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.

It is my great honor to welcome Tabitha Soren to the podcast. Tabitha Soren is an artist and Peabody Award winning journalist who used to be best known for her work as an MTV News correspondent and on air producer. In 1999, Soren took a fellowship at Stanford University, where she shifted her visual art practice from film to the still photograph. Her artwork speaks to the twists of fate in life that can unhinge us. She visualizes psychological states, the internal weather that storms through each of us.

Her project Running depicts the fight or flight response, Panic Beach upends the viewer as panic attacks do. Fantasy Life is about what it looks like to try to touch greatness. And Surface Tension reflects the struggle we all face as we adapt to technological domination. Her photographs are held in many public and private collections. And she lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area.

I have a bunch of questions. And one thing that I've been interested in for a long time was your pivot from journalism to photography. And I've read that you, you talked about your desire to want to tell longer stories and ones that weren't necessarily anchored in objective truths. But I was also thinking about how demanding the lifestyle that you were leading as a journalist was and wondering if there were other considerations or motivations for making a career change.

Tabitha Soren: 2:00

There were absolutely practical life logistical considerations. I didn't feel like I could continue to wake up and have my schedule, change or be, you know, revised in some way. And with news, even though I wasn't always covering breaking news, there certainly were plenty of..., there was plenty of travel. And there was plenty of living in hotel rooms. And because I was, I've gotten engaged and then went to Stanford, for a year on a fellowship, and had just different things coming into my world that I found made me happier than racing around the planet. And I had done it since I was 18 years old, I had an internship at CNN at 18. And so that was almost that was over 10 years of, of having that lifestyle. And I felt like it was great for my 20s. But as I started getting older, I think I just noticed that things were more complicated than I was able to tell in a story for television. So I thought, well, what are my other options and, and it wasn't so much about length. But what happens in television is that the more successful you get, the bigger audience you get, at least then, you know, you're you're supposed to aspire to being on the networks and then networks when I was on NBC Nightly News, it's a two and a half minute piece was considered really long, so there wasn't a lot of room for nuance. And so there was there was an emphasis on who, what, when, where, and why as there should be. And I just felt like, that wasn't all that interesting. And plus, the bigger audience you get, the more mainstream the work is going to become. And I was much happier being sort of in a niche area, if there have been podcasts at the time, I probably would have ended up in that way because it's so pleasurable to be surrounded by people with whom you have all the same reference points. And you have all this shorthand, even if as we found through podcasts communities, they're really strangers and you've never met them. You know, that concept really didn't exist, there was this American life and that's about it. And so, like when you meet someone and you hit it off like that, I don't know, that was just really great. Whereas when I was at NBC Nightly News, I had to pull out my pigtails and change my shoes and, you know, put on my my big girl pants. And, and it's a part of me, certainly that's very serious about politics. It reads the newspaper that likes being part of the mix in that way. But there's another side of me that was not being served, the more twisted, introspective, punk rock side.

Jennifer Yoffy: 4:55

That's understandable. Do you feel like too because that lifestyle was in your 20s, and here you are getting engaged and kind of moving into another life phase that you were more interested in more emotionally driven stories and things that you could explore in a different way?

Tabitha Soren: 5:17

That is definitely how it turned out. But I'm not sure I had that at the front of my mind at the time. I just felt like, you know, I grew up in a very middle class family. And it was pretty conventional, provincial, I might say, except we live lived all around the world, because my dad was in the military. But, I did have a very antiquated idea of what family and getting married means. And so I just assumed kids would be down the road. And do I want to be an absentee mom? Or do I need to hire somebody to take care of my kids while I'm gone? Do we have two sort of high powered careers and have them battle the schedule out? You know, every day? There were just all sorts of things I had heard from people who had tried to manage marriage and kids. And you know, some of my mentors in journalism, most of the women had no children. And that was the way to just keep it simple. And that was a good choice for them. But, it wasn't how I saw things. So, my agent called me, her most downwardly mobile client, with a lot of love. I just failed. And when my husband and I bought a house here, I had a baby. I think I taught at the journalism school while I was pregnant and nursing. And then we put the house under construction and moved to Paris. So I didn't have to figure out what kind of working mom I wanted to be because I couldn't speak French. Nobody could hire me for anything.

