Image by Alison Grippo

Hello beloved art enthusiasts! This fine Tuesday I am delighted to bring you an interview with photographer Alison Grippo. Alison was christened a Hot Shot and named a Ne Plus Ultra, gaining her representation by Jen Bekman Gallery in 2006.

Alison has just finished a book, Chasing, which is available here on Blurb.com.

Her two edition prints Untitled (Mott Street), and A Man and His Horse, are available on 20×200 in limited supply.

Let’s start by breaking the ice, shall we? Do you have any guilty pleasures?
Cheese. I’m addicted to Cheese. I’m not ashamed. I am a little, but I can’t stop myself.

When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?
I’ve always enjoyed the camera, and a few years back I decided I’d take my camera with me everywhere for 30 straight days. I was determined to always come home with a photo. After that, I couldn’t stop. I became slightly obsessive, and I set goals for myself, and the next thing you knew I was on my way to becoming a photographer.

Can you remember your first photograph?
The very first photo I took (and developed) was of Washington Square Park from a friend’s window one winter in 7th grade. The very first photo I took that made me turn the corner and realize I loved photography was of a woman leaving a senior citizens home on bingo night which I called “Bingo Thief”. It was digital and I lost the hard drive it was on so it only exists on flickr:

If you could live anywhere and photograph, where would it be?
Ideally I’d live nowhere. I’d like to constantly be on the move. Deep down all I want to do is travel to places no one has ever heard of and find stories to photograph and tell. I’m always looking up airfares. Maybe I’d get an RV and drive around the country endlessly but I don’t have a drivers license, which I’d have to remedy…

What does an ideal day look like for you?
Contrary to my wanting to move all the time, I think a day of napping is just delightful. Ideal day? It changes with the tides. Last week I climbed to the top of huge cliff and thought this is it the week before that I jumped out of plane and thought perfect today I napped the day away and I’m sure it can’t get any better.

Do you have favorite artists that inspire you?
Your favorite painter?
Edward Hopper. I’m a sucker for lonely.

Photographer?
Mary Ellen Mark. I feel in love with her documentary Streetwise, I’ve always just found her work to be right in front of you, but almost surreal.

Musician?
Right now I’m listening chronically to Tim Fite.

Author?
J.K Rowling – lies! Nabokov. I real a lot of non fiction so I go through phases with Mark Bowden, Kurt Eichenwald, and now Steven Coll.

How do the above influence your art making?
I photograph documentary style more than anything; street shooting; long form narratives which resembles what I like to engulf myself in during my free time. I’m intrigued by the details of people, what drives them, how they arrived wherever they are things like that. Usually the people or the scenes you walk through and take little notice of have the most amazing background which creates a context that you might be lucky enough to know. Everyone has a story, I like finding it out. I’m nosy.

Do you collect art?
I collect books and some photographs. It wasn’t until I really started working with Jen Bekman that I was introduced to more contemporary photography. I don’t know them, but now I know the work and when I have the chance to own some I’m not going to pass it up. I collect images I think, more than artists, images and stories.

Untitled (Mott Street) by Alison Grippo
Available on 20×200

You’ve had two edition prints sold on 20×200. How important is it to you to keep art affordable?
For someone like me, who wants to tell stories, it’s critical. I don’t want to take a picture of boxer who has worked his ass off, given me time and trust, and a portion of himself so that no one can know he exists. People do exist, people are special and unique and have something about them which deserves to be admired. If I take a photo of a woman just released from Bellvue, or Bernie for that matter, and no one can appreciate her story, or feel it then I am not really doing my job I think. Beyond that, I always agreed with the image Ishmael Reed created about the horror of art prisons—cold lonely rooms where you keep the art locked away where the pretension continues.

If you didn’t make photographs what would you make?
I’d love love love to be an industrial designer and make amazing furniture and fixtures people didn’t think twice about – like the best toilet paper holder ever, or the perfect suspended modular kitchen.

Sounds dreamy!

See more of Alison’s work on her site and on flickr.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pm by kara and is filed under 20x200, Jen Bekman, artists, photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.