Abby: This is Abby Gondek interviwing Emily Corbato. We are in the Women’s Studies Research Center [at Brandeis University] on September 27th, at 12:15 p.m. Well, you sent me this paper, “Sources of Creativity.” (which was presented at the “Sources of Creativity Panel at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, October 18, 2001) I wanted to ask you some questions about that. If that’s okay? Emily: Fine. I’d love it. I’m planning to work on this piece some more. So, I would love to hear what your questions are. Abby: Okay. Well I really liked how you talked about your home on Plum Island and how that really inspired you and your photography. And I was just wondering if you could tell me more about what it’s like where you live. What does it look like and how does that affect you? Emily: Plum Island is a Barrier Island. It is attached to the mainland by a causeway, you drive to it, so it’s not totally isolated. When you drive over the causeway you let go and relax and you know you’re coming home. It is right at the ocean. It’s a thin Barrier Island. It’s nine miles long. The top two miles, which are divided between Newbury and Newburyport, have about, I’m guessing, 5,000 or 6,000 residents (about 70% all year residents). The entire southern seven miles are owned by the Federal Government and the very tip of the island is owned by the State of Massachusetts. It is barren and it has wildlife and birds, and it is beautiful. From my house I have view looking back inland towards Newburyport, overlooking a marsh that has the Parker River running through it. On a lovely summer day when you visit me it looks like you could walk right across. In the middle of a winter blizzard there are white caps covering the entire marsh area and coming up over the road. That is what looks towards the west. Looking towards the east there is a tidal basin, with the tide going in and out, a row of houses, and right after that row of houses is the ocean. The sense of openness can be very exhilarating even in the very worst weather. It’s actually somewhat less exhilarating there when it’s lovely out because it’s lovely everywhere. But it’s not as exciting anywhere else as on the island in the winter or when the winds blow up before a storm, or just from day to day. When, for instance, you sit in your dorm or apartment or house or wherever you live, you know it gets light and dark and the sun’s coming up and the sun’s coming down. I see it come up, and during the course of the year it’s angle changes. It settles further toward the north at this time of year and I can’t see it while I’m eating dinner because my friend’s house blocks the view, but in the middle of the winter if you visit it sets further towards the south and we can watch it set from our table. These are the things that you don’t see in the city. When it rains in the city, so it’s raining. When it rains where we are we can see from our windows exactly the direction and strength of the rain and the wind, and which windows might leak. We feel it swirl around the house. You really feel like you’re near the edge. And my neighbors and I, even those of us who share time in between being in Boston and on the Island, if we know there is a blizzard, we leave what we are doing and we go to the Island for the blizzard. It’s quiet. On a good night you can see all the stars, and they’re really great after you’ve had a few cups of wine and you’re laying out on my deck...you may see more stars than maybe there are! Abby: (laughs a lot) Emily: (laughs) Which reminds me of many stories about being out on my deck looking for stars... and the smell of it, the smell of the sea when it blows off the ocean and the fresh air and the wildlife, the foxes and coyotes, birds and all kinds of… poison ivy (laughs) and beach plums. That’s what’s there. It’s not like a resort. It’s not fancy. You’re not going to… Where are you from? Abby: California. Emily: Okay. Where? Abby: Southern California. It’s called Thousand Oaks. It’s um about an hour north of Los Angeles. It’s very nice there. Lots of oak trees. Emily: The reason I asked you where you were from was, if you were from New York I was going to use the example of the Hamptons, on Long Island, which is “ resorty”. The houses are not slick-fancy on the Island. Although they’re comfortable there’s not a suburban-type feel about the way they look. They’re almost all natural wood shingle, they’re almost all grey-weathered and only a few recently being built ones are what you would call fancy homes. The people that live there are not looking for that kind of life. Abby: So, it seems very natural and the environment really affects the people that live there. Do you think? Emily: Well I think that you are making a commitment if you want to live there, to wanting to be somewhat isolated, to being out of the city, to a longer commute to wherever you work, even if it’s up on the North Shore. You’re making a commitment to not having town water and sewage. You will be using well pumps and septic tanks and you’re going to have to replace your windows and replace your shingles more often. These kind of things. People that make the commitment are willing to do that kind of thing. I don’t know whether the weather has made me this way or I was drawn to this kind of intense weather pattern. But it’s not a place that a typical suburban person whose big decision is whether to put a sprinkler system under the lawn or change the carpeting will be happy with. This is not the level of concern of the people who are my neighbors. Abby: It seems like a very nice place to live. Emily: It’s just fine. (laughs) Abby: (laughs) Emily: On those rare occasions when the water comes over the road, which is usually in the winter because the big hurricanes come January and February, mostly Janurary, either you get off the island and go into town to one of the bars or you have a big block party and just wait it out. (laughs) Abby: (laughs) Emily: Which can be fun too! I have a huge portfolio of all my Plum Island stuff. I have one or two pieces with me. But I have a huge portfolio of photographs that I’ve taken there. And it was there that my curiosity and my need to do more was awakened in photography. And that’s the truth. And I can specifically tell you how that happened Abby: I would like to hear about that. Emily: When I got the place I started taking photographs in color of everything . Whatever happened - if the sun came up I took a picture, if the sun went down I took a picture, if the moon ..., I even have moons. I have picture of grass, flowers, a fox that came by, and a deer. But it was when I started doing marshes and flowers and more natural things with an instant camera that I realized what I wanted to do. The image was in my head of what I wanted to say with these pictures. I did not have the tools with my instant camera. I needed much greater control so I could define my pictures myself and not have it done for me. And I called my father who is a good photographer, and I said...