Jennifer Yoffy: 7:02

Perfect.

Tabitha Soren: 7:02

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Jennifer Yoffy: 7:07

So something that I love and appreciate about your work is that it has conceptual rigor. So your projects have a depth of meaning and purpose to them beyond just the aesthetic beauty. How much of your background as a journalist do you think plays into that aspect of your work?

Tabitha Soren: 7:26

I think journalism is why I start with a concept - generally. I mean every once in a while I take a good picture and think, wow, that would be great for something. And I don't know why I don't know the meaning behind it. But generally, when I start a new body of work, I have an idea in my head. And I want to take pictures that support that idea.

Jennifer Yoffy: 7:48

Right, so you're exploring using a camera?

Tabitha Soren: 7:51

Yes, it's I'm finding the pictures to verify or support the concept. And often the work is about visualizing something you can't see, like a psychological state of mind. And I think that that's not very journalistic. Right? So I'm not out there looking at reportage or trying to document a subculture or street life. I think that's another very gendered area of photography. Helen Levitt didn't have kids either. So, street photography just doesn't work for me, because I have three children, and I can't just have a camera around my neck and wander or roam until I find a great picture. So my process is much more directed. I have shot lists, I'm surrounded by all these pieces of paper in my studio, and they are things I know I've already shot. And I didn't know what to do with. But, now it all sort of gels. You know, some of it gels together. There's been a lot of time because of COVID to look through one's archive, and all those pictures you've taken that you've never had any use for. So, because I can't grab a friend to get in the car and go make her stand in the rain somewhere to take a picture, I have looked to see like..., I've just been digging deep. I've been shooting as well. But, I think we've all been sort of looking back at all the zillions of images that you have. I was talking to Raymond Meeks on the phone and he said something like, you know, he was, he had... Oh, I know, I was complaining about backing up my archive online, which is one of the things I did last summer and how tedious it was. And I said, you know, do you do that? Do you have it on on hard drives? Or do you have the negatives in a safe or, you know, he's like, "Yeah, nah, none of that I think the world could do with a lot fewer images, you know, whatever?!? Like, there's just 1000s of bad pictures in my closet, you know? Like really, light the match, the world would be better off." And I thought, yeah, I'm really getting..., I'm treating these things like they're, they're all like these priceless objects, when really, the world is just fine never seeing most of the stuff that I take.

Jennifer Yoffy: 10:16

Do you think having looked back, you know, kind of having this time to maybe see all these orphan photos that you made that were good that didn't fit? Do you feel that there's a commonality between them? Like, are you able to pull them together and say, like, Oh, this is a theme I was exploring in the background and never realized?

Tabitha Soren: 10:37

Well, I think that, I think yes, I think that what I see when I look back, is not anything that really relates to things that are very popular at the moment, like identity, things that are really important in terms of equality and social justice and other voices being heard. I feel like my work is constantly reaching out to a universality rather than how we're all equally different and special. It can feel kind of epic and overwhelming to me. But, I think that's why my projects take so long because it takes me a while to show something that I haven't seen before that isn't trite or cliche. So for example, the running work, yes, there are people running. But, it's not about that at all. It's about the fight or flight response and how one deals with a feeling of panic or anxiety. And right now I've been working on, pictures of car wrecks, and pictures of train wrecks, and pictures of shipwrecks, and I'm trying to put them together in a way that speaks to the emotional wreck, that all of us are sort of figuring out a way around, or a way to pull ourselves up from that situation of the last year and a half, because it's the only response I have to how complicated it all is. And it doesn't, you know...? Your exhaustion, and frustration and sadness is very real, whether you've had a partner die of COVID or if you've just stayed inside for over a year, you know? I don't want to trivialize anyone's experience, or re-victimize people who have gone through something more intense. So, I'm looking for sort of metaphor and a universal connection to psychological states that Americans at least are taught to bury, or at least keep on the on the down low. Sometimes my work as a result is hard to hang over a couch.

