Transcript for Episode 151 – Photographer, Professor, + Curator, Tema Stauffer (Tennessee, USA)

Recorded February 6, 2021
Published March 2, 2021

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/photographer-professor-curator-tema-stauffer-tennessee-usa/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
The wise fool is supported in part by an EA grande from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, in an effort to work together for a green, competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners hunt kassner in Prague, Czech Republic, and Coons sent Rene in Norgay in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes. Could you please pronounce your name correctly? For me?

Tema Stauffer 0:42
Yes. It’s Thomas Stouffer.

Matthew Dols 0:44
What heritage is that

Tema Stauffer 0:47
it is Eastern European. It is a place in Ghana, Africa, it’s mentioned in the bible means theme. And it’s Italian and Spanish. It’s a lot of things, but none of them really have have anything to do with me. It’s just a name that my mom heard. And like she was a teacher, one of her students was named Thomas. So that’s how I got the name.

Matthew Dols 1:06
Well, which lends perfectly to my next question, which is basically tell me your background like so where are your parents creative? Like, how did you come to being a creative person?

Tema Stauffer 1:17
My father’s a sociology or retired sociology professor and my mom, I would say she’s creative. She did not have a practice. But she, she was a very prolific reader, and she’s very interested in arts and culture. And so my parents got me enrolled in art classes from an early age, I was always interested in art from, you know, the, as early as I can remember. And so about, I don’t know, even ages three or four, I started taking art classes at the local art center in my hometown, which is Kalamazoo, Michigan. You know, in the beginning, I was taking ceramics and drawing and painting and so on. And But yeah, I was I always had a passion for art. And I also played the violin. Starting at five years old, I played Suzuki violin and I was a big reader. So it was, you know, I was I was headed headed down that path from from early on.

Matthew Dols 2:10
Yeah. Wow. It just reminded me I played the violin at one point in my life, but that was just school mandated thing.

Tema Stauffer 2:16
Yeah. Well, that, you know, it’s interesting, because, I mean, I liked playing the violin, but my, my greater passion was visual art. So sort of sometimes practicing the violin. For me, it was more of more enforced and making art was more by choice.

Matthew Dols 2:33
As it all starts that way. So now these days, like so I did a little research on you, of course, the you are a teacher, you are a practicing photographer. So you make your own series of works. You are a curator, and you also do writing, but which I want to hear a little bit more about the writing also. Is that correct?

Tema Stauffer 2:57
Yes, though, I now that I’m teaching full time at East Tennessee State University. My main focus during the past few years has been on on you know, making my photographic projects and on teaching. So I did a lot of arts writing. Ahead of moving down to Tennessee in 2017. I lived in New York City for nine years. And for a good part of that time I was I was doing arts writing for various publications there. I worked for art’s website called culture Hall. And I wrote about national photo exhibitions for American photo magazine and some other publications and writing for American photo carried into when I left New York to move to Montreal for my first full time teaching position at Concordia. And then that publication ended sort of Midway during my three years there. And so I did one article for French Canadian arts magazine called I’m gonna, I’m not gonna say it right in French, but silvera faryab, or something like that. Anyway, wrote an article about a French Canadian photographer. That was the last assignment that I did. And I actually haven’t been doing writing assignments since I moved down here, but it is definitely a part of my history.

Matthew Dols 4:13
Okay. Well, I mean, I’ve been a professor, I worked at a couple different places throughout the United States. We’re moving to the Middle East, and of course, now in Prague. So what how is teaching in the United States going right now?

Tema Stauffer 4:26
Well, I’ve been on lines for almost a year. So the second half of my spring semester shifted to zoom and I’ve been living on zoom living and teaching on zoom, you know, for almost a year now, but it’s actually going smoothly. I had, I had thought it was gonna be a harder transition than it actually has been. And, you know, I’ve been happy to experience that, you know, teaching photography classes, at least some of them online, may not be as hard as other disciplines. And, you know, I do think the pandemic is over. So really fueled a lot of creativity and my students. So I felt like I saw really powerful and exceptional work in the fall that was that was influenced by their experiences. So it’s actually been, it’s actually been positive.

Matthew Dols 5:15
So what kind of classes like I’ve taught online for, like basic introductory photography and that kind of stuff. But like, I feel like you’d like, like maybe like level one, maybe level two, potentially online. But when you get to higher, more specialized things, I feel like there might be a lot of difficulty.

Tema Stauffer 5:32
Well, I think it would be very challenging to try to, like, for example, we have a color photography class here and that, in that class, students shoot on film, and they scan film on our amicon scanner. So that wouldn’t be a class that we would offer right now, because it’s just simply impossible. But I taught intermediate photo in the fall, which is a, you know, intermediate level course. And it actually went smoothly. I mean, the the main thing that’s eliminated from the course, obviously, is printing, because the students don’t have access to our visual Resource Center, where we have our printers, I mean, they they are able to go in, but I don’t have the expectation that they’re printing their assignments, and we view all their assignments online. But there were some actually advantages of online teaching that I felt like I discovered that took them on four virtual field trips in the fall semester. And there were things that were accessible through zoom that we might not have been able to do, because of the locations where these things were taking place, for example, to where artists talks of artists based in Asheville, North Carolina, in one was a conversation with a documentary photographer and filmmaker Rachel Boyer, who’s in another part of Tennessee, and the other was with a while the other one was on campus, that journey and curator of exhibition called the Fletcher exhibit the Rijksmuseum on campus, he spoke with us and gave us a virtual tour of the exhibition that he curated. So did kind of expand possibilities as well. And that’s something that was really cool to discover. And then I think I can also carry with me, even when returned to the classroom, that there’s now we know what what zoom can offer and even continue to bring that to the classroom?

Matthew Dols 7:18
Well, it’s difficult. I mean, these times are difficult, for sure. But I mean, it’s still also academia. So there’s certain like rubrics and standards and things that are sort of set by state governments, whatever that make it. So you still have to meet certain criteria. They still exist, right?

