← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
From Long Island, To San Francisco, To Australia, Photographer Dona Ann McAdams Looks Back at 50 Years of Pictures
00:24:42
A new exhibit of photographer Dona Ann McAdams' work explores five decades of her photography from around the world.
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- [00:00]
Donna Ann McAdams
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Alison Stewart
This is all of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here on today's show. We'll round up the latest social media news with CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. We'll have a live in studio performance from the Moroccan rock group Baba Blues. And we'll hear from musician Katie Gavin who will be at Radio City tonight and tomorrow. That is our plan. So let's get this started with an extraordinary new photo exhibit. Photographer Donna Ann McAdams is looking back back at her childhood in 1950s Ronkonkoma, before the Long Island Expressway had even arrived back at her many cross country adventures, including when she left home at 19 to head to bohemian San Francisco and her days as a New Yorker, including her longtime gig as the house photographer for the performance space 122. The Pratt Manhattan Gallery has just opened a new exhibition of Donna's work spanning 50 years. There's also an accompanying monograph, a photographic memoir that includes some of Donna's early journal entries. As she writes, I was always looking through the glass light within the dark. Donna Ann McAdams black box is on view at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery at 144 W. 14th St. Now through June 7. You can see some of her photos on our Instagram stories right now. Llovenyc Donna is now here as my guest. Welcome to wnyc.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Thank you so much Alison. It's such a pleasure to be with you.
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Alison Stewart
I also want to mention that Donna will be in conversation with poet Eileen Miles for a special event at the gallery that is happening on Thursday, May 15th at 6:30pm Donna, as you were putting together this exhibition of your work over the years, first of all, how did you react to seeing your older photos?
- [02:37]
Donna Ann McAdams
Well, I found a lot of pictures that I hadn't seen before when I started to dig deep into the archive. And a lot of them were surprising because they were photographs that were, for me, good photographs. But I had missed them 50 years ago. So that was kind of exciting. It was exciting to look at old work and make it new work. So that was a big pleasure for me.
- [02:59]
Alison Stewart
What did you notice about younger Donna as a photographer and what she was interested in.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Younger, younger photographer Donna was more interested in street photography. And older Donna, photographer became more involved with activism. So I sort of took more responsibility for making the photographs than taking the photographs, as I did when I was in my 20s.
- [03:23]
Alison Stewart
What led to that shift?
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Donna Ann McAdams
I met Harvey Milk, and he changed my life. He encouraged me to use my photography for social activism. He encouraged me to get on the street. He encouraged me to realize that gay pride was more than just a slogan. It was going to be a way of life. And he was going to make that happen as the first elected gay official in San Francisco.
- [03:47]
Alison Stewart
Yeah, people don't know this about you, but you were kicked out of Catholic school. You graduated high school, and then you went to California, left home. You drove across the country to San Francisco. First of all, what was calling you West?
- [03:59]
Donna Ann McAdams
You know, I got in my car and I just started driving. But I did have a friend, a photographer named John Countess who was attending the San Francisco Art Institute. He was my boyfriend at that time. And he encouraged me to leave the island and come out and join him in San Francisco. And I did that and started to sit in on classes at the San Francisco Art Institute and become involved in the community out there. And as a young photographer, I was really fortunate to be able to be at the Art institute in the 70s, when photography was just coming into its own as an art form.
- [04:35]
Alison Stewart
What did the west mean to you as a person?
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Donna Ann McAdams
The west was big, wide open skies. The west was my Leica camera 258. Lots of light, lots of horizon. And long island was 3,000 miles away. The Long island of my childhood. And my young adulthood was not really part of my life anymore. And I was glad to have the freedom to be who I wanted to be.
- [05:03]
Alison Stewart
You tell great stories about your time out west, including how you met Harvey Milk. Would you share that story with us?