( cause he’s one of my best friends... I don’t know how you get along with your parents and I’m an old lady already but my parents have been my closest friends. I have my father who is 86. I lost my mother 2 years ago, but they have been my best friends. Strange, I wouldn’t have thought so when I was 20 or even 30.) so I called my father, who had just bought a good manual 35 mm Minolta, the X700, where you really have to set everything. He sent his new camera to me! This is the camera I learned on. Have you done this? Abby: No. Emily: Set the openings, the shutter speeds, you know, make all those decisions. I was so intimidated I put it on the table and stared at it for a few hours, but then (over the phone) my father told me how to set it and told me to go out and shoot! From the moment I started doing my own control of focus, etc. I realized that there was a wealth of knowledge I needed and this was just the beginning. I didn’t know what it was I needed. I knew if I asked the right questions or went to the right place there would be people who could tell me what I had to know. I already had in my mind exactly what I wanted to do. I was a tool-less person. I needed the tools, I needed the knowledge. I didn’t need inspiration. It was there...I just couldn’t do what I was seeing in my mind. Does that make sense? Abby: Yes that makes sense. Emily: It’s much harder to be technically so fine and not be sure what your story is, not know what you’re using those tools for, what they’re saying. If I can digress some at this juncture? Oh my goodness! Abby: (laughs) Emily: I made Abby laugh. She thought that was just so too-too! In my life as a musician and in my life as a photographer I have often come into contact with people who are very knowledgeable, very adept and accomplished at knowing how to manipulate their equipment and produce technically fine work. And so much more often than not this doesn’t move people, because they are using their fabulous technique at keyboard or their knowledge of techniques of photography to show off their skill, which is something that’s great to have, but it’s only a tool, not an end in itself. Sometimes I wish my technique at the keyboard were finer, but if it meant giving up what I was using it for, what I am saying, I wouldn’t make the trade. And there are people with finer technique than mine who have not done the level of performing that I have done simply because I know what I want to communicate. Does that make sense? Abby: Yeah. Emily: Are you an art student? Abby: I’m not an art student but I’m an artist. I would consider myself an artist. Emily: Okay and what is your field? Abby: I like to paint. I like to write stories and poetry. I do dance, especially African dance. Emily: Well you’re working at art. And what is your field that you are studying here? Abby: Psychology and Women’s Studies. Emily: So, all these things make sense. Abby: Definitely. Emily: It all fits in. You’re working as an artist in whatever capacity. You’re fiddling with minds in your psychology. Abby: (laughs) Emily: And you’re looking at a 61 year old woman who has been fighting women’s battles for many years. (laughs) Abby: (laughs)...there’s one question in here that I really wanted to ask because…Emily: It looks like you had a question about the quotes. Aren’t they great? Abby: Yes, the quotes are great! Emily: I love those quotes. “Light and Air.” [Bayard Wootten quote, 1926] I’d love to name a show “Light and Air.” It’s wonderful… “To use a camera as a means of artistic expression, a certain quality of spirit must be brought to aid light and air.” Abby: So do you think, we were talking just before this about how you have to know what you want to create. Do you feel like that’s what the quality of spirit is? Like being focused on… what you want to create? Emily: Well, this woman, Bayard Wootten photographed in the early twentieth century in North Carolina I know the book, if you’re interested, it is in Goldfarb [library]. I happen to have found it down at a bookstore in New York but there’s a copy of it here, and her images, they’re decent images. But I was really taken by her title and her statement. So you’re asking me if this light and air, so to speak, intensifies or defines how she’s going to do her work. Abby: I guess I’m wondering what the quality of spirit is that “must be brought to aid light and air.” Emily: Then I have to read. “The camera is not a free agent as brush or pencil…” because, of course, with a brush or pencil you could make your own image, “but relentlessly records things as they are.” And I think what she’s doing is defining what you have to do to record things as they are but not really as they are. If you are recording things as they are it is PRETTY boring unless there’s something exciting like a fire or disaster. “So the artist must bring to HER aid strong contrasts of light and shade…” In other words, what is the artist looking for in what is probably a mundane situation, that will become an “artistic grouping and rhythmic lines.” Like, if I’m taking a portrait of you now, I don’t want the door handle there, I want to capture your hair a certain way, I want the light on your face. I can hold a point and shoot and say – Okay here Abby. Go give this to your mother! Or I can look at the same person and what’s going through me is - I’m looking for the light. I’m looking for the shade. I’m looking for the grouping. I’m looking for the shape of your arm coming down. I’m looking for how we’re getting rid of the Dannon yogurt container. And I’m seeing, you know, whether I want something there or whether I want the background clear. And I’m looking for artistic grouping and the rhythm of the lines…do you do music? Or you do dance. Abby: Yeah, but I used to play piano. Emily: Okay. There is an absolute 100% correlation between shape and form in music and in photography. “To use a camera as a means of artistic expression, a certain quality of sprit…” which is, I guess, the way I’m seeing it, and you might agree, we’re talking about the spirit of it, the vision that the artist is seeing through the shade and the light and all that is going on, to produce what she wants. So “spirit must be brought to aid light and air,” because light and air is what is there. How are you, the artist, going to sense this and bind it all together... it’s a lovely expression. I love also the Bresson [Henri Cartier-Bresson quote from essay “The Mind’s Eye,” 1976] and then I like the Walker Evans [Walker Evans quote,1966]. I love the Walker Evans book. That’s a wonderful book, “Walker Evans at Work”. It’s also in the library here. I bought a used copy. It is no longer in print. Shall I continue... Abby: if you’re really interested in this then I want to be interested in it. (laughs) Emily: Well the reason that I’m interested in this particular quote, the Walker Evans, is because it has to do with whether you’re self conscious or whether you’re natural in your art. Whether it’s internal and you are feeling it, or whether you’re still asking questions -what’s my teacher’s going to think? How’s it going to play in Peoria? And this is saying, “Concern yourself not with the question whether the medium, photography, is art”, which was in 1966 a legitimate question, because photography was not as it is now, excepted in museums as a legitimate art form. So that’s something that dates the article historically. “The question is dated and absurd to begin with.” But this is the part… “You are art or not; whatever you produce is or isn’t”. And don’t think about that either, just do, act.” Am I going to do this? Am I going to do that? DO IT. SHUT UP AND WORK! That’s the part of it that I really feel is strong. If you’re an artist, you don’t have to wait for anyone to define you; you are what you do. And when you turn out work, it’s art. If someone doesn’t like it or someone thinks they have a whole lot to say about it, that’s okay too. But it’s yours and you stick to it! I love this sentence in the Cartier-Bresson, when you read it you get the sense of it. So I’m just going to read and then you can write whatever you’d like. “For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously…To take photographs” this is the part I love “is to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeting reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.” It’s the passing of the motion and the imperceivable I can’t even say second, imperceivable motion and passing. See, you moved your hand. You wait for it and you’re waiting for it and when it happens you get it and you KNOW, you just know. You feel like rice-crispies inside, and they’re popping and crackling and getting all