Sasha Wolf: All right, let's do this. Peanut, if you're staying in the room, no talking. Hello and welcome to the Photo Work Podcast, the talky and touchy feely version of my book, Photo 40 Photographers on Process and Practice. Hello, everyone. This is Sasha Wolf recording from Woodstock, New York, and I'm joined, as usual, by my friend and producer, who I think last show I said something about missing, and I do still miss him.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah, we haven't gotten together. I know, I know.
Sasha Wolf: I feel very sad about it.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: That's on me.
Sasha Wolf: Well, I don't know if it's on you, but anyway, we've got to rectify because you're my guy and I haven't seen you in a while. So anyway, let me introduce you, without further ado, the great man himself, Mr. Michael Choven Dalton. Hello, Michael.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Hi, there.
Sasha Wolf: How are you?
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Well, I'm doing okay, but I did get an interesting message from you about a trip to the hospital, so I wanted to ask how you were doing.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, my reaction to the election, the day. The day after election day. Yeah, my body rebelled. I. Yeah, it was just. It was very strange. I was outside up here in Woodstock, and I was walking from my wood shop back into my house, and I felt what can only be described as a feeling in my right knee like a rubber band breaking. It's funny because I keep saying I heard, and I don't think I could have possibly heard it, but the feeling is so intense that I felt like I heard it. Yeah. Anyway, something breaking. I've heard people use the word pop or snap. I mean, to me, it was just the straight up. Oh, something in my knee just broke and I just. I hit the ground.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Oh, wow.
Sasha Wolf: And I could not catch my breath. It was so unbelievably painful and. Yep, just laid out on the ground for a while, couldn't move, and had to call my aunt, who came and got me and helped me inside the house, so. Yep. But in typical. Typical style for American healthcare. I actually have not been able to get an MRI yet. Yeah, it's just. I won't get into the ridiculousness of it, but it's very. It's.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Oh, man.
Sasha Wolf: It's like. It's part satirical, part dystopic, and part just complete ridiculousness. But I have spoken with my orthopedist. I do not have good knees, I will confess, but I probably just tore my meniscus. Hope. Hopefully I didn't tear my.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Your acl?
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, or the pcl. It's in the back of my knee. Anyway, it's been a few days of on crutches and very annoying. I'm someone who likes to be doing things all the time and I've just been completely laid up. Can't really walk.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Well, that sounds all awful, including, you know, not being able to just get your healthcare right away. That seems critical.
Sasha Wolf: It's. It's really just. It's. It's really been a satire of no one. No one wanting to take responsibility for authorization because MRIs are expensive and I have really good healthcare. But any.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: I know what we call really good healthcare. I think the bar keeps getting lower because I too feel like I have really good health. Car. But I'm constantly calling my insurance company over things. Visits with my, you know, doctor visits and dental visits and everything else. But that's what qualifies as really good healthcare. Yeah, yeah.
Sasha Wolf: No, that you even have health insurance that will cover an mri. Feels like.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Feels lucky. Yes.
Sasha Wolf: I feel blessed. However, I can't actually seem to get the mri. But I'm sure I will win out eventually. But it's just.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Well, yeah, of course. You know, Taylor and I were keeping track of how you're doing. Yeah.
Sasha Wolf: Now, thanks to you both. Anyway, all is in the scheme of things. Okay. And as my mom would have said, this too shall pass. Anyway, wacky and disturbing week, but we are soldiering on and. Yeah. So maybe a word from our sponsors first and then we'll get into the episode.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah, let's do that. Let's talk about something good in the world right now. Picture House, our wonderful sponsor, of course. I went to the Matthew genetempo talk last week and that was.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. How was that?
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Oh, it was so good. It was so good. And you know, there is a lovely reunion when I go there now because there are some great regulars who come to those events and it feels more and more like a friend reunion. Now, when I go to Picture House.
Sasha Wolf: That'S the photo community. I mean, it is. That's what I love so much. Yep.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: And of course, Matthew was fantastic. But, you know, we're getting close to the holidays and I don't think we've ever mentioned that Picture House, the small darkroom, offers the gift of photography, as they put it. And these are gift certificates that are available. And if you visit ph tsdr.com you can get their phone number, get their email, and you can reach out to them for a gift certificate. Or of course, you could go Visit them at 437 W. 16th St. On the third floor in Manhattan. So that would make some photographers I'M sure. Very happy.
Sasha Wolf: Very happy.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Gift certificate.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: To Picture House.
Sasha Wolf: That's the gift certificate the photo people in your life actually really want.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah, that's right. Not some generic card. This actually has some thought behind it. Not that I haven't given.
Sasha Wolf: Very nice. I have two.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: I have to.
Sasha Wolf: There's always so. All right. Oh, boy. So let's talk about the episode. For me, this was very meaningful.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: I very much.
Sasha Wolf: Our guest was Melissa Catanese, who I've known for a really long time, and we sort of touch on it really briefly. But I gave Melissa, I think, her first show in New York in 2000. It was probably 2008. And just such an incredibly lovely person. And I don't get to see her and her partner, Ed Pinar, wonderful photographer also, and publisher. I don't get to see them enough. I'm always so thrilled. When I do, it's usually at some book fair because they publish. But it was just so wonderful to get to. You know, I think I said this in the episode. Like, sometimes when we record the podcasts, I feel like when I get to talk to someone who I know, who's just a super busy person and I'm very busy, and I don't get to talk to them very often, it's really just like an opportunity to get to spend time with someone I really care about. And that was definitely the case for me with this. With this episode, anyway.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Clearly. Yeah, that is clearly in the episode.
