Sitting at the nexus of art, fashion and academia, Dario Calmese is an artist, urbanist, director and brand consultant. He shares his thoughts on photography and the design of the world around us on this very special live episode.
Debbie Millman:
So this month’s theme for Creative Mornings is abundance. And Milton Glaser once said, “If you perceive the universe as one of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be.” And Milton goes on to say that he always thought that there was enough to go around. “There are good enough ideas in the universe and enough nourishment.” Dario, you’ve stated that if there’s an abundance of something, that you share it, have you always had this mentality around the notion of abundance?
Dario Calmese:
I’m not sure. I think, sometimes… I have this feeling that whatever you have just offer it to someone else, I think it’s a way of showing gratitude, actually. It keeps the river flowing. I think it’s coming from a scarcity mindset of hoarding and holding onto that actually limits you and limits life and limits the things that you’re after. But in sharing, in giving, it just keeps the energy flowing. And I think even, we were talking about the Institute of Black Imagination, and it all started with me inheriting 2000 books from a famous artist, Geoffrey Holder. And somewhere on the inside I was like, “Oh my God, I would love to just be lost in these books and hold onto these books, and pull from them and reference them.” And I don’t even define it, but something inside me knew that I just couldn’t, right? I had to share it. I had to share this knowledge. I needed other people to have access to this information. And so that actually is what undergirded the Institute of Black Imagination. So yeah, I think there’s something inside that says, give.
Debbie Millman:
You have an abundance of identities. And we talked about identities a little bit before our interview. You’re an artist, a photographer, a sculptor, a writer, a podcast host, a teacher, a show and casting director, and the CEO of The Institute of Black Imagination, all of which I’d like to talk to you about today. You’ve said that you think we all have multiple identities, but because we often align ourselves to specific identities and professions, it keeps us from other modalities of being. And I was really intrigued by that notion because it’s sort of the opposite of abundance. When we are holding on to an identity, it forces us to remain sort of intact as opposed to growing and evolving. And I’m wondering how you were able to break that trap and sort of have these expanded versions of yourself.
Dario Calmese:
Well, one, I have to first of all, thank my parents. My parents really allowed for me to simply be curious and explore all the things that I found interesting. If it was microscopes or telescopes or chemistry sets or piano lessons or karate, I was able to explore all of these things. And I think on some level it came down to just pure curiosity. If I’m being totally honest, I’m just really fascinated by, what is possible? And you try some things and they don’t work out and you try other things and they resonate and you want to go with it. And so that’s something that I’ve done. I’ve literally just followed things that I was interested in most of my life, and luckily supported by my parents and supported by friends and communities that have allowed me to do that.
Debbie Millman:
You grew up in North City, Missouri, which is in the suburbs of St. Louis, and you’ve talked about how you were raised in a predominantly white neighborhood. Your father is a pastor, but also a substance abuse therapist. And your mother is a nurse, but also a seamstress. Now, is it true she sewed all your clothes?
Dario Calmese:
She didn’t sew all of my clothes, but she sewed a significant portion of them, particularly my church clothes. I don’t know how many people here grew up in a Black Baptist church?
Debbie Millman:
Raise your hands.
Dario Calmese:
Okay. So you all know what the pastors anniversary is, and it’s something that we have every year. We would get dressed up and whatever, and my mother would literally allow me to imagine and design whatever I wanted. So I remember one year, MC Hammer was huge in the ’90s, and she made me this incredible MC Hammer suit with the big baggy pants and the bolero jacket.
Debbie Millman:
I had one of those too, by the way.
Dario Calmese:
Oh okay, see. I actually just met him last week in San Francisco.
Debbie Millman:
Wow.
Dario Calmese:
Random. He offered me a Mentos and said he wanted my boots.
Debbie Millman:
As one does. I understand that your mom is quite the style maven and instructed you on all the do’s and don’ts of dressing. She taught you things like your belt should always match your shoes, was wondering if that was still the case?
Dario Calmese:
No belt.
