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, 40 photographers on process and Practice. Hello, everyone, I'm Sascha Wolf, recording on a very cold winter's morning in Woodstock, New York, and joined as usual, by my good friend and producer, Mr. Michael Chovendalton. Hello, Michael.
Hi. Good morning. Yeah, whenever I think about how cold it is here, then I think, oh, I know someone who has it a little colder.
I'm sniffling. I'm definitely sniffling this morning. I've got a. I've got a wool cap on. I'm. Yeah, we've hit that point. We actually have about, I don't know, 8 or 10 inches of snow. Wow. So, yeah, very winter wonderland up here at the moment, but quite beautiful.
Yeah, I know. I think we all used to worry about that a little bit more when you were in the photo work Airstream.
Yeah. It was always a question whether I'd be able to get out. That's right. I'd be like, the Airstream would have turned into an igloo without a door.
Yes, yes.
How are you?
Oh, doing all right. In the thick of final critiques. Oh, exciting. Really, really. It is the best time of the year. Love seeing all the work come together at the.
Yeah, yeah. Nice. Well, this episode today, our guest was Nelson Chan and it was a really wonderful conversation. Before we get to that, let me just make a couple of announcements.
That's right. It's end of the year for us.
It's end of the year. We actually just chose our wonderful jury, just chose our six fellows for their 2026 class. And we will be announcing those names next episode. Just doing some housekeeping there.
Ye.
But very excited. And we have new mentors and we'll get to all of that. And the other announcement is just. We did a sort of. Not a sort of. We did a quite direct appeal to our listeners for donation. End of your donations. Last episode. I want to thank everyone who donated and there were many of you, but I want to appeal again to people to please go to Photowork Foundation. We have a support page and you can donate any amount of money and any amount of money is helpful at the lowest end, I could say that, you know, we have every episode transcribed, so we have an archive of.
And we're still using humans for that. So we're still using humans. The human jobs.
It's true. And, you know, that's on the Low end of things that we expenses we have. And of course it goes all the way up to our grants for our fellows and paying our mentors office supplies, the whole nine yards. So any amount of money. Exactly, any amount of money is greatly appreciated. If you listen to the podcast and you could just do something end of year for us, it's really helpful. We are nimble, but we do have a budget and we need to get all our ducks in a row at the end of the year. So please help out and. Yeah, why don't we get to it? What did you think about the episode?
Well, if there was ever an episode where, you know, we were emphasizing the importance of having great people around you who give advice, but even more importantly, being open and willing to take advice, this is the one.
Absolutely.
It is such a sweet episode. The people who helped guide Nelson through his career, the advice they gave him and his just sort of openness to. To everything from us really, starting from his brother and punk music all the way to where he is today. It's just so such a beautiful story that Nelson tells.
Yeah, Nelson is genuinely a person who goes with the flow in a way. Like, you know, he just like people come into his life with sort of guidance and support and he adjusts and sort of rides. He just sort of rides it. It's really interesting. And he's built this really amazing career and I do think there's so much good advice in this and his story is really moving, really beautiful and really admirable.
Absolutely. And then, you know, towards the end you have these incredible conversations about, well, first of all, the idea of a life in photography in this world being a marathon. But you know, the conversations about how books are made with Tis, that is definitely one worth listening to.
Yeah, without a doubt. I think this episode is really just chock full and our guest is such a lovely person and a good storyteller. So I hope people really enjoy the episode as much as I enjoyed talking with Nelson. And it's a little long, but I just want to wish everyone very, very happy holidays. We'll be back right after the new year. But thank you to our listeners again for being so engaged with the podcast in 2025. Michael, thank you so much for all of your really incredible work and dedication to the podcast and to our. Thank you to of course, Taylor Sellsback, Noah Lynn, Peter Kay office and the rest of the team at Photo Work. Couldn't have done any of this, of course, without you. This is really the ultimate team effort. We're all friends, we all love each other and support each other and support the common cause. And I think that that's evident in the work we do. So I'm just so blessed to work with you all. And yeah, to our listeners, thank you for continued support.
Absolutely. And thank you, Sasha, because I think this is such a privilege that we all get to work with you as well.
Thank you, babe. Well, if you don't mind, let's get to it. Please take it away.
My pleasure. And here is your conversation with Nelson Chan.
Chan. Welcome to the Photo Work podcast. It's great to have you on. I was really looking forward to this post holiday podcast recording, which of course for me just means getting to talk with friends of mine and colleagues and people I've known and respected for a really long time. And of course, you are in that category. So, so great to talk with you.
Well, thank you so much, Sasha. You know, I so respect you, and I've followed what you've done since you opened your gallery, and so this is really exciting. But also for me, it's somewhat a bit more exciting because your book was the very last book that I worked on as an employee of Aperture.
I think I knew that. And you were at Aperture for quite a while and have really done some incredibly interesting. I mean, you have a really incredibly interesting career, which is why we wanted to have you on. So tell us, you know, give us your background and where you're from and, you know, bring people into that narrative and then we'll get into it.
