Samantha Friend Cabrera in conversation with scholar, working artist and good friend,
Steve DeFrank.
Samantha: What would you describe yourself as?
Steve: I am an educator, but I wouldn’t identify as one. I think I identify first and foremost as an artist. I’m just an artist who happens to teach, and I’m actually very good at it. Though when I first moved to New York I was a futon salesman. Then I spent time as a pillow maker, then a nanny, then an artist’s assistant, then finally a teacher. And all of that made me into a good educator, which remains just part of what I do. I don’t want people to think I’m a house painter either. I’m a painter, a fine art painter. How would you answer that question?
Samantha: I am both a photographer and writer turned journalist, immersive journalist. People frequently assume I am a “photojournalist” which I personally disagree to. I’m not interested in the old school definition of giving anyone who deals with making work “abroad” or simply using visuals and text this label. With so many methods of documentation and reportage being used, it just feels old school to assume so. I don’t even know what “straight photojournalism” means anymore, so for me the term feels a bit one dimensional or fatigued.
Steve: Right. That’s with any of these definitions. If I say I’m an artist, no further specification it almost feels cringe worthy.
Samantha: True. I find this most often when applying to jobs or going through automated application forms for grants.
Steve: It is so hard to do that. I guess it’s almost easier before you know fully, or with the opportunity to be naive. I’m thinking about when I was working at the
Whitney Museum as a security guard and it was the best education I had in my entire life. I was a young kid who didn’t belong there and I think the curators took pity on me. They recommended me endless amounts of books. It felt like my grad school. It’s always been a struggle figuring out what kind of painter I am. But at 55, I’m finally getting comfortable in my own skin as to who I am as a painter and I don’t give a flying fuck anymore. The “goofy” shit that I do? It’s mine. And that is the gift of ageing. Ageing can be scary and shitty but as an artist? It’s sweet mother’s milk baby.
Samantha: I feel that already! I can fumble technically with my photography or editing often but still leave room to realize I’m doing things now that I did not execute this well last year, or even know how to do to before that.
Steve: Exactly, I mean I wouldn’t give up my process for the world. It’s not a direct line and it never is. Even though you and I know we’re hard workers, the art world doesn’t really care. But you continue to put in your time until your work grows to give more back to you.
Samantha: Yeah, I think I first saw your finished work in a collection reflecting your daily studies painted while in
México City as a Fulbright Scholar. I knew I loved them but am always trying to find better vernacular as to describe how or why. I feel more limited when viewing painting as opposed to photography.
Steve: [Laughs] Photography is interesting. There’s all the technical stuff that is lost on me, but when I look at your work it looks so professional. It’ll be interesting to see that keep growing. When I first saw your work, you presented to me this idea of the
quinceañera and there was a spark. Your passion came across so clearly. There was something present that was outside of the studio in which it wasn’t a job or an assignment.
Samantha: Yeah, I think I went rogue. It’s funny to realize the truth in saying that as I say it, but I did. Definitely learned a lot about focusing yourself as an artist into the tunnel needed to fulfil the story originally commissioned, but I learned that the hard way which I am always okay with.
Steve: I get that. Well-rounded reporting can service this type of photography but that’s not what we’re looking at here at all. You’re allowing us into this subculture only you have a hold on artistically, intimately, and that’s more than a journalistic piece.
Samantha: I did feel crazed on my own mission, though I know it was others who sent me there.
Steve: So, I have a question for you then. How do you pitch to these places and engage with this double-edged sword? Making work for them and also you? You said you went rogue and I imagine you have to go rogue each and every time but how do you strike balance?
Samantha: Now, as I’m getting more invested in upholding the professional standards of journalism amongst becoming a genuinely efficient photographer, I’m better at understanding that in the interest of a well reported story ethnographic field notes, personal details, full audio, the works more is always more. I’m absolutely grateful to have had these opportunities to learn from initially, and to be in a position where I can constantly make work for myself. On the day to day, I feel lucky to have me and my freakishly talented art friends serve as one tough, honest, creative super boss.
Steve: Right. Because you weren’t formally trained as a journalist, but you know how to take information in. So how has being trained as a photographer influenced the way you ask questions?