Debbie Millman:
Do you still heed her sartorial instructions?
Dario Calmese:
Actually, she now heeds mine. She sends me photos from dressing rooms. She’s like, “Oh, what shoes should I wear with this? Bracelets, earrings.” Yeah. It’s interesting, my mother and I have always had this style dialogue for my entire life. And even when she was sewing, that was our connection. She would, I got it honest, I’m also a procrastinator. I’m trying to be better.
Debbie Millman:
How, with all of those multi hyphenate titles, can you possibly think you’re a procrastinator?
Dario Calmese:
I don’t know, I’m always just like… Well, I’m actually much, much, much better. But my mother would be up until five o’clock in the morning sewing my sister’s cotillion dresses and I would just be sitting there watching her. Our basement, you can open the door and the stairs go down, and it’s open, and so I would just sit on the stairs and just watch my mother sew until five o’clock in the morning. It was just this thing we had.
Debbie Millman:
My mother was also a seamstress, she made all of my clothes growing up. We had no money, so that was the only way that I could get any kind of new clothes. I learned how to sew as well. I just want to let you know, bragging a little bit here everyone, I won the home economics award in high school because of my sewing ability. My red corduroy overalls were among the most popular of my constructions, just letting you all know, that had an appliqued butterfly embroidered on the front panel. She also taught me how to draw, because she used to draw images of all the clothes that she made because she was a professional seamstress, she made clothes for other people. She would draw those outfits.
You’ve stated that the women in your family were some of your early influences and inspired a bonafide interest in the worlds of art and fashion. But you also come from a family of musicians and have said that you discovered your voice as a tool of expression at a very young age. And I’m wondering if you could talk about what that means and how you were able to do that?
Dario Calmese:
It really started in elementary school, growing up in a creative family. And yes, my grandmother, my paternal grandmother, I really consider the font of all creativity, she was also a singer, played piano, a writer, a ceramicist. And all of her children, including my father, have tons of these gifts and they talk about them and things like that. But in elementary school, it really came from me being bored in church while my father was preaching, and I would just read the hymnals and I was memorizing hymns while my father preached because I was not paying attention. And then…
Debbie Millman:
We won’t tell anyone.
Dario Calmese:
And then in fourth grade, or even third grade, I was in elementary school and we were in music class and it was Black History Month so we were going to sing a spiritual for Black History Month, and it was Wade in the Water. And when it came time to, the verse came or whatever, I just started singing it because I knew it. And my teacher was like, “Oh my God, your voice.” And I was like, “What?” And she was like, “You need to sing the solo for the program.” Or whatever. And that was when I first began that this was something maybe that other people didn’t have or whatever, because everyone in my family sings, it was never anything that felt quite special. And over time finding that, and maybe this is something that we all have, is not understanding the power of our voice or not understanding that we have a unique perspective on the world that people want to hear.
And so I discovered that in many various ways. And if you think about all of the identities, it’s really me saying the same thing in different languages. Each medium allows for a certain type of communication, and I think that is where that really comes from. And really finding later that writing was an incredible way to also, not only find one’s voice, but to also really kind of weave together seemingly disparate ideas and then share them with somebody else so they can follow along with your thought process.
Debbie Millman:
By the time you were 10 years old, you were already studying the piano, you also studied classical voice, acting and dance, beginning in your teens. You began performing professionally by the time you were 15, what kinds of productions were you a part of?
Dario Calmese:
So my first professional show was A Chorus Line.
Debbie Millman:
What part did you play?
Dario Calmese:
I was in the ensemble.
Debbie Millman:
Oh.
Dario Calmese:
Because I was 15, but it was at a professional theater. So in St. Louis we have a theater called The Muni, and it’s America’s largest and oldest outdoor theater, and it seats around 14,000. And yeah, I went to audition and I made a friend there at the audition who taught me how to do a double pirouette, I had never even heard of that before.
Debbie Millman:
Can you still do it?
Dario Calmese:
I can still do it.