Thank you. Yeah. You know, my career, which I am so lucky to be able to say that it's a career now. Yeah, it takes a while sometimes. Yeah, exactly. I was just thinking about it, and, yeah, I've been doing this now for a little over 20 years, which is kind of wild. So. Yeah. So how I got into all of this, you know, I. I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, but also grew up in Hong Kong as well. There were for my entire life. We would go back between the two places, and even when one of my brothers and I, when we were younger, we had actually moved there for a couple of years before returning back to the States. I say that because it's important to the work that I make and sort of the lens in which I see the world. But I had always been. I had always been into the arts. I can remember every single art teacher's name I've ever had from grade school to. You know, from grade school to college. I remember the very first drawing I ever made, which was so Important to me because it kind of. It connected my brain to my hand and I could see my imagination coming to life on a piece of paper. So I feel like I always had this sort of innate interest in the arts. And then as I got older, as a teenager, I could see an innate ability as well. I started out drawing and painting, and that's what really sort of fueled my interest as a youth. And then, you know, a lot of people, I think, in the arts, especially photography, have said this. I know that a lot of your guests have said this, but a lot of what I do, a lot of who I am, I have to credit to punk rock. Growing up, growing up in the shadows of New York city as a 14 year old kid, you know, my friends and I would take the PATH train from Hoboken to New York City and we would go see punk and hardcore shows at the wetlands, CBGB's, the knitting factory, and the Knitting Factory on Leonard street, not the one in Brooklyn.
You know, I remember it well.
That was kind of like the holy trinity of what we would do. We'd go to these three clubs, but also the Melody Bar, Mercury Lounge in Maxwell's in Hoboken. It's like these amazing venues that so many of them no longer exist. And Irving Plaza or the Bowery Ballroom would be the biggest venues we'd go to.
Right?
Yeah. So I say this because I was like one of the only Asian kids in my neighborhood. You know, I think coming from this background with immigrant parents from Taiwan and Hong Kong, you know, you're already on the outside to a certain extent. And the punk rock community is a bunch of outsiders. It's a bunch of misfits. It's a bunch of people who don't fit in. And when you put them all together, everyone feels like they fit in, you know, and it's a really wonderful thing. And so I have to credit my brother Jesse for so much. I would borrow his descendants records, his Black Flag records. And then as a teenager, I'd borrow his camera. He was sort of the photographic scribe of our family. And I'd grown up watching him make pictures and have a lot of fun doing it. As I sort of sat in my room and drew and painted and I started to borrow his camera. Not to necessarily make photographs, you know, as photographic art, but I'd use photographs as reference to my paintings and drawings.
Interesting. Yep.
Yeah. So that was my first introduction into using a camera. And then originally I never thought I was gonna go to college or university. I imagined myself actually just working in my father's company, he had a toy company that he had started many, many years ago. And my parents were kind of upset by that decision, but they didn't really push back on it. And then I had a really, really good friend of mine who was a few years older than me. He tricked me into registering for college. Actually. He was going to a local university, the William Patterson University. And he was also an art student and had said that he wanted to take me to lunch and actually instead dragged me onto the university's campus to sign up and register for classes on the very last day of registration. And he did this because his mother was a teacher and thought it would be really heartbreaking if I didn't go to college.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. So, you know, I have had the very good fortune of being surrounded by some amazing, amazing people who've, like, you know, done things like this.
Worked out for you.
Yeah, totally moving. Yeah, yeah. You know, pretty much, you know, like. Yeah, dragging me by the ear, essentially. And it was. It was life changing. William Pattish University had a pretty amazing art program. And also to give the audience context, this is summer of 2001. So, you know, they had an amazing art program. And it's also where I had my first photography class with Robin Schwartz, who. Yeah. Who really taught us that photography was hard work. And also during that time, during the first week of my freshman year of college, 9, 11 happened.
And. Right.
Yeah. You know, my best friend who was enrolled in William Patterson with me, we watched the towers smolder from the roof of the science building in William Patterson. And I mention that because a few days later, when they opened up the tunnels and the bridges, my brother and another friend, one of my dearest, dearest friends, Abdullah Siseh, we drove into New York City and started to photograph. And this wasn't even me yet, deciding whether or not I was going to be a photographer. This was just something that we all felt like we had to do. And it was another, you know, it's life changing for so many people. For me, that experience was life changing because it was my first time using a camera and trying to understand what is happening around me. And that experience never, never left me. And it was that that I held onto to really continue with photography. But my career path is also a bit circuitous during this time, I'm in school trying to explore my budding artistic practice through drawing and painting. And because of punk rock being this sort of, you know, alternative subculture, there are subcultures within subcultures. And tattooing was A big part of that and still is. And I'd gotten tattooed very young, and I had always thought about possibly being a tattoo artist as well. And during my photo one class freshman year, I decided to maybe hang out at the tattoo shop that I would get tattooed at and photograph people. And the person that owned the tattoo shop is a very famous European tattoo artist. He's actually one of the most influential tattoo artists in the world. His name is Mario Barth, and he's created some of the most important tattoo inks there are. And he's actually an incredible artist. And I remember I was photographing a lot, photographing the patrons, photographing the artists, and making really subpar, boring work, and. But then one day, Mario had sat me down, and he was like, Nelson, he's like, you're asking a lot of really interesting questions, and it sounds like someone who's, like, beyond interested in making pictures. And he essentially asked me if I was interested in a tattoo apprenticeship. And I said yes, sort of very enthusiastically, knowing how important he was, knowing what I'd be able to learn from him. And I was ready to drop everything. I was ready to drop out of school again. I credit my luck of being around really amazing people. He said, okay. He's like, you can be my tattoo apprentice. The only rule I have is that you cannot drop out of college.