Tema Stauffer 7:36
Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the class is not that, you know, it’s not that dissimilar dissimilar from the class that I’m teaching classroom aside from not printing, I mean, they’re still they have the same shooting assignments for these classes, same number of prints same expectations in that area, but they’re uploading their images to a system, we have called t to L, and we’re conducting these critiques online, but the content of the classes, aside from, you know, eliminating the printing component, otherwise, it’s it’s essentially the same course. And I’ve actually felt that I also thought critiques might not be as I don’t know, somehow as substantive as they are in the classroom. But that’s not really been the case. I feel like we’ve had some really engaging conversations, I feel like I’ve been able to get to know my students and connect to them. So it’s, you know, again, it’s it’s been a largely positive experience, when, of course, I look forward to returning to the classroom. But but it’s it’s definitely gone better than I had had kind of fear that my might

Matthew Dols 8:38
write Yeah, I had low expectations. So it exceeded that exceeded my expectations a lot, actually. Yeah. That’s good. All right. Well, somebody else I noticed about you throughout your career, you seem to have gotten a lot of grants and awards and this kind of stuff. I’m always a little bit dubious specifically of like competitions that give awards and things like that. So like, what have been some of your experiences with the whole, like, entering competitions for and receiving awards?

Tema Stauffer 9:07
Well, I mean, it’s certainly I can something consider essential part of having a, you know, professional career in the arts, you can’t really do that, and in a sense without entering juried competitions and various opportunities for artists. And certainly you need grant support, you know, in some cases to make to launch projects and realize projects. And so I mean, for every award or grants that I’ve actually received, there’s just so many others that I’ve applied for that haven’t received and that’s part of the process too. And that’s actually something that I really try to bring into the classroom to my students early on. And as soon as our students are kind of at an intermediate level and say I have an expectation that they start practicing, applying for various opportunities for artists and showing evidence of these submissions, you know, I did that I Concordia and quite a number of students actually were successful in getting their work exhibited or receiving awards. And I’ve definitely brought that to Tsu. And also with my, you know, we have a small number of graduate students here. And that’s something that’s an expectation with graduate students as well as the undergraduate students. So it’s, it’s just it’s part of, I mean, making your work is, you know, maybe half of the equation, I think of being an artist and figuring out, how do you get this work exhibited? How do you get this work funded? That’s, that’s, you know, equally important.

Matthew Dols 10:37
Yes, that’s what I’m asking you. Yeah. Help Help me out, well, what are some of the tips and tips I guess it gets?

Tema Stauffer 10:48
First of all, the more you apply, the more options you apply for it, you know, that enhances your chance of getting any, this is just simply, you know, the more work you put into it, the more the greater likelihood of some award, it’s always kind of a surprise to me, in a sense, like, you know, I might apply for 10 things, and I only get one, but because I applied for 10 things, I got that one thing, and then that one thing helps open the door to the next thing, because really, you’re sort of as you build more of a CV, and you have more of a record of achieving more of an exhibition record or more of a record of achieving awards or receiving grants, the more that those who are looking and valuating see the evidence that you’re able to take that next step and go to another level, and you’re more likely to receive the next thing more often as you as you build, you know, a stronger CV, certainly. And yeah, what else was gonna say about this?

Matthew Dols 11:47
Yeah, but wait, let’s get into like a finite thing. Because I’m from America, I was raised American and taught in the American art system. However, now I live in Europe, and I see a very dramatic difference between the approach to let’s say, grants, the, in America, I felt like now maybe I misinterpreted that’s what I felt like my teachers were teaching me to like, be my be a cheerleader say this work is amazing. His work is great, it should be funded. And this is why and it was like you were writing a convincing argument to receive the grant. Whereas here in Europe, I have been speaking with many people and talking and then even applying for some, and they do not want that under any circumstances. It’s just, this is what I’m doing. Do you like it? Please fund it there?

Tema Stauffer 12:37
Well, I’m not aware of that dichotomy. I do know, for for one thing there. You know, in many European countries, there’s a lot more government funding for artists. So you know, in the United States, well, you know, I lived in Canada for three years, and there was, you know, vastly more funding from the Canadian government for artists working there. So it’s just comment many, many artists, peers, regularly receiving grants for their work, I think it’s very competitive and United States is not as much money coming from the government. So they’re, the grants for artists are far further between and they are highly competitive. I guess, as a teacher, I would say, I, you know, it’s not that I mean, that my primary focus as a teacher is to talk about the bodies of work that students are making, help them grow in that body work and not and give them both, you know, constructive, positive feedback, but critical feedback as well. And really, I think, you know, you, you start to think it’s important to practice, applying for opportunities. It’s not the main focus for me with an undergraduate students, but I want them to be familiar with that process. The more important thing, really, in school, I think, is to be developing strong enough work to them, when you leave school, you know, maybe apply to graduate school, and then, you know, enter the art world and then continue to figure out how to keep this work going. But yeah, I mean, I think it is important to kind of understand even early on in education, that being an artist is a lot more than just making our work. And then it is a it is a profession, and it has a set of of it’s it’s hard work, there are a lot of, you know, obligations that are outside of you know, just the the creative aspect of making the work. You have to you have to figure out, you know, how are you going to get this work seen and and how are you going to build a community just extremely important, and how are you going to sort of understand the right kinds of venues and where your work fits into the art world. So those are all things that I think are important to talk about early on as

Matthew Dols 14:46
well. Certainly, all of those topics are important, but okay, you brought up the term sort of body of work. I’m fascinated with this because I also do portfolio reviews online. That’s one In my many jobs that I do, and I feel that a lot of people are really bad with editing, when they’re bad with editing as far as like sequencing, choosing the right images, making them somehow visually what I call sort of cohesive, so like, they don’t have to, like, look the same, but at least they’re speaking the same visual language kind of thing. That’s unique in that series of work. But the the thing that I want to know is like, what are some of your ideas of like, what makes for a good body of work?

