Kelli Connell

Doing this podcast has really just been a way for me to geek out on photography and give me an excuse to talk with artists whose work I adore, and getting to talk with Kelli Connell was a highlight. The time and focus and introspection she devotes to her long-term projects is remarkable, and she also happens to be the loveliest of human beings.

Kelli Connell is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer/sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications of her work include PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice (Aperture), Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography (Phaidon), Photo Art: The New World of Photography (Aperture) and the monograph Kelli Connell: Double Life (DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography. Connell lives in Chicago where she is an editor at SKYLARK Editions and a photography professor at Columbia College Chicago.

Transcript

Jennifer Yoffy: 0:06

Welcome to Perfect Bound. I'm Jennifer Yoffy, the founder and publisher of Yoffy Press in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a podcast where we talk to artists about their journey, how they got where they are, what right and wrong turns they made along the way and where they're heading next. Kelli Connell is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer-sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jay Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications of her work include PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice published by Aperture,

Vitamin Ph: 0:55

New Perspectives in Photography by Phaidon Press,

Photo Art: 0:59

The New World of Photography by Aperture and the

monograph Kelli Connell: 1:03

Double Life by Decode Books. Connell has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work and the Center for Creative Photography. Connell lives in Chicago, where she's an editor at Skylark Editions and a photography professor at Columbia College Chicago. Welcome Kelli Connell to the Perfect Bound podcast. I have a bunch of questions and they are in, I couldn't really figure out a strong starting spot. So it kind of just starts in a random place. It's not like a you know, tell me about your formative years kind of thing and just sort of jumps right in. I heard you talk about how in your MFA thesis show that your model Kiba was pregnant in the images and after her son was born, and you experimented with having him in one of the photos that you realize that it just wasn't quite the right direction for the project. And you ended up taking those images out. And I've been thinking a lot about lately about how photographers, in my opinion, I guess maybe younger ones, especially are just out of school, tend to rush into work and be in a hurry about, like to get the workout and get it published and kind of move on to the next thing. And you've had this experience of having this very long term project, where you've had time to step back and see what's working and what isn't working. And, and especially something as big as like your MFA thesis show. I mean, you spent a lot of time and it culminated in this thing. And then to make a decision like that, that you know, what, ultimately, this isn't working? And I'm going to take it out. How do you think your works benefited from a slower and more long term process? And do you think that it's that that's been a hindrance to your work in any way?

Kelli Connell: 3:04

Yeah, that's a great question. So yes, a few things to say about that. When I was photographing with Kiba, we had been making work for a couple of years before, before she was pregnant. And for that work, we photographed one figure pregnant and then one figure not pregnant in every scene so it was really me from the neck down and as the stand in for those images, but when I sat with the work on the wall at my MFA thesis exhibition, and, you know, Kiba, showed up there holding her son Elec, who was a newborn. At the time, it became clear pretty quickly that once Elec was born, I didn't quite know how the story would be followed, because it would become about him as well. And I'm not a parent, I don't have kids. I don't know what it's like to be a mom. And the work has always been a place for me to really think about my own self and my own, like, what I want to talk about as far as gender, sexuality and relationship roles, but they are very tied to my own experience. So I felt like I was getting out of some territory that I didn't understand. And I sure didn't want to speak for mothers if I had not had the experience myself. So yeah, there are I would say, maybe 13 or 14 images edited out of that work. And you can still find them on the internet here and there because that was early on, like 2003. I want to say 2003, 2004. And we weren't using the internet, like so much back then. I don't think I had the foresight at that moment to not put the work on the internet, knowing it may not make it. So if you look for it, people can still find some of those images. But luckily, the Double Life monograph that was published in 2011, I had had enough time to really think about where the work was going. And was really clear that those images were edited out by that point. But for me working slowly, I think it's just a part of my natural working process. As an artist, I always wish I worked faster. Because it seems like in the art world, there's some pressure to like every two or three years have a brand new body of work that's ready to go. And that's a lot of pressure. But also I just think about things so much. And I write and reflect and have a pretty active sketchbook practice and journaling process that I think influences what I photograph. And then at least with the Double Life work in particular, I feel like I need more life experience to know what what I want to say in the new pictures. So that as I age, I want to say different things about the female body or relationships and Kiba aging too is really important for the work also. So I think I'm just embracing that slower approach with that work, for sure.