Jennifer Yoffy: 13:08

It's not a rainbow? I actually was noticing that there is a thread through a good deal of your work that touches on that tension between emotional turmoil and resiliency. In Running and Panic Beach, and I heard you talk about Uprooted, a project that you're working on and even the the underlying images and surface tension, the positive and negative aspects of touch that you talked about there. So what is it about that duality that interests you? And drives you to explore it photographically?

Tabitha Soren: 13:48

Well, without the resiliency of the emotional turmoil and the difficult twist of everyday living, there's no hope. So, I am interested in people who pick themselves up, and I'm sure that comes from being in the military, it's a very pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of upbringing. But, I think grit is really important. I just, I really am struck by the amount of catastrophe that people encounter and survive. And sometimes they don't survive it. But, it moves me when I interact with somebody who has overcome something that seems just, you know, insurmountable. And I felt like that was that's something to celebrate, but I think I do it in a bit of a dark way. Just visually, I like Caravaggio, I like very chiaroscuro sort of lighting situations, I mean, people have referred to it as cinematic. But, I didn't go to film school. So I think it just comes from realizing that there are these polar opposites pulling us in different directions psychologically and just practically as well. And you have to be able to manage yourself in both. And I think, after this year and a half, both because of COVID, and the political situation in the United States, I think most people have figured out that the most rebellious, politically active, important thing you can do is figure out a way to be happy that is the most radical action. And, I phone-banked, I did voter registration drives, I did a lot of, you know, little tiny activism bits to do my part, so I wouldn't feel guilty if the election didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.

Jennifer Yoffy: 15:58

Right, like, how could that...? I mean, assuming you were on the side of good, and wanted the election to turn out the way it did. Was it hard for you to sit on the sidelines in this?

Tabitha Soren: 16:12

Oh my gosh, no, I go out of my way to support independent journalism. But part of the reason I do that both, you know, as a as a listener and as as a, you know, person who's on Patreon, helping the things that I listen to sustain themselves. It's because I am glad that they are doing it. And I'm not, you know, Madeline Baron and the American Public Media Group. I mean, what she did within the dark and getting that guy out of jail after being on trial.... I mean, that is I never did that kind of journalism. That's really important. That takes having so many doors slammed in your face, having so many people tell you one thing, and then change their minds and tell you another, you really have to stay on the ground for a long time. I really admire that. And you have that, within this scope of social media and people being canceled and the Twitter universe, plus our president, just being an absolute narcissist and demagogue?!? I can't imagine working in that environment. I have no word. I'm not temperamentally suited for the kind of active rage, and back and forth, I need quiet. And, you know, I really needed to research go to the library, think about what I was doing, see what else had been done on the subject. I mean, I am temperamentally suited to be an artist in a studio, who works with a camera and a darkroom all alone. I can't imagine. I can't imagine. It must be crazy making in a way, because you have to block out as many voices as you're letting in.

Jennifer Yoffy: 18:11

The focus on the rage, I think is really interesting because, you know, you just said that, the thing that we could do would be to figure out a way to be happy in this just bizarre situation. But, the people that are really pushing these conversations forward, you have to stay in that agitated state to be able to have that tenacity to keep going after it. And that's going to be an impossible... For me, it would be an impossible place to live.

Tabitha Soren: 18:44

Right, I do think that there are plenty of examples of people resisting that in a very important way, the Black Lives Matter group, certainly. I mean, in every group, you're going to have really angry extremists. And that's what motivates them to participate. But, I would say I mean, look at especially what they just finished in Georgia, I think that there are plenty of examples of people making real change, and taking apart one issue, whether it be abortion rights in Ohio or, you know, women's rights, or I think that people have done really well thought out resistance. And they haven't stopped. I mean, there was this great Rebecca Traister article in New York Magazine right after the election that just basically listed, you know, 31 different protests that have just lined up, you've got, you know, the gun control, students, and abortion rights and trans rights and it was just one after the other and I think that that kind of tenacity will sustain itself without the anger. And there's always, I mean, there will always be people who, you know, have that kind of rage, but, I'm hopeful that all the protests, were really making little bits of change. There's actually a researcher at Harvard who study nonviolent social resistance. And so they're actually putting numbers on whether this works over time, or if it's...

