interview

“Literature is one way to remember that everybody else is suffering and that your imagination has to take in their suffering and their motives. If you really grant everybody mercy, you will get to the bottom of the truth.”—Steve Almond, in our interview on storytelling.

“I didn’t set out to make this work with the mission for it to be therapeutic. It occurred organically, step-by-step. An awareness would hit me that I’ve got shit I need to deal with here, and then again here.”—Elizabeth Clark Libert, in our interview on raising boys as a woman.

“A lot of the expression in my work comes from the isolation of motherhood. […] I’m bearing witness and I have a real desire to give those moments the same type of importance as a presidential portrait or a great war battle.”—Lupita Carrasco, in our interview on caregiving and creation.

“When you do something very important, you change deeply and it’s impossible to go back. Every cell in your body is changed. This is why you have to be prepared.”—Pierre Liebaert, in our interview on rituals.

“There is no artist mother paradigm. So, when I, as a middle-aged woman, make art, people assume it’s my nice hobby. They don’t take me seriously because it’s not a paradigm that we celebrate or that’s particularly visible, culturally. But being an artist mother is an identity that, once it’s articulated, people feel very strongly.”—Hettie Judah, on the artist mother identity.

“I have to be creative on demand, because if I mess up an assignment then I’m probably not going to get a callback. That editor, or that publication, is not going to hire me again. And that is a very stark reality of photography, right? You have to be at your optimal all the time.”—Dina Litovsky, on being creative on demand.

“What gives me the right to be able to do this? And, what gives me the right to be able to go about it in the way that I expect to go about it?”—Anthony Luvera, in our interview about about collaborative process and his co-created book, Frequently Asked Questions.

“State-created realities are designed to perpetuate power by those who hold it, no matter who is in office.”—Debi Cornwall, in our interview about her forthcoming photobook, Necessary Fictions.

“You have to be able to live with the work. Some images, if they reveal too much, you just don’t fancy living with them.”—Alicja Dobrucka, in our interview about her photobook, I like you, I like you a lot.

“When you give yourself over to the inactive state, you’re also giving yourself over to an internal roaming. Without that, there really isn’t a capacity for surprise, for discovery, for actually learning something new about yourself or the world.”—Josh Cohen, in our interview about his new book Not Working.