Debbie Millman:
Ooh, the gauntlet is down.
Dario Calmese:
I can do a triple. No, I’m kidding. I mean, I can. And then other things like Missouri Honors Choir, all of those things that one does as an ambitious little kid, it’s early.
Debbie Millman:
At that point, what did you want to do professionally? Did you want to be a performer?
Dario Calmese:
I don’t think I really knew. I enjoyed it, but I actually always thought, and this is so strange, but I always thought that academics and art were silos and that I had to make a choice, and so I was always kind of straddling this line. But as far as what I wanted to be, I actually thought I was going to be a psychiatrist. Yeah, I was going to be a counselor.
Debbie Millman:
You went to school for psychology. You got your college degree in psychology and mass media at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. What provoked you or motivated you to think about being a psychiatrist?
Dario Calmese:
You know it’s so funny, my father’s a therapist, and as much as I did not think that I was my father, I’m totally my father.
Debbie Millman:
I hear you.
Dario Calmese:
And I think you’re surrounded by these things when you grow up, what your parents do, and they really influence you. And both of my parents really were in professions of service, and I really loved psychology because I just loved the human mind. But I also loved like pissing people off. And this is something I used to do to my elementary school teachers all the time, and I’m sure they were just over it, but if I didn’t see you snap, I didn’t trust you. And so I would push people to the point where whatever facade they had up, as teacher or something, once I saw that I was like, “Okay, they’re a human being.” And so I think psychology, the mind, these are things that were always very interesting to me.
Debbie Millman:
So you were an early provocateur?
Dario Calmese:
Si. Yes.
Debbie Millman:
I read that when you got to college, you started questioning everything you’d ever been told about yourself. This included your own sexuality, what it meant to believe in God, and even music and art. What type of epiphanies did you have about who you were?
Dario Calmese:
So I went to the small Jesuit school called Rockhurst University, there were a couple of things. One, I remember we were in maybe art history class or something like this, and we were learning about the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and I’m sitting there hearing about this amazing, amazing what we would call a cathedral with the largest man-made dome, and I’m like, “Why am I just learning about this?” I was like, “I was a good student and I’m curious, and why am I just learning about this, in college?” And I’m like, “And this is a very specific school right?” I’m like, “If I was maybe at a different school or maybe even a state school, we may not even be studying this.” So it opened up that there was this entire other… I started to see the limits of my education, which I thought was vast, and started to see the very Western European lens through which I was educated, right?
And then you start thinking about, oh wait, I was getting up at six o’clock in the morning for AP European history and we didn’t talk about the Eastern world. We didn’t talk about these things. And I think I was really upset, “How could this have been kept from me? What are you talking about?”
But I would say the biggest epiphany, so again, my father’s a pastor, I grew up in the church, I was taught that the Bible was the unmitigated word of God, it was from his mouth to the page. And we had to take theology and the teacher asked us to bring the American standard Bible to class. Now if anyone here grew up in the church, you know that there’s multiple versions and multiple translations of the Bible, and then if you have the wrong translation, you just kind of like, make it work. And so I was just like, “I’m not buying a new Bible. I’m just going to bring this good old King James to class. It’s going to be fine.”
And then the teacher says, “Turn to second Maccabees.” And I was like, “I’m sorry, what?” I mean, I literally looked over to another student and I was like, “Wait, what? There are these other books of the Bible? And nobody told me?” The Apocrypha, first and second Maccabees, The Book of Wisdom, The Book of Light. And then we’re learning about Martin Luther and them taking… Anyway, I won’t get into the construction of the Bible.
Debbie Millman:
Please do.
Dario Calmese:
I mean, we don’t have a lot of time except two… But for me, it all came crumbling down. It all came crumbling down. Because that was the one thing that culturally was the through line of my entire life, of my community, of my identity. And all of a sudden the ineffable had a chink in it. And any information that we learn, we’re walking through life with certain paradigms in place, kind of like a room, and when something new is introduced, either you rearrange everything to make space for it or you reject it so that everything stays the same. The easy things to do is just to reject the new and let everything stay the same, but that was an undeniable thing. And so to let that in, everything had to change and everything came into question. And then I saw the hand of man in what I thought was the hand of God.