Jennifer Yoffy: 20:28

...So like the long term efficacy of a nonviolent kind of peaceful...

Tabitha Soren: 20:33

Yes. The voting efforts in Georgia were very much a grassroots movement. And Stacey Abrams gets a lot of the credit. But, she's the first to say that there were all these other people and all these other groups working in unison, and that is the way they got the results that they did. It wasn't about a figurehead. And, and I feel like they made an effort to tell, you know, white college students from out of state to not move there, don't do this to us, we got this, we have agency over our own situation. And I think that that authenticity will come through rather than a robo call, or a phone-banking call from someone like me in California. So I just think people are getting smarter and smarter about this. That said, I was a little shocked by the news later that day, that the Capital building had been invaded.

Jennifer Yoffy: 21:33

I know, especially like living in Georgia, you know, through all of this has been unbelievable. The number of handwritten postcards I got about the importance of voting blew my mind. It was amazing. And also, I guess Stacey Abrams is a perfect example of flipping that she was robbed in her election, and she took what could have or would have made me insane, you know, and channeled it into this hugely positive thing. For the whole country. Unbelievable.

Tabitha Soren: 22:15

Perfect example. Yeah, I have goosebumps. The surface tension connection for all of that there are a lot of protests, images in surface tension, because I do feel like there is a, you know, there's clicktivism, there are ways to feel like you're doing something through the computer related to social justice. And, and yet, it's also a way to, to, you know, bring people together and and create a protest, right? So so there's a somewhat negative superficial relationship through the computer to these images. But there's also a way to find a community. But one of the things that really sticks in my head through that series of, you know, it's sort of a chapter within surface tension, I would say, and is a quote from Bryan Stevenson. And he said, "You know, we're all responsible for creating possibilities of reconciliation, and repair." And he said, he gets frustrated when he hears people talking and saying, Well, you know, if I'd been living in the 60s, I would have been right next to Martin Luther King, I would have been marching. I mean, I totally envisioned myself on one of those buses, had I been old enough, you know? But really, if we're living now, like, what are the things that we're doing now? You can't claim that in the 60s, you would have been part of the Freedom Riders, if you're not doing something to help the people who are incarcerated unfairly now. You can't, you know, these things are destroying communities, and a lot of us are doing nothing. And he says it more brilliantly than that. But that's the idea that I think that the computer and technology can get in the way of, you can sort of anesthetize yourself from action by submerging yourself in all these images.

Jennifer Yoffy: 24:12

You can also feel like you're doing something just by sharing an article on Facebook. When you're not actually moving the needle. You know, you're not doing the harder work that has to get done.

Tabitha Soren: 24:24

Yeah. And I think because of all these pictures, it's easier to create that visual narrative in our head.

Jennifer Yoffy: 24:32

Right, like that you're there. You're part of it.

Tabitha Soren: 24:34

Yeah. And I mean, I'm, as guilty of it as anybody else.

Jennifer Yoffy: 24:41

So switching gears, although this was awesome. You've had an experience that's relatable to not an insignificant number of photographers where you've had a successful first career, and then began photographing as a second career. in navigating all of that, what would you say was your biggest wrong turn? And what did you learn from it?

Tabitha Soren: 25:06

I'm having a hard time answering that question because there's not just one wrong turn, that comes to mind, I feel like I'm making wrong turns all the time. And I, I struggle with the same wrong turn over and over again. So, for me, I think that my heart is so wrapped up in the pictures that I take. I mean, I'm exploring things psychologically, but also, it is about opening up myself in my own interior life in a way that journalism did not. And so I feel very vulnerable to the world, when my pictures are shown, I'm always the last person to go to my own opening, you know, I have a lot of social anxiety about that, that I did not have when I'm walking into the Oval Office to talk to a president.

Jennifer Yoffy: 26:03

That's interesting, because it wasn't about you. You're getting someone to talk about them.

Tabitha Soren: 26:07

Exactly. Yes.

Jennifer Yoffy: 26:09

When you talk about the same wrong turn you've made over and over what is that?