Tema Stauffer 15:33
Right? Well, that’s, I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s actually so the I think that comment you made about trying to make a body of work cohesive is really important. And that’s also something as a teacher, that I try to stress early on. So for example, even an introductory like digital photo, one course, the students do various assignments, technical assignments in the beginning to learn the basics of, you know, operating their camera and making exposures and understanding light and shadow and so on, like these various assignments to understand the principles of photography, but the second half of the semester, they create a final project, and they actually write a short proposal. And the expectation is that it’ll be a cohesive series of photographs, and they choose the theme of that final project. And then they make, say, 12 images that reflect that theme. So in my classes, I try to actually almost all the classes have a kind of final project, or, for example, even my intermediate photo course, they work on a single project the entire semester. And the expectation is that it’s a cohesive series of photographs. So I think that’s actually important to understand that you’re, you’re not just shooting images, but that you’re creating a meaningful body of work reflecting whatever theme I mean, I, there’s great freedom, you know, that my students in terms of what that that theme is and the style that they’re shooting at, and cetera, but, but I do think that that sense of cohesiveness is important to stress as a teacher.

Matthew Dols 17:02
Oh, certainly. I mean, yeah, I’m on your side, preaching to the choir here. But okay, but within that, like, what I find is difficult is this is like, Okay, so let’s say you make a body of work. 15 images, let’s say that’s it. That’s a good number, right? Yeah. Okay. The problem is, is like, when you apply for, let’s say, a grant, or a residency or a competition, you can’t submit all 15. Because they end up saying, like, Oh, you know, submit five, or three, or maybe even 10. But like, it’s, I feel like, like, we’re encouraged to create these bodies of work, but then we’re not able to submit for, you know, funding and support and all these things, you know, competitions, awards, whatever, the complete body of work. So like, that’s a very difficult balance, because I, you know, should we be making smaller bodies of work to fit the, the, to be able to create a beautiful submission to these things? Or is why i

Tema Stauffer 18:02
don’t think so i don’t think it’s about making a smaller body of work. I mean, I think you should make the body of work, however, it you know, needs to be made. And not even really with that in mind. But I think it’s about being able to make an edit of a selection from that body of work of not maybe not just thinking that, what are the strongest images, but what are the most important images that are going to reflect what you’re saying with this body of work that might be like, I need to cover these different areas of my body of work. So they understand that you know, what this body works. So for example, if there were a photo project where there were landscapes and portraits and interiors, and so on, which many photo projects include these different kinds of images, that you would want to show something to reflect each of those components of the larger body of work, but I don’t think it’s about trying to create a body of work that fits into a certain submission criteria. And also because the submission criteria range, as you noted, from, you know, various opportunities could be usually I would say it’s the the, the smallest number maybe is 10 tends to be 10 1215. Maybe the generally the most like 20 images. I mean, even when you’re applying for teaching positions, for example, and you’re putting together your application, generally 20 is the number of images of your work or student work so that that’s just part of the process, I think of being able to look at your own bodies of work and kind of highlight the most important images to include.

Matthew Dols 19:38
Okay, now, in combination with that statement, I have a long standing issue with statements and, and for that matter, even titles, because it’s really hard because like we all chose to go into the visual mediums because probably we’re not good writers. You know, we feel like we can express ourselves better through photography. Your painting or whatever other means we do. But yet, these days, we are obligated to also include some text to give context to the work to whatever. What do you how do you feel about that?

Tema Stauffer 20:13
I think it’s important. I mean, I think it’s important skill to develop as an artist to work on your ability to articulate your motivations and the themes of your work. And I think that’s, again, as a teacher, that’s something that I try to implement early on with, even in the intro classes, having them write these short proposals and statements that accompany their images, because I’m doing this in part because exactly as you said, this is going to be an expectation throughout their careers, artists, that they’re able, and if you if you want to apply for a grant, I mean, you you, you have to be able to talk about what is this work about? And why is this important? And really, is that convincing someone to fund it, but that it’s, it’s compelling that there’s a reason that, that it has clear themes or relevance just to so I think that it’s actually I mean, I think some some artists may not be good writers, but others might be and but regardless, everyone needs to, and even those who are good writers, I think everyone, almost everyone finds it harder to write about their own work to write these statements then, than any anyone else. It’s like, no, I, you know, I’ve written about hundreds of other artists work. And yet, you know, I mean, it’s gotten easier for me over time to write about my work, because I’ve done it more and more, but I used to find it just incredibly challenging. But I think it’s just practice and experiences, the only way to kind of overcome that, and it is important. So you know, if there are blocks with that, it’s just something that I think artists need to continue to work on. And also get good feedback. For other people, I mean, even get help, we’re trying to encourage students to do is try to be objective to about their work in a way that they can like write about, sort of step back from the work and write about, you know, the, in a way, describe the work as though you’re, you know, making somebody who can’t see it, be able to see it and understand it, like, you know, well, what is this about? Who is this about? Where was this taken just a fact, actually factual things that should be addressed and communicated as well, sometimes I find these statements are can be, you know, too abstract, but it should, it should be something that if someone who’s not looking at the word can read the statement, they have a clear, you know, vision of what this project is about, in my opinion,

Matthew Dols 22:41
okay, now, but within that, my things that I keep running into, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging other people for this, because I am as guilty of it as everybody else. So when I go to write my statements, I always fall into a realm of sort of one of two things. And often when I read statements, when I’m doing like reviews, and even students works and stuff like this, it’s either way too broad, and sort of like they’re trying to do this universal thing that like everybody can understand. And it but yet nobody understands. Or it’s incredibly specific to the point that Well, nobody understands, because it’s so uniquely specific to just them and their experiences, that it doesn’t resonate very well. So like, how do you find both for yourself for your own artwork, as well as assisting students to find that like, beautiful balance of not too broad and not too specific?