- [05:10]
Donna Ann McAdams
I like to call these stories my Little Ditties. Ditties, Ditties, little diddies. Pretty little ditties. So, you know, I was just out shooting, taking pictures with some friends up in Dolores park, and I ran out of film. And so somebody said, there's a camera shop over on Castro Street. You can just probably get a couple of rolls of film over there. And I thought, all right. So I headed over there, and I walked in, and there was this guy with a mustache and long hair and the barber chair that you hear about or you see or you saw in the film. And he went behind the counter and said, what do you need? And I said, I need a roll of Tri X. And he said, just one? And I said, well, really, that's all I have money for. And he set up a charge account for me and said, anytime you're in the neighborhood and you want to come in and charge a roll of film, here's your. Just ask for me or ask for Scott. And then I later found out who the guy behind the. The counter behind the mustache was, that he was Harvey Milk and he was running for office. So I got involved in getting him elected. He didn't win the first couple of times, but he finally did, and it was really great to celebrate with him when he did win.
- [06:25]
Alison Stewart
What did you take from that interaction of him setting up an account for you, although you said you could only afford that one roll of film?
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Donna Ann McAdams
Well, the generosity of. Of a. Of a. Of a. An elder in the community, not that much else older, but somebody taking an interest in a young photographer, in a woman, and saying, look here, you need these items for your. To take pictures, you need film, you need supplies. Just come in here and charge them, and we'll worry about the money later on. So it was a very generous offer on his part. And he was just really a nice and incredible guy. And people would always go in there and hang around, and there was always a big fight to sit in the barber chair.
- [07:05]
Alison Stewart
What was. What was his. What was his magnetism?
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Donna Ann McAdams
He just was a straight shooter. He was the mayor of Castro street, and he was. He wanted to get. You know, Anita Bryan was around. She would. Things were happening there was. He wanted to. He wanted to make sure that people had an opportunity to experience the freedom that they should have as a gay person. Stonewall had happened, and things were changing, and Polk street was alive with. With parades and activities. And he wanted to be a part of that. And like I said, he was the first openly gay elected official in San Francisco. And of course, we lost him and George Moscone just a short time after he was elected to office by Dan White. And that's when I moved back to New York.
- [07:55]
Alison Stewart
My guest photographer, Donna Ann McAdams. We're speaking about a new exhibition of her photography at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. It's called Donna Ann McAdams black box, presenting over 50 years of Donna Black White photography. It's on view now through June 7th. I want to take you back to Long island, to ronkonkoma in the 50s. You said the Long Island Expressway hadn't opened yet that far. How would you describe ronkonkoma? In the 50s.
- [08:22]
Donna Ann McAdams
We moved there in 1960 from Cambria Heights. We moved into one of the first little track developments on Samuel Street. And there was just a lot of farming. There were potatoes and there were, and there were ducks and it was, there was not a whole lot of, of houses or development at that time. So it was, we had a backyard, we had, you know, like woods around us. So it was, it was kind of like a paradise for a young kid. And my two brothers would get on our bicycles and ride around. But at a certain point when I started entering high school and I just, it's, it seemed a little too. I just didn't feel like I was going to be able to go anywhere. So I decided that I needed to sort of get off the island and do something different. So I went west.
- [09:11]
Alison Stewart
When is your interest in photography actually begin?
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Donna Ann McAdams
You know, I, when I went to the San Francisco Art Institute, I was looking at pictures. I wasn't really taking photographs at that time, but I would go and I would sit in on the classes that Hank Wessel held in Sweet. Was called Sweet sixteen. And it was a man named Hilton Braithwhite who encouraged me to get a camera. And he said, you know, you're looking at pictures and you're interested, why don't you just get a camera and see how it feels to shoot. And so I had a little Olympus half frame camera. And after about six months he said, you need a Leica, get a real camera. Not that, that's not a real camera, but you need a full frame. You don't need a half frame. Go get yourself a Leica. So I did. He was a big early supporter of my work. And also when I moved back to New York, I lived in his loft with his partner, Aldona Regalis. So he helped me out west. And then when he moved back and I moved back to New York, he housed me for about a year till I got myself on my feet.