Tabitha Soren: 26:14

The wrong turn that I struggle with is caring about what people think, in terms of my art, I don't mean in terms of, you know, how I behave in the world. But, it is a knee jerk reaction, to assume that someone doesn't like the work, or it's not good enough, or it isn't pleasing, or, or it's not, right for that show. And sometimes, if I would just hold that beating myself up impulse for 24 hours, I get the answer I want. You know? Later, like, I wasn't at the top of their agenda. I'm sitting there waiting, you know, like with bated breath. And they are, you know, in the hospital with their father and colon cancer or something. Like, they've got bigger things to think about. So I, I remember, the first time I had a gallery show, and some of the work sold before it even opened, which I was confused about, because I kind of thought they'd have to see the whole reason I paid a fortune to have them mounted and frame was because I thought you'd want to see them in space, but whatever, happy that some of them sold. And then, by the time that we were taking the show down, it wasn't all sold out. And I don't think I necessarily expected that, but I expected more sales. And the photographer Richard Misrach, lives a couple blocks away and so he has given me a perspective when I've needed it. And he said, I was really bummed after..., it was either after the opening or after the deinstallation, I can't remember and he said "You didn't schedule a shoot?" I'm like what he's like, "Oh, you always have to schedule a shoot on that day." Like, why? He said, "Because you're gonna have the blues, like, everyone knows that," I was like, damn it, I didn't get the memo. But he's like, "You're gonna feel like you just spent all this time, all these years, working on this project, and then it went up. And you know, and it didn't change the world, or you're, you know, you're not in MoMA, or whatever the bar is for your art forum. And you're gonna, it's gonna suck that day. So, so schedule a shoot and make some work because that's what it's about. And that's what makes you happy, really." I thought, Oh, such a good idea. So of course, I always do that now. But the other thing he said; this was with the running work. He said, "Sometimes it just takes a while." And I thought, Oh, he's just trying to be nice. You know, he's just saying that. And he's right. Like the pictures have taken on different contexts. Because of COVID. There's these isolated people freaking out and they're outside and they're running and like that situation. The the societal constraints of this moment, inform those pictures from years ago, in a way that I couldn't have anticipated. And then somebody put them in a book, and then GQ wanted to publish a portfolio. And then, you know, like it just, and I'm thinking what I've had these things sitting in storage, really, for seven years, they're available. I felt like maybe they weren't as good as I thought they were. And I just sort of thought, oh, well, that was my starter project, you know? But, still when I take them out, I still am kind of, like swooning over them. I just really like them. You know, other people don't have to like it, it's okay. And I'll try to talk myself into the mindset that I think other photographers have. Because I have seen photographers with so much more swagger than me. They just, you know, I can have swagger in the Oval Office or with Arafat, you know, covering soldiers and peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, like there's something about my temperament that I'm really good at thinking on my feet in that situation. But, when it's my interior life exposed, and, you know, people aren't feeling the triumph or exhibiting the kind of enthusiasm that I feel inside about it, it's just really heartbreaking. If I could figure out a way to not be that way, I'd be so much happier.

Jennifer Yoffy: 31:03

So what would you say was the best decision you made? And did you see it that way at the time?

Tabitha Soren: 31:12

Well, the thing I think is the best decision that I made, I still think that other people will not think it's the best decision I've ever made. So, I'm interested mainly in fine art photography. But, if Kathy Ryan from the New York Times Magazine calls me or there's a photo editor at Wired, who's phenomenal, there are people who can get me on the phone and asked me to do an assignment. And I will do it. And I want to please them. So the work turns out really good, because I admire them so much, and like working with them. And, there are plenty of people in the art world who would who look down on editorial photography. So I've I managed to continue doing that. In addition, I have projects that are sort of documentary, in nature. The Uprooted project, I've been taking pictures in New Orleans, post Katrina, because I took an editorial assignment from Kathy Ryan like days after Katrina hit, and the levees broke. So we we had to sneak in, basically. But, I've been shooting those same places for 20 years. And it has amounted to something there's plenty of boring pictures in there, you know, when the place does not change a bit from year to year, those pictures are not very exciting. But, when you've got 10 years, and the only thing that has changed is the length, the height of the grass. That's interesting. Yeah, so there's a certain amount of like just slogging through the middle section to get to the arc. And, that same thing happened with my baseball players. I mean, I don't really like baseball, I don't have a lot of friends like sports. So it was always like an odd thing. And the art world is comprised of people who were beat up by jocks in high school. So it's not exactly an easy sell. To me, it was about Manifest Destiny, and effort, and trying to be number one.