Sasha Wolf: I mean, Melissa is such a lovely person. Oh, my gosh.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: There is great love for. Great love expressed between the two of you in this episode. It is really like. I mean, this is sort of a long way. Yeah. Yeah. This is sort of like just listening in on the two of you at a coffee shop.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. Catching.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Talking to each other. Yeah, really catching up. You know, the other part of this episode just. I don't think this is really a trigger warning or anything, but the. The book you talk about, the Lottery, does examine the role of populism and rhetoric and discord in our politics.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: And it was just a strange coincidence that, you know, you're talking about this book in a week where I think a lot of people are feeling some anxiety, including us.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. Talking about Melissa's latest book. It's actually not her latest. It's the second to her latest book.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: That's right. That's right.
Sasha Wolf: Grammatical trainwreck. But anyway, you get the idea.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah. But it's also an episode filled, like I said, with a lot of love. Also some really incredible conversation. About how you keep yourself going. Melissa's whole life in photography has involved figuring out ways to support herself creatively, and then with Ed Pinar, figuring out how they can both support each other creatively. All along the way, they're promoting other artists, other photographers and all with the goal of just figuring out how to keep making work. And she still has incredible enthusiasm for it all. I love the way the episode ends on her latest sort of processes on carbon printing she gets. It's so exciting that I want to.
Sasha Wolf: Do it, although I think Cynthia, my.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Wife, would kill me. But. And you will hear why at the end of the episode. But, you know, even from the very beginning, when Melissa was in grad school, she talks about the way her grad school friends and she would throw their photos into a kind of a balloon and pretend they were someone else's. And so they would free themselves from any kind of ego or authorship and really just have this very untethered conversation about them, which I think was just fantastic. I mean, I think that's something I would want to do now.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, no, it's really interesting practice. And, I mean, that's a big part of why I wanted to have Melissa on. Not just to talk about her new work or whatever, but also talk about the way she's lived her life as an artist and made it work for her. Because I get this question a lot from particularly young artists when I deliver the news, the doom and gloom of how hard it is to sell work. You know, people want to know, well, how do you, you know, what am I supposed to do? How do I make a living? And there's a lot of answers to that question, a lot of possible paths to go down. But I think Ed and Melissa, individually and together have really put together a really interesting practice that has supported them, and it's just something that I wanted people to hear about, so.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: And constantly evolving right through today.
Sasha Wolf: Constantly evolving. Yeah, exactly. Well, why don't we get to it? Michael, thank you so much for being with me this morning, as usual. And feel better.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah. Hopefully you get your MRI soon. Yeah.
Sasha Wolf: Yes. And we have some great episodes coming up, but we'll start with today. Michael, if you don't mind, please take it away.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: My pleasure. And here is your conversation with Melissa Catanesi.
Sasha Wolf: Melissa Catanese, welcome to the Photowork podcast. It's great to have you on. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Melissa Catanese: Thank you, Sasha. It's so nice to be here. I'm thrilled.
Sasha Wolf: I was thinking as I was getting ready to talk to you this morning that, you know, sometimes I get to talk to people I really love and that I haven't necessarily spoken to in a while. And I feel like the podcast sometimes is sort of just an excuse for me to get to catch up with someone. And I feel like you're in that category because we've known each other a really long time, but we haven't talked in a while. And you're just someone I. I have so much affection for and so much respect for. And so, yeah, it's just so nice to get to talk with you. I'm just expressing my giddiness. So thank you.
Melissa Catanese: Oh, yeah, no, I'm thrilled. I'm very excited. I think we have a rich history, so we have a lot to talk about. And we do. And I love the podcast. I'm honored to be a part of it.
Sasha Wolf: Well, thank you. So, yes, we go back. I think we first met in 2007 or eight, and we can get to that. But first, if you can tell folks about yourself, because I really want to talk to you today, not just about your artistic practice, although I think your whole life is part of your artistic practice, of course, but not just about the work you make and the books you make as a photographer and an editor, but also as I really want to talk to you about the way you live as an artist, because I think that you've really have put something together that is very special. And I really want the people who listen to the podcast to hear about it because it's so hard to figure out how to live as an artist. But anyway, please tell folks about yourself and where you're from and where you are now and all that good stuff.
Melissa Catanese: Okay. Yeah, I mean, I guess I probably should go back, right, to my.
Sasha Wolf: Go back. Start at the beginning. Where were you born?
Melissa Catanese: All right, so I was born in Ohio. I grew up in the east suburbs of Cleveland. My father is a Sicilian immigrant. My mother has a large Irish Catholic family. So I grew up surrounded by a lot of chaos and lots of chaos. And at a really young age, I started to develop migraines. I remember spending a lot of time alone in my darkened room with cold compresses on my head, listening to the dramas unfold downstairs. And I was labeled a black sheep at a really early age. When I was very young, I was told by my parents and my siblings that I was left on the doorstep by gypsies.
Sasha Wolf: Oh, gosh, thanks a lot.
Melissa Catanese: I know, right? I know. So at a really young age, I felt like an outsider. You Know, so I was always. I was. I was a really like, ill, Ill adjusted child. Ill adjusted adolescent.
Sasha Wolf: I transferred all the makings for an artist.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, exactly. So I think it's a common origin story, really. I was, you know, in high school. I, you know, I transferred after my freshman year, which didn't help the situation because I was, you know, I didn't really feel like I ever had a cohort. And in high school, photography really comforted me. Right. The darkroom. I was lucky enough to go to high school, a high school that had an arts building.