Oh, my God.
Yeah. His parents were very big advocates of education, and it was lucky. I spent two years in the tattoo shop. I was 19 and 20, and I would essentially go to school two days a week, and then the other five days a week, I'd be at the tattoo shop. And it was two of the most brutal years of my life, but also some of the most interesting as well. And during those two years, I ended up getting on skin, and I'm tattooing people, and I'm also still taking pictures, and I'm in photography classes, and I'm working at my craft, and I end up deciding to leave the tattoo world. You know, photography for me felt way more authentic and important. And I also have to credit Robin Schwartz for encouraging me to leave William Patterson, like, saying that I've exhausted my resources there and really encouraged me to think about other schools. And for me, now as a professor of photography, you know, I think about. I think about my schools that I've taught at and, you know, the. Like, the importance of retention. And I just, you know, I thank her so much for essentially pushing me out the nest.
And so you had, like, some serious guardian angels, but that says a lot about you. You know, that people wanted to be there for you. Of course. I mean, that's. That's the sort of the thread there.
Yeah, absolutely. And so one of my closest friends who I've gone to school with, from the sixth grade to actually college, she'd gone straight to RISD from. At high school. And so RISD is a school that I always known about. It's also a school that Robin had encouraged me to apply to.
And you're talking about Rhode Island School of Design for folks.
Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Very, very famous. Yep.
Yeah. So for me, it was. It was actually out of all of the schools I applied to, it was between the Rhode Island School of Design and NYU's Tisch School of Art. And I ended up choosing RISD because I initially said, you know what? I'm going to come back to New York City. It's essentially my home. You know, I've spent so much of my years there. Some of my oldest memories are there. You know, I'll come back to it. It'll be nice to have a college experience somewhere else. And so, yeah, I came to risd and it was another very, very two difficult years as an outsider, as a transfer student. Also, Providence was tough for me to kind of get used to for a little while. It is not New York City. It's more like a village. And, you know, back in New York, I'd go to the second floor of the Strand and I'd sit there for hours looking at books. And that was like, my library. And now I had to go to this, you know, this amazing art school's library. And it didn't have the same energy. It's like you wouldn't be sitting at the window on the second floor of the Strand and happen to, like, run into Saul Leiter.
Right.
You know, like, you know, or sit there and listen to Saul Leiter talking trash. And, you know, so it's like I had to kind of get used to this quieter, simpler, to a certain extent, life. And. But it was also difficult because RISD is an incredibly Academically rigorous.
Yeah, demanding. Yep.
Yeah. And so. But, you know, I came here with a purpose. And, yeah, it was really formative, and not necessarily as formative as I was thinking when I was there, but months after I've graduated, I had to sort of just sit with the two years that I had spent here in Providence, and I could see myself changing. I could see myself applying everything that I've learned in school or been told to sort of explore on my own, and I could see all of that bearing fruit, which was really kind of wonderful. And at risd, I had amazing people that I was working with, like Anne Fessler, Henry Hornstein and Stephen B. Smith was my closest mentor. And also Deborah Bright, the brilliant, brilliant Deborah Bright. These were people who have really shaped me as a maker and a thinker. And so after that, I moved back to the tri state area and I was assisting a lot for photographers, commercial photographers. My buddy who I mentioned before, Abdullah Sisse, he is the creative director and producer for the Mac Group, which is the Mamiya America Corporation. He's one of the country's most important people within the lighting industry. You know, if Annie Leibovitz or somebody needs a set, you know, lit, he would have been one of the people that they'd call, which he's been on those sets. And so he had brought me into a lot of the New York commercial photography world. So I was a lighting grip for, you know, him and the Mac Group or Profoto when he. When they were a part of the Mac Group. And I was doing that for a little while, actually. I was doing that all throughout college as well. I would actually drive from Rhode island back to New York to be on sets just to make some extra cash. And after doing that, photographers that I started to work with had also known that I was a pretty competent printer. And I say printer in that I was a. I am a very competent and good darkroom printer. But also, you know, with digital technology, back in the early aughts, I could do really, really great scans and really, really good digital, you know, manipulations and workflows. And I started to move into the realm of printing for people. So which is, which is where I shine. So it was a great, a great move into the world of printing and, you know, photographer that I worked with a lot on, on jobs. Her name's Gina lavey, a really amazing, wonderful photographer based in New York, I think, maybe not too far from you, actually. She and her family moved upstate and.