Tema Stauffer 23:36
Well, yeah, again, I mean, you know, with with my own projects, I guess I also like it, as I give that advice, I also try to step back and sort of break down what are the themes of this body of work? How am I going to describe that in concrete, language, country language, it and somehow also communicate, you know, my, my motivations for making this body of work, and I sometimes write my statements in a third person. So it’s not, you know, all I know, but that this body of work, this series, addresses exams, explores something and then I sort of talked about the series, in a way is something separate for me, sometimes I think the part of what can can actually be difficult is when it’s you think you’re writing almost like about yourself like that. You have to just say who you are, as an artist, and I have increasingly tried to say this, it’s not really about me, it’s about this work. It’s about and I’ve made different bodies of work, and they, they share themes, they’re connected, but they’re unique bodies of work. And so I’m trying to describe what the bodies of work are about which is sort of separate than kind of expressing in a sense who I am as an artist, but how is this body of work? communicating that. Interesting. Okay,

Matthew Dols 25:03
so when we’re talking about your work now, you were also represented by No, I saw three different art galleries. Is that correct? Well,

Tema Stauffer 25:09
I am currently represented by Sasha wolf projects in New York. And in New York City and Tracy Morgan gallery in Asheville, North Carolina, I have previously worked with a number of other galleries, but those are currently the two galleries that I’m working with. And in fact, Sasha Wolf, no longer has a physical space, but she continues to represent artists and a myriad of ways. Okay,

Matthew Dols 25:33
so what my question then leads to is that you’ve done a number of different series of works that are different topics, in different formats and different things like this. When it comes to working with a gallery, like how do they love it, when you just like, say, you know, what I’m gonna, I know you love this, and it’s sold really well, but I’m gonna do a completely different thing.

Tema Stauffer 25:56
Well, definitely, whether my work is sellable or not. So it was not really an issue for me. I mean, I just I make my bodies of work. And there’s literally no thought given in that process to whether that work would sell or not, I think it’s very unpredictable. Which what work is going to sell and why and so on. And those aren’t for me. Now, I’m not saying they’re not for many other artists. But you know, I’m not even trying to make a living, in a sense from from selling work. And I make a living primarily as a teacher and through, I’m actually more focused on funding my projects, through through grants, and so on. So when a for me, it’s sort of a happy surprise when an artwork sells, but that’s not how I’m trying to make a living. But I’m also the place where I do have a, you know, full time teaching position, so that that’s kind of a luxury in a way to not to not have that pressure on my artwork to have to support me. So, you know, it happens at times and it but it’s not, that’s not even remotely consideration to what what work I make. And some of my images have been maybe in a conventional sense, more or less, you know, likely to sell for the reasons that things sell. But, again, that that’s not, that’s not a consideration for Wait, I’m

Matthew Dols 27:19
sorry, do you know why things sell? Because I’m not sure what that trick is?

Tema Stauffer 27:23
Oh, I mean, I don’t know. I mean, some, you know, I don’t want to make big generalizations about that. But I think it even will just talk in my own work. I think there’s certain pieces that, you know, could live with people in their, in their, you know, domestic spaces a lot easier than others, you know, or I don’t know, you know, it’s just again, it’s not, it’s not really my head’s not even really there in terms of like, those kind of considerations about the saleability of of the work. I mean, I hope for the gallerist sake, especially that, you know, work that’s exhibited, will sell that I mean, but more importantly, to me, it’s just that work will be recognized and appreciated. And, and that it will be and I you know, I mean, I think I’m in it, without getting into a lot of detail. I mean, I had a exhibit in New York, that that both the garrison, I knew ahead, this is not a body of work, that’s going to be easy to sell. And I credit her with exhibiting that body of work anyway, because she cared about it, she was willing to kind of exhibit this work. And there were, there were other kinds of recognition that for me, personally, were more meaningful, which was the, you know, it was reviewed in the New Yorker and other publications, and it was, you know, project I worked on for five years. And so it was, but but it was work, that would be you know, some of it So, but it is more challenging to so.

Matthew Dols 28:58
But that’s a luxury of having a full time teaching job.

Tema Stauffer 29:01
That is a luxury, I’m aware of that. And so I don’t want I mean, I think many artists are trying to, and should be, you know, are trying to make a living from their pieces, and that they need to maybe take kind of commercial considerations more into account. And I mean, some artists, even if they’re not showing galleries are trying to sell their work in many ways. Now, even through the internet, you know, through Instagram, or through there’s so many other ways of trying to market your work now. And so, yeah, and I’m all for artists, you know, making a living, you know, through their artwork. You know, I went down a teaching path for many reasons. I mean, I love teaching, but also it’s, you know, it’s pretty clear to me early on that it wasn’t sort of realistic to imagine, just, you know, living as an artist and selling working galleries, and that that was realistic or sustainable. So, and I also didn’t, I think, you know, I lived in New York for nine years. And did a little bit of editorial work not a lot, a little bit, but I also realized that wasn’t really the path for me either. So I continue to kind of move towards, you know, understanding that, that my passion is in education, and that, you know, progressively I was able to, you know, support myself as an artist at through teaching, and that that was a happy solution, and that I could make my work and, and seek funding, I still seek funding my I apply for grants every year. And that’s important too, but I am more focused on on seeking funding through grants, then then, you know, the sort of commercial aspect of selling,

Matthew Dols 30:39
I’m not judging you at all, like you are literally living the life that I lead, which is, you know, going through schooling, in order to be a teacher, that was my life plan, which got screwed up, for various reasons, some of my own doing some of other people’s doings. But anyways, so I mean, the idea of being, you know, being sort of a practicing artist, and having your full time job, so that basically, you can do any project you want, versus having that, that add pressure of the sales, that having to sell is very freeing in so many ways. Like, I mean, when I had my full time job teaching, I could literally just make whatever I wanted. And if it worked great, they made me that that sense of security that came from the job, made me more free to experiment and try different things and lead me down paths that I never would have been able to achieve. If I had tried to be a sales based marketing artist.

Tema Stauffer 31:47
Yeah, I mean, they’re there. I mean, academia has its own pressures, I think you are, you’re right, that, you know, that there, there are certain freedom about the that, that you feel about the kind of work that you want to make. But academia also has, you know, the pressures of you have to perform, you have to finish projects, you have to exhibit projects, you have to, you know, show an exhibition record and a show record of, you know, various accomplishments to keep those positions, you know, so that was, you know, something just progressively I sort of came to understand the kind of, what are the expectations of academia? And how do you sort of fit into the, this is the world that I’m really gonna try to be in and stay in? And that’s, you know, not easy. And what are what are those pressures? And those are the pressures I feel more heavily then, you know, I may be a little deal a little less pressure from the commercial art world, but you know, I certainly feel the the pressures of the academic environment.

