‘Family by definition is complicated,’ with special guest host Alison Roman!

good morning, Welcome to her movies. I'm Allison Roman. And today I am making Today, I am making Today, I'm making pasta, salad, cinnamon rolls, lots of brye potato, leak suit, a sticky apple cake, shrim scampy shallop pasta. But today I'm stepping in for Katie while she takes a quick break for her book tour. And today we'll be making no just kidding, Today we will be doing something totally different. Wait, Alice, and how tell me? How long are you doing this?

This is so great? This is it? This is the only one. You're my You're my one guest. Yeah really and really yeah yeah, I'm only I'm only doing the one and this is so honored. Today I'm talking to Jillian Love. Jillian is a photographer and a filmmaker, and I've been following her work for a while now. She's mostly known for making extremely gorgeous portraits of very famous people musicians, politicians, actors, but she's also a really thoughtful

photojournalistic essay maker. She does political conflict, racial tensions, marginalized communities. She really dives deep into these lesser talked about, lesser seeen communities and people. I first came across Jillian and her work around I think it was it was a live event where she was showing some of her newer photographs and explaining them in front of a live audience, how they made her feel, why they were important to her, you know, on stage, in front of a ton of people.

And I was very moved by her performance. This was part of a larger show called pop Up Magazine, which, as indicates, is a live magazine created just for the stage. So I love that that was your first um time you Yeah, I love that because that was such an important moment for me and such a turning point. The photographs she was showing then were of her super close

family who were recently let's say Divided by politics. Four years later, that project is now a gorgeous book and collection and exhibit at the i c P in New York called Family Matters. I chatted with Jillian of Razoom just before the Thanksgiving break, and here's our conversation. Before we get started, I want to hear a little bit more about your background, where you come from, how this came to be, because I feel like the journey you started on you weren't like I'm going to be it.

I'm going to photograph of my family as this long term checked. It was sort of like woven into what you had already been doing. Yeah, so it has been over twenty years. This the book is over twenty years of work. So it didn't start out as the intention was never like this is going to be a project. It was I just started photographing my family, and I think I described it in the book in the beginning. You know, it began really I was an art student in New York UM and I was one of the

only American Americans in my program. Oddly it was at the International Center of Photography and UM there was this moment, you know, I'd always been interested in photographing, UM other people. I'm such a curious person, so my work was really centered around, um, you know, learning about other people, telling other stories. I never thought of myself or my family

as a subject um. But then something happened. UM when I was a student and where I was outside taking a cigarette break with a bunch of my classmates and a classmate of mine, um from Scandinavia, was doing a project on capitalism, and he he pointed to these women across the street and he said, look at those women

in their vulgar fancy for coats. And I was like, oh, yeah, goodness, And he was like, I don't understand these fur coats because at the at the time the schools on the Upper East Side, And as they came closer, my heart started racing because the realization struck that it was my mom, my aunt and my grandma. Like yeah, not only do I know them, but I come from there exactly. So it was just that that moment where kind of my world's collided and I and so that's really kind of

where it started. And that's when I just started photographing my family for myself, and and then it just kept growing and it was just something I did. Um, but It's not anything that I had intended to be a project until um, the past four years, it became very apparent that actually, this the narrative is enfolding to me. What were you doing in the interim? So you had been documenting your family, you know, since then as an ongoing project, but what was sort of the thing that

you focused on. So basically, you know, when I came out of school, I started, UM, I just did drop off portfolio drop offs and the best photography and magazines was at the New York Times magazine, and I dropped my portfolio off there and I got a cover story right away, and I started having work in shows. But

I really after September eleven. UM. I was put on assignment during September eleven to photograph people who had lost people in the towers, and I realized the power of the exchange of photographer and subject and how it's a real it's something is happening when you're making a portrait

of another person. And it was that moment where people were in mourning and we didn't know each other, and it was this really powerful exchange that happened, and it was like the photograph was their moment to say like, we're not just a number, like look at us, look

at our loved one, look at who we lost. And it was about three to four weeks of photographing a lot of families and something happened where I just said, I need to work on a project that because it was two years of just assignment, assignment, assignment that I really wanted to make for myself that I was interested in.