Gina went to sva.
Right, exactly. Yeah. Gina got her MFA from the School of Visual Arts and her book Sandhogs by Powerhouse was the very first book that I worked on. So I did all those things.
I remember that really well. Yeah, that was about the people working in the tunnels.
Yes, exactly. They were building the new water tunnel to essentially supply all of New York City.
They're drinking water.
Yeah. And so I'd done all of the scans for that book and all of the initial Photoshop work for it. So that really pushed me into this realm of Printing. I managed a print studio in Brooklyn for a little while. Yeah. And then this is like, you know, I think four, four and a half years after I've graduated from risd. And then I decided to go to grad school. My end goal had always been to be a professor. Having teachers like. Having teachers like Deborah Bright, Ann Fessler and Steve Smith, that really created this roadmap of me wanting to be a teacher. Yeah. So grad school was the next obvious logical decision. And so I ended up going to a very, very new grad program, which a bunch of your guests have been on. So I was a part of the first graduating class of the Hartford Arts School. So myself, Tim Carpenter, Carl Woolley, my business partner for TIS Books, Jay Carrier, Brian Scutmot, Charlie Simulkaitis. So Greg Harris actually had called us the murderer's row of the program, which was kind of funny. And it was a really interesting time for myself and for all of us. I was one of the younger people in the grad program. And I say this because it was amazing for me to be able to actually be around other adults who have, you know, had really interesting and full lives that I have not yet lived. You know, full, full on careers, families, and being with. With a really mature group of people, I think pushed me in different ways. But I also say interesting in that the grad program, we were the first year. We were the first graduating year. So we were the guinea pigs. And we, you know, you felt every wrinkle being ironed out, and it was often ironed out on our back. But it was. It was great. You know, I was very fortunate to have Jay Carrier, Carl Woolley, and Tim Carpenter in New York City with me, especially with the limited residency program where everyone was everywhere. Brian was in Montana at the time. We had classmates in Berlin, Louisiana. And so the four of us being in New York City was really great. And we'd meet in this bar restaurant called the Barn, right in Prospect Park. It was right near Tim's apartment, and it was awesome. It was kind of like the. Like, it was kind of where TIS Books was, you know, formed, you know, around. Around dinner tables with just the four of us. And it was a can that we kept kicking down the road for a number of years. So.
So you go through the Hartford program, which is, you know, and really has produced a lot of fantastic graduates, and you wind up then at Aperture. Was that your first gig addict quite yet? Not quite yet. Okay.
Yeah. Well. Well, again, the idea of teaching for me was the most important thing and While at Hartford, one of the most important things for me is that I actually got to teach full time essentially when I was a grad student at Hartford. So they had needed somebody pretty immediately, sort of almost like an emergency to cover and develop a lot of classes. And Robert Lyons, the director of our program, had put my name in front of the dean, who was actually Mary Fry, who was my thesis advisor.
Wow.
Yeah. And Robert was like, hey, you should. You should hire Nelson to actually do all of this stuff. He'd be really great at it. And it was amazing. It was a gift. It was my very first time experiencing really serious teaching. And so I had helped develop their digital photography program. I had set up their digital lab. So I taught Intro to Digital, advanced digital. And I also taught a color darkroom class that I loved so much. So I taught a three. Three. I taught three classes every semester. And it was brutal. Brutal in that I lived in New York still. And I would drive up, you know, 5am on a Monday morning, I would get to Hartford. My office was this little tiny room that had a scanner in it. And it was dedicated for the grad students. So I used it as my office. And I'd get in there by about 7:30 and I would sleep until my 8:30 class. And I'd wake up, I'd go upstairs and I would teach my three classes that entire day. And then at some point during that time, I started to Monday night, I'd drive to Providence. I'd stayed in an Airbnb and I'd photograph in Providence all day long on Tuesday. I would then go to the photography lectures that would happen there Tuesday evening. And then I would drive back to Hartford Wednesday morning to teach my classes again. And then I would drive back to New York Wednesday night. And I did that for two years.
Yeah, that's a wrong.
Yeah. And so after Hartford, though, so I did all of that. But during my time at Hartford, after Hartford, my teaching contract ended and I got a really wonderful opportunity to teach at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. And my good buddy Andres Gonzalez had taught there before me and was leaving and I had taken over that vacancy. And it was amazing. Two of the best years of my life as a professor of photography. And as soon as I think about those two years, I get pretty emotional about it. It's just. It was really amazing and you know, just sort of like fast forward. I am teaching at all of these different places from, from Maine to Staten island. And I was an adjunct professor for seven years. And during this Time we had started TIS Books and it was Tim, Carl and I who had started it. Jay was just starting a family and really wasn't able to participate as a business partner. But he's still a creative collaborator. Tim is no longer a part of it as well, but we are all still so very close and consider ourselves creative collaborators and founders of it. But TIS had started already and we were starting to participate in some of the big book fairs, the New York Art Book Fair, the Philadelphia Art Book Fair. And we also had taken part in the Aperture Book Bazaar, which was a really wonderful sort of one day book fair that Aperture had in their gallery. And during that time, I remember Leslie had bought a book of ours.