Sasha Wolf: Wow.
Melissa Catanese: And so it was. I really loved that it was removed from that prison, like, architecture of, you know, the schools around Cleveland. And I was able to like, get away from that. I would spend my lunches in the darkroom with my photography teacher. You know, I didn't have many friends. I was kind of a loner. You know, I felt like the being in the darkroom was like bringing me back to that darkened room as a child with the cold compresses on my head. Like, it was kind of comforting, but also familiar.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah.
Melissa Catanese: You know, and my teacher became like a very maternal figure for me. I would visit her in her house in the east suburbs of Cleveland. She had this amazing porch with it that was like, full of ivy. It was like this green secret garden. And then, and then when I went to college, photography became a way for me to mediate my experience. Experience. Right. So, like in high school, it was more like it. Comfort that, you know, the act, the process was comforting. Photography in college became a way for me to kind of confront my personal experience, to mediate my experience with my family. So I was making like a lot of family photographs inspired by like, Diane Arbus. And, you know, that was big for me. And then I took some time off after college and ended up at Cranbrook in Michigan where I met my partner, Ed. And that's, I think, where I really kind of came into my. My own with photography. Like, it, it was less about kind of, I don't know, it felt like the. The experience at Cranbrook was almost like being on a monastery. You know, it was. It was a. It was a unique graduate experience where we were, you know, not really LinkedIn to any market or, you know, it wasn't near a city. I mean, Detroit was there, but there wasn't a whole lot going on at the time. We were kind of on our own, you know, hiding and thinking about photography without any, kind of. Without any distractions with the, you know.
Sasha Wolf: With galleries, with the mechanism, the yeah, yeah, yeah.
Melissa Catanese: We didn't, we weren't. I don't know, Cranbrook was a really unique experience. I could talk about Cranbrook for a while. I mean, it was. It was like 300 acres of cultivated land filled with sculpture and gardens and, you know, it was very experiential and it was like a Euro style education where we didn't really have any structure. So it was very open and self driven.
Sasha Wolf: Right.
Melissa Catanese: And when I was there, actually it was quite interesting because my. So it's set up where there's a mentor for each area. And when I started, our mentor had had a bicycle accident and was in a coma. And so we actually, we actually didn't have a leader, we didn't have a mentor. So we were literally on our own. So, you know, we really harnessed that and took control over, you know, how we wanted to shape our photographic education. So that became really special for us because we, and I'm saying us, I'm saying like Ed and I became very close there through the experience of building the experience, our graduate experience together. We were inviting people like, you know, Karen Irvine and Charlotte Cotton and JNL Books and Todd Haido and, you know, people that we wanted to have as visitors. We were inviting them.
Sasha Wolf: That's a good group.
Melissa Catanese: It was great. It was an amazing group. We planned a trip to Dusseldorf. So we met with Thomas Roof and we.
Sasha Wolf: Wow.
Melissa Catanese: We did all this crazy stuff that we did.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. That's amazing.
Melissa Catanese: We had this agency that was kind of unbelievable and it was empowering. And so I think that to your point of leading a life, leading this life, that I think that was formative, where, you know, actually sounds like it, you know, if you contact someone, they might just respond or, you know, like we didn't have to have, you know, it was, it was, you know, we were under the Cranbrook Institution, but which people are familiar with other than that, we were on our own.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. That's wonderful. I love that. I mean. Yeah. I mean, I always joke about the if you build it, they will come sort of thing, like being freakishly true, you know, like it sounds so silly, but it's like one of the best pieces of advice I think I dole out to folks. It's like, just try, just do it. Yeah. So anyway, I'm a big fan of this philosophy. What's the worst that could happen? Someone says no.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was amazing. It was, I think, very, you know, I have really fond memories of that time.
Sasha Wolf: And then what? Where did you go after that, what was your next move?
Melissa Catanese: After Michigan, I moved to Pittsburgh. Ed was a year ahead of me and so we had already been in a relationship and so I followed him to Pittsburgh. He was living here, I followed him. We wanted to eventually move to Chicago, but that plan fell through and we stayed in Pittsburgh for, I don't know, like a year and a half. And I started teaching at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. And from Pittsburgh we got an opportunity to. One of our friends was subletting their apartment in the West Village. It was like a rent controlled apartment. We never really. We didn't want to move to New York. Well, maybe that's not true. We never thought we would be able to move to New York. Right. We didn't think, we didn't think it was possible without, you know, confirmation of employment and a trust fund and, you know, all of these things that we didn't have. But the opportunity of a rent controlled apartment came up. That was, you know, that was the main limitation is where are we going to live if we move to New York?
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, of course.
Melissa Catanese: Where, how are we going to find a place? How are we going to. Without employment? You know, because you think, oh, yeah, we'll go to New York and we'll make something happen. But that's just not the reality. The reality is that you need something lined up. And I've always been very adaptable in terms of employment. And my father has a pizzeria in Cleveland and I've worked in restaurants my whole life, restaurants and bars. And so I knew I could get employment, you know, with a restaurant. I just had to get there to get it. So we took the plunge.
Sasha Wolf: This is probably about 20 years ago.
Melissa Catanese: Or it was in like close to when we first met. So it was 2007, 2008. Yeah, we had just moved to New York when we met. I was working in restaurants. I was working. I was selling art books for Teresa Luisati.