So I went too. I started working in the Middle East, and for the next five years, I was really working on this project called Testimony with Israeli Jews, is really Arabs and Palestinians um kind of how they were affected by the Second Anti Fata, And then I was um. I learned about this own in Georgia where they were

having segregated proms. So it started out as assignment and then continued for the next ten to twelve years as I've tried to understand the roots of how this town had segregated problems up until two thousand and ten, and then there was a racially charged murder. So I was really deep into other stories and every time that I would come home, it's just photographing my family was something

I did. It's not really something I thought about. So, the first time I heard of you actually was that I went to go see a pop Up magazine live performance in New York and this was in I want to say, seventeen. Does that sounds right? It was? Okay, So it was definitely post And I know this because your whole presentation was effectively on photographing your family, UM, which we'll get into detail on sort of why they're interesting to begin with, because that's obviously what makes the

book so great. But what about doing this talk in like inspired you to say, like, Okay, I have something here, because I feel like that may have been a turning point of of realizing that, okay, beyond just my family, which we all have one UM and obviously they're very colorful people who demonstrate their personality in one image, which not everybody can do. Lots of leopard print, lots of diamonds, lots of lots of lipstick. I love it all. The

hair is incredible. UM. But yeah, So, so tell me about like that process and your storytelling there and how that may be led to this project. Pop Up had approached me. I've been talking in conversation with them for years and figuring out what story would be right. And they actually called me in twenty January and they caught

me at this moment where I was in real crisis. Um. First of all, I had just given birth a couple of months before to my second daughter, and I was definitely having postpartum, and also it was postpartum mixed with my family's love for Trump all of a sudden at the simultaneously at the same exact time. So in January interesting,

I mean all of a sudden. Was it like prior to that, you you didn't quite understand like the political implications of of their politics or I just know I knew that they were I knew that they were fiscally conservative, but this was but they had also you know, my dad was a huge fan of Bill Clinton, so and they kind of pride themselves on being independent voters. So this kind of like real fervent love of Trump was

something that threw me. And the maligning of Hillary Clinton was something that just threw me for such a loop and such an existential crisis that it's hard to really describe. And I but I do. I do remember specifically when I learned about it and how I learned about it, because that will never leave me um, And I didn't take it seriously until I realized it was serious. But it was amazing because pop Up had I just wanted

to because it is kind of a great story. How they had called and they said, you know, I remember these pictures of your family, Um, do you have any stories about your family you want to share? And I'm like, this is not a good time, and I'm I'm friendly with the producer, so I felt like I could be honest, but you know, off the record, and I said, look, I just came back. I was photographing the Women's March

and my parents. To give you the short end of the story, my parents were there in d C at the same time I was there, but they were there for the inauguration and me immediately, you know, she was like, Okay, I understand this is hard, but can you just give me the chance to tell you why making this story and and sharing the story would be important. And the thing about pop up is that it's a you can't record it. There's no if you're not in the audience,

it didn't exist. So that's a really really safe place to share material. When I did that, I realized how my story was not just my story because so many people reached out to me. Besides it being the most cathartic, you know, experience of writing this painful about this painful

time and kind of putting it all together. Um, so many people reached out to me who are in the audience and said, oh, my goodness, this is happening to me as well, like, thank you so much for sharing this, because I don't think people were talking about this, you know, it was like so shameful at the time. So it was just it was then that kind of bells went off, like, oh my goodness, this is resonating with other people, and it's not about my family. It's about what they're going

through as well with their family. If you look through the book even or have seen any of your hostwork of your family, it's very clear that these people live out loud like they are. They seem to be the type of person when you meet and you say, wow, that person is a thousand percent themselves a million percent of the time they speak their mind. You can tell from the image they are, you know, full of jade