And not only that, I remember talking to my father excitedly about these books that I had discovered. Discovered. And I was like, “Dad, oh my God, I was reading The Book of Wisdom. It’s amazing. You’ll be able to find some really great sermons out of these scriptures. This is amazing.” And he was like, “Oh no, those are the forbidden books.”
Debbie Millman:
How did you manage through that type of conversation?
Dario Calmese:
Well, I also started to see that religion in those who were leaders in upholding it, also weren’t interested in the truth. They were interested in maintaining, right? And I was just like, “But if you are who you say you are and you’re about this life, if you got new information about something that you’re passionate about or you love, wouldn’t you want to know it, wouldn’t you want to share it? Wouldn’t you want to enlighten other people?” And there was just like a wall of rejection to it. And I was just like, “Oh, okay, got it. So even this isn’t as real as I thought it was.” So when the core of your kind of existence or faith is shattered like that at 19, everything, everything is up for question at that point.
Debbie Millman:
How did that impact the type of work you were making?
Dario Calmese:
It’s so interesting. I never really made that connection, but I think that impacts everything that I’m making. I don’t take anything at surface level, I’m always interrogating systems, I’m always looking for what’s not being said and questioning everything. I think everything is worthy of being questioned. So yeah, I mean everything.
Debbie Millman:
After you graduated, you decided to move to New York City and allowed yourself one year to pursue professional performance. What kind of performer were you envisioning yourself at that point?
Dario Calmese:
So I was doing musical theater mostly, and I did some soap work. If you dig deep enough, you can find me on All My Children. But yeah, I literally decided to… The decision was to move to New York for one year, try out the acting thing. If I’m terrible, I’m going to go back to grad school for either cognitive neuroscience or psych assessment, which is designing psychological tests. Or if I’m good, maybe I’ll stick with it. And so yeah, I just kept going and was able to travel the world, but it was mostly musical theater, singing and dancing. And in that space, as much as I loved it, I found that there was more that I wanted to do and more that I wanted to say. And so as much as I loved it, once I got into it, I was feeling the limitations of it. And so a pivot came into photography.
Debbie Millman:
In that traveling that you did, you took a three week trip to Europe where you purchased your first DSLR camera, which you’ve stated, bridged the gap between your technical side and your artistic side. And when you returned to New York, you continued to work as a performer, but then began collaborating with your colleagues and friends to take head shots and create stylized portraits. At that point, you decided to go back to school to get a master’s degree from SVA in photography. But despite your degree and accomplishments and a level of professional success, you don’t consider yourself to be a photographer?
Dario Calmese:
Yes and no.
Debbie Millman:
Okay.
Dario Calmese:
And I think that this goes back to kind of like identity, and to let you all in on a conversation that Debbie and I were having pre-interview. We were having a conversation about identity, and that identity isn’t necessarily who you are, but identities are things that you hold, you are the vessel that holds these different identities. And identity is something that comes from the outside, people are telling you how you are seen versus you defining it for yourself. What we call identity is really one’s interest in an identity. And to be seen as a photographer, it’s like a yes and, more than I am not a photographer.
So with photography, I just find that it’s just not the whole story. So I’m a photographer, but I’m also not a photographer. For me, it is not what I live and breathe and move in 24/7, although I’m always looking at images. I love taking images, it is a mode of expression for me. But photography is… We all are flowing rivers, and what does it mean to be defined by how one feels when they step into it in that one moment, three seconds later it’s going to change. And I think that’s really it, I felt really hedged in by that.
