“Making art that enriches one’s experience is a lofty ambition.”

“People don’t understand the new pictures; they are really confused. Frequently they ask how I found this material. I say, ‘in my grandmother’s trunk,’ but that’s not true.”

At 25, Tristan Perich is obsessed with machines; music has been a part of his life since he was conscious. 

“So this photograph is like a short story telling of the way of life that had been going on in this one space over generations.”

“What we are looking at in these museum restorations is the society’s superego, what a society thinks of itself, and how it thinks it should be seen by itself. This is what individuals do to a room. Again this same theme. It’s the exteriorization of the soul life or of personal values.”

“I’m trying not to be separated. I like trying to be a medium.” Mei—Mei Berssenbrugge

When Ellen Phelan first told me about her plan to work with existing photographs—family-album snapshots of her life from childhood through adulthood, some shot by her father and others by her husband, Joel Shapiro—I was immediately touched and intrigued.