excited! (laughs) You just get a real excitement from it. And you have great physical and intellectual joy. And I like the way he said it, “to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeting reality.” That’s good stuff! Abby: Yeah...I know that feeling that you’re talking about because I’m waiting for that particular moment… Emily: Yeah… Abby: When it seems like it’s the perfect moment, the perfect picture and then I get it and I think – that’s going to be a really good picture. And then when I get it developed, when I see it, it IS a really good picture! Emily: You should read the whole Cartier-Bresson… “The Mind’s Eye”. He has a very famous essay, “The Decisive Moment” that you might enjoy reading. This quote here is from “The Mind’s Eye”, which is a wonderful essay. But his very, very famous essay is “The Decisive Moment”. If you read it in French, you can read it in the original. I have to read the translation. Abby: I don’t know French. Emily: Well, I know enough so that I don’t get lost in the metro. Abby: I have one more question about this ...You talk a lot about needing an end to work towards. A goal. Otherwise you get overwhelmed and you can’t get to where you need to go. I’m just curious why it’s so important for you to have that end product and have you ever just done something because of the process, just enjoying the process of doing it. Emily: I usually do work towards a goal. It might be from my training as a pianist. Even with that, it was the odd time that I would just sit and sight read. It was 95% of the time that I was planning a program and working on it, usually because I was asked to do one or I lined them up so I would have a goal. I guess I do work with a goal. Doesn’t mean that that work is not inspired work. It’s just that I do envision, I can’t do it exactly, but I do envision within the shape, the form, the length, the time, what the final product will be. When it’s the music, I internally hear the piece, I know what I’m aiming for. If it’s the photography, even if I’m just inspired one day on a crazy whim to go out and shoot, in my mind this image goes with this and this one goes with that and this fits in this series and I’ll print this on the sepia... It’s just, that’s how I work! Now, the other aspect that I think is important is when you mention that this mode of working keeps me going, how did you say, it keeps me going and on a path. I mention in one point here, maybe you know where I said it, that it prevents me… Abby: It says, “This is the way to get big projects done and prevent them from meandering or becoming overwhelming.” I don’t know if that’s what you were talking about. Emily: I will address that specifically. For me, and probably many others, this is the way to get big projects done. And VERY crucially, prevent these projects from meandering or becoming overwhelming. This is not said in haste. Many times I have seen people become overwhelmed by large projects. And it, what’s the word I’m looking for... It PARALYZES them! It intimidates them. What they feel is – oh, I didn’t start this and I didn’t finish that, I’ll never get it all done... you know, it’s like the tsunami rolling over you, sweeping you away... and that’s what the big project is. I specifically put that in because I know that for the way I work it is essential for me not to be overwhelmed. Now I know that you must have at some point felt that way. You have a huge paper, you have a huge thing to do… Abby: Oh definitely. Emily: It’s just like you don’t know whether to take a relaxant or to go jump off a bridge! Abby: (laughs) Emily: You think you’re not going to be able to ... It’s too much. Yet, you sort of know somewhere, a little tiny part is saying – I know I can do this. The rest of your body is saying ...The date is coming your time is up… So the reason I put this in my paper is that when I have a big project I break it down into steps. It’s not an artistic procedure except that it gets the artistic process done, and I’m used to doing this, it works for me. I can explain how I’ve been doing it on this huge project I’m working on. If you set yourself a goal for this week, to frame 25 of the 80 pictures waiting, you have a reasonable task that can done, and that much you can check off your list and know that it’s finished. Also, I have seen many people, consistently, since I’ve been able to notice it, start a large project and not stay within the periphery of what that project is going to be. So they get into other projects. Abby: And they never finish. Emily: And they become partial projects. They become overwhelmed. They get diverted. They get confused as to where the project is going, because it had a path and they screwed it up! (laughs) and gave it another path. Maybe this works for some people. In a sense you want to keep your mind open and you want to SEE it all! If this idea is going to lead to that, and the next idea is going to be greater than the first etc., you will be consumed and could veer far away from your original project. If you don’t stick to where you’re going, you lose sight of your goal! And so that’s why I put this in. Does that make sense? Abby: Yes. That’s how I work too. So I totally understand that. (laughs) Emily: I have 80 exhibition prints matted to go for this upcoming exhibit [“All Good Things]. That’s a fairly overwhelming concept to think about. These are all new works, done in the past year. And I get it done in the way I describe. I write notes – Monday and Tuesday do this, this and this. Even when I printed them out, when I did the test prints, I made a chart. I had 24 rolls of film and I planned which days I was going to develop and which rolls. It sounds like - it sounds a little anal. But it gets the job done! You sit there in front of 24 rolls of film and you could either cry or you could make a list. Make a list, check it off, the work gets done! I mean, you could be sitting the same two weeks later still crying, or you could have your 24 rolls developed. (laughs) You know what I mean? That’s why I have that in there. And I know so many people who have talent, but not the talent to finish projects. And that’s why I put that in there. I also have gotten more this way because I’ve always worked. I have 4 children that I’ve raised. I had a very hectic house. I was very driven. I learned very early to compartmentalize and to, what do you call it when you put lists down in order, prioritize, both in whether I was going to take care of my kids or work and which, when I was doing either one, which was the important part to be doing. Abby: (laughs) There’s so much I want to ask you, but it’s so hard! What I’ll do now is I’ll tell you a little bit about Rosie’s mission for her project. Basically she’s curious about the process of creativity. Especially the process. Of how you get the idea, how do you make the idea… she uses the analogy of a seed. And how does the seed flower and then how do you… Emily: I read what she wanted .So what I think you have to do is ask me the exact question you want. Abby: Yes, I’ll do that. Emily: And if I can’t answer it we’ll change it, Abby: It’s very specific. So if you had to put her idea into your own words how would you describe it, does that make sense? ... the analogy of a seed flowering. And how would you put that into your own words or when you get the idea and how does it go forward? Emily: You know usually “seeds” don’t come when I’m too hurried. I have to have a rhythm and a quiet feeling of having ideas able to knock around in my head. That’s when I get good ideas. The times it usually happens for instance driving on, I think I put in my paper… Abby: Yes you did, on the highway… Emily: Yes it’s true. I’m in the car. I’m not going to answer my cell phone. I have it off. And I’m on the highway, and unless the traffic’s bad or something, there’s a rhythm and a