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Alison Stewart
And I believe there's a picture of him in your monograph. Can you describe that picture of him?
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Donna Ann McAdams
There's two pictures. There's one picture of him standing next to his wife. Angela Davis, who I also got to know gave me my first reading list and reading assignment. And I was lucky enough in 1982 for her to give me a copy of Women, Race and Class, which was an important book for me to read at that time too. And the other picture, the other picture is Angela and her two dogs. My friend Karen and my friend Yvonne on her deck in the Oakland hills. And I'm Sort of back there in the foreground, and I'm sort of a ways away, and they're just leaning on this fence with the hills behind them.
- [11:07]
Alison Stewart
It's interesting. In the exhibit, there's a picture of you. It's an early picture of you, a self portrait of you. What was the story behind that picture? You're young.
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Donna Ann McAdams
The one of me at the. In the Empire State Building?
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Alison Stewart
I think so. It's one of the first ones you see.
- [11:24]
Donna Ann McAdams
You're talking about the photograph of me in front of the television set? Yes, yes. Okay. So my father took that, and I'm just sitting in front of this big box, grainy television set. A lot of my life was, back in the day, was listening to the television set through the wall of my bedroom, because my bedroom wall shared the same wall as a tv. And the tv, the television was always on in my house growing up. Another reason to move to San Francisco, television.
- [11:56]
Alison Stewart
And how about the image of you taking a picture?
- [11:59]
Donna Ann McAdams
The one on the Empire State Building was just. When I first came back to New York from San Francisco, I just decided to do touristy things. I had never been. I didn't spend any time in the city when I was a kid, and I came back as an adult, and I just decided to poke around, take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, go to the top of the Empire State Building. And I just saw my reflection in the glass with my little disheveled coat and little purse, and I made that photograph.
- [12:31]
Alison Stewart
Why was that important for you to make that photograph?
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Donna Ann McAdams
I just. It marked a time in my life, a young artist back in New York trying to find their way. And there's something just about the kind of the disheveled look about me, like immigrant look about me, like a new immigrant to New York City. Even though I was an American. I was born in New York in Queens in 1954.
- [12:57]
Alison Stewart
My guest is photographer Donna Ann McAdams. We're speaking about a new exhibition of her photography at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. It's called Donna Ann McAdams black box. You shoot in black and white. Why does that medium speak to you?
- [13:11]
Donna Ann McAdams
You know, I've always just been interested in black and white. I'm interested in light and shape and form. Color has never really been that interesting to me. I mean, it's a beautiful form. I have my little camera on my iPhone that I will use, but I'm more interested in the abstraction that black and white affords me. It's something I just was always attracted to, and I never had a desire to shoot any other way. And also I've never had a desire to use anything except my. My 35 millimeter Leica. So it's the same camera, different film, because Tri X isn't as nice as it used to be. I use. I use Ilford, HP5 and Kentmere now, but it's the same process, the same film, the same camera, the same processing in the darkroom. And I also like being able to just process and print my own work in my darkroom here up in Sandgate, Vermont.
- [14:08]
Alison Stewart
I was going to ask you about printing your own photographs because some of them have the black border around the edge, some don't. Tell me a little bit about your process of printing photographs.
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Donna Ann McAdams
I like the black border around the edge of the photograph because it shows you the entire contents of the frame. So the photograph is made in the camera and I don't necessarily do any cropping of it in the enlarger. So the black border is the entire frame. And I just like that finished edge on my photographs. And the dark room is just. It's, it's. You're under amber. You're. You're in this. This red light and you have. You have your water, your chemistry. You're alone with your negatives. And it's. It's a very peaceful, relaxing, sometimes technically challenging place to be. But I enjoy it and I'll continue to do it for as long as I can. Now, when I make big 16 by 20 inch prints, I always write how old I am on the back of the photograph. So if you turn one over, you'll see the negative number and the date, but you'll also see, you know, 60. I started doing it when I was 63. So if I print now, it'll say 70. A little prize on the back for somebody to find later on when they find the archive, or if somebody does take the archive, they'll go, what is that? Now they don't know what it is. Thanks to you, Alison.