Debbie Millman:
Since graduating, you’ve had a number of different jobs and opportunities. You worked as a staff photographer for Essence Magazine and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In 2013, you became the casting director for Kerby Jean-Raymond’s Pyer Moss fashion shows, and then went on to become the director. And you titled the 2016 show, Double Bind, which was acclaimed for its messages going beyond fashion, not surprisingly, to address depression and Black Lives Matter. And you said this about the topic matter. “The Black experience in America is the ultimate double bind. It’s a place where natural born citizens, promised life, liberty, and property, live an immigrant experience in the only land they’ve known as home. A place where Black culture is praised, commodified, and appropriated while Black peoples are marginalized and serve as scapegoats for the ills of American society, and we can’t escape and we can’t talk about it.” Five years later, six years later, do you feel the same way?
Dario Calmese:
See, that’s why writing is good. You can really get at the thing. I was like, “Yes, that is it. That’s it.”
Debbie Millman:
I thought so too.
Dario Calmese:
I was like, “That is it.” It just so clearly articulates it. Are we still there? Yes. Yes, it is, because there hasn’t been a reckoning for, not only this country, but I think particularly for white Americans. When we talk about oppression, when we talk about even racism, so much of it is about a denial and a lack of a confrontation. I mean, I think this goes back to the psychology of it. In order to change, you have to confront a truth in order to move past it. And America, and it goes beyond America, has yet to really reckon with and reconcile that past. And it’s ultimately the journey that we’re all on, we’re all on that journey of becoming. And I will say that I speak this not from a place of listlessness or even tragedy, but from a place of hope. Martin Luther King says that “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” And I wholeheartedly believe that.
However, and we were talking a little bit about Afropessimism earlier, and I won’t get too much into it, but essentially the notions of Afropessimism says that the Black experience or Black suffering is one that cannot be repaired because Blackness is the boundary line between who is human and who is not. And so Black individuals actually serve as the boundary line between who is human and who is not. And so as long as that boundary line is needed, I’m unsure of how well or how far we’ll really be able to go. But I do see and understand and witness quiet moments of care and humanity every single day. And I think on an individual and a citizen level, there’s just more heart there. There’s more heart there. And we also have to sep… Now I’m going on a tangent, but let me circle back. I just want to say we do also need to separate the citizen from the state, right? Because state actions and institutionalized parts of racism make it sometimes really difficult for individuals to act in the way that they want to.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely.
Dario Calmese:
So, we’re also dealing with systems, and this kind of goes into design.
Debbie Millman:
Was this part of your decision to create the Institute of Black Imagination?
Dario Calmese:
Yes. So the Institute of Black Imagination, like I mentioned, came about with me inheriting these 2000 books from Geoffrey Holder, but also really see, I mean, if we want to get to the why is… Still in New York.
So you mentioned that I grew up in the suburbs in this predominantly white neighborhood, but we started out in East St. Louis, which is where my parents are from, which is on the other side of the river. And you can Google East St. Louis, it’s a really great case study in geographical racism. But I grew up with my cousins four blocks away from me, and I moved when I was five. And as I grew up, I really began to see, firsthand, what environment does to life outcomes. And I started to see our lives diverge. I got to exist in this place of abundance and resources, and their lives took a very statistical route. And for me, this is really what undergirds the Institute of Black Imagination, because it was very clear to me that it was designed, it was designed.
Where we grew up was not designed for us to thrive in. It was not designed for us to dream in. It wasn’t designed for us to imagine in. And I also saw what was possible when one just had access to resources, to information, to tools. I’m a witness of it. I am a product of it. And so when creating the Institute of Black Imagination, it’s like “What does it mean to create a space to give access and resources to individuals to allow them to dream, allow them to imagine as well.”
Debbie Millman:
In 2020 via the institute, you developed a podcast to incorporate Black and Brown voices around broader concepts of design. And in a recent episode with anti-disciplinary designer, Adam Sally, you stated, “Design is a tool we use to bring our thoughts into space time.” One of the most beautiful lines of yours that I’ve read. And I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what you mean by that.