Jennifer Yoffy: 6:32

Yeah, I mean, it seems like with that work that you're using it almost as, like a journal in a way, like a way to sort of work through a thought that you might be struggling with, or an emotion or at a time in your life, a certain experience. So I feel like it's will be super interesting to look back on it. I have a friend who, my oldest oldest friend, we've bee friends since preschool, and sh has a ton of tattoos like, al over, they each have a differen meaning. And they each have, like, signify a certain ti e in her life, or a person tha was significant or, you know, memory or moment. And that l ke at the end of her life, she ants to look back at her body a like a journal of her life. nd I kind of think of your proje t in a similar way. But it's i teresting also, because yo're looking at physically another person who is embodying hese emotions and experience and imprints that you that y u're having. So it's, it's a sup r, super interesting project wh n you talk about the Rizzoli bo k. Do you feel, because t is projects ongoing, and you'v certainly made work for it si ce the book came out? Did you h ve any hesitation at that time of doing the book then? Lik, maybe it's too soon? Or did yo sort of think, well, I could a ways do a part two or like, how did how did that come about?

Kelli Connell: 8:13

Yeah, um, so well, the publisher for that book is Decode Books.

Jennifer Yoffy: 8:20

Oh, sorry.

Kelli Connell: 8:22

If you want to ask it again, you can.

Jennifer Yoffy: 8:25

I said so many words, though. I don't even know how to go back. I'm not that great of an audio editor. Well, Decode isn't publishing anymore, right?

Kelli Connell: 8:37

No they're not. So that's kind of an interesting thing, too. Yeah. I guess I'll answer the first part. But if you look for that book, now, it's actually comes up pretty expensive on the internet. And it's only because Decode is not publishing anymore. Yeah, but so in 2011, when I decided to do that book, it was my first monograph. And I wasn't quite sure. I was at a point in my career that I didn't know if I was going to continue this as a long term project or not. And I had started a new body of work. I was at the very beginning of a new project.

Jennifer Yoffy: 9:21

Is that the Pictures for Charis or something different.

Kelli Connell: 9:25

It was the very first portraits I've taken of Betsy, my partner that ended up leading into Pictures for Charis. Um, so yeah, I started to photograph with her in like, 2009, regularly. My book, Double Life was in 2011. And so I think I just embraced the monograph. I was really excited about it, just to have it in book form as a record, and in my mind, I thought maybe it could be like, Nick Nixon's project that every five years there was a new book with the newest pictures in it. Um, but I haven't done a second book. I'm thinking, you know if there's interest later, I think I'm way more interested in taking a slower approach to that. And this summer, I'm having a show at the Alice Austen House that's called Kelli

Connell: 10:24

Double Life, Two Decades. And for that we're doing a nice catalog, but it marks 20 years, I'm thinking at the 25 or 30 year mark, it'd be great to do another book. Yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy: 10:39

So we've mentioned your two major projects and they both involve muses, but in completely different ways. So in Double Life, your muse is a stand in for yourself. So the photographer's gaze is essentially turned inward. And your model muse is a longtime friend and collaborator, but in Pictures for Charis, the muse is external and your gaze is decidedly fixed on another person who's not just a model, but also your partner. So after working in one way, for so long, how is the shift to photographing your romantic partner been a challenge for you?

Kelli Connell: 11:18

Yeah, it definitely was a challenge, especially at the beginning. Um, I think that with Double Life that work from the very beginning, I came up with a way that for me, I felt allowed the model to have more power. So because the camera is usually on a tripod, and I press the self timer button and usually run in front of the camera and act out a scene with her as a stand in, there's no one behind the camera. So it's a lot like how when you do self portraiture that feels like you're in control. And there's no photographer-sitter dynamic that's uncomfortable. So working with...

Jennifer Yoffy: 12:01

There's also not a direct gaze into the camera.