Vieve if you will. But I imagine that that also translates to a very loud sort of trumpeting of their political beliefs. So, you know, I think it's the holidays and we all are coming to terms of the fact that politics have been an intense subject for the past few years, especially UM, but a lot of people, you know, sort of abide by the like we don't talk about it. It's like not something we bring up. I imagine that

wasn't really an option for you. That wasn't an option, UM, which is why I also thought reproducing the text messages in the book and the exhibition we're very important because that's how we tend to communicate with people now. And it got so toxic. Um, it got so toxic, and a lot of a lot of my five years was dictated, my mental state was dictated by our family text chain and UM. And that's why I included that. But I you know, it's it's interesting, we're going into Thanksgiving right now,

and that's always such the marker for me. I've photographed my family's thanksgivings for decades, and in two thousand and sixteen it was really a question whether we were going to go, oh wow, and UM we went and then you see in the book the photograph where UM, I just took I didn't take any other pictures really except my parents and their aprons in the kitchen, and then the photograph of my place seating um which had all

Trump Pence paraphernalia all around it. Um. So it was like my they were kind of they thought it was funny, right of course. Yeah, I mean they thought it was funny in that because they knew that it would get a rise out of you specifically, or or are there other people present that you sort of feel like you have an ally at the table or when you're there,

is it very much you as an outsider. My husband was my ally, and and we have a large family, and I think we were outliers in that room and it felt like we were visiting a bit of a cult. So so anyway, when I you know, all of the past four Thanksgivings, you know, when I think back to last Thanksgiving, COVID Thanksgiving, it was right before the election, and it was a very emotional. It was a very emotional Thanksgiving. So I'm hoping that I'm hoping that this

Thanksgiving will be less heavy. We'll be right back with Jillian Laub and me Alison Reman after a quick break. Hi, again, it's Alison Roman standing in for Katie Kirk. I'm talking with the photographer Jillian Laub about her book and exhibit Family Matters. We're about to dive into one of the details and makings of some of the photographs, like one of my favorite photos, which is called the wedding Planner?

Is that your wedding planner? Okay, so that's that. I don't know where this photo is taken, but there are the right number of wine glasses on the table, which is to say, fo um. And this woman is looking into the camera and your parents, I believe, are looking at her. She's sitting in the middle, and she is I mean, she's a legend. She she I must know more about her. I need to know about this woman. You know, I'm so upset because she she passed away, and oh I'm sorry, I am. So it's a lesson

in her passing. It's a lesson to say, don't ever postpone or procrastinate any projects you want to do, which I do all the time because I always have a million projects I'm working on simultaneously. But I always wanted to make a short film about her, and it kills me that I never did. Um. Anyway, her name was Harriet Rose Cats and she's kind of a New York She was a New York icon in the party planning business, so you need to look her up because her business

still exists. But um, but she was quite um the grandam. I love her well. I think that's the other thing about all these photos, whether your family or not, they you look at them and you want to know more about each person, and like they are just like teaming with personality and every single person every single photograph You're like, I need to spend time with this person. I need to absolutely like have Mr Tini with this woman or have this you know man who presumably your father make

my next Thanksgiving turkey? You can Thanksgiving? Thank you? I will. Um, what if it's it? What was the energy of your family being photographed all the time. I'm sure they're used to it, but how has their energy changed behind the lens or i'm sorry, in front of the lens from when you first started doing it to now. Is there ever like a moment where they didn't like it or they felt tense? Have they loosened up over the years. I think my mom is the hardest person for me

to photograph. My grandparents were real characters and they weren't self conscious. But with the camera, they were just who they were and they weren't really aware of it, and it was kind of fun for them and it was we had fun with the camera and so my So it's it's hard because there's so many generations that I photographed, So the grandparents and that generation, Um, it really was fun. It was harder to photograph my immediate family and um,

they were more conscious of it, more self conscious. Um, and especially during the Trump years, they would you know, they trusted me, which is a big deal and I take that. I do not take that lightly. Um, but they would be worried and say are you are you making us look bad? Are you judging us? Are you? And so so there was a self consciousness that started,