pace. No one wants anything from me then. Things loosen up and things come into my head. It could be the seed of a project. Or it could be the way to complete one so it finally makes sense. The kind of creative ideas that I need to get my work done come in those times. It could be very unrelated work but the ideas come. Like even this major project that I have from when I went to Ukraine last year... that’s what my project is. I didn’t get the idea from talking to my friend with whom I traveled. I got the idea when I was alone and quiet. I remember my friend had shown me some snapshots at this point. My mind feels more relaxed. I see these snapshots as black and white photographs telling a story, a story I could feel... and I know I had a project. So, it’s sort of, clear the head and let those thoughts come out, and then they form the ideas. Sometimes it can be more concrete, like when I walked out of my massage last summer on Plum Island and the sky was fantastic! I have one of these pictures with me. And it was about 2:00 pm and I was starving. I was so hungry for lunch. But I ran into my studio and I said to myself – I can capture this sky! I haven’t ever seen it like this. I shot 2 rolls of medium format film, so that was 12 on a roll...I shot 24 images, which was 12 plus 12. Maybe it was 3 rolls. Anyway, I didn’t shoot that much, maximum of 36 negatives, from which I got 12 exhibition prints. That’s a VERY high percentage! That’s an unbelievable percentage. I ran out like a woman on a mission. I walked by my neighbors, I didn’t even say hello. I adjusted my manual camera, everything just came to me, and I did it. But then came the developing and processing of it, in those quiet times... Which frames do you want to print, how do you want them to look, how large or small do you see them in your mind... all that kind of thing. Mostly it’s the quiet times, when the thoughts are given the freedom to come out. So, that’s a seed. Abby: Yeah, that would be a seed. Well, okay I kind of want to backtrack . I’m just curious about any things that influenced you, inspired you. Emily: Okay. I’ll relate this to both the music and the art. This is what I wasn’t sure if you wanted or not. When I was a little girl, I was about 7 or 8, my father bought me a Steinway Grand piano. I had never had a piano lesson in my life. My mother got angry and they subsequently divorced, over much more than the piano, but you know, that was a dramatic affirmation that there was a confidence in me for something I hadn’t done yet. Maybe there was a vague indication, cause I was only a little kid, that I was going to be good at that. And then I had a piano teacher and lessons, and I was good! (laughs) And I knew it! And I also knew, from when I just started, with that little Thompson book, that little red book (“Teaching Little Fingers How to Play”), from the first time that I played a piece that went up 4 or 5 notes, that without even realizing it I made an even crescendo up and an even diminuendo down... and for me this was the most exciting thing. And then I did the same thing with my left hand. It just excited me in a way I didn’t even understand. I was just in 3rd grade. I can remember that. It wasn’t the piano teacher as much. He used to eat M&Ms, breathe heavy, and after my parents were divorced I think he was trying to run after my mother. He was a good teacher and I kept saying – why are you getting rid of him? And she couldn’t explain it to me. Anyway, I think my father’s confidence in me and the instinct from the moment I touched this instrument that this was special made a difference, AND that I was really better than anyone else! In the fifth grade I was playing the Minute Waltz (Chopin) for assembly... you know, I was good! That is the music. I don’t know if you need the art, too. That’s a little vaguer. Abby: No, I would like to hear. Emily: OKAY, when I was a kid, and I don’t remember the age, sometime in the ‘50s... which is after the dinosaurs left Manhattan… Abby: (laughs) Emily: they had up at… it was the Museum of Modern Art, “Guernica” , by Picasso. That was so powerful. That was about the Spanish Civil War. Abby: I think I’ve seen that. Emily: I saw the original. I was a kid. I don’t remember the year. I was older than 8. And the horses. I remember their mouths. I can remember to this day... and the heads… and that was something, early on, when I was a child, that was extremely powerful to me. In addition to which, my parents did all the proper things. They got me monthly books from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where you cut out the Rembrant sticker and you paste it on the page where they write about Rembrant. (laughs) You know that kind of stuff. I still have them. I’m going to give these books to my grandchildren. But out of the things that impressed me, I can remember the”Guernica”. I can also remember, I was still in high school, I saw, “The Family of Man”, the exhibit that John Sarkowski put together at MOMA. And I remember the diversity of it. It was tremendously moving. Abby: What is that? Wait, what’s the artist’s name again? John… Emily: Oh no, he was the curator. It had ALL the artists. It had about five hundred photographs. It was a black and white photograph exhibit. You don’t know that? Take it out of the library and look at it. It is an ABSOLUTE, unconditional classic. Trust me. Trust me. ..Does that answer that? I have no particular mode of thought or philosophy. I just do what I think… I’m not going to join a school and take heed in what they have to say. This is not me… I got through graduate school keeping my mouth shut on a lot of things because I figured – I need this degree. Got it done. Abby: But it sounds like the tools aren’t as important to you as the initial idea and the creativity behind it? Emily: You need the tools or you can’t do it. You’ll have poor work. If you can’t play your scales, you will not have the technical facility to control your tone, phrasing, etc. If you can’t focus or take exposures the way you need to you’re not going to make your visual point. But without your goal the rest doesn’t count. Abby: Well, you just talked about, “The Family of Man”, exhibit. Were there any artists that you really admired or anything like that? Emily: There’s so many of them in art and in music. There’s so many of them. I don’t even want to start naming because… It’s just so diverse… I’m not just going to start naming off people that I like. But I can’t say that any of them is like a mentor figure to me. You’ve got to remember, I never did any photography until I was over 50. It’s a little hard to have icons when your kids are in their late 20s and you’ve been knocking around for so many years. There are many wonderful photographers that I admire. Abby: So the next question has to do with whether you identify yourself as an artist. Emily: “If so when did you realize…” Abby: “that you had chosen…” Well, you talked about that a little bit. Emily: Well, I have a theory. (laughs) It’s a theory that I didn’t discover as a photographer but I did realize as a pianist, as a musician. It is that it’s a little almost like the quote that I was reading from Walker Evans, “You are art or not, whatever you produce is or isn’t. Don’t think about that either, just act.” When I was doing so much more music at a time in my life that I was totally involved in music, practically any decision I would have made for myself would have been an easier one, easier for my life. But it never occurred to me to be anything else but a musician. And anything else I did, any other jobs I got, to pay the rent or whatever, had nothing to do with the fact that I WAS a musician. And I don’t know when it happened, but my theory is that it’s some kind of a, I’m trying to think of a nice way to say it, an ailment, a terminal problem that you’re going to