Kelli Connell: 12:04

Exactly. Yeah. So even though there's two figures Right? in the scene, those two figures never meet our gaze as viewers or the photographers case. So that in itself, I guess allows the viewers to be voyeurs but it doesn't implicate their gaze in any way on this. So with the new work when I started to photograph Betsy and I had the choice to either let her gaze meet mine, or look away, it was very uncomfortable for me, I think because of my, like me being a feminist and thinking about the male gaze and me looking at her and then an extension, viewers gazing at her was really challenging from the beginning. I had a really hard time with it. Yeah, and I think it was, um, I think it definitely led me to the Pictures for Charis work, because I felt kind of stuck. To tell you the truth. I felt like almost frozen towards that way of working because I'm such a directoral photographer that directs a scene that's almost like a still in a movie. And this way of working felt very unfamiliar. So I started to do a lot of research and I looked at so many different images of photographer-model relationships, and read quite a bit about Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz before it led me to Edward Weston and Charis Wilson. And what I liked about Charis was once I learned that she was a writer, and I could read her own words and learn from her as a writer, I just learned so much about her as a person. And I found out through her autobiography, just how much freedom and agency she felt being a model, which really reminds me to how Kiba feels. Kiba really sees that as an avenue of expression, like for her it's almost like the medium she makes art through is by being a model in the picture. So I really enjoyed how Charis talked about her being a part of that process. And I thought well, maybe if Betsy and I traveled to those places where Edward and Charis made work that I could learn from Charis by acting out these scenes or photographing Betsy in these places and these landscapes, revisiting them to see you know what the periphery had to say about Charis but also me and Betsy, making our way to the California landscape and back. And I think it just taught me that sometimes, I don't know, if we take down all the male modernists, like are sometimes urges right now, because we do need to relook at history for sure and broaden it. But if you take down all those great male modernists, you're taking down all the women with them too. And yeah, I feel like Tina Modotti, Charis Wilson, and Margaret Mather, they just are such strong, free spirited women, Georgia O'Keeffe too, that, um, they weren't always framed with the power that they deserved. And maybe that's back then there were so many more male writers, instead of female writers? I'm not sure. Yeah, I like to think about challenging how history has been framed. And I think that's what the new project does is to try to not reframe Weston, because he's definitely a challenging figure that needs to be interrogated, that's for sure. But at least letting the model have more of a voice.

Jennifer Yoffy: 16:30

o for Pictures for Charis, you've had to do or you have done extensive research and writing. Can you talk about what it's been like to assume these other large creative roles outside of photography?

Kelli Connell: 16:43

Yes. Right. So when I first made, when I first started this project, I had no idea it was going to evolve to become the project that it is which is actually a full length book with 26 chapters of text and images made by myself and Edward Weston interwoven throughout the text. But when I first started photographing with Betsy, we would just go to California, shoot, come back. And really early on, I realized that the photographs weren't enough, that everything I had learned about Charis from her writing, and from visiting the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, where they have her archives, everything that she has on Edwards archives are also housed there. Everything I had learned just can't be in a photograph. So I started to write. And that was challenging because I have done a little bit of writing in the past, but I'm not a trained writer by any means. I'm just such more of a visual thinker than someone who has a writing practice. So I definitely learned how to be a writer. And what worked well, for me, as far as what a writing practice look like. And my studio practice completely changed. Like, I started to get up really early in the morning, like at 6am, get coffee and start writing before I had done anything in the day. And I tried to write daily, even if it was for just short periods of time. Because I found if I started to do anything for work, or anything else, you know, writing was out the window. But slowly that project started to evolve. And then I was able to work on the editing process and weaving in the pictures with the text, which has been really fun thinking about how image and text work together. But yeah, I think for me, it was just letting the project lead me to where it needed to go. And to just trust that it was going to work was both pretty scary, but also really fun. I think Double Life was a little bit like that at the beginning to where I was a pretty traditional photographer who was not making composites in Photoshop at all. I never thought I would use Photoshop but as soon as I had that idea I had to learn how to use Photoshop well, so I just let that learning process..., just embraced it because the work called for it.

Jennifer Yoffy: 19:43

Yeah, I mean, and that's a really, it's wonderful, you know, and to be that open and kind of brave to tackle a brand new thing because the work needs it. And so I want to talk about a passion that we both share which is publishing. And what was the impetus for starting Skylark Ediions? I love that it's just this really unique and innovative take on the published form. You know, you have a puzzle and postcards and you know, it's not all traditional books, which is really exciting and fun. How did that start? How did you kind of conceptually come to the place where it is?

Kelli Connell: 20:31

Yeah. well, actually, that started by Greg Harris and Paul D'Amato and I used to have these photo books and beer nights where basically...