Dario Calmese:
Sure. It’s my favorite topic. I mean, I’ll circle back and then I’ll go forward. In 2016, I was in Athens, Greece, and I heard this phrase during this conference that all design is predictive, meaning that the designer is predicting or dictating how an end user is going to interact with any given design. Rarely is there a modular or an adaptive function on the user end. It was like a throwaway line, but it completely changed my life. I literally walked out and looked at the world and realized that this was all designed, and it was-
Debbie Millman:
In looking back at your childhood and the sort of divergence between you and your cousins, it’s…
Dario Calmese:
But literally, and it sounds so basic, and we know it, but everything you’re looking at right now was once an idea in somebody’s head, the shoes, my pants, this stage, the sidewalk you walked on, the subway you took, the streets, this building, the lights, your glasses, the microphone, my gloves, the table, the cup was all immaterial. I mean, there’s a lot of creative people here, right? And so you know what it means to bring an idea and translate it into space and time. And so for me, I was like, “Oh, that is what design is. It’s the series of mechanisms or processes to bring thought into materiality.” And then I asked the question, I was like, “Oh, well, if this is all designed, then who designed it?” And that’s also a pretty easy answer. And then we realize that we’re actually living in embodied ideals. We are surrounded by thought, literally solid thought. We are moving in thought at all times.
And so then what does it mean to then open up that lane for other individuals to dream and imagine? And what I also love about that concept is that it makes the world feel really light, because it’s just thought, it’s just an idea. This building is just an idea that’s no more valid than the idea that you have in your head right now. The monarchy is just an idea, you can literally just think of something else tomorrow.
Debbie Millman:
Right?
Dario Calmese:
Seriously. And so the world-
Debbie Millman:
It’s incredibly powerful.
Dario Calmese:
The world doesn’t feel so heavy. You’re like, “Oh, you could just change your mind.” That’s what happened in COVID, everyone just had to change. And it was crazy how swift, you’re like, “Oh, we could just make another choice.” And for me, that I think is extremely powerful. But yeah, it’s just a translation of thought into space and time.
Debbie Millman:
Dario, in 2020 you also made history, as Tina mentioned in her introduction, as the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for Vanity Fair in its 106 year history, which is just so heinous in so many ways. Nevertheless, you made the history with your portrait of Oscar winning actress Viola Davis. You didn’t know you were the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for the magazine until you asked. Did that surprise you? It surprised me. I couldn’t believe that in 106 years, there was not one. Not one.
Dario Calmese:
Was I surprised? No. Did I even find it heinous? No. It’s like, if you know American history, is this a surprise?
Debbie Millman:
Talk about predictive.
Dario Calmese:
For me? It’s just like… And I wasn’t even upset. It’s interesting that I meet so much outrage when people hear that, and I’m like…
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. Why are we surprised? Is really the question.
Dario Calmese:
You know what I mean?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, I do.
Dario Calmese:
And I also really took it as, this is a team of people, because it also wasn’t reactive right? So I had been shooting for Vanity Fair for a year prior to, so if there are any photographers in the room, it was almost a very traditional kind of photography progression. Working for a magazine, you start shooting front of book portraits, you start doing other things, and you kind of work your way up to hopefully a cover. So outside of the historical and racialized context, it was pretty kind of straightforward in that regard. And also that they weren’t choosing me in reaction to, it was like, “No, we’ve been working together for a year.”
I think that it’s a truth for us that none of us created the world that we find ourselves in, we all inherited this. We inherited these systems, these ways of being, these thoughts, these social constructs. There’s not one individual in this room that is directly responsible for anything, including the team at Vanity Fair. They can’t speak to their history. They were not even alive when the magazine came. And one of my favorite questions of the two pages on my website, because I can’t, but on the contact page it has one of my new favorite questions is, what will you do now, knowing what you now know?
Debbie Millman:
What will you do now, knowing what you now know?
Dario Calmese:
And ultimately, that’s all we can be responsible for.