have that’s not going to allow you to make more rational decisions in your life. Because you are a person who must DO ART. (laughs) So all the decisions that you make, major decisions you make in your life, must be made to accomodate that, because you are one of these people. You didn’t select to be one of these people, but you are! And if you’re not, you can find the other path and you’d be better off. But it’s like being told you have a chronic disability that must be constantly taken care of or you are not going to be well. You won’t die from it. You’re not sick from it. You can live with it, with any luck you can live well with it. But you’re going to have to take care of it for the rest of your life! And that’s when you know you’re an artist. If you could say – Oh Heck, I can’t make a living, you know, playing concerts or selling pictures in a gallery, maybe I’ll go to law school, you’re making a strong distinction there in your life. That is not to denigate people who make a compromise. But in my mind, I never could. Even decisions of where you will live or who you might want to marry or how you are with your children or what priorities you give your household, all have to be adapted to this ailment that you must live with. Is that clear? Abby: Yes, very clear. Emily: It’s the ONLY way I could describe it. And it’s the only way I could describe having a successful and long career… (takes out program that has praise for Emily from many newspapers) I mean you can see this stuff, this is very old, it’s about 20 years old, but I just brought it, NO NO don’t read that! Abby: (laughing because I saw a picture of Emily 20 years younger on the front of the program and she’s telling me not to read it!) Emily: Please, but this is a long successful career. You look at the names of those newspapers. Abby: (reading) New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe Emily: You got it! And there are more. This is about 20 years ago, and I’ve got a bunch more. I just grabbed this as I left my house. This is the reason why a woman who is 50 years old and has had a long and demanding career as a pianist finds herself at 52 taking photography classes! Did she need that?! Did she have four grown children and a husband older than she is who was planning on retiring and who was looking forward to having a little peace and quiet? Abby: (laughing) And you go and start photography! Emily: But there’s no choice. It simply happened! And also I know for myself that I don’t just play the piano; I perform. I don’t just take pictures; as soon as they were ready I was exhibiting. Within a year or two after I took classes, I was exhibiting. I do that. A lot of people don’t. I put myself out there. Abby: You HAVE to. Emily: I have to. You might not like to, but I, that’s how I work. That’s the goal, that’s what I do. Abby: … you already started to talk about when you get ideas, like when you’re driving in your car or when you’re alone and you can just focus and your mind’s relaxed. So, basically, if you can think of one or two pieces(works) or exhibits and you can think of when the idea started and then how did you go on from there. Emily: I have two choices for you to select from. I have the very earliest things I took, which were defining in terms of realizing this “ailment” I have. I have a total, completed project that I could show you. I’m not sure what you want to see. Abby: I want to see whatever you feel is the most important for you. Well it says here, “Perhaps the most or the LEAST significant work, or the piece you feel was the first of significance or the most recent.” Emily: I’ll do this one and I’ll do that one. I brought in this photograph. [Corbato: “The Jetty” 1995] Abby: Beautiful! Emily: Now, this photograph I did in I think it was ’95, and the reason I selected this photograph is because when I started taking my classes in black and white, I already sensed that I knew what I wanted to do. I had a lot of trouble technically, and I knew that what I was envisioning I couldn’t do with a 35 mm camera. So I have an old, like a 63 year old (my father gave it to me, bought it before I was born!), Rolliflex camera, with a square negative, medium format, and I struggled with it and I struggled with learning. I knew the images were there for me but I couldn’t really create them, manipulate the exposure versus the opening, the settings, etc. to get what I wanted. I saw what I wanted, in my mind, and this photograph (“The Jetty”) is the lead photograph or one of the primary photographs in the first portfolio that I completed. There were about a dozen in it. These were all Plum Island photographs that I imagined and completed as a group. I felt they showed I did have some technical ability, because looked the way I thought of them, I controlled the image. I can explain that with this photograph. ( I didn’t bring all 12 of them in.) These were also in the first complete exhibit that I ever showed. Actually the photographs up in the lecture hall now are from the first set I ever completed. It’s an exhibit, I don’t know if you saw, of Israel… Abby: Yeah, I have seen that. They are really pretty. Emily: I was taking a second level class at NESOP, do you know The New England School of Photography? The project for the class was to make a little portfolio. Other members had a picture or two pictures. I walked in with 18 matted pictures at the end of the class, and the instructor lined up a place for an exhibit (my first exhibit)! Abby: (laughs) Emily: That was that. But this (the Plum Island portfolio) was the next project after (the Israel group), and the reason I found it significant was because it meant I had learned to the control I envisioned. I had the determination to imagine a body of work and turn it out the way I wanted. I had the patience to go out in the middle of the winter and get myself cold and frozen and wet and God knows what, and stand with my tripod waiting, and knowing how to set my camera now, at the slow speed, on the tripod, with the remote release.... and waiting for when this wave would crash. So you see I did that! And that’s what I wanted to do. I got the angle of the rocks, I got the shadow in here, I got all the things I wanted. And I got the waves. And, you see, all that sounds technical, but what is it really saying? The massive rocks and their shadows and the shape of them and the sun and the illusion of where the clouds begin and where the water begins ... that is what I wanted to do! And I brought this image (“The Jetty”) because this is symbolic of my first body of serious work when I felt I had mastered technique. It also happens to be the first one I sold. I had three of them. A friend of mine saw it… you see at this point I was doing mostly music. I’d had these photographs lying around on my dining room table and the mother of one of my students came in and said – I’m buying that. I said – oh okay, I want $300. She said – here. Abby: (laughs) Wow! Emily: Yeah, this is the one that she bought. This is called “The Jetty”. Abby: Jetty? How do you spell Jetty, with two Ts? Emily: Yeah. It’s like Yetty! (laughs) Like an Aunt Yetty. Abby: This answers… I mean… this was the very beginning when you were just starting photography right? Emily: Not really! This was roll 200! I was struggling already for a couple of years. No, this was a couple of years in. I did not tell you how many rolls I wasted and how frustrated I was because I couldn’t master my craft. And I had a fabulous teacher at NESOP, Nick Johnson, you could write him in, I’d love him to get the credit! I didn’t understand what he was explaining. He took me out for coffee because he could see I was struggling and he could tell I was an artist. I mean, he knew I was a pianist already. He explained the theory of what to do in a way I understood, and I went out and did it. But this was