Jennifer Yoffy: 20:44

That sounds about right! (laughs)

Kelli Connell: 20:46

We would totally just geek out over our photo books. And we would usually invite a couple other people, April Wilkins came quite a bit to those evenings. Sometimes there were like ten people at a time. And sometimes it was just the three of us. But we would just bring either new photo books or have some theme that we were looking at, or one time we all brought the same one book that we knew we owned, and just really looked at the book and had a discussion about, you know, how the book was made, and just kind of did a deep dive into that. And all the while trying to keep beer away from the books, which um...,

Jennifer Yoffy: 21:30

As the night went on, got harder and harder.(laughs)

Kelli Connell: 21:34

Anyway, I think it was just our passion of being three people who really love photo books and thinking about how they're made. And Greg has this amazing, amazing photo book collection that I don't know how it is in Atlanta now that he's moved from Chicago to Atlanta, but still, these really special shelves that are temperature controlled, or not. Anyway, the three of us just really love photo books. So we all three of us just decided, hey, we could probably start this on our own. So we just jumped in without knowing how much work it really is. As you know, it is a lot of work. It's so much more work than you think. Especially if you're an artist who teaches like I do and tries to honor their own studio practice. And same thing with Paul. So once Greg moved to Atlanta, Paul and I took on a bigger role, just the two of us. And I think what works well for Skylark is our visions are really different, like, Paul is much more of a traditional documentary photographer, and his interests are a little bit more bent towards traditional photo documentary work. And I always like work that challenges or breaks boundaries, or is more experimental in its book form, way more experimental than my own work. So for me, it's kind of fun to have an outlet to work with artists and just kind of challenge the book form itself or think about the word editions, like what a photo edition could be. So I think because I'm on one side of the spectrum, and Paul's on the other, it's kind of a good balance that we can have these discussions or debates about photo books and just let Skylark you know, be a home for many different ways of work. But we also publish things very slowly because of our own art practice. Like it's only a coulpe items a year. Yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy: 23:44

Yeah, I'm envious of that schedule. I mean, it's my own fault. I just, I get excited. I'm like I can do it, I can take this project on. So I think that I warned you that I asked everyone this question about what so far would you say is the best career decision that you've made?

Kelli Connell: 24:06

Uh, yeah, that is always a hard question. Um, let's see. So I think just as far as the actual artwork goes, I think it's just trusting that the work will.... Like if it feels really true to me, then just trust that it's going to find its place in the world, especially with Double Life because that work, once Kiba and I started to age to tell you the truth, like once we weren't in our younger 20s anymore, and now we're both over 40 I did get some pushback from the art world. You know, people would often say things like collectors are just not going to buy that work anymore. But, uh, so I felt some pressure to either finish the project altogether. But that didn't feel really true or right, because I was still interested. So I did, like have kind of some inner battles about that question. And over time, I just decided to embrace it. So if it only rears its head, like every five years, and I just have one show every five years, with some book at the very, you know, at the 30 year mark, or whatever, I think that's fine for me. And that feels really good.

Jennifer Yoffy: 25:40

Just being authentic and knowing that if as long as you are that, it will resonate, that it will happen in

Kelli Connell: 25:45

Without me totally just doing what the art the end. world wants, or certain dealer or whoever. Because the work is still important for me, and I know, it's really important for Kiba. And I think there's a lot that in the, you know, in the history of art and photography, we're not used to seeing many women over the age of 40 represented, so there is room f r more representation for femal bodies. And I, you know, who knows what I need to say about relationships as my own relat onship evolves too. Yeah, so that I think that's the biggest hing as far as my art career g es.

Jennifer Yoffy: 26:32

Yeah, there's this, um... I mean, it's interesting that you're getting this feedback that kind of mirrors this misogynistic, like, trade her in for younger model kind of vibe, right? You know, like, the stereotype of the older man, you know, as his female companion ages, you know, wants a younger model. So I'm glad you're not doing that. That would feel bad. And I appreciate that decision and I think it's the right one, it feels right. For me at least. Can you talk about a wrong turn you made and what you've learned from it?

Kelli Connell: 27:12

Um, yeah, this question is harder than the first one. A wrong turn in my art career?

Jennifer Yoffy: 27:20

I feel like this question is like when you're at a job interview, and they're like, what's, you know, your biggest weakness? And you're like, well, I just work too hard. Oh, I'm just a perfectionist. Yeah.

Kelli Connell: 27:35

Yeah, um, you know, it seems like everything's actually worked out to where it needs to be no matter what. When you first posed that question, I was thinking about it. My first instinct was that I should not have taken on a more administrative role at my job earlier on, because I did take on the role of Associate Chair and then Associate Dean, which did take a lot of time and even pushed me to working year round, to where I had less studio time. But actually, that work in a way I wasn't taking home school, it was much more like nine to five. And I did get an early sabbatical for that. So it's hard to it's hard to answer that question, because I did get to go on a sabbatical and have that time, which was probably the beginning of Pictures for Charis before I rolled back into teaching, and I had some momentum from that time off. So I'm not quite sure if I would pick that. But right now, being Grad Program Director feels really rewarding and gratifying compared to that other work. But that's much more of a career decision that's tied to teaching rather than like mentoring. And yeah, more than my art practice taking a crazy turn. Um, yeah, that was....

