Josephine Sacabo
I truly admire highly functioning individuals - especially artists that somehow pull this off. The way they remain consistent, stay on point and keep an unwavering track record when it comes to putting out their art. It’s something I personally strive for and keep as a goal in my back pocket. When the strain of life begins to take a toll, I pull out this goal and re-examine what I am doing and where I am headed. Mind you, I fail at this time and time again, but at least I have it handy for those all too frequent bouts of questioning my efforts. Now, this is where I bring up the work and process of the one and only Josephine Sacabo. With about as much style and grace as anyone could muster, she exemplifies this type of person. There seems to be a never-ending stream of photographic imagery that pours from her that is romantic, mysterious, and deeply felt. Her embrace of the long-standing methods of creating photographs that will both literally and figuratively stand the test of time is encouraging, and quite frankly, applauded. I know all of this to be true, because I don’t only feel this way, but I have heard it spoken about by many people over a long period. She is simply an inspiration.
With these thoughts, I wanted to repost this interview I did for her over at Analog Forever Magazine last year. She was about to open a stunning new exhibition at the A Gallery for Fine Photography, in New Orleans, Louisiana. As I’ve mentioned previously, she’s consistent and is about to open another exhibition in the same venue with an all-new body of work, Those Who Dance, that reflects the same level of care and passion as everything she has ever done. What’s nice here is that we get to become reacquainted with her words and see some of these spectacular new photographs of hers. So now it’s time to stop reading my insufficient words and get on with the good stuff. My sincere and humble thanks to Josephine for allowing me to post these new works of hers and share once again her valuable thoughts on process and creativity.
La Mujer del Sol 1, from Those Who Dance
Bio -
Josephine Sacabo divides her time between New Orleans and Mexico. Both places inform her work, resulting in imagery that is as dreamlike, surreal, and romantic as the places that she calls home. Born in Laredo, Texas, in 1944, she was educated at Bard College in New York. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Sacabo lived and worked extensively in France and England. Her earlier work was in the photo-journalistic tradition and influenced by Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. She now works in a very subjective, introspective style, using poetry as the genesis for her work.
Sacabo’s many portfolios are visual manifestations of the written word, and she lists poets as her most important influences, including Rilke, Baudelaire, Pedro Salinas, Vicente Huidobro, Juan Rulfo, Mallarmé, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Her images transfer the viewer into a world of constructed beauty.
During her 36-year career, her work has been featured in over 40 gallery and museum exhibitions in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. She has been the recipient of multiple awards and is included in the permanent collections of the George Eastman House, New Orleans Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and la Bibliothéque Nationale.
Interview -
Michael Kirchoff: Thank you for joining me, Josephine, I’m thrilled to have this chance to interview you. Every photographer experiences that spark that begins to drive them into creating their own voice in photography. How did you get your start?
Josephine Sacabo: In the late 60’s my husband and I had a theatre company called The Bird In Hand Theatre in London, and we did plays all over the city, and in the summer we would drive to the south of France where we had a tiny house we had bought for $1500 and were restoring it little by little. One summer we had lent it to a friend, and when we arrived I found that he had left a 35mm SLR Pentax behind, so I took it to an English photographer friend in the village who had a small darkroom and asked him to show me how to work the camera. He said I had to learn the whole process, so he showed me how to take the photo, develop the film, and make a contact sheet in his darkroom. From the moment I saw the images on the contact sheet coming up in the developer, I was hooked. So I bought a small enlarger and my husband built me a retractable shelf over our bathtub where I spent the rest of the summer developing film and making prints.
MK: Is there anything or anyone from your past that you feel has had a dramatic influence on you or how you’re images are informed?
JS: I was born in Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border, and Spanish is my first language. My entire childhood was spent in that magical culture and has had a huge influence on my work. I can bring that wonderful childhood magic back when my work is going well no matter where I am. I had to leave to retrieve that feeling, but now I've come around the long way back.
MK: What is it that drives you as a creator?
JS: I guess you could say a very deep need to speak my part. I believe in art as a means of transcendence and connection. My images are simply what I’ve made from what I have been given in my life – both the very beautiful and the very painful as well. I hope they have done justice to their sources.
MK: I bring this up time and time again because I feel strongly that it is a key component of building a creative force within ourselves. Being that you live and work in both New Orleans, Louisiana, and San Miguel Allende, Mexico, how does your environment influence the photographs you make? What was it that lured you to San Miguel Allende initially?