Sasha Wolf: I remember.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, I was selling art books for Teresa. I was trying to maintain a studio practice in my one bedroom studio apartment. So I didn't have a studio, you know, it was like the one room, one room apartment. Trying to make work, you know, making photographs, sorting through the archives, still shooting film.
Sasha Wolf: And you met Peter at some point, Peter Cohen?
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, I met Peter actually through a restaurant. I was working at Hearth.
Sasha Wolf: Oh, God, I love that place.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was working. I worked there for a very long time. Well, almost my whole time in New York. I worked at Hearth and that's what was supporting me. And Peter was A regular. His son was a manager and.
Sasha Wolf: Oh, yeah, I remember that.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, I was waiting on him and we got to talking about Cranbrook. And so Peter had some relationships with Cranbrook as well. So that, you know, at that point he was like, oh, my gosh, you have to come to my place. You have to see my collection. I'd love to have you over. You know, we just, we became kind of fast friends.
Sasha Wolf: And let's tell folks who Peter is. Peter has played a really interesting role in your subsequent artistic life. My sense is you would have been doing what you were doing regardless. But Peter has made that certainly provided a nice pathway. So anyway, why don't you tell folks who Peter is?
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, Peter Cohen is many things. Yeah, he's a collector. He collects snapshots. So he's a snapshot collector. He's one of a few snapshot collectors in the US that has a collection that is, I would say at this point, probably 100,000 snapshot images that are stored away into boxes in his tiny Greenwich Village apartment, into various categories. So he's a collector. He's been collecting snapshot photography for probably 30 plus years now.
Sasha Wolf: And it's a really renowned collection.
Melissa Catanese: It is a very renowned collection. Yeah. And what makes his collection unique from other snapshot collectors in the US Is that it's like very broad. It's like all encompassing. He collects everything. He has a thirst for images and also really a real interest in history. So he was a history teacher, he was a principal. He has a very kind of rich background. And he also collects art as well. So he collects. He has a big pop art collection and photography and works on paper. But he. I think he realized that his kids weren't interested in being the stewards of his collection at one point. So he's always had. Since I've known him, he's always had someone kind of like an assistant who helps him edit and organize his collection into categories. He's constantly getting new images from, like, ebay in dealers. I mean, he used to go to flea markets. So he's always had an assistant coming in and helping him to kind of file the new images away into little baseball card holders and putting them into preexisting categories that he has, like, you know, dogs on cars or women in trees. You know, these really like broad and subjective. And I think he has over 200 different categories that he has right now. But anyway, he invited me to do that for him. It was mostly an opportunity to come meet him and see his collection. But then it Evolved into me coming to his apartment a couple times a week and sorting and archiving and making new categories for him.
Sasha Wolf: Fun.
Melissa Catanese: That was super fun. It was a great time. And he's also been a very, you know, kind of a paternal figure for me. I think, like he's, he's just super enthusiastic about everything. About life, about his family, about photography. I really love Peter Cohen. I think that he realized early on that I wasn't really a great archivist for him because I would kind of zone out and do my own thing and maybe it wasn't very productive and I would be constantly taking images home. He's also. One thing to know about him is that he's very generous with his collection too. Like, he loves when people come in and look at his images and he loves talking about them. He's always inviting institutions and curators and artists and people in to see what they might, how they might form an idea from his collection.
Sasha Wolf: Yep.
Melissa Catanese: So I've had that privilege.
Sasha Wolf: So.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, yeah. So in that sense it's really unique too, because he wants, he's like very open and. Yeah. So my time with Peter really evolved into these like, daydreaming sessions. Thinking about the narrative, thinking about the impulse of collecting, thinking about shaping images. I mean, it was really like a pivotal moment. But it was ideas that I had been thinking about in grad school and in my, with my own images. But Peter, what Peter offered me, I think was this opportunity to, to work at ground zero. Right. So I was always interested in the image as this autonomous artifact.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. Cut rose from its context.
Melissa Catanese: Yes, yes. Totally divorced from its context. And also an open ended container of meaning that could be shaped, that could be distorted, that could be manipulated, that could be, you know, it could be anything. I was very, I am very interested in this kind of multiplicity. And you know, in my practice before Peter, before, you know, I had a similar experience in grad school. There was a group of us and we would just take pictures kind of feverishly with point and shoot cameras of our daily experience and our, you know, time together. And we would put those images in a pot and almost try to strip the ego away. We created a fictitious photographer. His name was Lester Pleasant. And they, those images belonged to Lester. So we were trying to kind of relieve the images of our kind of ego and our authorship. And I just remember that being really important as well is looking at images without the context in which they were made. And I became really interested in trying to do that with my own images that I made. So like Sitting on them for a while, allowing time to pass, thinking about them as if I hadn't made that. Trying to get to that place where I can objectively experience the image. Not that I think it's totally possible with your own images, but I was trying to get there and with. With Peter's collection. It was like a. You know, it was a breakthrough. It was like, I don't have to work at it. You know, I'm already. I'm already there. I was never interested, and I still continue to be very. I have very little interest in the who, what, where and when of an image and more interested in its potential, you know, as raw material.
Sasha Wolf: So that puts you in a really not lonely space, but definitely not heavily populated. And I think in some ways that that served you really well. I mean, I feel like you're one of the best known artists working in this space. We think of Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel's book Evidence as sort of. And I'm not going to get too into what that is. People can look it up, but as a sort of one of the early, very sort of successful books of this kind. It's this philosophy. It's a philosophy, really, an artistic philosophy of taking work that exists. Vernacular photographs, anonymous photographs, snapshot photographs, whatever you want to call them, it's all the same thing, and reorganizing them to mean something else. And this is what you've been doing now for many years. You know, when I first met you, you were still sort of at the end of, I think, your more traditional practice. And just for the record, you are a great photographer.