- [15:32]
Alison Stewart
There you go. You know, a lot of photographers think that a lot of the artistry happens in the printing and the burning of the photograph. Do you agree with that?
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Donna Ann McAdams
Yeah. A lot of. You have to make an exposure in the camera, but then once the negative goes in the enlarger. Yes. There's a lot of burning and dodging and there's. There's a lot of manipulation that goes into adjusting the light on the paper. So. And you know, that's. That. I do that in the darkroom. It's, it's, it's. But I don't it just basically will give you a clearer image. So it is, it's. It's dodging and burning. So there is, there is, there is work that goes into making the print. And not every print looks the same. So if I print one image and I print four of those, those four images will look different because I'm not going to be able to, with my hands or a dodging tool or burning tool, be able to exactly replicate what I did in the print before. So every print that you make or that I make will look different, Slightly different. You might not be able to tell, but I certainly would be able to.
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Alison Stewart
I have to ask about performance based 122.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Sure.
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Alison Stewart
In the East Village, you were there for some over 20 years.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Yep. 23.
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Alison Stewart
Oh, wow. How did you first get that gig?
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Donna Ann McAdams
You know, I was working at this copy shop called Unsloppy Copy. And a lot of people that were performers would come in to have copies made for their shows. And there was a man named John Byrne, who was a dancer who came in often, and he asked me to come over to PS122 in 1983 and do a publicity still for a show he had coming. Coming an upcoming show. So that was the first time that I actually walked into the space. But then when Mark Russell, who was the executive director, artistic director for, oh, I don't know, 20 years, when he started to run the place, he. He asked me to come and photograph. So that's when I started as a, like sort of an official. The official house photographer in 1984. And I stayed there till 2006.
- [17:41]
Alison Stewart
What did you enjoy about taking pictures of people performing? The physicality of the performance?
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Donna Ann McAdams
Well, you know, it's sort of like Irving Goffman. It's like it's the quality of life in and out of the theater. I mean, if you're life is a theater, life is a stage. And it was always really wonderful to just sit and watch things unfold before me as opposed to going out into the world and doing the unfolding by looking as things moved around me in a more, you know, in the. In the world as opposed to in the black box. I really enjoyed the theater and I also wasn't really interested in making photographs that were necessarily ready for like, the New York Times or the Village Voice. I was interested in making photographs that were good photographs too, that spoke not just of the performer, but also of the space and the time and the quality of the light. So it was a really amazing and fortunate experience to have and a lot of my community and a lot of my friends are from those days and continue to be part of my good circle of friends. It was a special time.
- [18:52]
Alison Stewart
Yeah. I was going to ask from that time, what did you learn about photography?
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Donna Ann McAdams
By that time, I pretty much had a clear sense about how the camera worked and how. How to do what. What I was doing with it. But I. What I did realize and what I learned is that you needed to sort of be in the space and you needed to look and wait and watch and be patient and watch for things to unfold as opposed to going in and just thinking you could grab something. So it was. It was like a meditation on the ground. I usually sat on the floor or in the first row off to the side. So I. I learned about what made a good photograph in a dark space. And usually I was shooting at 60th of a second, all the way open. And most of the photographs in the theater were made with a 50 millimeter lens. The stuff that I do in the world or out on the street or wherever I might be is with a 35. So it was a little tighter framework.
- [19:56]
Alison Stewart
My guest is photographer Donna Ann McAdams. We're talking to her about her new exhibition of photography at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. It's called Donna Ann McAdams Black Box. It is on view through June 7th. So I went to the show last night on 14th street, and, you know, you feature a lot of women in a lot of your pictures. First of all, why?
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Donna Ann McAdams
Because I happen to be one and I happen to love women. And I'm not really that interested in photographing or looking at men as much as I am as looking at women. And I think that's just my nature. I think we deserve the focus of attention more than the guys do. So that's why I photograph women. I happen to be one, and I love them.