Debbie Millman:
Your portrait of Viola Davis was monumental not only because of its beauty, but also because of what it represented. It wasn’t just a photograph. And you credit the pose for the image to Black women artists such as Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weems, who often photograph subjects from behind. But it also referenced another significant photograph, which we’ve been hearing quite a lot about recently. But this was actually before any of that sort of came to the cultural zeitgeist. Can you talk a little bit about the reference?
Dario Calmese:
Yeah. So for those not familiar, I referenced a portrait of Peter Gordon, it’s called Whipped Peter, and it’s a pretty famous image of a runaway slave with scars on his back. And in doing research for anything that I’m doing, I keep just a catalog of images, thousands and thousands and thousands, thousands of images. And when I get an assignment, I just go through them and I don’t even think about it. I just start pulling things that make sense, that resonate for some reason. And that was one of them. And I actually found the image to be, at least his pose, to be one of strength and quite beautiful. And it was actually quite a fashion pose because he is really trying to show the scars on his back, outside of the just horrific nature of the image.
But I was also challenged, and I actually don’t think I’ve ever spoken about this, but Samira Nasr, who’s now the editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, was still the fashion director at the time of Vanity Fair, she was making her transition at the time. And I was showing my reference images and my mood boards, and she said, she’s like, “I just want to challenge you to also think about women and how women want to be represented, a modern woman in this world.” And so we all walk through life with certain privileges, and I get to walk through life as a cis male presenting individual, I am not a woman, nor have I lived that life. And so that for me was one, of checking my own privilege, but then two, realizing like, “Oh, actually I need to go to see how Black women represent themselves, how they want to be seen.”
And so that’s when I really went back in and started looking at the work of Lorna Simpson. I mean, familiar with, but researching again the work of Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weens, and I started to see this… Alma Thomas as well. I started to see this repetition of the face away from the camera, and I thought that was really interesting. I was like, “What?” And it was crazy because when the cover came out, so many people were also comparing it to the Simone Biles cover that Annie Leibovitz did for Vogue a couple of weeks prior to, and they were lambasting it. And I did not think that that was going to be the reaction I was thinking, I was like, “Here’s another image of a Black woman with her back to the camera.” That’s actually how I interpreted it.
Debbie Millman:
They weren’t lambasting Dario’s image, just to be clear.
Dario Calmese:
Oh yeah, Annie Leibovitz’s. And so that’s actually what I was thinking about.
Debbie Millman:
Well, you’ve said that your shoot with Viola was a love letter to Black women, but I actually think it’s broader than that, I think it’s a love letter to humanity. But part of the issue that arose with the comparison of the Simone Biles photo to your photo of Viola Davis was the issue that some white photographers have shooting non-white skin, and the notion that white people don’t know how to adjust lighting for non-white subjects. And you’ve addressed this with a recent project that you were commissioned to do with Adobe. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Dario Calmese:
Yes. So Adobe reached out and asked me to design presets for Lightroom, specifically geared for people of color. And they had deep skin tones, medium skin tones, and lighter skin tones. I was given medium, and it was an amazing process. It was an amazing collaboration, particularly in that medium skin tone range. You’re actually not just dealing with people of African descent, you’re also dealing with individuals from Southeast Asia, that’s a range that goes across. And it was really, really beautiful to really explore and work with a team that was extremely excited, super excited, super helpful, extremely generous, to really get down to the nuances of what it means. And I think the critique of white photographers is just a lack of sensitivity. It’s just a lack of sensitivity to nuance.
And I think even with Annie Leibovitz, who I actually admire her photography, and I think she’s an incredible photographer. She just has that filter she puts on everything to make everything look like you’re in the 1800s, like a Emily Bronte like situation. And it makes white folks look aristocratic and wind swept and just makes Black people look ashy. And so it’s just make that adjust… The sensitivity to adjust, right? And I think what undergirds that is also love and care. Like saying, “I see you and I want you to look your best,” despite my voice, despite the way I want you to be seen.
Debbie Millman:
And it also gives us the ability to have an abundance of viewpoints.