Melissa Catanese: Thank you.
Sasha Wolf: You are a great traditional photographer. But, yeah, you made really a hard turn. And I do understand what you're saying, that this had been brewing for a while. And so for you, I'm sure this didn't feel like a hard turn. It felt much more organic. But, you know, you have now spent your career putting together books of vernacular photography to create new meanings. And your newest book is called the Lottery. And it's really incredible. It's disturbing. I was disturbed, really had to grapple with my own associations as your books. In this vein, do you almost feel like it's a Rorschach test, right? Like in the most intense way, you know, so there's two images in the book. For example, there's more than 2 of people in water, but there are these two that are simultaneous of people in pretty tight close up. And it's unclear whether they're sort of breathing, swimming and getting a breath of air. Or whether they're yelling or drowning or, you know, it really makes you question your own. So my initial impulse, especially with the second of the two images, was that this was a really bad thing that was unfolding in this picture. And then, you know, that's just an example that I can easily sort of call up. But the whole book makes you question your own associations. Why am I having this association? Why am I thinking it's about this? It could be about that. Anyway, I'm, as usual, talking too much. Can you tell people more about this new book, the Lottery, and of course, its connection to the Shirley Jackson very famous story and what this is, you know, all about.
Melissa Catanese: So I guess I would start by saying that the Lottery could be considered a sequel to my 2012 book, Dive Dark Dream Slow, which was this kind of hypnotic journey with a similar poetic sequence, right? A similar, similar sequence. A sequence, sequence loops through these abandoned clues, right? There's a web of bodies and dreamlike apparitions. And I guess I would start by saying that I. I think that both books were made in their time, Right. So I made the first book during the first term of Barack Obama's presidency. You know, he pledged to end the Iraq and Afghan wars of the Bush era. It was the 10th anniversary of 9 11. Lots of things were happening then, right? Don't Ask, Don't Tell was ended. There was a sense of misplaced optimism, right, that institutional racism and pervasive inequality would fade with the election of a black president. Obamacare was signed into law. So. And all of this is happening amidst, like, flooding and tornadoes in Mississippi, dust storms in Arizona, drought in the South. So that came out of this moment. And I think I was kind of drifting through that moment, which gives it this. This sense of kind of sleepwalking. And I think that the Lottery, even though it just was released in the summer of 2023. Yeah, you know, I did begin it actively in 2015 during the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. Right. So I had one. I had one image of a crowd that I was like, fixating on and began actively looking for more images. So these are the images that became the nucleus for the project and are a key visual motif. So at that time, I was, and I still continue to be thinking a lot about, like, mob mentality, the perversion of populism, the dangers of blind acceptance, and then the spectacle that is our contemporary moment, right. Inflamed with political discord, populist rhetoric, and our role in that space. So these images that I began collecting of People I imagine them being during the kind of interwar to post war era of the 1920s to the 1950s, which is really interesting to me because I was thinking about, and still am thinking about the kind of parallel of that moment in time and the moment that we're in now. Right. So I was left kind of wondering about the collective psyche of these two discrete moments and the connections and relationships that could be made. So in a sense, the work is a call and response between the past, the present, and these kind of anxieties of the future. The title, the Shirley Jackson title, is another clue into things, Right. So it's derived from the dystopian short story that was also written. It was written in 1948 about a small town in Vermont that holds a lottery each year to determine which of its villagers will be stoned to death. Right. So I chose this for its resonant themes and the fact that it was written in the aftermath of the war and how it orients the reader towards this thinking of indeterminacy and chance.
Sasha Wolf: And that's one of the only clues, really, the title. Because the only other text in the book are two very, very short little quotes, both from, I believe, Virginia Woolf, different Virginia Woolf novels. But I think the title is really the only sort of clue there of what you're about to enter into. And the physical object looks very much like a novel or a novella. I don't know the exact dimensions, but it's about six by nine, and it's a linen cover with just the text, the lottery, I think, embossed. And the end papers are beautiful bright orange. It's like the happiest part of the book and which is sort of like not very nice of you, but anyway. And then you get in and it's really, really intense experience. I don't find it narrative at all, but I find it one of the most atmospheric experience, visual experiences I've had in a long time. It's mostly black and white, although there are a number of sort of almost garish color pictures mostly, that feel like they are conjuring a sense of nuclear annihilation. It's a combination of vernacular pictures and some cold. I know from NASA. I think there's some of your own photographs in there, although it's very hard to figure out what's what. And it just has this incredible sense of. It's not just foreboding because it moves from foreboding into alarm and real anxiety. I mean, the second picture in the book is a picture of a young girl Holding a toy gun, which I, you know, obviously is a. I think a nod to Deanne Arbus and her famous photograph of the boy with the grenade, Ann, is disturbing as well. And, yeah, it just gets darker from there. Most of the pictures are vertical. It's very claustrophobic. Not a lot of white space. And then at the end, the white space that is there disappears entirely for the last section of photographs, which become horizontal and full bleed. And it's just a really, you know, you and I are recording this on election day, and so it feels like, worth mentioning that because the book, you know, spending time. The last number of weeks with the book in this state has not helped me.
Melissa Catanese: So.
