Some Money Some Problems: Two Former Art Majors Living and Working in NYC

When my mother throws cocktail parties for the partners of her law firm at our apartment, I inevitably end up wedged against the baked Brie, answering questions about my Future. Once I drop the career-killing bomb (“Uh, I’m a double major in English and Studio Art, with a concentration in photography”) I usually leave my conversational partner stunned enough that I can make a hasty retreat to the kitchen, where I can study the every move of the caterers (who are engaged in one out of the three careers I may be qualified for post-graduation). But many Yalies have come before me that did not become i-bankers and do not live in cardboard boxes/New Jersey, and to them I turn for solace. Former art majors Ani Katz, Yale ’08, and Danielle (Dani) McDonnough, Yale ’09, are both living in New York City and making rent. Living the dream. Ani was born and raised in Bay Shore, NY, and Dani is from Southampton, NY.

Note: This is an abridged version of my interview with Ani and Dani. To read the full version, click here.

HC: How did you become interested in art? What artists do you remember first admiring/trying to emulate?

AK: …For the first ten years of my artistic practice I mostly drew and made tiny figurines out of Sculpey clay. Someone must have taken me to MoMA early on, because all the portraits I used to draw had Matisse noses.

When I was in middle school, my mom got me private lessons with a local photographer… My school did not have a photography program, so I pursued it on my own, during the summer and on weekends. My parents converted our third floor bathroom into a darkroom for me—it’s the only darkroom I’ve seen that had a working toilet. Photograph by Ani Katz

The summer after my sophomore year of high school I did a two-week intensive program at the Maine Photographic Workshops… Then when I was a junior in high school I took a Saturday morning class at ICP and discovered [Robert Frank’s] The Americans, which blew me away. I began to understand photography as an art form with its own history and unique set of possibilities.

DM: Growing up, my parents definitely valued an artistic mind, so would always require lengthy museum visits whenever we traveled abroad… My middle and high school also placed great emphasis on the arts…

High school was when I became more interested in my own art, but obviously I wasn't sure of anything yet. So I took all the art classes my school had to offer (drawing, painting, rock carving, ceramics, mosaic, 3-D architecture, etc.) except, ironically, photography. Photograph by Dani McDonnough

At this point, though, my real artistic passion was dance (I had been dancing ballet since kindergarten), and my major influences were Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, and traditional West African dance. I did my high school junior project in dance, and thought about doing my senior project in dance also… But I ended up doing my senior project in forensic science and teaching, and applying to schools as pre-med. I chose to go to Yale for its great art program, and not so surprisingly ended up dropping my ill-conceived pre-med plans after three semesters.

HC: What kind of work did you make at Yale?

AK: …I remember feeling really depressed during the fall of my sophomore year because I was in my second straight semester without a photo class, and the other art classes I had taken were taught by painters who suggested that photography was somehow inferior to drawing and painting. So I started to get this complex about it.

Then in the spring I took Intermediate Photo with Phillip Pisciotta, and that class really changed my life… Phillip had a way of talking about photography that was completely new to me—photography became almost mystical, definitely much harder than painting. It demanded so much emotional investment. Making a good photograph was the hardest and most amazing thing… Photograph by Ani Katz

Senior year I started making work that mattered to me. A few things happened to make this possible. First, John Lehr introduced me to using an off-camera flash. Then I started working at night, photographing at parties and concerts, and I became adept at capturing these wild gestures and expressions. The work started to have a lot to do with vulnerability and strangeness in people’s relationships and bodies, which was all very interesting to me. Working digitally was really crucial—it allowed me to experiment with the flash and shoot a lot…

For my senior project… I worked with Rebecca Soderholm … I kept shooting parties, but I branched out to look at people in their homes and daily lives… The way the work was edited, it seemed like I was very intimate with all my subjects, even though some of them were total strangers…

The work ended up being about the ambiguity of intimacy, the inscrutability of gender and sexuality, the murkiness of relationships, and the beauty and vulgarity of the body. I put up 26 photographs, ranging in size from 20x30 to 8x10 – I arranged them very specifically, sort of sculpturally – each photograph related to its neighbors.