after many crummy... I almost said a bad thing... He could see what I was trying to do. This is from Roll # 1, my very first roll. This one was from Roll # 2. [three pictures, one of rocks in water, one of a log, and a third is of wildflowers.] These were so early… it was probably ’92. These three images held my interest so strongly. They were on the first rolls I developed. I would pull up at a stop sign in traffic and grab them out of my stuff and look at them, as I was driving around, I would just STARE at them. I couldn’t get my mind off them, and I guess I was bitten! I had taken a few courses before this, but then I took a dark room course and these were on the first roll I developed in my first dark room course. And you know they’re not, in retrospect, that special. But what I realized when I saw them was the shadow and the light and the depth. You can see the difference in the technique from then to now, but you can also see that it’s the same person. Abby: You’re looking for something. Emily: I was looking for awhile. I looked until about roll # 195. Abby: (laughs) Emily: (laughs) This one I actually put into an exhibit with a statement about it … this was an entire Plum Island exhibit … and I put this one in as an example of one of my first pictures. I printed it up as an exhibit print. (rock surrounded by water). I just wanted to include it. It excited me, it has the little line here (wave/shadow). That goes to first significance. I remember I was doing a concert with a singer in Lexington and I was waiting in her driveway for her to come out so we could go to rehearse. I couldn’t get my eyes off these pictures. I was totally uninterested in what she was going to say. So, I thought these first photographs may be interesting for you to see. Abby: With the other picture, or with any of these, did you know what you were going to do before you went out and did it? You know, took the picture, did you have a glimmering of what it was going to be like? Emily: Let me tell you about this picture and how things work. This is roll # 416. [Corbato 2000: “Absence”] My mother lived in New York, in Greenwich Village. I was visiting her for Valentine’s Day, it must have been 1999. My mother had her apartment for a very long time. I thought to myself… I had no idea… my mother’s not going to be in this apartment forever, and I want to remember her home as it is. I want to feel it when I can’t be here. I didn’t want her to know that I was doing this. She was sitting in her bedroom in her reclining chair and she got up to pee. (laughs) And while she did I took this picture. She never heard it (the camera click), she was in the bathroom. That same time, this was in February, I shot almost a whole role, most of a roll of 36, in 35 mm. It was very fast film (TMax 3200) that I had, I could work fast and not have to use flash. I was planning that I wanted to do this and I wasn’t going to tell her. I took this chair and I took the dining room and I took a few other places in the apartment, thinking to myself that I’d like to remember the feeling of this place and put these photographs together as something to have. That June she was diagnosed with colon cancer, and died ten months later. So I do not know where the inspiration came from. Before I knew she was sick I was into this project. And I never told her I did it. So you see it started, and it continued the same way. I did complete it because I knew I wanted to do it, but the character changed in my mind as she became more ill. I was more determined to make sure to get this work done. So that is what I started with, that picture (Absence). And this is what I ended up with (series of 16 photographs from the apartment). And the slides from this series are what I used (for the presentation at the Rose Art Museum for the “Sources of Creativity” panel)… Abby: This is… you have this poem… The “Letting Go” [Emily Corbato 2000] poem. Emily: She never saw me take that one, either (bdreoom). She used to sit in this chair and read her New York Times. She was about 80 then. These (images of kitchen,livingroom, diningroom etc.) I took that Valentine’s Day. Now I have her beautiful brocade chair in my studio, I have the step ladder from the kitchen in my darkroom and I have the coffeepot in my cottage. Do you know what I mean? So you see, these are very personal. Abby: These are great! Emily: And I knew this was what I wanted. Abby: Like here? Emily: No, keep going, that’s the bed. And that’s the chair alone. Abby: And this is more sad than the earlier ones cause it’s almost like you have a premonition that she’s not there (Absence). Emily: I didn’t when I took it, but I designed the series … keep going you’ll see… that’s the window. Abby: And then you have boxes… this is when she passed away? Emily: Yes. Cleaning out the place. Abby: Oh it’s so sad. Emily: This is why I used this series for the Rose panel. Because it’s very complete, it stands alone and it doesn’t go with anything else. Abby: I mean it’s so weird because she was just sleeping and she’s just gone. And you have all the wrinkles on the pillows. Looks like she was writing. Was she writing something? It looks like a cross-word puzzle. Emily: Actually that was after she was gone. That’s my cross-word puzzle. It happens to be the night before the movers came. My sister and I slept in her bed. But I thought it was a good picture. Abby: Yes… well you could make it that that was her cross-word puzzle. (laughs) Emily: But I did it. And then I think there’s one more. This is the end. Abby: This is where the chair used to be? Emily: That’s it. Now the reason I brought this in is that this is a very concrete example of starting a project knowing what I wanted to do. Of course the second part of (that she became so ill and died and we would clean out the apartment) I had no way of knowing when I began. It was a finite project, it was an inspiration that I had when I was down there (in NY) that I would memorialize, so to speak, or document her apartment, so I would remember it and my sisters and brother would remember it. Now I don’t know if you need one of those [“Absence”] for your files? Abby: Oh yeah I would love to have that. Emily: Oh and I have one of these [“The Jetty”], this is a very bad reproduction but it’s enough to remind you. This is a show that I did at the Immig Gallery at Emmanuel College. The contrast is awful on this card, but it will remind you of the picture. I mean look at that. This is what I gave them and this is what they printed (exhibition print vs. announcement card. I did that in ’95 (Jetty) and I did these in 2000 (Mother’s Apartment). And I think that’s all I brought you of my pictures, except I have 80 of my prints here with me today (for the exhibit “All Good Things”). What I’m doing this afternoon is trying to design how I’m going to put them up on the wall. Abby: I just wanted to ask you what does it feel like when you…say when you were taking this picture of your mom’s apartment. How did it feel to … was it kind of like waiting for that right moment… or did you know… this is hard to explain… but what was the experience like of taking the picture? Emily: It’s a hard question to answer because there’s a thin line between the practical decision and the place that you’re heart drives you to see when you are photographing. So I focused and did all the things I should do, hoping that I would memorialize her chair, which I did. But when I took the picture I felt an excitement, a connection with her, and a connection with the place and the time that I wanted to hold on to. And I didn’t want to let go. And I wanted it to be with me and not have it leave me. And I hope that gets across. (pause) She’s looking down saying, “Emma, you took those pictures while I was sick in the apartment? “ She wouldn’t, she wouldn’t. Abby: Like it? Emily: She