um in the past four or five years. Um. But they really are I mean, I'm I'm used to being called annoying and they're constantly yelling at me to put the cap down when it's like too much, I've crossed the line and I had, Yeah, but they but they are really generous with with allowing me to document their lives. Yeah, And I mean there's also like to that point, because it spans so many years. There's like a really beautiful narrative arc of watching people grow up and watching people age,

and you know how they change. And I'm sure that you changed so much in those years, and I feel like everything gets a little softer towards the end, and I'm sure that's like you growing up, and also just like approaching things with a different like, it becomes less funny and more of like, I don't know what the word is, but there's something very tender about especially the last towards the end of the book, the later photos, well, I mean there is it is done with so much love.

You know, there's so much we have, so much love in our family and for each other, and so I'm glad that that comes through even in the most difficult pictures. At what point did you decide that this was going to be a book? Though? You know, given that, like this is such a long project. I think most people, especially nowadays, we think of the creative process is like a two to three year thing, or there's just this constant pressure to put work out at this clip that

is relatively unsustainable, if I do say so myself. But this is such a long thing. You could have gone another ten year, as I imagine, So what was it about now that you felt like was the right time? So I think that I realized that it was a book after pop up. I spent the next year really looking through tens of thousands of pictures and kind of working out the narrative of the first fifteen years that led us up to this moment, like what led us

up to this very moment where we're at. So I spent about a year to really thinking about that and UM and writing and photographing. I kept photographing, and then I thought, then, you know, it's funny because the publisher of the book was in the audience. So I think that it was at the time I did, because they

published Aperture published my first book, Testimony UM. So it was apparent that I wanted to work with them again because I trusted them UM, and they were really um respectful of my time and the fact that I couldn't have like I had to figure out when the right time was. So it took a couple of years, and in fact, we were meant to publish it the fall of at the election during the election, and I had

to postpone it because COVID just turned to everything. It just it changed everything and kind of reopened up all the wounds that I spent, you know, the last two years trying to heal and um so I postponed the book and it wasn't without It was hard to make that decision because I know that it wasn't convenient for them, but they trusted in my gut that it was you know, the project needed time to I needed time to digest everything that was happening. And I'm never it's never about

just getting it out. It's it's about the quality of the work, and the quality is not It's not about crunching or making a timeline. It's about letting the work, knowing when it's finished, and that could take a while. Yeah. Wait, that's really interesting. So what changed in the law in that year that you had that you sort of were like, Okay, it's definitely not ready now, But a year later you were like, okay, I feel ready to sort of part with this. Did it? Did it expand? And it contracted?

It changed well. Right before the pandemic, I was at a place and I write about this in the book. I was at a place where I was kind of like a healing, accepting moment, and then the pandemic happened, and it's just everything Just like I said, it was just like opening up old wounds, and the tension and fighting got worse than it ever was um and the politics got more divisive, and so so there was no everything that I resolved. Just it's just I had no

resolution anymore. It was like, wait, this is not okay, and I don't know when it's going to be. And I don't know when I'm going to be able to finish this because I don't know what's going to happen next.

How What has been the response from your family in sort of retrospect, because I imagine there's a lot of not just memories from them and their loved ones, Like we're looking at it very objectively as the audience, and we're either looking at it from a technical aspect like this is a beautiful photograph or an interesting person or the sort of political backstory, But this is there, These

are their lives. This is sort of like you have curated this beautiful gifts for them, this memory book of people that are probably no longer with us, some people that have, you know, live elsewhere. I don't know, I feel like it's probably bringing up a lot of stuff for them, not just for you. But oh yeah, there. It was very emotional before the book came out, you know, publicly. I sat with my family, all my family members, and while they read it and I sat with them, um,

and those were some really really intense weeks. Those are really intense conversations. Um. It took. I'm glad we had that time before to process it together. UM. But I think we were all better for it because there were things that needed to be discussed. And I think that they understood me more and respected me more. Um, after they read it, I felt understood in a way that I had never felt under I hadn't felt understood before.

