Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton

Photographer Michelle Arcila joined me at the JKC Gallery to discuss the process of making incredibly personal work that involves family and trauma and who that work might be for. We also talk about photographing your family, especially your children, and how to find the balance between exploring a painful narrative in the work while protecting those you are photographing from your past experiences.

https://www.michellearcila.net
https://www.instagram.com/michelle.arcila/

Michelle Arcila is a Costa Rican/American photographer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2002 with a BFA in photography. Her work primarily focuses on family lore, motherhood, bicultural identity, and ancestral trauma. Her photographs have been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally; they also appear in a number of private collections. In 2012, after the birth of her first daughter, she took a hiatus from commercial work. During that time she was able to really start exploring how the work she was creating related to not only her experience of growing up in the United States as a first generation American; which came with the feeling of not feeling from here and not feeling from there (“No soy de aquí, no soy de allá.”) and how that sentiment played into her role as a mother and perhaps how all of this combined has affected her mental health struggles.

She is the recipient of the Photowork 2025 Fellowship and was shortlisted for the PHMuseum 2025 Women’s Grant.

She currently divides her time between the Hudson Valley and Brooklyn, NY, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:
https://charcoalbookclub.com

Susan Weiss speaks about Hello Susan and Black Tulip at the 2026 Chico Review

https://www.susanweissart.com/portfolio-3
https://www.instagram.com/susanweissart/

Susan Weiss works in the visual arts in many mediums, including photography, film, painting and drawing. Her work explores the issues of personal identity and the psycho-social landscape. She also teaches drawing and student artist portfolio preparation both live and in zoom consultation.

Susan's projects include the ongoing series Humanity in the Modern World, documenting humanitarian work in other countries, most recently the immigration story at the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border with a Washington D.C, based NGO. Her short documentary films explore the experiences of womanhood,  have played on the festival circuit and won many awards. THE ORCHARD, seasonal photographs of a Vermont apple orchard, tell the story of hope and faith during the years of the pandemic.

Susan photographs with both digital and film cameras depending on the project, including Mamiya 7II, Leica M9P and Leica M10, Polaroid SX70 and 680,  Iphone 17 Pro Max, and plastic toy cameras.
“Exploring and photographing the human condition is the major theme in my work. I attempt to connect with people and photograph their lives to document what makes them unique as individuals. The stories are personal but they become my stories as I photograph and interpret through the lens of my camera, and their lives become my art. It is this attraction to lives that are unique and with a sense of vulnerability that drives my work.”

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:
https://charcoalbookclub.com

2026 Chico Attendees Series
Jordan Monloire speaks about Sweet Tarts and her reasons for coming to the Chico Review
Jordan Monloire is a photographer + book maker living in the pnw, usa.
Presently doing time in the dark room and shooting only a fraction of sites worth seeing. She predominantly focuses on gonzo style black and white, post-documentative portraiture. The core of her practice is her "fruits basket"—the act of capturing the realities of her experience and maintaining the ability to collect and share. You’ll find most of her work in silver gelatin fibre prints, with periodic appearances inlaid in installations and handmade zines
When I was 19 a man stopped me on a city bus in Seattle, he wound up gifting me my first analog camera. This exchange is what introduced me to making pictures.
I currently live in Seattle Washington, working on my forthcoming book titled Sweet Tarts.
https://jordanmonloire.com
https://www.instagram.com/alphag3rl

The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry.
https://chicoreview.com
https://www.charcoalworkshops.com
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This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club
Begin Building your dream photobook library today at
https://charcoalbookclub.com

Photographer, educator, and writer Odette Elix England speaks about her latest book, Isn't X Beautiful (The Ice Plant) as well as, The Long Shadow: Unwrapped ~ Marion Post Wolcott’s Labor and Love (Libraryman), and to be developed, to be continued (Tall Poppy Press).

https://www.odetteengland.com
https://theiceplant.cc/product/isnt-x-beautiful/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:
https://charcoalbookclub.com

Odette Elix England is a photographer, writer, avid reader, and educator.

A 2022 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, her artistic and research work explores the rituals of loving and leaving.

She has exhibited her work in over 120 museums and galleries worldwide and has received grants and awards from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and Anonymous Was a Woman, among others. She has been nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award (twice) and the Prix Pictet.

She has published six award-winning books. Her first photo novella, Isn’t X Beautiful!, is available for preorder here.

She is currently working on her second novella, Once I Was A Photograph, and an experimental re-telling of Susan Sontag’s On Photography.

Elix England received her Ph.D. in 2018. She now teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University.

Pia-Paulina Guilmoth joins Michael Chovan-Dalton to talk about two of her books, Flowers Drink the River (Stanley/Barker) and Fishworm (Void), Pia's collaboration with Jesse Bull Saffire, and how different the approach to these bodies of work were and also how Fishworm was a return to what Pia loved about photography when she started out.

https://pguilmoth.com
https://www.instagram.com/p_guilmoth/
https://charcoalbookclub.com/products/fishworm

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:
https://charcoalbookclub.com

Pia Paulina Guilmoth was born in 1993 and lives in rural Maine. She makes work thinking about gender, ritual, class, dysphoria, euphoria, beauty, and relationships to the land. Pia uses large-format photography, sculpture, and collaged found ephemera gathered while wandering around the backroads.

Guilmoth has published five monographs. Her third book titled Flowers Drink the River, which was released in November 2024, received the Jurors' Special Mention from Paris Photo / Aperture 2025 PhotoBook Awards. Her work is in the permanent collection of SF MoMA. Guilmoth has won a Google/Aperture Creator Labs grant and a Peter Reed Foundation grant in photography. In 2022 she was a MacDowell Fellow in Visual Arts.