would, well...she never really understood my drive. But she was always very proud of what I did. I called her one morning. I had been to Machu Picchu and had developed several rolls of film from there, and I had stayed up and worked all night at printing from them... I mean you stay up all night, but I’m an old lady... I stayed up all night and I printed out my test prints of a dozen pictures from up in the Andes and Machu Picchu, and I was so excited. In the morning I called her, like 8:30-9:00 to tell her. And she said, “Yeah, but Emma you really better get a good night’s sleep!” (laughs!) Abby: (laughs) She just didn’t really get it! Emily: What am I gonna do? I told her, “I know Mother, maybe tonight, maybe this afternoon, after lunch I’ll lie down.” Abby: That’s funny. Emily: It is funny. You can’t get annoyed. Maybe when I was your age I would have gotten annoyed. At that age I wanted, I had the expectation, that she could project into what I was thinking. But I was 55-56, whatever I was, and she was pushing 80. I was just glad she was there. I didn’t have to prove anything to her. I just wanted her to be there. When I read that poem (“Letting Go”) after the paper that I presented (at the Rose panel), I projected those slides and I ended the slides with another picture of her. And the lights went on and people were crying. It was like a dead silence in the room. Abby: It’s very MOVING, cause I think people can relate to it. I know with my mom I’m very close to her. Like I’m the type of person that wants to hold on to things. So I can understand wanting to capture that moment so you can hold on to it and you won’t forget. Emily: And that’s sort of the seed, and then it turned into something more significant. I think most people can relate to it. I think most people have had that kind of loss. And there’s an interesting division that you have to make. Your telling me, “Yes, I relate to it.” But I have to put something more into it as an artist that is rising above my emoting over it. I have to make it… what’s the word I’m looking for… universal. I have to make it more than personal, more than private to me. If it’s just me, it’s self-centered, it’s a therapeutic ego trip. It has to be me as a part of a whole group of people and me trying to seek from you what you feel, not just, “Oh, I was so distraught!” It’s “What do you feel when you see my picture? What do you get from it?” Am I getting a responsive feeling? This is rising above my mother, and her chair, and the fact that she died, and the fact that we cleaned out the apartment, and I felt sad Those are the facts. What am I wanting my audience to feel? At my age a lot of people have cleaned out their parents’ apartment, it’s not an artistically interesting thing to do. What do I communicate? Abby: you talked about when you were taking the picture, but there are questions about physical, emotional, spiritual feelings. Was there any of that? Emily: In which of the pictures? Abby: Like the ones of your mother’s apartment, or “The Jetty”, like the ones you took in 1995, like that set. Emily: Whether they’re spiritual? Abby: Or a certain emotional state? Emily: I think that’s in all my pictures, even my portraits, for instance I have here… These are some…Oh these were the clouds in the sky..... Abby: Oh yeah, WOW! (looking at intense clouds in sky, part of a series) Emily: Even when I take a more pragmatic picture, like if I’m doing a street picture or a documentary type thing, the spiritual feeling is there... I mean, here are two boys in an orphanage (in Ukraine). Now, I could have taken any two boys in the orphanage. What was it about these two boys that made them more appealing to me? Or did I, by the way I took them, make them more appealing? What goes on at that instant? What happens here? We’ve got two kids. I could have asked them to smile. They were standing around. I’m not even sure they saw me. I could have taken them in a different position that was more “photographic”. So what happened in my head? This was instinctive. I was drawn to their faces. I thought there was a beautiful face on this boy and he looks like he’s seen some tough stuff, this fellow. And I was drawn to that. Now, it’s hard to explain that. Abby: Yeah it is hard to explain. Emily: Cause you can see a snapshot of these two boys and you’ll know it’s the same two boys. But here these boys are telling you more. And the reason they’re telling you more is because I’m letting them. Abby: Where did you take these pictures? Emily: These are in Eastern Ukraine. Abby: When did you take these? Emily: November ’01 Abby: Oh cute! (photograph of orthodox boys at their in school) Emily: This I felt was an emotional picture (two boys in orphanage), this I don’t quite feel that way about (boys in the classroom in a Jewish Day School in Ukraine). But I just had a right feeling about these kids. I mean, I sensed what I wanted to take. This guy’s gonna throw a spitball and this one’s chewin’ on his pencil (in the classroom). And whatever they’re doing I want to capture. Being students, they may be acting up, they’re going to be silly, these kids. You know? So, I don’t know. It’s hard for me to define what’s going on in my head when I take the shot and what’s drawing me to take this as opposed to a portrait of a boy or catching their attention and having them all look up towards me. THIS was interesting to me (old woman). I want you to see that she’s had a hard life, that she’s 91 years old, that she fell down and bruised her face. She’s a very poor woman. Her family was all killed and she’s the only one left. Do you see that? I wanted you to see that. Abby: Yeah. Emily: She was in Poltava in Ukraine. Abby: Did she know you were taking the picture of her? Emily: I was with other people who were talking with her. I was with a humanitarian group that was bringing aid to her. So she was sitting there, aware that I had the camera, but she didn’t know when I was going to take the picture. When she looked up to smile I didn’t take it, because I didn’t want that. I wanted her to be sitting there… in front of her is her table with some food and things we brought to her. But she didn’t know what I would do, she didn’t pose for me. When she did I didn’t shoot. Often I have to take pictures I know I will not use. Sometimes someone poses for me and if I don’t shoot they will feel hurt or bad, but I know I will not print that shot. And this one for instance (Lebanese woman on crutches looks directly at camera) she never saw me take. And she’s telling you a whole story. She’s actually in Lebanon, in Tripoli, Lebanon. Three years ago I was in Beirut and went north along the coast. God knows what I was doing in Beirut. Abby: (laughs) It’s the ailment! It’s making you! Emily: My husband got an invitation to do an evaluation of several departments at the American University in Beirut, so we went. And I performed a concert there, would you believe? And then I took some pictures. No one saw me take that (the woman in Tripoli). If any of the Arab men saw me taking a picture of her they would have been on me like no joke. So I grabbed it. She’s telling a story there. I saw her in the shadows and I knew that’s it. And I only got one shot at her. Abby: How did she not see you? Emily: I was walking in a crowd, it was in a market. I lucked out. I can stand here and talk to you (in front of me) but I’m going to be keeping my eye on the crowd over there (all around, all sides). I see the woman, pre-focus and wait, continuing to face you, but divert my eyes, watching. As soon as I see it clears out around her I quickly turn my head, lift the camera and snap. It looks like I am still talking to you. I use an automatic focus camera for this kind of photograph ... you’ve got to be fast! I think that explains a little what you want. Abby: Well, I’m just thinking about… you