Matthew Dols 32:53
Oh, god, yes. They went out my last school they started using was it Scopus or something like that for not familiar with the, it’s, I don’t know, it’s some sort of, like, online thing, the tracks, academic journals, and they were trying to make us be more like active in journals. And I’m like, but I’m an artist. Right? Things like we have exhibitions. And so my, my point total look like shit, because like, I have tons of exhibitions, but No, none of these sort of standard University quality, quantifiable outcomes that they come to expect.

Tema Stauffer 33:30
Yeah, I mean, I got, like I said, I got a lot, I did a lot of writing for a long time ahead of entering full time teaching. So I actually do like writing and have practice that it’s so long that I’m more comfortable with the, you know, expectations of writing within an academic environment. But again, I know that’s something that, you know, many artists would would love to not not have to deal with.

Matthew Dols 33:57
Very true. Now, Okay, wait, when you write are you doing like art criticism?

Tema Stauffer 34:02
I haven’t actually published art writing in these few years that I’ve been in my position at East Tennessee State University, but I had that the kinds of art writing and I did for four years, I was a writer and curator for what was called an online resource for temporary article cultural Hall, which no longer exists. But I wrote essays about various international artists work and they were these essays were they’re called feature issues. And they were on the homepage then revolved every couple months on the homepage, featuring different artists working sort of making connections they were the feature issues were surrounding that theme. So I would talk about four artists whose work reflected that specific theme. And then, after that ended, I started writing for American photo magazine, as I mentioned, and I wrote about national photo exhibitions for a feature called on the wall. So I wasn’t it wasn’t Criticism in the sense that I actually didn’t see these exhibitions, I was researching exhibitions that were going to open or at the time that the that particular issue would come out. And it was hi highlighting, you know, what’s out there right now in the United States and photography. So I would spend, you know, hours and hours just kind of researching galleries websites across America, and finding what the, you know, press releases and information about these upcoming exhibitions. And then I would create these kind of short paragraph, you know, just features about what’s going to be out there at the time when American photo published that issue. So it was sort of saying, you know, this is what’s out there right now on the wall, basically. And that was really fun. And then I wrote, I did a number of interviews with various photographers. And then one of the most interesting assignments I had for American photo was when I was still living in Montreal, I went to Toronto for an exhibition called The Outsiders about American photographers and filmmakers from I think it’s 1950 to 1980. So some of the greats like Diane Arbus, and Gordon Parks, and so on, and Danny Lyon, and many others. And I interviewed the CO curators of an exhibition, Sophie Hackett, who’s the Director of Photography at the it’s called the agio, Art Gallery of Ontario and Jim shatin. And that was a really exciting assignment, I, you know, very memorable and to see such an incredible exhibition and to interview these two kind of brilliant minds, and then they’ll let you know, I said, as I said, the last article that I published was for the Canadian magazine, and I met with a photographer at a gallery in Montreal, and he did black and white street photography in Montreal for decades. And we talked about his work, and then I wrote, so that was, I mean, what I really enjoyed about a lot of those writing assignments, the interviews and so on, just you know, connecting to other photographers and understanding their work better, and then, you know, articulating my thoughts about it, but I do enjoy writing. And it’s something I do miss a little bit that you know, but I have been giving so much energy to my teaching position, and to my my own body of work that I’m building right now. So, you know, I’d be happy to have opportunities down the road to write again, I may pursue that, but I’ve been very, very focused on you know, this, this chapter of, you know, this is my fourth year at Tsu. And, and I’ve been developing, you know, the first year I published my first book, Upstate. And when that ended, I began new body of work called Southern fiction. And that’s, that’s taken up, you know, a lot of my focus and energy.

Matthew Dols 37:55
The reason why I was asking about writing was because I had this thing where I sort of believe, like, criticism is becoming more difficult. I don’t feel like there’s as much intellectual quality criticism being given, because a lot of people feel like these days, like criticism is basically how many likes do you have on Instagram right

Tema Stauffer 38:18
now, that’s a good point. I think that’s that, like, we do live in a world now. So driven and dominated by social media, and that I think people’s focus is there and that the kind of response to artwork is, as you said, likes and that’s amazing or something, but not a you know, like, it’s not it’s not you know, it’s it’s, it’s very different than a serious piece of critical writing about work, obviously, not that I mean, of course, people can post links on social media that take their, you know, audience to writing about their work, but you know, yeah, I think it there. There are some wonderful things about social media and some, you know, clearly some really negative things about social media as well. Like we’re all grappling with that all the time. It’s kind of obliterated my attention span in some ways it’s like you know, your your daily consuming these like short bursts of information. And you know, I feel like it i to be able to focus on you know, reading a book for a few hours. It’s something I I know that it’s my own ability to concentrate has been impacted by the experience of social media over over time.

Matthew Dols 39:39
Not just that, but my memory is worse because, like, I could one look at something I don’t know scrolling through Instagram, and I like, Oh, that’s really beautiful. And I look at it, and literally like 30 seconds later, I forgot I ever saw it. Because I just was just so tired. All the time. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, cuz I, countless, I’m always like, Oh, you know what I need to remember to show this to a friend. And like three days later, I won’t even remember what the thing was, I just be like, there was something I was going to show you, but I can’t remember what exactly, and it was something on some social media platform somewhere and so like mine, not only is my attention span shorter, but my memory is worse. Yeah, there’s just so much to look at in it. And of course, it’s not a negative thing. But like, there’s so much that looks very similar, that it’s very difficult to also sometimes differentiate like, oh, that came from this person, not this organization, or whatever.