Sasha Wolf: Thanks very much. But definitely mirrors a lot of my own concerns. And so, I don't know, just. Is there anything else that I didn't mention about it that you feel like you want to explain or tell people about?
Melissa Catanese: Thank you for describing it in the way that you have. I'm always really curious about other people's interpretations. And you're right, it does act like a war Shock block. And this idea of association and imposing our own anxieties and experience onto the. Onto the experience of reading it. For me, that's really important for it to function in that way. I think that, you know, it's a collaborative experience. Right. So I'm hopeful or I'm hoping that the reader is, you know, engaged and defining it for themselves, but I'm also directing it quite, quite a bit. And I think that your reading is appropriate. It's funny, you know, because we could see where everyone is on the spectrum of things like the orange end pages. I wanted to kind of emulate that kind of radiating energy of the sun and the kind of nuclear biosphere, you know, catastrophic biosphere wasn't meant to be hopeful. And I mean, I could talk a lot about it, but I feel like the important thing is that it is a time capsule for me. Right. And it's as an effort to kind of embody that kind of collective psyche of a particular moment. And that was what I sought out to do.
Sasha Wolf: Tell me about that process. I'd love to hear a little bit about the actual. How many pictures are ultimately in the book, do you know, offhand?
Melissa Catanese: I think there's like 64.
Sasha Wolf: Okay. See, it's a short exact number.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah. I am always trying to make my edits and sequences as concise and tight as possible. And I think actually there might be almost the same amount of images in the lottery as Dive Dark, Dream Slow. You know, it starts with collecting motifs like visual pillars. So for me, it's seeking out images that I feel could, you know, that have a particular sensation around them. And the crowd was the nucleus for this particular body of work, the images of crowds.
Sasha Wolf: Are you working with physical objects or are you working on the computer?
Melissa Catanese: Physical objects, yeah. So that's an important part of the process, too. I mean, there is. I do work on the computer often, and that's a huge part of my process as well, is digital. But I am usually working with physical objects, whether they're found anonymous, from Peter's collection, images that I've collected, images that I've made. Even I'm printing out and working from work prints. So work prints is a huge part of my process. I really am a. I can't imagine not working with my hands. You know, I always have stacks of images, and so I usually take the image that I'm interested in and I'll scan it, though. So I'm working from scans of images rather than the actual object, if it's an original. So I like to make them all the same size and give them some equality of scale, and that's how I can really kind of let the content become front and center.
Sasha Wolf: And are you cropping images when you want everything to be, say, vertical?
Melissa Catanese: That's an interesting question. So I'm not. I'm. And at the stage of editing, I'm not cropping any images. That usually comes closer to, like, the design process for me. And actually, a lot of the images that are in the lottery, they're all. Many of them are cropped, which was a decision made by the fabulous person that designed the book, Julia Boccarosa, who's an Italian designer. It was my first time ever working with a designer, really. And it was a great collaboration. And she had the idea of making it all the same. I usually, in the past, work a lot with scale and rhythm and kind of like shifting in scale. And her simplifying the template for the book, I think, was just a masterful decision in how you experience the work. So many of those images as prints exist as, you know, they're not cropped, so some of the verticals are horizontal, or there's more information in some of the images.
Sasha Wolf: And when she made that suggestion, did you know right away, oh, my God, this is brilliant for this project? Or did you. Were you like, what are you talking about? How dare you suggest such a thing and then, you know, have an epiphany?
Melissa Catanese: No, I mean, I really wanted to be open to working with A designer for the. I really wanted, you know, I needed someone to help me elevate it. And when they came, her and the publisher, Tommaso from Witty Books came back with this idea. They co published it with the ice plant. But they came, they came back with this idea for the design and I instantly loved it.
Sasha Wolf: Oh, that's fantastic.
Melissa Catanese: Wow, that's great. And I think part of that is also because I'm pretty irreverent when it comes to cropping. I'm not at all.
Sasha Wolf: You're not precious?
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, I'm not. I'm not at all precious about the frame. And you know, I. A lot of the anonymous images I use are heavily cropped. Images that I make are heavily cropped. So I'm always kind of shifting that as well.
Sasha Wolf: Let's talk about. For the sake of making sure we get this in, because it's really important to me. I want to talk about. I mean, you have a new project out called Feverfield, which is really beautiful, but I do really want to hear about the life that you've built with Ed. You guys have a studio exhibition bookstore in Pittsburgh called Spaces Corners that I think is quite well known. And I think, you know, that's started after you left New York. But can you talk about this? Because I think. I guess what really struck me in thinking about talking to you today is so often when I talk with young people about, you know, I was just at Bard the other day and I'm often delivering the message that one of my colleague slash friends has described as me being like the grim reaper, where I'm explaining to young people how they'll never make a living as an artist. And I don't think it's grim. I think it's the truth. And that it's really wonderful to know the truth because it really can set you free as an artist to not worry about the market, which is just a terrible, awful thing to have in your head and to just think about how to make yourself proud and to feel good about what you're dedicating your life to and to develop a community that you respect and whose respect you earn through your work. And that is my definition of success. And I think knowing that the market is a really difficult place and you have to figure out another way of earning a living, to be blunt. And I think that you and Ed have just really done this beautifully and it's a wonderful model. And I'm not saying everyone can do this, but I just think it's a wonderful example of being creative.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, Spaces Corners is really just the two of us and we started in October of 2011 also. It's a funny origin story and I think I tell this a lot because I think it speaks to the kind of reality of the situation. And so we were living in New York and I had recently been fired from my job and I was collecting unemployment and I knew that I could continue to collect unemployment and barely make it, you know, barely get by in New York, or I could take this opportunity and start to maybe realize some of our dreams. So we moved from New York back to Pittsburgh and started Spaces Corners with my unemployment.