Talk about Wesley Martin, who was the creative director and sort of head editor at Aperture for very long time.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So Leslie, you know, this sort of mythical figure comes over and buys one of our books. And it was a book that we had done with Justine Kurland and John Yau, a book of Justine's photographs and John's poetry. And Leslie buys that book. Then, you know, fast forward a few months. We are at the New York Art Book Fair and I'm looking at new sheets of proofs with one of our artists and they're just sort of like on our table. And I had known that Aperture had an opening for their production manager position and it wasn't necessarily something that I was that interested in only because my goal had always been to teach. And Leslie had come over to our table at TIS and looks at me and says, nelson, we gotta talk. And it's just fortuitous that you're looking at proof sheets right now and essentially really encouraged me to apply for the job.
I can imagine this whole scene unfolding.
I mean. Yeah. And it was really amazing, you know, again, this sort of mythical figure just sort of like floating by.
Yeah, it's very funny to me because Leslie's one of my closest friends in the world. But I remember before Leslie and I became close friends, that was my experience of Leslie also. It's so, it's so funny to me because I remember like just knowing who she was and she was such a, like, as you say, like such a mythical. I'm just so funny, like thinking back on this, like she was, you know, seeing Leslie at events like across the room and just being like, oh my God, it's Leslie Martin. I mean. And you know. Yeah, I mean, she just was so important. She still is. She's now the executive director of Printed Matter. Just a phenomenal human being. Has done so much for so many people and been, you know, I mean, for me, an incredible sounding board throughout my career. And we've been very close now for about 15 years, so. But I just love the way you describe it. And there are those people in our industry who just.
Oh, absolutely, yeah. Absolute, absolute icon.
Yeah.
Completely intimidating. But then once you get to know them, they are incredible, you know.
Yeah, brilliant.
Yeah, yeah, brilliant. And generous.
Generous warmth. Great teachers. Informal sense. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, well. So, you know, even after that interaction and actually, you know, we. We had stepped aside, I think the next day and had a much longer conversation of, of what the position entailed. And, you know, Leslie, Leslie asked me because, you know, I think she really appreciated the production and the quality of books that we were making at tis. And so, you know, I still needed to seek some counsel. So I remember I had dinner with Deborah Bright in Brooklyn. She had just retired from being the dean of the school of Art at Pratt. And then I remember going up to Providence and having breakfast with Steve Smith and, you know, asking the both of them what I should do, especially knowing that my career path would be to teach one day. And Deborah had said, you'd be an idiot if you didn't take this job. And Steve had said, listen, he's like, you've been an adjunct for seven years working in all of these different schools. He's like, how many adjuncts are there in the world right now? And how many production managers of Aperture.
Will there be in the world right now?
Yeah, it was a no brainer after talking to them because it was. It was a way to really sort of pragmatically position myself, to hopefully set myself apart from when I was ready to jump back into academia. And so because of Aperture, I had to leave academia pretty suddenly. I was like in mid semester. And so thankfully I got a lot of really wonderful people to cover my classes and then I just jumped headfirst into it. My first week on the job at Aperture, I was essentially meeting with Stephen Shore, looking at proofs for his book, Selected Works. And yeah, it was amazing. It was a really incredible three years. I feel so proud of the work that I had done there. And there's just so much that I never thought I would have been able to ever do in my life. And to have had some involvement with Dina Lawson's book, which I think is gonna go down in history as one of the best photo books in the last century, is kind of amazing. Yeah, it was. I mean, one thing.
Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, no, no, I was gonna say also too. Just not just working on those books, but also working with Leslie and other brilliant people like Brendan Emser and Michael Famighetti, you know, and Denise Wolf. But, you know, Leslie was, Leslie was a mentor. You know, she, before she worked at Aperture full time, she was a work scholar in the production department, you know, so I, you know, we connected on that level and she. And it was really, really amazing. And yeah, to be able to sort of have her as a mentor for those three years was also really, really incredible.
Yeah. So I want to fast forward a little bit because what I want to talk about is everything you've sort of laid out, you know, paints the picture of how one can put together a life as an artist. Because you are an artist to make photographs. You are also a publisher, which is an artistic practice in and of itself. You are a professor. You know, there's this life that you've put together that I think is really. There's so many lessons in there for people listening to the podcast about sort of a picture of what it might look like and also saying yes and taking chances and just sort of recognizing a flow and sort of going with it. But why don't you just bring us up to date? Because after you left Aperture, just fast forward us a little bit because you've also, when you're talking about risd, you've said a number of times, the tense, the way you've discussed it is probably clear to people that you're back at risd. So bring us up to date and then I want to talk to you about a little bit more in depth about TIS and that part of your life.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, this will, I think, go back into the idea of publishing and book production, but when I was a student at risd, again, Steve Smith, who's my mentor and now colleague whose.