haven’t really talked about the development process of the film. Emily: You mean the technical stuff? Abby: Yeah, I mean does that have anything to do with it or is just when you take the picture? Emily: Is your question what options do I have after I take the photograph? Abby: Like is there any creativity that goes on after you actually take the picture? Emily: Yes, this is the technical stuff. Abby: Maybe. Emily: When I take the picture it’s not that simple. What film am I going to use? How am I going to set the camera, what film speed, shutter speed, aperture will I use? Will I over or under expose to create more or less contrast on my negative. All this sets up the way the film will be developed. I make a notation of the lightness and darkness, contrast conditions, etc. and of the general character of what is on each roll of film. I have to decide, when I’m developing – will I develop it longer, shorter, agitate it more? Techincal decisions CAN, to some extent, determine quality of the contrast and clarity on the film, by how I process it and what chemistry I use. So that’s one thing. Is this what you want to know? Abby: Yeah, I’m just wondering… Emily: The thing is, printing in the dark room, again, I have some leeway as to darkening up or lightening of certain parts of the photograph while it’s being exposed in the enlarger. So, if there’s a corner that’s very dark I could make it lighter. I can increase or decrease contrast. These are technical things, but they are based on instinctive artistic decisions...how do I see this photograph? How can I get to that place with the image I am working on? I also have the option of cropping my photograph, so if there’s something in it I don’t want, I can leave it out. Most of my work is full frame, sometimes the street shots I have to crop because I go fast and I get things I do not want, but cannot avoid....like, someone’s foot sticking out in the corner of the negative! I also have to make a decision what kind of paper to put the image on, because papers variy. Well, first I put everything on a plain resin coated paper… I do test prints to see how the image will print. But when I do an exhibit print, what kind of paper (warm tone, soft tone...) and what kind of contrast I want is important. I have to have the image in my mind of what I’m looking for, then I pick the paper that will work. I also have a process by which I look at a picture (test print) and study it, really sense and feel it, until it tells me what size it wants to be. I don’t like to make them all the same size unless it’s a series. So I’m not sure how large or small I want them, and that’s something I have to decide too. So there are all these things to decide. And then, how large a mat to put around the photograph? What space does it need to show it off the best? All of these things… I often feel when I’m standing there with the camera, shooting the picture in black and white that I know has the potential to be an exhibit print, in my mind I’m already on the toning, I’m on the paper, I’m on the group of pictures I’m going to work with. I swear, when I’m taking it that’s where I am. And if it’s an unusual subject and not related to anything and I’m taking it anyway because I’m driven to it, I know that at some point it’s going to work with something else I have, I just know it. I’ve taken city men working and structures of buildings all over the world, with angles and depth, just because I love it. I’m really ready to have a whole show of this from all the shots I grabbed here and there. Does that answer that question? Yeah, there are decisions all along the way. That’s why I don’t let anyone else touch my stuff. The only thing I need to have other people do is print for me when I want something very large. I want two very large photographs for this exhibit (“All Good Things”). They have to be custom done for me at a photographic fine art house. I can’t deal with paper that large in my studio. The people I use are very good, they’ll do it just the way I want it and print beautifully. Abby: So how do you know when you’re done, when you’re finished with a piece? Emily: Well, I’ll answer first with for my music. I am done when I have the concert. Whether I think I’m done or not, I have to play! (Laughs) So I am as done as it is that day, it is an ongoing process and the longer I play something the more it changes. But initially I’m done because I have a deadline. With photography it’s a little different. I’m done when I feel that the group of photographs I’m working on can pull together and are complete, and they can stand alone as a unit. Now, out of these that I have here (portfolio for Ukraine exhibit), there are a couple that may not work into the group. They are finished but I may not put them in the exhibit. But I’ll know within a month, because I have a deadline! Abby: So, it’s a little bit different… Emily: It’s a little bit different because if I have to get up and play, I have to be ready! If I had to sort these photographs out now, I could go quickly and make fast decisions and get the job done, there is no definite size or shape to photography projects, you have leeway. But if I have to play ...I have to be ready! Now! It may get better second, third, fourth time, I may change my interpretation on the twentieth time I perform the work, but... gotta be ready Sunday afternoon three o’clock. They’re coming in, they’re paying me. I play! Abby: So it’s just a different thing. Emily: It’s a different thing. If you wait until you think you are entirely ready as a musician you will NEVER be ready. Because you’re NEVER ready, EVER! Abby: Because you could always be better? Emily: EVER! I mean... I’m going to be doing a performance when this exhibit (“All Good Things”) is up. And I’m going to be playing music I did for my Master’s recital, I was 24 years old. Every 8 or 10 years I go back to it and it’s old to me and new to me and always being discovered. Okay.Abby: When you look back on the stuff you did of your mom’s apartment or some of your earlier stuff, like “The Jetty” from ’95, what are your thoughts about what you’ve done or the feelings you get from the pieces? Emily: Well, sometimes I feel that if it’s more recent it’s got to be better. But I don’t really think that that’s particularly true. I consider it good work. And it has the same validity now as when I did it. And I feel that way with my music too. The recordings I did in the ‘80s – that’s some of my best playing. And that’s nearly 20 years ago. How do I feel about them? I’m proud of them. And they stand on their own. And they didn’t need where I am now to turn them out, they are good just as they are. Look at an artist in a retrospective, they say – Oh, Jackson Pollack did this when he was 25 - you know it doesn’t matter. They’re good or they’re not. After tape ran out… Emily talked a little more and I wrote some additional notes: She still gets a kinetic feel from the music and the photos. She feels the moments of creation and excitement when it happened. She has an internally imprinted memory. She can still feel how she felt that day. It stays with her. It’s intangible. She gave a recital at Merkin Hall (New York) in 1985 and when she was done she gave a thumbs up to the audience. There was a silence before the sound of applause. She felt like – I did it! She was thrilled, happy that she could do it. Not proud, because that involves ego. It was more personal than that. She was honored that she had the ability and she felt lucky and blessed, but not proud. Once she performed Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 109, and when she finished there was silence. People were crying at the end of the Beethoven. The music was so abstract, so aural, just evoking memory, using tones to bring out that reaction... it’s more intellectual and abstract than a photograph.