Tema Stauffer 40:39
Yeah, and I think it’s also it’s a sort of inherently, you know, kind of strange space, because many of my communities in the, in the social media spheres, which for me is, is Facebook and Instagram, many of them are artists, and I’m interested in seeing, you know, news about their work and snapshots. So, you know, as well, and so on. But we’re also it’s a space where that’s mixed in with all your other connections, images of all kinds of other things and all kinds of other experiences. So it’s just, it’s a kind of inherently odd space of just the the kind of, you know, various forms of content that coexist in in this environment,

Matthew Dols 41:26
well, then the algorithm is also feeding you that loop of like, Hey, you like this, here’s some more of it. So like, you end up more of what you already like. And so it’s this sort of self serving loop that you end up seeing pretty much the same thing over and over, because the, the algorithm thinks that’s what you like, which quite honestly, oftentimes, if you use it, right, is what you like. So that works. Alright, circling back to the topic you brought up before that I want to know about so what, as I said, Your series of works are reasonably like disparate, like, so like, you have like a series about this, and then a series in a completely different location. And as you said before, there’s sort of a common thread between them and sort of all says it was made by you, it’s of your morals, your ethics, your ethos, your vouvray kind of thing, but like, but the question is, like, how do you choose the topic so that you know, when you go from when you especially like, when you finish a series, let’s say, so that you just published a book a couple years ago? So like, when you’re done, and it’s that big, and you’ve completed that? How do you go? Okay, and the next thing is going to be this right?

Tema Stauffer 42:34
Yeah. So that’s, that’s a good question. So I’ll start saying, When I finished about a work, at the end of my time in New York City, that was my Patterson series, a series of street portraits I worked on, in the years following the economic crisis, and that I’ve worked out at Paterson, New Jersey. So when I finished shooting that towards the end of my chapter in New York, and then it was exhibited a year, a year later in New York City, but they moved to Montreal. And then I was sort of in that about I, it took me about a year and a half, actually, when that Paterson project ended, and then my new upstate body of work began. And it was I think, it took a while, partly because I had transitioned to live in another country. And I initially was sort of thinking, am I gonna make a new project here in Montreal, and I did actually shoot, it was not a say, personal project. But I did shoot a series of photographs of homeless shelters in Montreal, the second summer, I was there for a larger kind of collaborative project of re exploring homelessness. He was called where do you sleep and exempted city Oh, but that but in terms of actually making a personal project, it took me a while. And I kind of realized that I have talked about this in our talks, too, that I became more aware of how central you know, the focus about America is to all my bodies of work, and that I wasn’t feeling sort of capable of making, you know, a long term project about I didn’t sort of connect enough to the environment. I mean, I connected in different ways I connected with students, I connected with the academic community, but I didn’t feel that I could, that you know, sort of launching a long term project there. So I was kind of grappling and struggling with that for a while and then, but I was my home base while I was living in Montreal, the United States was, was outside of Hudson, New York, my former partners, and live there and I used to when I would have my I am away from teaching. That’s where I spent most of my time and I also I had immediately even when I was living in New York City was when I had started going up there to in that environment really had resonated with me, no, sort of in the back of my head. I might sort of develop project here, but I had diddly started in the fall sort of end of fall of 2015. It did connect to me to Patterson though it’s different some ways there there are connections as well. I mean, I’m talking about kind of post industrial America and to very, very historic parts of, you know, the northeast part of this content in this country. The focus of my Patterson project was entirely on people. It’s entirely in a portrait series, and that there are a few portraits in upstate series, but it is kind of broader about the kind of Rise and Fall of Hudson’s economy over the know, a couple 100 years, actually. And so I was really interested in that history of Hudson. So I kind of jumped in, you know, like I said, at the end of the fall 2015, and just started, I had taken a lot snapshots there before, but started working with my film camera, and it took a while to kind of figure out, where is this project going. And like, I think most projects do, you don’t really know, in the beginning in it, oh, it only takes shaper, you know, you start to understand it through the process of making it and that’s, you know, what happened in this case, and then sort of I began to try to sort of merge different important aspects of that location, specific things about the landscape, and about the industrial history, and about kind of social economic issues that are relevant to their area. And I mean, did a lot of exploring just spending hours and hours and hours driving around and revisiting locations. And so I worked on that project from that, I mean, I finished shooting it in the winter in the December 2017, or January, sorry, January, very early January 2018. And I knew at that point, I had connected with daylight books, right, as I was starting my teaching position in the fall 2017. And they had asked me if I want to publish a book with them, and I, of course, it you know, it was excited about it, yes. And, and that was launching in the fall of 2018. So I finished the project in the winner. And then work spent the rest of the year working on all the you know, many things that you need to do to prepare to realize about your work in and a book publication as well as it was also there for solo exhibitions, beginning in fall of 2018 of that body work. So I was also producing large scale exhibition prints of that, but he worked a lot of 2018, for me was focused on the book coming out and the shows happening, but it’s going it’s kind of stepping back in terms of my current body of work and the seeds of that idea. That was actually the fastest like conception of any photo project I think I’ve ever done. In my last spring in Montreal, when I accepted the position that he Tsu and knew that I was anticipating, you know, this move to the south or southeast, I kind of immediately had this idea just it just kind of came to me that I wanted to explore this the south through the kind of framework of of where the, you know, sort of Great Southern writers had lived and worked during the 20th century. And it just kind of immediately even before I left Montreal, I was already researching this. And there was a website that I found right off the bat called Southern literary trails. And I started researching where these writers live so that that seed was already there before I even moved to Tennessee. However, because of my focus on finishing the Upstate project and exhibiting and publishing, it wasn’t till the following summer, they actually started and the first trip that I made for that project was a trip to Milledgeville, Georgia where I photographed I visited Flannery O’Connor’s house and photographed outside her house that first time and I’ve since gone back and photographed inside though I those are not included in the project. But the one of the early images they shot that that summer is in the project, and that’s of the horse barn on on Andalusia form which is the state that she lived out and sort of later part of her life more where she died and where she wrote some of her greatest work. I’ve made many trips to Milledgeville and also more recently eatonton, which is very close to Milledgeville, and that’s where Alice Walker was born, raised. And so they actually were in very close proximity to one another. And then I’ve made you know, maybe close to 1520 road trips over the course of these almost three years to different parts of Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama, to visit a number of other writers like locales like Eudora Welty and William Faulkner and Richard Wright and an Alabama party Partly attributed podi were actually childhood friends. I grew up in this tiny town called Monroeville and I’ve photographed around there as well. So

Matthew Dols 50:11
yeah, in cold blood was my first book I ever read cover to cover. Oh, yeah. Well, it’s it’s a great one. Yeah. morbid start on reading books. But nonetheless, that was my first book. Yeah, but Okay, wait. So wait, I want to go back a second though. Because Okay, so your Hudson Valley series, or Hudson, it’s called Upstate. The Hudson Valley has been painted and photographed and worked on so much that like, the thing that I wonder about, and when I think about that is like, okay, the Hudson Valley is breathing, documented and painting and whatever other mediums for centuries? So the question is, like, when you decide to do a project about a topic or a location that is has been done before? How do you find the way to make it somehow special, like unique to your vision? Especially when it’s something that’s already been done?

