SPEND A FEW MINUTES WITH PHOTOGRAPHER DONA SCHWARTZ AND YOU’LL START TO SEE A BIT OF GRANDEUR hiding beneath the humble, day-to-day routines of your life. “I want to spend some time, think hard, and see what’s amazing that’s right under my nose,” she explains. “To me, that’s really compelling. But looking at what constitutes daily life sure isn’t easier or less rigorous. To photograph it, you have to first really see it. And not just anyone can do that. You have to be really quick and really observant—thinking, aware, present, and ready. Keep your camera close at hand and the batteries in it always charged.” Schwartz considers her work to be documentary, but she admits that people often misunderstand what that entails. “I suspect that people have too narrow an idea about the field of documentary work. For example, I find that my students often think that documentary doesn’t have a point of view. It does have a point of view, absolutely. In fact, that point of view is exactly what defines it—you’re documenting the reality you see. It’s as simple as that.” Schwartz goes on to elaborate how she sees her role behind the lens: “When I came of age professionally, the conversation in my field was driven by the question of the relationship of the storyteller to the story. Everyone was wondering, ‘Who should tell the story? Do you have to be on the inside of something to portray it fairly and accurately?’ I thought, I’m a mother and I know I can speak to the experience of motherhood. I’ll start by covering that.” And so began In the Kitchen, a series of photographs that documents the comings and goings of her family, her teenage children’s friends, and their changing relationships to one another. Each photo is taken from within the confines of her family’s kitchen, but these aren’t simple “domestic” shots. Schwartz introduces us to a new way of looking at these ordinary moments: seen through her lens, these snatches of family life are surreal and evocative of the changeable nature of parent-child relationships; occasionally her shots are funny and sometimes, they’re uncomfortably frank. Schwartz recalls how she got the idea for the project, “There was all this life in my kitchen. I thought what if I just start photographing there?” In fact, she sees her current field of interest as a gift of the circumstances in which she found herself. “I just want to keep shooting, keep working. So I think about how I can incorporate my photography into the life I lead. On the one hand, my circumstances drove me to look at my immediate environment for photos, because I’m stuck there. I can’t even entertain the idea of leaving—photographing across the country or around the world for long stretches of time. I can’t do that. I have these children, and I love these children. I can’t just go off and leave them. But, I don’t think it’s trivial to look at things closer to home. I’ve always been an advocate of finding the narrative in every day, digging for the importance and meaning behind what constitutes daily life. Even if you’re around them all the time, it actually might be that you’ve never really seen your kids. Maybe you never really looked. To me, part of the challenge is to say, Look at just how amazing and complex these things you take for granted are.” After her experiences with In the Kitchen, it seems natural for Schwartz’s next project to look more closely at the role of parenthood. “The original conception of On the Nest, as with so many of my projects, came from a moment of pique,” she jokes. “I became aware that a lot of people were looking at teenagers’ lives—the transitions and struggles they face—and I thought, Damnit, adults have a lot going on in their lives, too. Why isn’t anyone looking at the transitions adults face in their own lives?” On the Nest explores the greatest of adult transitions, from unencumbered adult to parent and back again once the children are grown and on their own. “What does the space these expecting parents have prepared for their first child reveal about how they view parenthood?” She elaborates, “It’s equally interesting to look at how people cope with their children growing up and leaving home. Do they immediately reclaim their child’s room for their own pursuits? Or do they leave their child’s space exactly as it was when they lived there, like a shrine waiting for their return, with soccer trophies and posters of Jessica Simpson and rock bands?” “I came to work on the series on soccer moms last year out of a moment’s irritation, too. It’s a running theme in my work, isn’t it?” she laughs. “My kids have been doing soccer for years, and I have to drive them, sit there, and they want me to be enthusiastic and cheer them on, and I’m just not that interested,” Schwartz confesses. “I love them dearly and I certainly support their efforts, but I’d look around at other parents, especially the ones who are totally keen on the sport, and I’d wonder, What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I care?” Funny thing was, the more she wondered about these parents’ rituals and marveled at their enthusiasm and passion for their kids’ games, last year she decided she needed to start bringing her camera along when she came to her fifteen-year-old daughter’s games. Schwartz realized, “There are pictures here, and I ought to be taking them.” For her, photography at its core is about finding a good story, wherever it may be, and telling it as best you’re able. “Meaningful work doesn’t have to have exotic subject matter, and art doesn’t need to be scripted, staged, dramatic, or from someplace that you’ll never see,” she argues. “I want to capture real life, but I can’t escape my perception of it. These pictures represent my best attempt to tell the truth as I know it, and that’s the best anyone can do. I can tell you this,” she says, leaning in. “It’s a ridiculously euphoric experience when you lock a truly decisive moment within the frame. It’s like recognizing your own thoughts crystallized in an image, and the experience is unlike anything else.” About the artist: Dona Schwartz earned her PhD at the Annenberg School for Communications and currently teaches at the University of Minnesota. Among her academic publications are two photographic ethnographies, Waucoma Twilight: Generations of the Farm (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) and Contesting the Super Bowl (Routledge, 1997). Her current series of shots, In the Kitchen, has been exhibited at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon, the Milwaukee Art Museum, The Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, the 7th Internationale Fototage, Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, Germany, and in numerous juried exhibitions in the United States. Her work is included in the collections of the George Eastman House, Harry Ransom Center, Portland Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Her new project, On the Nest, documents the lives of couples preparing for the arrival their first child. If you’re expecting your first child and would like to participate in Schwartz’s On the Nest project, take a look at this flier for contact info and detailed information about the series.    

--Susannah Schouweiler

access+ENGAGE Issue 15.1: Photographer's Eye
Click here to read the web (HTML) version of the a+E issue in which this collection is featured.

Dona Schwartz's mnartists.org pages
Click here to browse through more photos by documentarian Dona Schwartz.

Dona Schwartz's website
Get full details on Schwartz's current portrait project, "On the Nest," and take a look at an extensive collection of her photographic work on soccer moms, "In the Kitchen," "Sanctioned Sex," and much more.

Susannah Schouweiler on mnartists.org

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