That's incredible. I mean, that's that's truly like the best therapy that a person could ask for, or that money could buy. I imagine it did. Should we Should we all go do a photo book of our family and see what happens? Maybe we could be closer ahead. No, No, there was at the exhibition. I saw a father brought his son there, twenty year old boy, and they came over and they said, oh, were you the artist? And

they said, thank you so much. We haven't been able to talk and UM, the young the twenty year old was like, I have not. My father brought me here because I haven't talked to him and this was our way. So it was just so moving that they used this work in order to open up their dialogue from the tension that they had from the past um four years,

and it was it was incredibly powerful. That's beautiful. Has there been Have there been any photographs or were there any photographs from the book or any pieces of text or any anything you had written or shared with the world that anyone in your family was like, that's too far or I'd really rather you not. Um, yes, now it's not yes, no, no. I mean there's a couple of things. Well, first of all, the text messages were UM.

I was very careful because those are private messages, UM, and that I labored over which text messages were appropriate to share. And there was a photograph of my nephew, a portrait of my nephew in his bedroom, UM that I thought was one of the strongest pictures I've ever made, one of the strongest portraits I ever made, and it was him surrounded by all the Trump paraphernalia. It was

actually in the pop up show UM. But he asked me not to um, not to publish it in the book, and I was devastated and lost a lot of sleep because I had to respect that UM. And we compromised and he allowed me to to publish the Room Empty without him in it, so he wasn't identified. Well. I I feel like if if you can create a full book of images and stories and it's there's like an

isolated thing you've you've are doing well. I feel like your your family can not laugh at themselves but like under risk act you in your art and your work, but also trust in your hands that you you know, are telling a story and doing it in like a loving and beautiful objective way. UM. And they honestly, they all look fabulous. I gotta say, like nobody dresses like your family. It is I I read that your grandmother dressed your grandfather and he never never said no to

a thing that she picked out for him. But like the zebra prints, the like the colors, the open shirts, it is just it is my my Florida fantasy is really what it is. I know they really are my style icons. We'll take a short break and be right back with the photographer Julia Laub in just a moment, what is your hope for the book when people get it in their hands, like if it's gifted to them or I mean, I think sort of the story about the father and the son at your show feels like

a part of that. Well, I mean I think that. And this was a teacher, one of my teachers in photography school said, you know, because when I was making them, like, how is anyone gonna like my family is so specific? I don't want you know. I just kept questioning myself like, what is the larger story here? And I feel like there is a larger story, which is why I made this book. It's not just about my family. And my my teacher said, the more specific you get, the larger

the message. And I from the feedback that I've gotten, which is um reassuring, is that there's kind of something for everyone in there, because it's like we all come from complicated families. Family by definition is complicated because there are humans. It's made up of humans, so um, you know. So people have said that there are things in there that they think about but haven't said out loud, so it made them feel kind of heard or seen or

less alone. Um, and that to me is like there's nothing better than somebody kind of connecting to it in that way. Yeah, that is I think. I mean to be an artist and to have that sort of impact that the work exists beyond you is is the greatest gift I feel. Yeah, but real quick. I mean I feel like this is a low hanging fruit question. But

I just got it. So you you real quick. For anyone who's not familiar, Um, Julian has photographed people like Dolly Parton and Mary J. Blige famously, UM and Annie Leave of Its as recently as a few weeks ago. I believe who has been Has there been anybody you photographed or you felt like there was like an intimidation factor so high that it made it a challenge for you creatively. Um, well, I mean I'm nervous. I think the second you're not nervous going into a shoot is

like that's a bad sign. So I think I'm always nervous. Um, And that's that that kind of I think that helps you. I think the Obama's I was very very nervous and like I have to do I have to do them justice, Like how I can't not do them justice. That's that's always the worries, like I want to be able to do justice, and that was most recently with Annie the Obama's. It was hard because you had very little time. Um, but photographing Annie, I mean, come on, she's like a