Jennifer Yoffy: 29:06

I think its a good lesson. I mean, a lot of, you know, the typical answer is a lot of people, you can't really point to one thing, because even if at the time it felt wrong, it led to something else that ended up being positive, which is just a good lesson for anyone in life that you just..., it keeps going. And something that seems like a negative often ends up being a positive or inspires something else that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Kelli Connell: 29:34

Right.

Jennifer Yoffy: 29:36

So this is sort of an existential question, but what's your barometer for success in photography? And do you feel like you're there? Do you feel like you have more you need to do to feel satisfied with what you've accomplished?

Kelli Connell: 29:50

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, so that question, I feel like I was really lucky. I feel like I've been really lucky in the past with just when I graduated with my MFA. And then when my artwork hit. When I had a solo show of Double Life in New York at Yossi Milo Gallery in 2003. And, um, no sorry, in 2007. So I just hit at the time when the art market was kind of exploding. So not only did my work actually come from a true place that I felt really good about, but it also hit a time when it was able to be honored and shown in multiple venues. So I had my first museum show, and then another show on the west coast. And it just started to, you know, that work kind of like just took off, which felt really amazing. And I think over time, as the art world has, like, ebbed and flowed with, you know, what's gone on in the art world, it, I feel like I'm really lucky to even have what I what I have now, compared to, you know, there's some students that have just graduated during this pandemic, and the opportunities that lay ahead for them feel fewer than what I had. I just remember so many art jobs were available at the time that I graduated, because so many professors from the 1970s, that first were teaching were retiring, and there's just fewer jobs out there now. So I think that for me, I'm just I feel like that's one of the things that is just really lucky for the time that my work first hit. But also knowing that it's collected by museums, I think, for me, that's what makes me feel really proud more so than having a gallery dealer or knowing that I'm in private collections, knowing that the work is in several established museum collections just makes me know that the works going to last.

Jennifer Yoffy: 32:33

That's wonderful. Have you completed pictures for Charis or are you still working on it work? Where are you with the book, you said that you're able to publish it alongside pictures of Edward Weston's. And that wasn't always a for sure thing, right? Wasn't that a challenge to get the rights or to be able to put those together?

Kelli Connell: 33:05

Right. So I'm still working on all of that, where it's at now is I just finished, what I think is really close to the final draft of that work. Which is great, because it's the 10th draft. And I've been working on it since 2014. But just over the last few weeks, I've been meeting with curators and publishers to try to find a publisher. I actually have a meeting this afternoon with a publisher also. So we'll see. I do have some interest in institutions that want to show the work already, which is great. We'll see how it goes as far as the book, but I feel really good that it's going to find its place.

Jennifer Yoffy: 33:56

I'm obsessed with it and I want to see it. Because like on the website, it's like Coming Soon. And I'm like, I know it's gonna be so good. I have like this mental image of it all. Yeah.

Kelli Connell: 34:07

Thank you. You know, you asked earlier about the work that I had edited out of Kiba's pregnant images and maybe that's why like Pictures for Charis, I'm kind of much more protective about the first. . Absolutely, yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy: 34:24

Yeah, that's what I figured. I mean, it's smart. It's so smart, because you don't want to dilute the audience and, you know, give it all away ahead of time. And especially because there's so much context to it in the writing, that having just the images alone on your website, or even with a little bit of writing will probably not give the full picture and you know, not accomplish what you're trying to do with the work.

Kelli Connell: 34:48

Right, exactly.

Jennifer Yoffy: 34:51

Well, thank you for doing this today. I've loved talking to you and it's been so fun to dive deeper into your work and prepping for the interview and I'm a huge fan. So it's been super exciting to be able to talk with you today.

Kelli Connell: 35:13

Well, I'm going to have to like step back. So let me start over again. Sorry.

Jennifer Yoffy: 35:18

(Laughs) No big deal. You should know how many like Umms and weird...

Kelli Connell: 35:28

Well, my cat was making this huge noise right now and I'm like, Oh my God, he's either gonna throw up or somethings going on. Anyway, let me start over on that. (Laughs)