Samantha: To be honest it feels very natural to me. The way in which my visual brain allows me to assess what needs to be activated in the established frame in front of me, is the same way I function when spending time holding a conversation, or interviewing a subject. Both practices at their best are a push and pull of my unique placement and our genuine discovery.
I recently had a satisfying successful interview with an owner of one of the oldest
quinceañera shops in Los Angeles, and the reward for such naturally conducted work at that point I find is apparent in the work itself. But even when both parties are comfortable it’s a tricky space. For example, I would never want to make work that the “subject” (a word I don’t love using as it speaks so generally to ones focus yet clearly defines a dynamic) agrees to in the moment, then somehow feels vastly different about later. I am especially mindful of this because I work with youth so often.
Steve: I work with youth too. It is volatile! Speaking to the environment of conducting critique, these kids are sharing creative, personal things in a classroom setting, things are bound to come up or sometimes go wrong. Then there’s the pressure to perform for your superiors and your peers intertwined with everything. I find myself having to be curator, critic, uncle, dad, brother, friend, mentor, and it goes on.
Samantha: This is why I’m embracing this time in my life where I am able to make work for me. As a photographer, it’s easy to go on Instagram and acquire the notion that if you’re not posting “Title of Subject for This Brand” as every photo caption, you’re just not with it. And it makes me laugh so hard thinking about how this simple, validating wordplay has become so sensationalized and overused. I keep saying I’m going to start posting the photos I make with a caption reflecting that same energy steeped in monetary/brand confidence: “Title of Image for ME.” The reality of the situation is, it’s not about the financial backing, just that you keep on doing everything you can with everything you have. Every working woman I have met in my life has done nothing but instil that.
Steve: Yeah, I teach foundation drawing and sculpture and Instagram has changed teaching in a lot of ways. It’s fucking frightening.
Samantha: How so?
Steve: Now students will have a whole list of technical things they want to do. There is so much information, students can see how something is started or finished and they lose track of how their own process goes. At the risk of sounding old, thank God I didn’t have that.
Samantha: What would you like to see more of in the art world then? Less of?
Steve: I would like to see more personal crazy shit. I want to see something that makes everyone’s hearts beat a little bit faster. Both the audience and the maker. If it’s what turned you on, it’s going to turn me on, and if I can get a glimpse of that I’m in. I want to see less pretentiousness. It’s time to subdue all of the posturing and posing. What about you?
Samantha: I think overall, I’d like to see more patience and authenticity. I see an exciting amount of this present in our world today, but the biggest change in this case I believe has to come from the top. For example, I don’t think it’s asking too much for a head producer or editor to have the foresight to understand how much or little importance an assignment holds for the maker and I think those professionals working out of New York are already leading the way. For me a well commissioned story warrants historic importance! It is exciting to think the conversation could have the chance to permeate and eventually become a part of a vast archive of (for example) Mexican photography in America referencing
Delilah Aniya or contemporary black femme photographers in the works of
Jessica Pettway.
It’s what transitions a small celebrity assignment for some to what could be a life’s culmination for others. I see it go both ways all the time and for people within those communities it’s frustrating to think the work was just another image to crank out, regardless of how well executed it was. I just think you should be excited to stand by your work in the long-term context.
Steve: So how do you stand by your images?
Samantha: [Laughs] By showing no one initially. Or in assignment by only working where I feel I should be or when my voice is needed. Which is all the time but again it’s exercising that gorgeous judgement of ours from the bottom to the top.
Someone who is the king of this is
Magnum photographer
Martin Parr. I first learned about him my second year of schooling and I could not believe how he never strayed from the idea of “photographing what I know.” He enters many foreign spaces as a tourist and therefore turns the lens on fellow tourists, claiming and recreating the space as a proud participant with dissimilar intention.
As his relationship with the land strengthens and grows then so does the variety of his subject matter, allowing him to photograph a variety of cultural and social situations. “I hold a critique as well as celebration.” This is something that has always stuck with me.
His archives are also vast, meaning he made a great deal of work for himself throughout his life which he saw no need to disseminate or immediately throw everyone’s way. Now that he has gotten older, though, he has acknowledged the historical importance of himself and allowed the public into portions of his archives (
Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, England) which I think is a large life goal of mine. Critique and celebration. Maker and participant. Preserve and reveal. I plan to continue working thoughtfully and viciously to achieve just that.
@samanthafriend_
@stevedefrank