Sasha Wolf: I love it.
Melissa Catanese: So it was really founded on, you know, making your own, you know, thinking of this opportunity as a grant to, to kind of jumpstart the project.
Sasha Wolf: So who says the United States doesn't fund the arts?
Melissa Catanese: Exactly. Right. I mean, obviously it was a limited. It was a, it was a limited period of time. But you know, I was going to either stay in New York and again, I was working in the book world, right. I was selling books to museum stores and bookshops, selling art books. And I was also a huge consumer of books of my own and making books as an artist. So I had this kind of multi pronged perspective and I really wanted to start my own space and I think Ed did as well. So we took the leap back to Pittsburgh and rented a cheap artist studio space and started gathering inventory from friends who were publishers who were willing to help us get started. You know, it was very. It was a community effort to start.
Sasha Wolf: But I think that's really, that's so beautiful. I mean, again, that goes back to what you were saying earlier about inviting famous people to Cranbrook and having them say yes. It's like you reached out and people were happy to help you guys. Yeah. Anyway, go on. I just want to underline that because I think it's important.
Melissa Catanese: So beautiful. Yeah, no, so beautiful. And you know, people in the book world are so amazing and generous and you know, and at that time there were very few photo book centered spaces. I think we were the only space between New York and Chicago at that time. There were very few online retailers. You know, there's photo, there was Photo Eye. There were, you know, there were even very few blogs on photography. I think Conscientious may have been the one. And a photo book educator maybe. And so I think it was a particular moment in time as well when we started it. And so, I mean, since then it's evolved. Right. So we're continuously evolving. We, over the course of Since 2011, we've curated exhibitions at places like Transformer Station. We were invited to be the bookshop at ICP Museum with the inaugural show that Charlotte Cotton curated. So we became really kind of known for creating these thematic curated bookshops. So we started our idea with Spaces Corners. From the beginning was we always wanted it to be playful. We wanted it to be playful. We wanted to kind of emulate the experience of pre digital days of going into a bookshop or going into a video store and encountering, like, genres of books, genres of videos. So we would categorize our books into themes, right? Like psychological thrillers and social studies and, you know, like, very, very playful, but also trying to represent the kind of contemporary zeitgeist, right. The important themes that we felt were emerging through the photo book. And I think we just were always very excited and jazzed about collaborating with other institutions and spaces, right. We've had outposts at the Carnegie Museum of Art. We curated books with the Carnegie Museum, with Silver Eye center for Photography, with the Philadelphia Photo Art center, you know, and then. And then we started publishing our own small projects. So Spaces Corners was also an opportunity for us to take our. Even though it was just us to kind of work under the guise of Spaces Corners, right. To promote our own work, which is very popular now.
Sasha Wolf: I mean, a lot of artists have their own, you know, imprint, and I think you guys definitely were leading the way there. And it's. It's really wonderful. And you and Ed also teach a lot and do workshops and, you know, so this way of putting together this really rich life where you've been able to continue to work as an artist, but you're also a curator and a teacher and a bookshop owner. And I mean, it's just really wonderful. And I think it speaks to what's possible when you're driven by tenacity and passion. I mean, it's really wonderful. I mean, I think about you and Ed and I think of you both as artists, but then all these other things, and in some ways there isn't one that's more dominant than the other. You're all these things, and it. It seems like you've just really built a very rich life.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that. It's quite a journey with Spaces Corners. And obviously we have evolved. We've had to slim it down. I think over the pandemic, we had a little bit of an identity crisis with Spaces Corners. And also just an acceptance of time passing and us living in a different world than we did in 2011 and different priorities and desires and, you know, I think that's really important to kind of constantly be reevaluating and reflecting. That's right, reflecting. We're not as active as we were, but we are still carrying the torch of Spaces Corners as our studio practice and as our bookmaking practice and as opportunities to collaborate with other institutions. We don't have a physical brick and mortar retail space anymore, so we have more of a library that we. And, you know, we have visits, class visits, and we invite people into the library, but we aren't really open to the public anymore, and we're no longer selling and representing books that we haven't published or made ourselves as the, you know, the authors. So it feels like a constant work in progress and ever evolving idea. So I think of Spaces Corners as more of an idea than a thing. It's confusing, I think, to a lot of people, it's confusing to us at times, but it has really. I think it's one of the best things that we could have ever done because it has allowed us to embed ourselves into a community and expand on that. You know, we. We traveled around the entire region going to fairs and introducing photography books to people and when they weren't as accessible as they are now. And that felt like an important role, an important part of the big picture.
Sasha Wolf: But I think it's very important for one to be nimble in their thinking about these things that we create. And, you know, it's like you have something that's really important to you, and. And, you know, how it gets transmitted can change. Right? But, I mean, I know that I for many, many years had a gallery in New York City, a physical space. And when you and I first met, I was in Tribeca. Then I moved to Chelsea, then I wound up on the Lower east side. And then I just decided that having a physical space wasn't what I wanted anymore. And I still am an art dealer, and I still have Sasha Wolf projects. And, you know, I work in a way that works best for me now. And so I think that, you know, my passions haven't changed. It's just the way I allocate my time and the way I function, you know, and obviously, you know, disseminating information and attempting to educate is always been important to me. And now I have the foundation. I mean, it's so important to be nimble, and especially in the arts, because there isn't really a yellow brick road, right? There isn't really a clear path. You have to constantly be Creating that yourself. So I think it's really wonderful that you and Ed have. It's like expanding, contracting. Well, not even contracting. I mean, that's not a good way of putting it, but it's. It's just how you allocate your resources and your time. And certainly, you know, the last few years have been very challenging and so many folks have needed to do that. So what do you guys. What's on the front burner of what you're working on?