Dario Calmese:
Absolutely.
Debbie Millman:
Dario, the last thing I want to talk with you about is your fellowship.
Dario Calmese:
The last?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, Unfortunately.
Dario Calmese:
Okay.
Debbie Millman:
I wish we had another hour or more. You’re wearing this hat that says Loeb on it, and you have a Loeb/ArtLab Fellowship with Harvard University. How did this come to be, and what kind of work are you doing in the fellowship?
Dario Calmese:
So I am, yes, at Harvard doing a Loeb Fellowship right now. And to quickly explain about the Loeb Fellowship, it’s a fellowship, they choose around 9 to 10 people from around the world working in and around the built and natural environment. And my work in defining design, I think so universally and broadly, it allows for different entry points to talk about design. And so the fellowship allows you to take any class you want to at Harvard and m MIT for a year.
Debbie Millman:
And you’re taking like eight classes?
Dario Calmese:
I went down to six.
Debbie Millman:
Oh.
Dario Calmese:
I’m exploring design through all of these different lenses. So taking classes in urban design, 3D printing and robotic with ceramics, additive manufacturing, taking Latin. Because for me, then language also becomes design, because language is also a tool that you’re using in order to translate your thoughts and speak to your own reality. And like any design tool, it allows for and disallows for certain things. And so for me, wanting to get to at least one route, there’s multiple, but getting to the core understanding and the meaning of words, for me was really important. And then also taking classes at the Kennedy School, philosophy of technology adaptive leadership, which is really looking at, philosophy of technology looking at society and the state from a systematic level through the lens of Marx and Heidegger and Hegel.
But then also leading from the inside out, which is about, we spoke earlier about identities, what are those lines of code that we’ve been taught about ourselves? What it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man, what it means to be Black, what it means to be American. And seeing that we are all individually operating algorithms that are made up of these codes. And so for me, that’s also design, right? What it means to be a woman is a design construct that was designed before you got here, but was not designed with you in mind. And so what are the limbs? What are the legs, the feet that you’re cutting off in order to fit within this preexisting design construct? And I find that so many of our frustrations, I think in life, in the world, internally, are about that friction between who we are, the core of our essence versus this meeting of this preexisting design construct. And I think that even goes back to why being defined as just a photographer is like, “I have hands and legs, and you just want the trunk.”
Debbie Millman:
And makes it easier for other people to create the construct of who you are.
Dario Calmese:
And I’m not interested in reducing myself for other people’s level of understanding.
Debbie Millman:
Bravo, bravo.
Dario Calmese:
There’s a really great word, procrustean. Do you know this word?
Debbie Millman:
No, I don’t.
Dario Calmese:
procrustean. It’s actually that act of needing to literally sever your limbs in order to fit into something. The morphology of it is, there’s a Greek myth of this guy Procrustes, and it’s called a procrustean bed, and it had a certain length and height, and he would tie you down to the bed, and if you didn’t fit, he would just cut off the parts of your body until you fit onto the bed. And so…
Debbie Millman:
Sounds like an episode of Criminal Minds.
Dario Calmese:
So it’s procrustean, yeah.
Debbie Millman:
How do you see what you’re learning, influencing what you’re making?
Dario Calmese:
Oh, I can’t wait actually. So for me, this process has been really one of ingestion and seeing how it will inform. So I haven’t really focused on the doing so much, but more on the taking in of input. But what I’m excited about, really is just to have more vocabulary, just to have more vocabulary in order to speak to the things that I see in the world and be better at translating them to other individuals. And so that’s really what I’m up there doing is, I say, “I’m just up there putting more arrows in my quiver.”
Debbie Millman:
Dario Calmese, you are remarkable. I want to thank you for making so much work that matters. And thank you for joining me today on this very, very special episode for Creative Mornings at the School of Visual Arts Theater in New York City. Ladies and gentlemen, the remarkable, the brilliant, Dario Calmese.
Dario Calmese:
My absolute pleasure. Thank you.