Work I showed once.
Oh, yes, exactly. Yeah. I remember being at that show. It was a two person show.
It was Steve Smith, I think, in Anna Colbert, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, totally.
My first gallery space. Down Chew Becca. Anyway, I was so. Yeah, no, there we go. Yeah.
No, no, no. Yeah. Sasha, like I said, like, you know, I've been following what you've been doing since the beginning and that was. That was it.
Thank you. Yeah, that was a good show.
Yeah. Well, you know, Steve Smith, such a huge influence of mine, but his mentor at Yale was Richard Benson. And so Steve had really instilled this love of printing and it was all through Richard Benson's love and interest of printing. And through that, when I was at Aperture, I was, you know, Richard, in the 70s, was hired by Aperture to be production manager for jobs. And to be able to share that lineage is amazing. But also when I was at Aperture, I was. I was working with people like Thomas Palmer, who worked very closely with Richard for a long time, and also Robert Hennessy, who worked with Richard at Merriden Gravure in Connecticut in the 70s. And that time at Aperture, it also put me toe to toe with this amazing history that I was able to really learn and pull from. And so, you know, I was at Aperture for three years, and I ultimately left because I wanted to get back into academia. And as you probably know from a lot of the artists you've talked to and represent, you know, when these jobs open up, they don't open up all that often. Especially. Especially in the really great schools because you're waiting for people to, you know, retire or move on. And so there had been a few really good jobs that were open, and one of the biggest, best ones was an opening at the California College of the Arts, cca. And it had been a school whose history had influenced me almost more than any other school. Yeah, of course, I remember sending that job application while I was on press in Shenzhen. And it was. Yeah, it was a real wild moment. And so I was very fortunate enough to land that job. And I had left Aperture and moved to California. And I taught at CCA for a really amazing and strange six years. And I say strange because I moved to California six months before the pandemic. So, yeah, I had this really amazing, almost like fairy tale first semester working with amazing students. I'm, like, in this beautiful Oakland campus, also teaching our grad students in San Francisco proper. And, yeah, you know, like, walking the halls that Larry Sultan walked in, teaching the classes that Larry taught. You know, like, being in that history of, like, you know, Larry and Jim and Jim Goldberg. Jim Goldberg, yeah. You know, being a friend and one of my heroes was really incredible. And then the pandemic hit, and then, as we all know, you know, things kind of go sideways for a lot of us. But after that, I gained tenure at cca, which was such a meaningful thing for me because it was cca, but also because tenure was this thing that I had always had imagined for myself somewhere. But as you know, we had said before, when jobs open up, they don't open up very often. And so there was a position at RISD that had opened up. And I have to say this, I'm now at risd So I applied for a job at RISD and I feel so fortunate enough to have gotten the position. I know how difficult that is, but this is also the third time I ever applied for a job at risd. So it had been been a dream of mine actually since I was like 2021 to work here at this capacity with the students that are here. And yeah, it's been a really wild journey for me. That is very much. I think I have to credit my profession within publishing. I have to sort of credit my time at Aperture, but also the serious years that I spent teaching up and down the east coast and in California.
Yeah, it all adds up.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. All while making work as well. All while photographing.
So I wanted to ask you about that. How much are you photographing now?
Yeah, well, I am still photographing pretty constantly and I'm like kind of in this sort of collecting phase of pictures. When I was at Aperture, the really wonderful thing for me was that I was able to spend so much time in Asia. We printed books at an amazing press that was 45 minutes away from the border of Hong Kong. And so I'd spend all this time with my dad. I've been working on a 20 some year project photographing my family. So I made a lot of pictures. Then during all of my academic breaks, I'm making pictures. I'm going back to Hong Kong next month and I'll be making pictures there. But also while I was in California photographing my entire time there, I published the book through tis of Work in California. And then through another press called National Monument Press, I published a little book of more experimental work which I'm trying to grapple with right now. Not just the work in general, but not. Well, not just that work specifically, but I think more experimental work in general. I'm leaning into to how maybe California and its sort of more experimental approaches has influenced my way of thinking. So I'm still making pictures, but I'm also thinking about how to also make art that may not consist primarily of pictures or maybe thinking about it more material based.
Do you feel like you don't have the sort of. How do I say this nicely for all the people listening who may have this.
No, please.
Artists can get into obviously a very intense space of if I don't hit these sort of markers then no one's going to be interested in me or I'm not going to be important or whatever success means, I'm not going to be successful. Do you feel like more relaxed in that way? Because every Other part of your life is so. Is moving and is exciting and is productive and also very creative. Even if it's not you having a big exhibition at some museum of your own work. Does all the other work you do give you fill in for that sort of need?