legend in I mean, she's a legend. So photographing her was the most intimidating because there's no one that knows, you know, it is more conscious about photography. And she knew that, and I think she felt bad for me, and she she sympathized with me, and so that's when it was actually sweet and it felt more like a laboration like that was what was so incredible with Annie is like she she really just has above all else. She has such a respect and takes the creative process

so seriously. So I think that she really um that came across with our um our shoot, which I'll tell you one one story is that she the picture that that was used of her in front of her pond. Um. I knew her pond was really really really important to her in in rhine Back. And we spent the day at her property in rhein Back and we get to the pond and it's awful light, like just the worst light. And I thought I was maybe going to have an hour with Annie, but we had the whole day together

and this is the very last UM shot. And she said, oh, let me show you what it looks like in the morning. It's so gorgeous in the you know, right at sunrise. So she shows me. Um, She's like, I'm not showing off. I'm not showing off, but let me just show you this picture, so gorgeous. And she shows me this like beautiful picture of her iPhone and it was like this mystical you know, smoke like missed coming off of the water and it was just gorgeous and it was like torture.

So I'm like, okay, I'll never be able to get this because I can't top. Then she was like, okay, do you want to come back in the morning, And so she just she knew, I mean, it wasn't something that was convenient for her because it was you know, and I woke up. She she she allowed me to, um, you know, come back at sunrise and make that picture because she knew that that was gonna the light was going to be perfect then. So it's like very much

like a talking shop thing. I think similarly like when I there's like a cooking for people energy, where like people, it's like cooking for somebody who's really good at cooking, right, But it's actually great because there's like a trust and and understand ending where you are actually you've sort of

fall into a rhythm. And I bet that also the photos you took of her are so drastically different than her style that I felt like, you know, I don't know, there's probably some sort of like beautiful unspoken bond there between forever. Yeah, I felt that way, which I'm really Yeah, it was very special. But wait, I want to know who is the most intimidating for you to cook for?

Oh gosh, I don't know the person who's most attimiating for me to cook or cook for gosh, I don't know anyone who's I guess I'm cooking for for the first time, or like, who is who knows about me in general? Because I feel like ultimate pressure and I it's my worst nightmare to cook for somebody in real life and have them be like this girl, You're like this person's food like I had it in real life. It wasn't not good, So For me, it is always

about like meeting expectations. And if the expectation is that I'm a professional and you're like going over to somebody's house for a potluck and you're like, someone's like, who made the dip, it's not that good. I'm like, oh, I made it. But I do this for a living. It's sort of makes me feel like I sort of delegitimized, unlike this podcast, where I'm like, I'm not a professional podcast host, so if I am not a good interviewer, I at least can fall back on my cooking. I

love it. I love it. Jillian. Thank you so so much for joining me on my foray into podcast co hosting. I love talking to you. Thank you again so much to Jillian Laub. Her book is called Family Matters, and her exhibit of the same name is that the I c P in New York through January ten. We'll show some of the photos Jillian and I talked about on Katie's website Katie Kirk dot com. And that's it for me on this microphone and in your ears. But there's

plenty more of me to go around. You can subscribe to my newsletter, find my cookbooks or home movies by going to my website Alison E. Roman dot com. Thank you so much for listening, and of course, thank you so much for having me Katie. Wasn't she great? Everyone? By the way, Her newsletter and home movies are must whether you're knee deep in the holidays or you're just looking for something delicious to make on your own. So

go find her if you haven't already. And next week, while I'm getting ready to release all the highlights from my Whirlwind book tour, my good friend Brian Goldsmith is taking over the pod. He's a political consultant, recovering journalists and my former podcasting co host. He's going to be looking into his crystal ball and it's very clear. People to tell us what the future holds in politics. It's everything you'll need to know next Thursday on Next Question.

Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of My Heart Media and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers Army Katie Kuric and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fassi, and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie correct dot com. You can also find me at Katie Currect, on Instagram

and on my social media channels. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,