Jennifer Yoffy: 33:21

And putting yourself out there.

Tabitha Soren: 33:23

Yes, a psychological state. But you know, you can't get around the fact that everybody's in a uniform, and they have a bat in their hand. So that had people scratching their heads, even though I did a book with Aperture. And it was, you know, they printed 5000 copies, and it was a huge thing. But, it's still it's baseball. So people are skeptical about that. Then I do have work, that's purely fine art, and that has been supported by institutions and bought by museums and, and so the work doesn't all look the same. But it all of it means a lot to me. The best decision for me is to have a lot of, I have a lot of tools in the shed, and I try to use them all. And I think that if you narrow yourself down to okay, I'm the guy who takes pictures of fog at night. It's hard to get out of that and you can be really successful but I think it's a short term situation. I think it's easier to be known for something so collectors want to take that picture and put it over their couch or their at their mantel because when their guests walk in they go "Oh, isn't that a Baldessari," or you know, whatever it is, but the the artists that I admire are people who, they're a bit of a shapeshifter. And it takes a longer time to build a career under that situation. You're not gonna be, I will never be the hot young thing because I'm no longer young. But I'm planning on being the hot octogenarian.

Jennifer Yoffy: 35:10

So musicians are similar, right, like, bands get shit on for doing their experimental album. But I mean, you can see bands that have taken risks over time and you look at how different one album can be from the other, but you're right, you need a lot of that volume to round it out and, and have kind of a canon of work that all fits together.

Tabitha Soren: 35:36

Yeah. And there are middle stages, you know, that Lou Reed's experimental album? You know, was required for him to get to the next one, or David Bowie or, you know...? But, it's more awkward. It's a more awkward way to move through the world because it's hard to sum up what you do in a sentence or two. But, for me the projects, they just come out that way. So, I mean, this this next body of work, I'm looking at Turner paintings, I'm looking at a lot of painterly work, because I'm trying to take something that's quite ugly, but yet that we are very attracted to looking at you know, the rubbernecking on a highway when you have a car crash? How do I, how do I turn that from something quotidian into art? And how do I have it be a metaphor for something besides just an accident, and that does not look like my 10 types of baseball players,

Jennifer Yoffy: 36:53

Right?

Tabitha Soren: 36:54

And it doesn't look like the houses in New Orleans. And you know, if I twisted everything into doing that it would be bad, it would just seem hollow. I'm just trying to make something that you haven't seen before. You know, the one of the benefits of being older is that I have an incredible amount of art history in my brain. I have an incredible amount of visual history. And I have an incredible amount of you know, just images, pictures, a Rolodex of images. So, it makes me slower to take a picture because it's been taken before. And I know it has, so why bother? Yeah, I'll never forget, I dragged my daughter to help me with my flash someplace in Hawaii. And she was taking digital photography class at the time, too. And she had her camera and I had mine. And I was of course making us be out in the stormy weather and it's raining and it's sunny, and it's rainy, and it's sunny, and I'm making her hike. And she's like, "God, Mom, why do you have to make everything so hard?" I said, because, the easy pictures have all been taken. And then this rainbow came out. And she grabbed her camera, and I almost slapped it out of her hand and turned around and all the tourists on the cliff that we had just climbed down were all with their cameras taking pictures of this rainbow. I was like, don't you ever take..., (laughs) buy the postcard at the store. Nobody needs that you know?

Jennifer Yoffy: 38:30

That's amazing. So last question. Over the last few years, especially, you've had a hugely successful book published by Aperture, which you talked about, your first museum show, the solo show at Transformer Station. Where are you setting your sights next? I mean, I feel like you've got a book, your museum show, you know, do you feel like you have hit the highlights that you hope to? Or do you? Does that bar just keep getting higher?