Yeah, well, I think, yes, but I also think that there are absolutely things that I am wishing to be a part of or are trying to strive for. And I think, especially now, as you know, I'm 42 and I have published more than I've exhibited, and I want to actually start to think about my work in the physical space again. Even though I've exhibited, I feel like I've put together some really wonderful shows here and there of my work. It is something that I want to get back to. And. And for me, stability has always been something that I. Well, professional stability has always been something that I've strived for. And even within that, it's still somewhat all over the place. I got tenure at this amazing school, and I just left it to come here. But for me, I am thinking about how my work can exist in a show. Right now, I'm trying to play, put work together, to possibly think of it in exhibition form. What that looks like, what that feels like. You know, for me, when I graduated from school as an undergrad, most of my classmates, not most of them, but a bunch of them, had this, like, real. This idea that they were going to move to New York, have a show, and really kind of make it. And for me, I think that it's a really unhealthy way to look at life as an artist. For me, I'm all about the marathon, not about the sprint.
I 100%, yes, endorse that. And, you know, there is no making it right in the art world. There is no such thing as making it. You have moments where you're more in the conversation, and then you have moments where you're not as much in the conversation. And making it is really about just putting a life together that is exciting and you love and you feel, you know, respected and part of the conversation. But being on the front burner is fleeting, you know, in the art world, it just is.
Yeah.
So it is absolutely a marathon, which I think that you're absolutely in it the right way. Tell folks a bit more about TIS and what you guys are doing, because I think people will be really interested.
Sure. Well, so TIS had started as this idea that, again, Tim J. And Carl and I had. The four of us were or are so connected to music, also connected to a lot of indie music. And in grad school, we also met with a lot of other artists and designers who were also publishers. And I think because of that we were thinking, hey, this is something that we could do. And that was kind of it. TIS was a way for us to sort of come carve out our own space in the art world. And, you know, that's kind of where the idea came from. And the first book that we ever made was actually of Steve Smith's called Waiting out the Latter Days. And the second book that we had done was a little four book set of all of our own works. So TIS operates as sort of this hybrid publishing platform where we publish the work of other artists, but then also we have the freedom to publish our own work as well. And that kind of just, that kind of just, you know, spiraled into what we are now. Justine Kurland was one of our other very, very early books. Justine and I became really good friends. We would print together or not together, but we'd print in the same lab, my own color lab. And that was, you know, like, that place is so special to me. It's like my, it's one of my homes away from home. You know, the owner, Gerard Francios, is amazing. But also you could be in that lab and you could, you could be in a dark room and on your left would be Justine Kurlin, and on your right would be Sharon Core. And that's a very. In the, you know, two doors down would be Vicky Sambonaris and Kamance would be in there too. And you know, so it's like, it's really amazing thing. And so through that connection, you know, that's how we were able to work with Justine. And then through Justine, she had recommended John Gossage to us. And then, you know, things kind of just snowballed into more books. We also focused on, on a lot of artists in their first books. I don't necessarily know if it's something that we focus on. It's just something that has happened.
Seems to happen. Yeah, but how do you decide? Like, how does, you know, you're a small independent publishing company, but I think one of the top tier photo book publishers at the top of the conversation. And how do you decide what, what to publish and how much to do a year, whatnot?
Great question, but also thank you for that compliment, of course. So, you know, I think that for us, you know, we rely on a lot of different, a lot of different things. I think one, we are also artists and we're also in this world. And so part of our interest is to just see what is happening, see, you know, who's making the most interesting work. But also, you know, we've published books where 1. They've been recommended by other artists that we've worked with. They've been artists that we've approached on our own. They are artists that we've met at portfolio reviews. And also we have a blind submission policy on our website. And so we are working with an artist whose submission came through that as well. But we are. You know, we don't publish that many books a year. So when we work on one, it takes a lot of time. So.
Well, for an example, like, I mean, one book I know sort of was. I don't know, you know, sort of a hit right away, whatever. Silly way of putting it, but anyway, was Rosemary Cromwell's book that you did, El Libro Supremo de la Suerte. Like, how did that happen?
So that happened. That happened really kind of organically and wonderfully. And it was because we shared the same teacher. So as you know, good friend of yours and somebody who I think you work with. Doug Dubois.
Yeah. My gosh.
Love that man. Yeah. Doug was one of the first visiting critics at the Hartford Art School. And I don't know if you knew this, but Doug was brought in. Cause he has a very long and close relationship with Robert Lyons. He was Robert darkroom assistant. Actually. Didn't know that he was Robert's and Mitch Epstein's color darkroom assistant when. When he graduated from Hampshire College. So Robert Lyons had went to Hampshire College as well. And so they shared Jerome Liebling as a teacher. And so Jerome had recommended Doug work with them. So Doug had introduced me to Rose at one of the APAD fairs, like maybe in2016 or so, or maybe 17. And rose and I just stayed in touch. And, you know, she had lived in New York City for one, like, short sliver of time. And, yeah, I remember going to have studio visits with her, maybe one or two. And. Yeah, and she showed. She shared a Libra suprema de la Suerte's Maquette with. With us. And it was. Yeah, it was something that I thought would be really, really amazing to publish if we could do it. And she worked with a really. A wonderful designer, Ben Solis, who's also an amazing photographer as well. And, yeah, at that time, I was also working at Aperture while we were putting that book together. And I mean, I could say this now that I'm no longer working at Aperture, but, you know, I would be on press for Aperture and I'd print some TIS books on press there as well, you know. So for Rose's book, I was on press. I was probably managing six different Aperture titles, but Rose was there as well and the seventh book was managing printing of her book. So things like that worked out really well. One of the other wonderful things about that book is that it was technically co published by Lightwork. Lightwork had come in to support it as a co publisher. One, Rose was a resident and then two, they were sort of kickstarting this idea of co publishing and so wanted to come in and also support.