Tema Stauffer 51:03
Yeah, I mean, so I was very conscious of the tradition of the Hudson school painter, as well as working on his project, I think there’s one I actually visited a lot a number of times, and there’s one low key, there’s one particular image where I actually wanted to incorporate a view of the river, that would be the same perspective, in a sense that the Hudson River painters would have portrayed to acknowledge that tradition, however, I feel like the themes of my work are actually quite different. And that that style of painting is very romantic. And there’s kind of a, an idealized, you know, vision of this incredibly stunning landscapes. Absolutely beautiful. But that wasn’t the focus of my work was the simple, you know, like the the beauty. I mean, I incorporate some of that beauty in the images. But the things that I’m photographing in, like, the factories, and the, you know, the factory shacks, for example. I mean, that’s quite different, I think, then the focus of these landscape painters,

Matthew Dols 52:13
right, so you sort of take on the history of it, and sort of utilize it in some way, but

Tema Stauffer 52:20
honor it and understand that that that this is a beautiful region, and that it has been beautifully portrayed by other artists. But I’m trying to kind of even acknowledge that in the body work, but it’s also so very different. I think what like the focus is on on the Upstate series of photographs.

Matthew Dols 52:45
All right, that now, but that starts making me think about is, how many photos Do you take to make an essay? Because like, I’ve done everything, I used to shoot four by five. So like, when I would go out, I literally only had 24 shots, because that’s all the film olders I had. And then, of course, I’ve transitioned to doing digital where I just shoot hundreds and hundreds of photos, because we’ll Fuck it. They’re free. Why not? You know? Putting the time in the money, and all that. So, like, so I’m wondering sort of what’s your practice, like? So do you shoot a lot like me? Are you talking? 1000s

Tema Stauffer 53:23
Okay, so I’m entirely shooting film. And I sometimes I’m like, why am I doing this? Because it’s so much, you know, no sense extra work and money. And sometimes I just also want to say fuck it, and just you digital. But right now, I mean, I’m making this project on film, and I’m gonna finish this project on film. And then, you know, we’ll see in the, in the long term, I do love film. And, and but also with the Hudson, with the Upstate series, I thought was important. Well, both projects are so much about history. And I feel like I wanted to use what I think is a kind of more historical, you know, approach and shoot with, I’m shooting with four by five. And yeah, some of the Upstate was medium format film, and about half of it is medium format, and half of its four by five in this project, the southern fiction project is entirely four by five. And I do shoot a lot actually, and it gets really expensive and I’m shooting, you know, for every one for my five image and you know, there’s 20 or 30 or more that that don’t make or more even that don’t make the final cut that is a lot with and also with shooting 45 there, it’s a lot easier to make mistakes for things to go wrong. I’ve had, you know, light leaks and you know, just one thing after another after another, so there’s a lot of extra frustrations but there’s also something for me that’s extremely rewarding about the process that I really love. And and I think it does, there is a certain investment in making that one image and the experience of making that image with a four by five that, for me is quite different than if I were to just to do to shoot digitally and to shoot, you know, hundreds of pictures and not I can feel like well, a little more casual about it away. And I think I wanted to feel that kind of really hard work and investment and sort of precision and focus to to make each of these image both for the experience of that, but also for the final presentation of that to make these large scale prints that have the kind of you know, richness and detail and depth that you can accomplish. And not to say that you can’t get many of those things from Digital, especially, you know, the the higher end, you know, medium format, digital cameras, I think are great, too, but I don’t have one, but it may be something in my future. It’s I’m not, not entirely opposed. I’m I’m thinking about it, but I have been committed to film throughout my entire, you know, a couple decades of making work. Get a grant from the

Matthew Dols 55:59
school to buy what what I would do

Tema Stauffer 56:03
yeah, it’s not for me that I couldn’t figure out how to buy one. It’s just that I’m not ready to do it yet. But I’m not I might be at some point I do. I still I do love shooting for but but even you know, I just I had came back from a trip in the fall and ruined a bunch of four by five film that there I think, you know, it was a light leak. And I had to return to Mississippi to reshoot something I just, you know, reshot I photographed in November, and I went down there again, I was just like, wow, you know, like, if I were shooting this digitally, I know, right off the bat, you know that I got this, what it looks like, you know, it’s not all this. I mean, some of the mystery of getting your four by five film back is very exciting. And I love that too. But sometimes I just feel like, you know, why do I make things so hard on myself? Just to see what I got. And and that’s it, and I come home? And you know, so there’s, you know, there are advantages of both approaches? Are there things I’m attracted to about both approaches right now, but I’m certainly going to finish the southern fiction project on film. Because, you know, it’s almost done at this point. And I’ve shot the entire thing out film. So it’s, yeah, in no way shape, or form, am I trying to encourage you to go digital,

Matthew Dols 57:15
I love analog, I still shoot Polaroid if I can get it, like I mean, so like, I’m all for it. So, but it’s just an interesting difference that I noticed when I was shooting film, that you’re much more thoughtful, because you go okay, I only have 36 shots on this, or 12 shots or? Exactly, I only got 12 holders with me kind of thing like that. And so you’re very silly. You’re much more thoughtful and precise. And you’re more patient with the light and the little nuanced things that can be shot digital, like when you shoot it, you’re like, Oh, you know what, I can just fix that in post production or whatever.

Tema Stauffer 57:55
This is actually what I mean. Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. And so I’ve, I mean, you know, that’s we’re making a big generalization. I’m sure there’s a lot of, you know, people shooting digitally who are very invested in that single image and spend a lot of time with that. But I do think there is something, there’s something especially about shooting large format that just the, the time and patience it takes to set up and get everything in focus. I mean, you just you really have to kind of commit and make a lot of decisions for that single photograph. And I do like that I do value.

