#25: Stella — Spirituality, Photography, Collage
Interning with Irving Penn sharpened her sense of seeing.
Welcome to Mia’s Queue, a newsletter spotlighting the secret agents of taste among us. In each edition, I chat with an undercover tastemaker infusing creativity and wonder into their (and our!) everyday life. Learn what lights them up, where they find inspiration, and what they think we should all be enjoying right now. Meet Agent 025: Stella Kalaw, photo editor and Flipboard’s photography curator in residence for winter 2024.
I first admired on Flipboard, where her curation around photography, food, and travel is truly elevated.
As we got to know each other, Stella’s other passions, like collage and spirituality, connected with me too. I’m a reader of her newsletter, “Sundays with Stella,” in which she brings all these themes together in a kind of weekly meditation.
Going to a museum with Stella recently, to see the Wolfgang Tillmans show at SF MOMA, she changed not just how I looked at each photograph, but how I saw their purposeful arrangement on the wall as part of the art. She has helped me tune my ability to see and find more meaning.
I hope she does the same for you here, through her newsletter, on Flipboard, or wherever else you encounter her work.
Stella, what are you passionate about?
Finding ways to have a meaningful life. I'm passionate about the nuance of life. It's not black or white; it's somewhere in the middle. I gravitate towards people who want to be in that nuanced position. That position is what opens up a dialogue, understanding, and kindness.
When the ground [under you] is not very solid, like with COVID, you're left wondering how it feels to be groundless. I like Pema Chödrön’s philosophy because it gives sense to “nothing makes sense.” It feels like a way forward, a light.
Your eye for photography is incredible. How would you describe it?
It’s always looking. When you see through an eye of curiosity, there’s no judging. Things open up to you, and you see them differently. You get permission to look closer or deeper or at a different angle.
How can any of us hone our “curious eyes”?
Immersing yourself in things that strike you, whether it’s a word or a [physical object like a] cup…Look at what’s around it. Then, maybe later, make a note and look up the history of it. That’ll lead to something else.
When you inform your mind and heart, your eye follows. All of that information sets you up to make juxtapositions, and as you put more information in your head, then it starts to mold into something else.
Always be looking, absorbing, reading, listening…
What rituals do you have around keeping and cataloging these inputs?
I have a scratch notebook that has everything in it. I just love notebooks. I do Notes on my iPhone. Or I’ll take a picture with my iPhone, and then if you scroll up, there’s a caption area where I can write notes.
What attracts you to collage as an art form?
It gives me joy. That's No. 1. It's so forgiving and it opens the world for you: here’s your candy store. Sometimes photography gets so heavy and melancholic; this is the counter to that.
Right now, I’m making more digital collage, but I keep thinking about trying watercolor acrylic and then putting collage on top of that. I’ve been following Dina Brodsky on Instagram and I’ve thought, “Wow, wouldn't that be great to incorporate with an analog collage” but I'm a little bit afraid to dive into it. I don't know why.
You interned with Irving Penn in 1998. What was that like?
That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I still can’t believe that happened to me, and I’m super grateful to have done that: seeing a master at work and being around them. It elevates your sense of seeing.
Sometimes he would just sketch his idea with lines — just a squiggle — in his office and then next thing you know he is putting it together in an editorial. It was amazing to see how everything came to fruition in his studio. I have such respect for his creative process.
One of the things that I enjoyed very much was going into his photo storage unit. All these platinum prints. Pictures of him when he was an ambulance driver during World War II, things like that. It was such a privilege.
Aside from Pema Chödrön and Dina Brodsky, what or who do you recommend people read, watch, listen, eat, or do?
🍿 “Past Lives” by Celine Song
Beautiful, very quiet. It doesn't have a villain or a hero. It’s just about life. That's my biggest recommendation for the year.
🎞 “In the Mood for Love” by Wong Kar-wai
Beautiful — cinematically and the way the music dances with the cinematography and the production. The aesthetics and storytelling are very different. I like that.
🎙 On Being with Krista Tippett: “John O’Donohue — The Inner Landscape of Beauty”
Every time you listen to this podcast episode, it gives you another idea because it's so profound. When John O’Donohue speaks, one sentence or paragraph is so jam-packed that you have to look at a dictionary and just feel for every word or sentence that he says and what he means. And then you revisit it. I've visited it maybe three times already and I always get something different.
🎙 Everything Happens with Kate Bowler: “Ann Patchett: Behold, Those Precious Days”
It’s really about friendship and walking with someone toward the end of life. It was so profound.
🧑🎨 Artists on Instagram
Collé Magazine by Ace Alamillo
📸 Photography books
“The Architect’s Brother” by Robert ParkeHarrison
“Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith” by Jason Eskenazi
I could go on and on!
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Ann Lauterbach says that “the crucial job of artists is to find a way to release materials into the animated middle ground between subjects”. Rilke says that "The poet lives and writes at the frontier between deep internal experience and the revelations of the ourter world." This is what all art does. The way all art breathes. And, its especially what collage does for me. Creates a middle distance of connections. Of liminal admissions. Places us in the "nuanced position".
Stella is one of my favorite artist’s here on Substack, and one I connected with early on when I started my own. Thanks so much for taking the time to get to know her more and sharing it with us.
“On Being” and “Everything Happens” are two of my favorite podcasts.