Tabitha Soren: 39:04

I think by nature, I am very ambitious. But, I also get a lot of feedback from the art world that you're supposed to pretend you're not [ambitious], at least I find that toward women. I don't find it toward men as much. So I don't have an answer to that question because I try to bury those feelings. I would say that what I have learned by juggling shows and books and editorial work is that I'm happiest when I'm working with somebody who I like. I did a book with Yoffy Press and the people that you paired me up with, I really liked their work and I've been in continued conversation with Penelope Umbrico since that. And that's what makes me feel happy. The woman that I'm working with on a Mills College show, I have a solo show coming up there in the fall, theoretically. And I'm part of a show at Pier 24. And I'm at the San Francisco Airport Museum. They were all supposed to be three separate shows, but they are all piled on top of each other now. But, the people who are curating those shows, who I'm planning that with it, it really just makes a huge difference when I like the people I'm working with. So, I have discovered in the art world that there are a lot of very intellectual introverts who teach me a lot. And they're not necessarily flying around to art fairs. They're not running a gallery and working with a PR person and trying to get on the cover of Art Forum. There's not this breathless, like "too cool for school" attitude, they don't have asymmetrical haircuts and, you know, funky glasses. There's a whole crowd of those people out there that want to discuss whether, you know, Korbe actually knew anything about the water. Like, those are my people. And the more I can work on projects with those types of people, the happier I will be. And it really just does focus right back down to the art instead of the art business.

Jennifer Yoffy: 41:40

Yes.

Tabitha Soren: 41:42

There's a phase at which, when you're, when you're starting out, you're just trying to make the best art possible. But, then I think it's smart to use a little bit of the success one might feel, to think differently. You're not trying to be as good as everybody else. You can relax into yourself, make your own work, and, and have your own rules. And I mean, the stakes in the art world, like my god, you know, if I wanted to make a lot of money, I would still be in my first job. So they're so low, you might as well break all the rules.

Jennifer Yoffy: 42:23

That's great advice.

Tabitha Soren: 42:27

I get questions sometimes on social media like, did you retouch that? Is that shot on film? And the implication is, you know, if you're not doing it on analog, it's not right. And then there are things that I've shot analog, and nobody believes that they were shot on film. I've been doing a lot of interventions with the photographs with paint and resin and imprints, and a lot of the experiments are horrible, but some of them turn out really well. And then you get some sort of old school photo world snob, and their reaction is why are you decorating the photograph? Like well, are painters decorating the canvas? I mean, I'm not a painter. I'm not trying to equate myself with somebody who went to art school.

Jennifer Yoffy: 43:19

Right, you're just saying there is not only one way to do something.

Tabitha Soren: 43:22

Yes! What is that?

Jennifer Yoffy: 43:25

Yeah, I mean, art is supposed to be about novel ideas and presenting them in new ways. So if we're not trying to do that, we're not pushing that conversation forward. Well, I loved talking to you today. This was so great.

Tabitha Soren: 43:42

I always love talking to you, Jennifer.

Jennifer Yoffy: 43:45

Well, thank you for doing this.

Tabitha Soren: 43:47

Thank you Jennifer. Thanks for including me.

Jennifer Yoffy: 43:49

Of course. Thank you. When I was doing research for this to figure out what questions to ask you, I watched the Tupac interview. How in the world..., it must have been so awkward to be walking that whole time asking questions. I was thinking like, where would I put my arms? You know, like, I was super impressed.

Tabitha Soren: 44:19

Clearly, I didn't think much about what to wear. Oh my god. I just wanted to be cozy, I guess. Why am I wearing a sweater on Venice Beach? I really don't know. But you know the worst thing. The worst thing is when the interviewer shows up dressed as the artist. There's a phase, if you notice it, people go through and it's sort of like I'm gonna interview Tupac. What am I gonna wear?

Jennifer Yoffy: 44:48

If you had worn that bandana around your head, that would have been unbelieveable.

Tabitha Soren: 44:52

I know, unbelievable!