Michael Werner interviews Tema Stauffer:
How did it come about that you achieved the status of successful, professional photographer? What steps were involved in reaching your level of success?
When I first read this question, I laughed out loud and squirmed a little. The notion of a “successful, professional photographer” conjures a mythic figure with a studio, fancy cameras, interns, magazine assignments, and a substantially greater income. It is more accurate to describe me as an artist and teacher whose life is deeply invested in the arts community. What constitutes “success” is subjective.
On a day-to-day basis, I feel acutely more aware of my “struggle” than my “success.” Feelings of accomplishment are rewarding but also fleeting. When the high of one accomplishment fades, it creates an opportunity to work through a set of more challenging feelings towards the next one. For most artists, developing a career in the arts is a series of small steps over a long period of time. It demands the ability to experience rejections, creative blocks, financial constraints, self-doubt and anxiety. And then to brush off the dust, strategize, produce work and move forward.
Family, close friends, therapy, swimming, biographies of artists and writers, steady correspondence and supportive relationships with other artists are crucial to my own survival. I think there is good karma in helping others and I try to keep that principle at the forefront of my relationship to the art world.
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