The following interview took place several years ago, when I was still working both in the traditional photographic darkroom and on the computer. It was a transitional period for my work. Currently almost all of my work is done on the comuter, using the scanner as camera. Soon there will be an updated interview on this site...
Maggie Taylor was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1961, and graduated from Yale University in 1983 with a BA degree in philosophy. She received her MFA in photography from the University of Florida in 1987.
Paul Karabinis is Director of the University of North Florida Gallery in Jacksonville. His interview of Maggie Taylor was conducted in 1998.

Paul Karabinis: Did the type of work you're doing now (rephotographed collage) begin in Graduate School or afterwards?
Maggie Taylor: While in graduate school at the University of Florida, I was the only MFA student doing straight photographs. Everyone was painting on photographs, using pinhole cameras or staging scenes to photograph. I was making color photographs of unusual suburban scenes. In response to what others were doing, and at the urging of teachers, I began setting up little collages to photograph. At first I used a lot of family snapshots and memorabilia, photographing everything indoors on a 4x5 copy stand. This personal way of working appealed to me. I began to take little objects outside to a friend's yard where I dug holes and photographed. I think I realized that what had appealed to me all along about suburban landscapes had been the objects in people's yards - so why not put my own objects there and document them?
PK: Your work is object oriented. However, I don't see it as being about the specific objects you photograph but about the symbolism and significance common and seemingly unimportant objects have for all of us.
MT: To me the images work on two levels: they are about these specific objects, yet they also invite reverie or recollections. I like to think that the objects are obviously symbolic, but not symbolically obvious. Most of the items have some sort of resonance or uniqueness for me when I first see them, whether that happens in a flea market or out in the yard. As I begin to work with them, and particularly after I use an object in several different images, that object begins to develop a personality for me. Some of the objects begin to play roles as if in a small theater in front of the camera or on the computer screen.
...In some of the IRIS prints and in more recent photographs I have been thinking of the images as portraits of toys (or other little objects). Last year I spent a few weeks in England visiting a number of museums; I became particularly interested in some of the medieval portraits. Their simplistic, richly hued backgrounds and the object-like presence of the individuals depicted intrigued me. I am taking a very ordinary, sometimes broken thing and presenting it as a (somewhat) heroic portrait.
PK: Perhaps it's the symbolically loaded objects you use. The birds are real but they're dead. The memorabilia and artifacts such as old photos, trinkets, etc., were once part of someone's life. And it is quite easy to read into the gestures and expressions of the dolls and figures you use. I see all of these objects, artifacts, and text phrases as talismans having some sort of magic power or symbolism. I'm never quite sure what that symbolism might be but I can tolerate the ambiguity...it keeps me wondering.
MT: I am usually in the dark as far as the symbolism - especially when I am working. Some of the objects have a resonance for me, and others might even call up specific memories. But when I put them all together, they often add up to more than I consciously had in mind at the time I was outside photographing. I like the images to be ambiguous and even a little disturbing or uncomfortable.
PK: The feeling I get from much of your work is one of emotional coolness amidst the rich coloration and exotic environments.
MT: I believe in making work from my personal experience, from my own memories and dreams - from my psyche. Many times what I make work about is very pedestrian: the everyday life, stray thoughts, feelings of anxiety, boredom, something I remembered from a science class, something I dreamed last Tuesday. In this sense, I think of this work as autobiographical. Sometimes the very ordinary content or emotion expressed in an image is at odds with the vibrant color and quirky presentation. I am kind of interested in setting up a conflict between the very mundane aspects of an ordinary life (What time is dinner? What am I going to do today?) and a very vibrant, lush, heroic style of art.
PK: Distorted scale and proportion are elements frequently found in your images. Objects appear juxtaposed with other objects that are either too big or too large to be compatible, or they are found in contexts where we do not expect them (a glass beaker too large for the table its on, or eggs as big as the chairs they are on, etc.). One might say that these are the traditional juxtapositions of surrealism with the result being that the viewer's sensibility is thrown off balance when associative sizes and contexts are tampered with. Can you comment on this?
MT: The space in which I usually set things up is very small (usually no bigger than 16 inches in any direction). Since I am limiting the size of the objects that will fit within the frame and I am using so many toys, strange things are bound to happen. It's like when you are a child with a doll house: if you have a nice green kitchen table to put in there, do you really care if it is slightly too small for the dolls? I concentrate so much on the objects and their visual appeal and utility that the sense of scale or proportion is something that just happens along the way. The scale distortion can have a disturbing psychological effect, and it can call up a dreamlike sensibility.
PK: Text is difficult to successfully incorporate into visual art. Words can frequently direct the viewer's thoughts or even get in the way of the image itself. Can you comment on your use of words and text in your work?
MT: I think of these images as little poems or stories, and using words within them has always seemed like a logical choice to me. I do think there has to be a delicate balance between the other objects within the frame and the words. I like to think that the words add a little twist to the story being told by the objects. I don't think of the words as after-the-fact or added on. In fact, I keep a box full of words and phrases that I have cut out of books, copied or written by hand. As I am arranging a scene to photograph I sometimes select something from that box, if it seems to work with those objects. At other times the image feels complete without text.