JS: My environments both have a huge influence on my work. They are beautiful to begin with. I live in the historic heart of both places where the architecture is spectacular. Every time I walk out my door I feel surrounded by the beauty of it. Both places are visual delights. There’s also very special cultures with rich histories in both places and the people are wonderful. Not to mention the sunsets and the summer storms, and the music.
“…those who dance were called insane by those who could not hear the music.”
~ Nietzsche
La Mujer del Sol 2, from Those Who Dance
Saludando el Sol 1, from Those Who Dance
Saludando el Sol 2, from Those Who Dance
Saludando el Sol 3, from Those Who Dance
Paseando el Sol 1, from Those Who Dance
Paseando el Sol 2, from Those Who Dance
MK: Your earlier works were within the photojournalistic realm of photography. How did this work evolve into the photographs you create today? Was it a conscious choice or something that occurred more organically over time?
JS: I began my work in the U.S. as a documentary street photographer and disciple of Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. I worked on the streets of the French Quarter where I live and was amazed by the richness of the life on those streets. It was, in fact, a sanctuary for all kinds of people and activities. The picturesque seemed infinite to me at first – musicians, fortune tellers, tap dancers, strippers, eccentrics of every stripe. At the time I was reading Baudelaire’s great Spleen de Paris, about wandering the streets of Paris, and New Orleans seemed to me as much a city of symbols and correspondences as his Paris of the 19th century. And I was able to capture a lot of this life with a fresh vision.
And then with time, and I mean years, as I looked more closely at my subject matter, I began to see the darker side emerge more and more. It was there all along, I’m sure, but I was so taken by the novelty I didn’t see it. Once I became aware of it I became reluctant to contribute to it by making images of it; I began to feel that all I was doing as an artist was acknowledging the despair around me and shouting it from the rooftops of magazines and galleries. I began to feel that if I was going to photograph someone who is suffering and who has little or no choice in the matter, then it better be with the express purpose of changing his circumstances or enlarging compassion toward him. Otherwise, I would be piling suffering upon suffering and must hold myself accountable. I want to say that this was a very personal choice. I know there are photographers out there who manage this dilemma with honesty and grace - Salgado for example - but I knew it could not be my way.
Around that time I was invited to a friend’s apartment for a Mardi Gras party in the French Quarter, and when I walked in I was stunned by the evocative beauty of it. I began sharing the space with her although I had no idea what I would do there. I started photographing some friends in the natural light and letting the poetry I was reading guide me in a loose way, and I have worked that way ever since.
MK: Clearly, in the early days you were using film and film cameras. Do you still use film in the process of making photographs, or is it now the analog methods of printing that capture your attention most? Do you see yourself using film into the future, and do you feel that it should remain as a tool for future generations to explore?
JS: Film has always been a part of my process and I hope it will always be available to me, and generations after me. My work now involves film, digital, and Guttenberg! For a long time I carried my Pentax 6x7 around with me until it became too heavy and cumbersome, and then I coerced my husband into carrying it for me on location for a while, but after a summer traveling and shooting all over Mexico I realized it was too much for both of us. Now I often keep my phone or a small camera in my pocket for capturing those unforeseen fleeting moments which usually end up combined with a film image in the end.
MK: Since your photography workflow has moved you away from creating your most current images in an analog way, it is clear that you have brought about an incredible amount of attention to a wonderfully analog way of printing your photographs using the photogravure process. How did this start and evolve into making your fine prints in this way? What about the process do you love?
JS: I'd read somewhere that a workshop was happening in photo engraving at Flatbush Press, in Austin, and it sounded interesting to me, so I took it for 2 days. It was amazing. The moment I pulled the first paper off the plate and saw the image it was just like what had happened to me with the contact sheet in France so long ago. An epiphany! I realized that this look was exactly what I had spent 30 years in the darkroom hoping to achieve – seeing the image ‘in’ the paper and not ‘on’ it. I love everything about the process – working in the light, the beautiful papers I can use, the colors of the ink I can create. And then of course pulling the paper off the plate on the press. Bliss.
MK: You have a very close relationship with the written word. This has manifested itself in an affinity for poetry and your response to it, often as a way of illustrating specific texts. How did this connection start, and do you feel that this will always be a way of working in the future?
JS: Poetry has always meant a lot to me. I thought I would grow up to be a poet someday. In 1987, I starting working in my studio with models and natural light and I felt like a very special world was being created that I couldn’t describe in words. It was all very new to me. Then one night I started reading a new Stephen Mitchell translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies and felt that these elegies were saying in beautiful words what I had been seeing and feeling in my studio. I was able to complete the portfolio with Rilke’s words as my guides. This has happened many times since and the correspondence between words and images remains a fascination for me.
