Debbie Millman

I believe your family was disappointed that you weren't following their biblical beliefs.

My father married a woman who was a Jehovah's Witness also, so I sense a little bit of what you, or I'm aware of what the sort of door-to-door situation was.

My brothers had to do a lot of that with her.

How did you manage that?

No?

You've said that the amazing gift of your upbringing is that you have absolutely no problem telling someone to F off.

And so this is the tutorial moment of the interview.

For all of us that might also have had challenging upbringings, can you share how you acquired this skill to do that?

But that really requires a belief in what you're capable of to sort of tell someone no.

After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, you worked in video post-production.

You also worked in as an assistant to the feminist photographer and filmmaker Ellen Cantor and as an archivist for the artist Vito Acconci.

You then applied to MFA programs and attended Columbia University, which really surprised me.

I mentioned that to you the other day.

Why Columbia?

I would have expected you to go to like a very famous art school for your MFA.

Yeah.

I mean, not that Columbia's not famous.

I just wouldn't have necessarily thought of it first and foremost for art.

How were those courses informing the subject matter of your painting?

These paintings feature, they all feature nature, but they also include a figurative entity.