Melissa Catanese: Well, I just. It's funny that you asked, Sasha. Another departure. So during the pandemic, I built a dark room.
Sasha Wolf: Oh, wow.
Melissa Catanese: So I built a dark room in the basement and have been, you know, kind of spending a lot of time there and spending a lot of time with my hands making pictures and experimenting with different printing processes.
Sasha Wolf: Oh, how fun.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah.
Melissa Catanese: So I just published a small artist book that is a, you know, non traditional catalog for an exhibition that I'm in at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and it's called Feverfield. And it does recycle images from the lottery. And, you know, I see it as part of that project, you know, like a micro channel into that project. Definitely on the more optimistic and generative side of the story.
Sasha Wolf: Definitely.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah. So I'm just coming out of that. During that process of creating that installation, I was experimenting with cyanotype printing and carbon printing. So over the pandemic, I began obsessing over carbon printing and this process. I was watching the Richard Benson videos from the printed picture and listening to him talk about all of these processes, and somehow carbon kind of rose to the surface as, like, a challenge. Right. Because life isn't hard enough. Why don't we try to do one of the most difficult processes? So I felt challenged to do it. And also I was working on cyanotypes and thinking about the cyanotype as kind of generative, alchemic process. You know, working with the California poppy as a motif and thinking about grief and oxygen and life. And at the same time, you know, because I'm really interested in, like, the beauty and violence at the same time, you know, coexisting. And so carbon became the antithesis of the cyanotype process for me, this, like, highly toxic process, you know, and just really seduced by the whole trying not to blow up the house, performative process of it, really. You know, like, you create like a molten pot of gelatin, and then it's heavily pigmented, and then you coat it on a sheet of paper and it's like this gasoline. Right. It looks like motor oil. And then it's a transfer process that is highly susceptible to every issue imaginable. And so, you know, I'm still. I'm still working on carbon prints, but I. Yeah, so I've been. I've been experimenting with different printing processes, so carbon being the most. The one I'm spending my most time on right now.
Sasha Wolf: Well, I can't wait to see that.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm. There's part of the process where you, you know, you make the emulsion and you. And you coat the emulsion onto Yupo, which is like this synthetic substrate, and then you. You sensitize the emulsion with dichromate, and then you expose it. So it's a contact print only it's not an enlarger base. So you're making a contact, so you sensitize and you expose and then you transfer to another substrate. And when you pull the Yupo off of the final substrate, if you're doing a single transfer process, you're left with whatever gelatin didn't, I guess, harden in the process. And it creates this, like, really beautiful abstraction and evidence of the print and of the process. So I've been collecting and saving all of my Yupo poles. And they're these, like. They look like war shops, blocks. Right. They're like these globs of messes, and they're very abstract, but they also look like these psychological landscapes. And the Yupo is. I'm working with a transparent Yupo, so I've been making photograms of those on silver gelatin paper. And they're gorgeous. I mean, they're so seductive. So I'm just trying to figure out what they are right now. And so I'm feeling really. I don't know, I'm at an exciting stage where I'm just like, you know, that. That place where you don't know what you're doing, but you're. You're doing. You're doing so much. And I. And I love being in that space of uncertainty and. And that. That, you know, that I always feel like I'm a detective when I'm working, and I'm trying to understand what it is that I'm doing, you know? And so what. What are these things and what do they mean? You know, the surface. What does the surface feel like? What is it trying to communicate? You know? So I feel very much in that kind of exploratory phase right now, which is really, really exciting.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, that's. That sounds so fun. As someone who loves working with their hands and making things and going, you know, just going for it and, you know, seeing where things take you. I get it. It's really wonderful. Well, Mosa, thank you so much for hanging out with me on erection day and injecting a lot of smiles and good feeling and happiness into my day, as I knew you would. I want to gush. I just really so just love you. I think about when we first met and I. I was lucky enough to show your work and it was a long time ago and I just.
Melissa Catanese: I was just looking through the catalog that I made on Lulu.com for field work. I was just looking through it and thinking, oh, my gosh, another time capsule.
Sasha Wolf: Totally.
Melissa Catanese: Yeah. That was great.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, it was wonderful. So, so happy to know you. And thank you again and I hope I get to see you soon one of these days. And I'll look forward to that. And please send Ed my best and we're going to get him on the podcast soon, I hope.
Melissa Catanese: Yes. Yeah. Oh, Sasha, likewise. I have all the feelings. I'm so excited to get to talk to you. So thank you.
Sasha Wolf: Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, be well.
Melissa Catanese: Okay. Bye, Sasha.
Sasha Wolf: Bye, Marissa. Bye.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Photo Work with Sasha Wolf is a production of the photowork Foundation. Executive producer is Sasha Wolf and the associate producer is Taylor Selzbach. The show is also produced and edited by me, Michael Chovendalt in a real photo show. Music is by J. Walter Hawks. If you like the show and wish to find out more about the foundation, please visit Photoark foundation and be sure to subscribe and review with all the stars on your listening platform.