participation. With power. The New Yorker described them as a “group therapy session,” and Souza has been characterized as “a beacon of light” for his work.

In other words, of the parallels between Souza and Obama, perhaps the president himself has imbued Souza with the most important one: the ability to give hope.

—Zachary Petit, Design Matters Media Editor-in-Chief

By Pete Souza:
Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents
Obama: An Intimate Portrait
Dream Big Dreams: Photographs from Barack Obama's Inspiring and Historic Presidency
The Rise of Barack Obama
Unguarded Moments: Behind-The-Scenes Photographs of President Ronald Reagan

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