MK: It appears that the majority of your work culminates in the publication of a book of each body of work. When you conceive of and begin working on a specific collection of images, is the concept always to have the work released in book form? What is it about publishing your images in book form that you want others to respond to?
JS: I love doing books and hope to go on doing it with every major body of work. I love the idea of my work becoming a part of someone’s intimate life. Something they can turn to when they need it. When I think of what Heinrich Kuhn’s and Josef Sudek’s books on my coffee table have done for me, I can only hope that mine could one day do the same for someone else somewhere.
La Musa Piensa en el Amor, from Those Who Dance
Flores que me Hablan de Amor, from Those Who Dance
Cuerpo Libre, from Those Who Dance
Sueño de Gatos, from Those Who Dance
Compañeros, from Those Who Dance
Poeta con el Mar en los Ojos, from Those Who Dance
MK: Being a fixture of the New Orleans photographic community, you also have a hand in giving back to your community with your relationship to the New Orleans Photo Alliance and the PhotoNOLA festival. Is community engagement a key part of who you are as an artist? What do you get out of working with others in this way?
JS: It’s very gratifying for me to participate in some productive way in my photo community. New Orleans has a very special and vital photography community. I particularly love working with young photographers and writers before they enter the murky waters of the art world. They are so close to their deepest and most authentic feelings, and they speak their truths so movingly. I always learn from them and value their responses enormously.
MK: Once you have maintained a successful career as a photographer, is there ever any pressure to outdo yourself or continue to prove yourself?
JS: Every time I start a new project. Stage fright.
MK: What do you feel is the best way for you to grow as an artist? Are there any fears behind treading new waters?
JS: By being courageous and really following where my heart leads, without worrying about what others may think or feel. And doing whatever feels right at the moment, even if it means burning it later.
MK: You’ve been at this for quite some time, and I wonder if you have a mantra of set of ideas that you feel future generations would benefit from? Any advice for the beginning photographer out there?
JS: There is great pressure in the art world for artists to “reflect their times” - for their work to be relevant to the fashions of the great Now. But, that Now and its fashions are over in a flash and then there’s a new Now, and another and another until Now ends up being a voracious open mouthed monster that has to be fed non-stop. And what we lose in the process is the witness of the individual imagination - the most reliable one of all. In fact, each one of us is the Now no matter what. Our impressions, our sincere responses to our world, our skills and courage, our loves, are the measure of who we are and we are what constitutes our times. Watch, listen, care. then take what you need and go - to your studios, or the woods, or the city, or wherever your heart leads you. And there create your Now.
If we go about our work the other way around we risk ending up with a very fashionable rack of gloves without hands, to borrow a beautiful metaphor from Kandinsky.
Dr. ATL, from Those Who Dance
Dos Volcanes del Dr. ATL, from Those Who Dance
Mon Dragon, from Those Who Dance
Amor, from Those Who Dance
El Último Viaje, from Those Who Dance
La Muerte, from Those Who Dance
MK: You have already created an incredible legacy of photographs for generations to admire and appreciate. What do you want people to take away from your art and messages it offers?
JS: Transcendence, hopefully, and most importantly connection to your fellow man.
MK: Normally, about now I’d ask you what’s next, but you have already just launched another beautiful exhibition at A Gallery for Fine Photography, in New Orleans. Could you tell us about this? Do you now relax and allow yourself time to form new ideas organically, or are you already in the midst planning for more?
JS: Between projects, I tend to spend a little more time cooking, walking in the park, visiting with friends but not for long - there’s usually something brewing in the back of my mind - not necessarily as a photo project, rather something or someone I’m reading about. A new interest.
I was reading Elena Poniatowska’s Las Siete Cabritas for the second time and her essay on Nahui Olin intrigued me but what really convinced me to do Those Who Dance was meeting a young woman whose eyes fit the description of Nahui Olin’s. Then I read the Nietzsche quote that is the title and at that point, the whole thing came into focus for me and that’s the new exhibit at A Gallery. It will be there for several months.
Right now I’m back in the park and trying out some new ideas. We’ll see how it goes.
*This interview originally posted in its entirety at Analog Forever Magazine, October 7, 2019, here.
You can find more of Josephine’s work on her website here.
All photographs, ©Josephine Sacabo
