Melissa Laree Cunningham: JANE Projects
“I am a freelance photographer, artist, and educator from Houston but based out of North Texas. My personal work focuses on the investigation of the natural world and the female experience by looking at the intimacies of personal space and connection to nature. I am largely interested in the intersection of environmental and generational histories and how the land plays an active role in human life. By honoring our attachments to each other and the spaces we call home, I hope to make visible emotional and hidden energies between the Self and Other, be it human or natural. In 2017 I started the publishing project JANE to support Texas photographers by providing photobook and curated event pathways for their new work.”
- MLC
RR: Hello Melissa, lets start with a few things about yourself and your interest in photography.
MLC: I took a darkroom class at community college because it had been a thing I was always drawn to. I really wanted to be a traveling documentary photographer, but it wasn’t a thing I knew about or ever spoke aloud. To see the world, learn about humanity, make stories, carry rolls of film and get lost in red lights. We had a joke of a photo class in my high school. My friend Janet took it; they did nothing, watched movies. Film was dying.
At community college, they offered one class: Black and White Darkroom photography. I learned from an old-timer who dressed in denim shirts and jeans and shot narratively in black and white only. He didn’t teach us how to use our cameras, only how to develop and print. He taught us that “a real photographer doesn’t look at the meter, he KNOWS what the right exposure is.” So every picture I made was terrible, obviously, but I didn’t understand why at the time. I was depressed. This one thing I had dreamt about, been drawn to for years, hoped for like an escape from where I was headed.. was all false. I spent countless hours shooting and printing; was obsessively developing every week but let down more and more by my work. Then the teacher lost my portfolio and claimed I never turned it in. So I had to negotiate and cry in his office just to get a B.
In late 2013 I unboxed a Canon AE-1 I had bought from a woman while traveling in Seattle in 2008. I was determined to learn how to be a photographer. I offered free portraits, shot weddings, pitched editorial projects to local brands and even watched videos online. I also had a digital camera, a Rebel, for a while and hated it. The Canon felt real. Then I started picking up random film cameras from thrift shops, from eBay, from my friend’s shop in Denton, Denton Camera Exchange, and trying out everything I could get my hands on. I was hooked in a completely different way. Every year since then has been a little different. I work full time in public schools, raise a child, move a lot, and through it all the process of making pictures and experimenting with photography as a tool for emotion and story has only grown. I’m starting an MFA at UTA right now to try and focus my art. People keep telling me I’ve done the undergraduate work myself, but I still need some direction.
RR: I want to talk about your project JANE, which is a bit like DRP, a Texas focused publication house where you make books, put on shows and build community around photography. When and what inspired you to start JANE projects?
MLC: I started JANE in late 2017. Mainly, I wanted to see the community in Houston connected with current photography through book form. For it to be more open access, easier entry, without sacrificing quality, and not necessarily tied to prestige or award-winning names (although winning awards would be nice).
That summer I was on a grant-funded work trip to Copenhagen to study libraries in Denmark and Sweden. While there I visited as many photo exhibitions as I could. The Black Diamond, or Royal Danish Library, had a huge exhibition of artbooks on display across one of the floors. I easily spent an hour flipping through some of the most intricate art books, many purely photography, but also a mix of graphics and text. I had no idea books could be this beautiful and carry emotion. Some kind of mix between text narrative (which I spent years studying and teaching) and just a picture book (which are nice but I get bored). I’m sure if I went to art school, I would have seen things like this, but I didn’t.
At Fotografisk Center, I found their small photobook library/shop open to browsing. The photobooks here were democratic: printed by large presses and small presses, in known and unknown cities across Europe. There were elevated zines, handbound works of art and risographs from big names (and some no names) all devoted to photography. I was a part of the photography community in Houston and still had never come across something this open and diverse in scope and form. I had spent plenty of time browsing books at the Houston Center for Photography library, but even those are mostly large monographs and known work.
RR: What are some of the books you've published under JANE? Could you talk a bit about each.
MLC: As JANE I’ve made three. I have a fourth in very very rough stages that has undergone two reworks since the first concept in spring 2018. After I moved to Dallas in the summer of 2018, I took a considerable break for almost a year between projects.
GIRLSGIRLSGIRLS (2018) which was a collection of my own black and white photography of girls and young women in varying states of joy and quiet. Because I have a daughter of my own, and most of my closest friends are women, I naturally gravitate toward photographing women. The book was designed by my friend Daniel Pagan who is a graphic designer and has worked on photography layouts for publications. The Menil Museum Bookstore hosted a release and exhibition and sold the books until we ran out.
Untitled Trip (2018) by Ryan Holloway. I did the layout design and my friend Aaron Parsley designed the cover. The work is a series of black and white images from a trip back home to California where Ryan was born. He spoke a lot about being a distant observer in this space where his family once lived, where he was born but left so young. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of raw action with very contemplative stillness: the close details of his brother’s lips waiting in the airport, the grainy blur of a skateboarder. The Menil Bookstore again hosted the release and Ryan choreographed an interpretative dance to interpret his wait on the plane heading to California.