Matthew Dols 58:28
Now, I wish I had my four by five, but I don’t have it anymore, but I never actually owned one now that I think about I had one for 10 years, but that’s because somebody lent it to me and never asked for it back. So and then when I moved out of the country, I was like I should give it back to them. To be rude for me to leave the country with a borrowed camera. You mentioned daylight books. I’m always fascinated, of course, as mobiles, every artist and or photographer is fascinated like how does one connect with a book publisher and then get a book published?

Tema Stauffer 59:03
Right? Really important question too. So in this case, what happened is I had submitted images to one of their opportunities. I can’t remember exactly what the name of is right now. But it’s a way that they choose to either exhibitor or publish photographers through this opportunity. But it’s also a way for them to look at other photographers work. And that’s how they had seen the images from the Upstate series. But they actually reached out to me, Michael, who’s the kind of like the director of daylight books, Michael cough, he just sent me an email and said, Would you be interested in talking about publishing a book and I got that email, just, you know, a week ahead of starting my fall semester. And and then I, you know, reached out to some trusted friends who had published with them ahead and spoke with them about their experiences and Then, you know, over the course of the next month, Michael and I negotiated, you know, the the contract and figure out the details of the book. And, and yeah, and then it was, you know, actually extremely positive experience working with daylight, but in how other people do it. I mean that that was my experience. But I mean, I have friends and peers who who, you know, either they’ve been approached or they are submitting, I mean, almost, I think many of these book publishing companies, even other websites have instructions about how do you submit a book proposal to be evaluated? And I know I mean, I, I definitely know friends and peers who have had books published that way too. So I think there are many paths that can lead to a book publication. Alright.

Matthew Dols 1:00:44
two last questions. First one’s a little hard. second one’s easy. Okay. Could you give me the names of three artists that you think should be seen by more people? Sure. Yeah.

Tema Stauffer 1:00:55
So well, for example, one artists that I mentioned, is a friend and former colleague whose name is Yolanda de la Mo, and she’s originally from Madrid lives in New York City. And she is publishing her first book that in this next year with Kara Verlag, a German publishing company, and it’s more than a decade of her work, which are a kind of a hybrid of men staged photography is portraiture, there’s a some documentary element to it, but it’s very strong, conceptually strong work and very sort of she This is also a large firm of work very precise, and sort of beautifully lit and very compelling. She sort of looking at the relationships between people who are performing characters and looking at the kind of spaces between people so it’s a lot about distance between people share occupying a space and you create narratives surrounding each image. Another another artist, who I think you know, worth mentioning, is also a friend and he lives in Asheville part of the time and teaches photography at Rollins college and just had a exhibition this fall at tracy morgan gallery. So we share the same gallery and she said a beautiful exhibition of it’s it’s not at all there’s no sort of documentary aspect to her work. It’s more use of an alternative process and cyanotype and video, the body of work is about grief and mourning and a lot of her own kind of past experiences. And there’s a metaphor of a yew tree, and some literary references she spoke about in her artist talk that was actually one of the talks that I virtual talks that I brought my et su students to,

Matthew Dols 1:02:45
what was your name? JOHN Rowe. I’m sorry, Don row. Thank you. Okay. And you have a third person? Let me get back. It’s fine. No problem. I’ll go on to the last question. Anybody, which is just general advice, so anything’s like, specifically, what I’m looking for is something that you went through, that you hope that that like, the next generation doesn’t have to go through, something you learn that you hope they don’t have to deal with,

Tema Stauffer 1:03:16
this generation, right now is dealing with something way harder than I ever had to deal with before this year. So actually, I really feel for you know, everybody, but you know, young, young people, young artists, who are the way that the pandemic has made their compromiser education or made it so much more challenging, but then having to kind of enter the world professionally at a time like this, where you know, it’s so hard already to be an emerging artists and to try to get your first teaching positions or to try to get your first exhibitions, I mean, it’s just years and years and years of, of obstacles and persistence and kind of brushing up the dust and keep, keep going. And so for that to be made all the harder now, by the pandemic, I feel like, you know, obviously, my trajectory, the arts was full of struggle throughout and it still has, you know, but I’m gonna say that, you know, just the world I was living in was was easier than it is in the in the past year, even if it was hard, it was hard, you know, there are obviously many very difficult things happening and in the country and world you know, throughout these past couple decades to but nothing like this. So I’m gonna say that these younger artists have a major challenge and I you know, it’s but but also, as I was saying, early on, that I felt like my students responded to some of the challenge and suffering and struggle the pandemic with it really fueled, great work. So if you know, that’s one good thing that can come out of this It actually Oh, well, I mean, I think even historically, like political struggles of, you know, social struggles, struggles about race, gender and sexuality. Those are also that is an inspiration, I think for artists to and some of the best work comes out of this. So these kind of challenges.

Matthew Dols 1:05:20
Oh, yeah, I’ve had many conversations where it’s basically like, while the pandemic is horrible, I don’t want to downplay that at all. In the creative industries, limitations often breed creativity and so like the different whatever, you know, financial limitations, space, because of quarantines and things like this will often breed some very interesting outcomes for from what we all deal with and how we figure out how to work within that.

Tema Stauffer 1:05:50
I Yeah, I agree. I definitely think so. Yeah. And so that’s, you know, that’s one good thing that we can take from a lot of very difficult experiences that we’ve all collectively had.

Matthew Dols 1:06:03
Indeed, did you come up with a third person? It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. It’s not a necessary thing. It’s just a question.

Tema Stauffer 1:06:15
I, you know, I don’t think I can do it on spot. Maybe you can just ask that question. Can you think of two artists and then edit it to the two artists that I mentioned? Is that or does it have to be three to keep consistent? No, it doesn’t have to be anything. Don’t worry. I’m gonna leave the whole conversation and it’ll be fine. It’s perfect. Like the the

Matthew Dols 1:06:32
last person I asked, I asked for three, he only gave me two. Yet, don’t worry about it. It’s perfectly fine. But I only get two. It’s just, you know, I like the number three. That’s it. So that’s why I asked for three. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time.

Tema Stauffer 1:06:49
You Yeah, that was fun. And I look forward to you know, staying in touch about it. So thanks a lot.