In her 2016 interview with Charlie Rose at the 92nd Street Y, Sally Mann walked on stage, pulled out a cocktail shaker, a jigger, an ice mallet, and a bottle of vodka, and proceeded to make two martinis, lemon twist and all. She explained to the bemused audience that this wouldn't be just another interview, but something closer to a party. The ensuing conversation was candid, spirited, and filled with unexpected insights into the mind of one of America's foremost photographers-a profession, she claims, is "not unlike being an insurance adjuster or a sportscaster."
Her new memoir, Art Work, is similarly intimate and irreverent, not unlike talking to a friend-albeit one capable of moving from parasitic pinworm removal to Robert Frost's "Immortal Wound" in a single breath-over, you guessed it, martinis. Across 12 chapters, the self-proclaimed "19th-century Flaubertian recluse" offers instructions for how to "get shit done" both in art and life. Unbelievable anecdotes and endearing Mann-erisms interrupt more earnest adages about killing your darlings and embracing failure. On a late August afternoon, while Mann was back on the family farm between stops on her book tour, she managed to make me laugh, cry, and see the "work" of an artist in a new light.