Yours, Mine, and the Truth (2019) by Jessi Bowman with Notes by Cris Skelton. This book was designed by Justin Childress, a Dallas based graphic designer. Jessi is a powerhouse in the Houston photo community. She is the founder and director of FLATS, a nomadic photography exhibition series held in homes around the Houston area. FLATS is also the only film lab right now in Houston. Jessi has been shooting Polaroid as a personal creative practice since she was a teenager and has an impressive collection of hundreds upon hundreds of polaroids. What struck me about much of the work she’s made in this medium the past few years is how hauntingly ambiguous some of the images are. I approached her in spring 2018 about putting together a handmade book of polaroid images with the idea we would design a “community sewing day” so that the book would be produced by hands of volunteers gathered for a day. This did not happen. It took so much time just to get the book design and specs together that trying to incorporate a live element for the binding only complicated everything.
RR: What do you enjoy most about publishing and what are some of the challenges?
MLC: I enjoy connecting people. Probably more than anything else. I am very tired of the internet, though we all rely on it. I miss being 21 and 22 sitting on blankets in someone’s backyard with a fire telling stories and reading aloud with no phones (this was when the first smart phone came out and I thought it was insane people were buying them). I miss stumbling upon something in person that is eye-opening and ingesting it as a wonder, being moved, and not because someone tweeted or storied that “this thing is here you should go see it” (although I do this too because I want people to go out and see good work and support local institutions). I think books, art, and face-to-face gatherings still have the power to create change, open minds, ask for extra consideration. I want to help push this into reality.
Having to reel in my visions for practical production is a challenge. It’s one thing to have a vision in your mind; it’s something else entirely to sequence, design, print, market, distribute all within one’s own means and network without completely losing your mind or money. Quality so much depends on money, not necessarily vision. I can see a body of work laid out, on specific paper, with interesting details, with texture, and I can see someone flipping through, where they might stop to look more closely. Then when I look at how much money I have to use, what connections I have, well then things get real. In all honesty, I like working on JANE, but given the chance to work at an established publisher helping brings books to life with larger budgets and networks.. I’d do it without a second thought.
RR: Have you made any publications of your own? Independently from JANE.
I keep starting my own book projects all the time but become very overwhelmed with design and production. I’ve had a riso printed book idea of my BW disposable scenes of Houston in mind for a couple years and keep making inquiries but haven’t had the right fit.
This past summer I published a limited edition of 20 newsprint photobooks to complement a body of work, In Awe of All Things Real, that I shot while on the Dartmoor Summer School of Photography residency. I like the non-permanence of unbound newsprint. My favorite thing is the option to pull apart the work, hang as individual spreads, or resort the pages and completely change the sequence. The images are pieces of quiet life found along the River Dart in Dartmoor; an area that still feels wild and windy directly next to tourists coming to enjoy the farmland from the city. People still wild-swim here.
This newsprint is 24 pages with a mix of black and white (both film and digital) and color work that includes a poem and journal entry from my time on the residency. The printed work plus copies of the book will be exhibited in the Pollock Showcase at the downtown Dallas Public Library sometime in early May through June. I still have about ten copies for sale on my website.
RR: Right now you are in the process of publishing GONE under JANE projects, which is a photojournal sharing the images of various photographers/artists from the DFW and Houston area. How did this idea come about?
MLC: Issue 01 is directly focused on photographers in Houston and Dallas because that’s where I came from and that’s where I am. I wanted to bring them together. If this one goes well, the next issue will focus on a different concept and look for a variety of contributors as well.
GONE Issue 001 (Expected 2020)
After I moved to Dallas, I started meeting people involved in photography here. I am a passionate spokesperson for my city (Houston) and then I started seeing how similar the work, the passion, the on-the-ground efforts were in both places. Though I’ve seen and heard how difficult it is for non-commercial art to thrive here. The city doesn’t support grass roots start-ups unless there’s a political (or monetary) benefit. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a magazine or journal that celebrates Texas for years mostly because I know, or see, or learn about so many incredible humans from all walks of life across the state. This place has some of everything. I’ll swirl an idea around, try to implement it, see where I fall short and then stick it on the backburner until another evolution of it comes along.
RR: I think its an awesome way to cross-pollinate communities between two cities and was very happy to contribute some work as well. How can people purchase or pre-order one?
MLC: Right now I am selling my personal work through my website in the web Shop. I just shipped the In Awe of All Things Real photobook off to a collector in Marfa and one to New York. Deep Vellum Books, in Dallas, may carry a few soon, and I will save about three to use for the exhibition display at the Dallas Public Library in May. I will keep them online until they sell out.
The JANE publications are available through the online store JANE Projects. GONE is up for pre-order right now while we finish the last design details and it will be for sale in person at Deep Vellum Books.
RR: Do you have anything upcoming for yourself and your work?
MLC: Yes! Actually, quite a bit this month.
Saturday, February 7 I have a piece in the 500x Gallery College Expo. It’s from new work that no one has really seen yet, so I’m putting it out there.
Saturday, February 15 in Oak Cliff I am teaching a black and white film developing workshop at Oil and Cotton from 3-6. There are still a few seats available.
Friday, February 21 I am hosting a Headshot Happy Hour in Oak Cliff with a photographer friend. We’re trying to make headshots and portraits a little more fun by doing these quick 15 minutes sessions at The TX Studio with tons of Topo Chico and a bit of other drink. I think we are about half booked already. (Which means I have a few more time slots open).
Saturday February 29 I will be a reviewer at the SPE South Central Portfolio Throwdown. I think registration closes on the 20th. I highly recommend this portfolio review to photographers as a chance to have your work seen by photography professionals in colleges, galleries, non-profits, and publications (including Deep Red Press).
Next month I have a piece in a group show in Houston that opens on March 7, so I have to prep for that one soon.
RR: Awesome! Thanks Melissa!