So yeah, I mean this is also just like something for folks who are listening to, you know, glean from this is that community and you know, the importance of community, but also just, you know, really just being out there as much as you can. And I know it's really hard for people who don't live in like New York or Chicago or San Francisco or whatever. It. It is harder. But one thing you said in passing that's really important and I've emphasized many times on the podcast, is portfolio reviews. I mean, portfolio reviews, if you can swing it financially, are just the meeting hubs, right? I mean they are such places to connect in some ways, I think more importantly than getting your work critiqued for the sake of the critique is just all the people you meet, right. And it is, for better or worse, so important. Having said that, you know, if you can't do that, then as you said, you have a blind process for people to send in submissions. So there is opportunity for folks if they are willing to do the work. And it's really wonderful. I mean, access is just the most important thing.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think portfolio reviews are, I think are a really unique thing to the photography world.
And they are without a doubt.
Yeah, definitely. You know, listen, I know that I'm actually going to be going to photonola in, I don't know, I think maybe in a week and a half or so as a portfolio reviewer. And it's funny because I'd never thought I'd ever be on the other side of the table reviewing. And now I go to a few of these a year and I know that there are people who criticize portfolio reviews at times, but I do think that it can be an absolutely valuable way to be able to, as you said, you know, connect with people, build that community. Not just with the professionals on the other side of the table, but also with other artists who are there with you.
Absolutely. Yeah. No, I Mean, that's the thing is other artists building that community. You don't know where they're gonna go, who they're gonna meet. This is just a matter of building connections. They don't have to be with the most important person in the room in order to lead you somewhere, as I think everything you've talked about, about today has, has proven. And I think.
Yeah, well, no, I was gonna say, you know, I mean, I haven't participated in many of them. I. I did participate in one and if you will indulge me a moment, I'll just sort of. I took part in photo fest in 2008 and that year's theme was China. And because of the work that I was making, I thought it was a year to really go. And I had a good experience there. It was expensive and you know, it is very cost prohibitive for so many people. But you know, if you treat it as like the sort of work vacation, you know, it makes sense. But you know, I can draw a few different connecting points from that 2008 portfolio review to a three person show that I had in 2018 and how. And how installs of that exhibition were used for my job application for CCA the next year. You know, like it's a 10 year journey. Leslie K. Brown, who used to be the executive director for the Photographic Resource center in Boston, his put me in a show in Boston and a PhD candidate studying photography saw my work and wrote my name down in a notebook and said that once they became a curator somewhere they were going to put my work in a show. And they did. And you know, like, yeah, that's such a wild thing.
Yeah, no, but it's the way the world works. So just, you know, getting out there, meeting people, being as pleasant as you can possibly be, you know, someone who people want to work with and be around and, you know, good things will happen. Just get out there. I know so many artists or young artists who, you know, just feel like they have to have all their ducks in a row before they sort of announce themselves publicly or what. It's. You don't just get out there in all its messy incarnation of life and present yourself to the world and meet people and talk and don't wait for everything to line up perfectly because it never does. That's the thing. It just takes whatever route it's going to and you know, you never know how the dominoes are going to fall on. You know, just be in the world and be excited and passionate and you know, things will happen. Listen, we have gone long. So I think we to need. I need to wrap up. But it's been so wonderful talking to you and hearing about just an incredible life in photography and still so young as far as I'm concerned, compared to me. But, you know, so many more great things to come from you. But I'm just, you know, such an admirer of everything you're doing and the way you've put this incredibly interesting life in photography together. So thank you so much for spending time today.
Well, thank you so much, Sasha. I really appreciate it. It means quite a lot to be on the show with you.
Well, the honor was mine and Michael Chovendalton's and the rest of the team were really excited to have. You know, we've been chasing you for quite a while now, so.
Yeah, I know. I appreciate. I appreciate y' all accommodating my schedule.
Of course. Well, it was worth the wait and look forward to seeing you one of these days back in the city. And until then, I send you my very best and thank you again.
Yeah, well, thank you, Sasha. Take care.
Okay, you too. Bye.
Photo Work with Sasha Wolff is a production of the Photo Work Foundation. Executive producer is Sasha Wolf and the associate producers are Taylor Selsbach and Noah Lynn. 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 PhotoArch foundation and be sure to subscribe and review with all the stars on your listening platform.