- [20:41]
Alison Stewart
You got a clap in the control room from our director. I want to ask you.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys.
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Alison Stewart
No, it's a girl. She's laughing. I wanted to ask you about this one photo of a woman. I believe her name is Georgia Heard.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Georgie Heard.
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Alison Stewart
Georgie Heard. Could you tell us a little bit about the photograph and about her?
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Donna Ann McAdams
Sure. When my husband, Brad Kessler, and I, we were living in West Virginia for a while, and we were thinking. Actually, we were thinking about maybe living down there. That's another story. But I started to think about what I was going to photograph or what I might be interested in doing, and I started to work with a bunch of women who are part of the up here we have something called the Grange. And down there, it was a group of women who were farming women. And I joined the organization. And by joining them and being part of that. That community, one of them, Cassandra Perkins, actually said, you should think about maybe photographing some of these. Some of the farmers around here. So I started to photograph these elder farmers. And Georgie heard, she knew I was coming to her barn, that I was going to photograph her. And so she got dressed up in a little flowered dress and she had these white go go boots on. And so she was all ready to go out to the barn. And so I went out there and took a picture of her milking her cow. So that's how that happened. You can't see her little white boots, but you can see the tail. You can see her, you know, just milking a cow. I think she was probably in her 80s. When I made that photograph, I mentioned.
- [22:23]
Alison Stewart
You'Re gonna be in conversation with poet Eileen Miles for an event on May 15 at 6:30 at the Pratt Gallery. And there's a picture of Eileen Miles.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Yes.
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Alison Stewart
In your exhibit.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Yes. That actually is the photograph for a book, a small book that she did called 1969. I photographed Eileen twice, I think for two different book projects. And then Eileen was really. When she was curating at St Mark's Church, the poetry project at St Mark's Church, she asked me to photograph the poets and I learned a tremendous amount about poetry. And we were just really good friends back then. And I haven't seen her in a while, but I read all of her work and I have all of her books here at home in my library. I'm looking forward to sitting down and having a conversation with her. So that's what that picture is from. And that is the roof of PS122.
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Alison Stewart
You live on a goat farm in Vermont these days? Yes.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Yes, I do. I have 11 baby goats on the ground right now.
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Alison Stewart
When did you start goat farming?
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Donna Ann McAdams
You know, the goat showed up in 2005. And I actually think that Brad got them so he wouldn't have to leave the farm. And so. And now we have. Now we're one of the smallest licensed dairies in the state of Vermont. We make cheese. Well, Brad makes cheese. I'm more of the milkmaid. So they've been around for a while. And, you know, they're really interesting and wonderful creatures. They're like the anarchists of the animal kingdom. My goats, my ladies.
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Alison Stewart
Oh, explain that. I gotta know more about that. Baby goats.
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Donna Ann McAdams
Well, goats are go. You know, goats. If you think about goats and sheep, goats are on the, sheep are on the right side of Jesus and goats are on the left. There's Pan, the horn God that, you know, goats are, have a lot of stigma against them in terms of, you know, the dark side, the devil, whereas sheep are sort of, you know, the lamb of God. So goats are a little bit, they're not as easy to. They, they do, they do their own thing. Yes, they do their own thing. I'm not saying sheep aren't great or cows aren't great, but goats are. They're, they're a class, separate on their own.
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Alison Stewart
Do you have an Instagram account where we can see more of these goats?
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Donna Ann McAdams
Yes, I do. It's my name, but I don't. Yeah, put them up occasionally. I. Yeah, you could see some goats. I'll put some goats up for you.
- [24:54]
Alison Stewart
Love that. My guest has been Donna Ann McAdams. The name of the show is Donna Ann McAdams Black Box. It's on view Pratt's Manhattan Gallery at 144 West 14th street through June 7th. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
- [25:10]
Donna Ann McAdams
Thank you so much.
- [25:13]
Alison Stewart
This is Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show because they know we're driven by a mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.