
Pet Costumes
Act One. Food Chain In A New York Apartment.
Paul Tough visits Catherine Chalmers. She raises small animals and insects in her apartment, feeds them to each other, and photographs them eating each other. (20 minutes)Act Two. More Animals Eating Other Animals.
An original radio drama called "Kathleen on the Carpet," in which animals talk and hold their own "animal court." It's a comedy by David Sedaris, starring our own radio theater company, the Pinetree Gang. (14 minutes)Act Three. The Moment Humans Stopped Being Animals.
Anthropologists agree that humans stopped being animals when they started walking upright, on two legs. But scientists don't agree on why our ancestors did this. Ten years ago, Scott Carrier decided to do his own research on the subject. Scott is the author of Running After Antelope. (13 minutes)Tema Stauffer was born in 1973 and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches at The School of the International Center of Photography and William Paterson University. Her work is represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art Gallery in New York City.
Tema graduated from Oberlin College in 1995 and received a Master's Degree in Photography from The University of Illinois at Chicago in 1998. She received CAAP grants for projects in 1999 and 2000 and also contributed a series of photographs shot on ride-alongs with police officers to the CITY2000, an archive of photographs examining the city of Chicago in the year 2000.
In 2001, Tema moved to Minneapolis. She collaborated on projects with a minimalist music ensemble called Smattering, including a fusion of digital photography, drawing, and sound at the Cowles Conservatory of The Walker Art Center in July 2002. A large body of her work was shown in an exhibition with The Minnesota Center for Photography at The Katherine E. Nash Gallery at The University of Minnesota, and in a solo exhibition at The Rochester Art Center in 2004.
She has participated in seven group shows at Jen Bekman Gallery and her solo show, “American Stills”, opened in October 2004. Fifteen images from this body of work were selected by The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago for the Midwest Photographers Project. Her work has also been exhibited at Fotofest 2010 Biennial in Houston, The Chicago Cultural Center, The Terra Museum of American Art, The Musee Departmental d' Art Contemporain de Rouchechourt, The Hyde Park Art Center, The Detroit Contemporary, The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, The 3rd Ward Brooklyn, Tyler School of Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Adrian College Gallery, Central Lakes College Gallery, The Joymore Gallery, The Butcher Shop Gallery, The Gallery 400, The Icebox Gallery, Heaven Gallery, David Allen Gallery, Jon Oulman Gallery, The Lyceum Theatre Gallery, Dean Jenson Gallery, Moti Hasson Gallery, Randall Scott Gallery and Sasha Wolf Gallery.
Tema has shot for The Chicago Reader, The City Pages, The Rake Magazine, Lavender Magazine, The Village Voice, and W Magazine. She has contributed to online publications including Ausgang, A Field Guide to the North American Family and Humble Arts Foundation’s Group Show. Tema was a finalist for the McKnight Photography Fellowship in 2005 and was nominated for the KLM Paul Huf Award in 2008. She is also currently a curator for Culturehall, an online resource for contemporary art.
Prologue.
Hard as it is to believe, during the early Twentieth Century, a whole school of mental health professionals decided that unconditional love was a terrible thing to give a child. The government printed pamphlets warning mothers against the dangers of holding their kids. The head of the American Psychological Association and even a mothers' organization endorsed the position that mothers were dangerous—until psychologist Harry Harlow set out to prove them wrong, through a series of experiments with monkeys. Host Ira Glass talks with Deborah Blum, author of Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection.Act One. Love Is A Battlefield.
Alix Spiegel tells the story of a couple, Heidi and Rick Solomon, who adopt a son who was raised in terrible circumstances in a Romanian orphanage, unable to feel attachments to anyone...and what they do about it. Song: "Loveless Town," Sarah BlustAct Two. Hit Me With Your Best Shot.
Dave Royko talks about the decision he and his wife faced recently about his autistic son's future, and whether he should continue to live with the family.

All humans have a need to be respected and to have self-esteem and self-respect. Also known as the belonging need, esteem presents the normal human desire to be accepted and valued by others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. People with low self-esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. Note, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept themselves internally. Psychological imbalances such as depression can also prevent one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels.
Most people have a need for a stable self-respect and self-esteem. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. The higher one is the need for self-respect, the need for strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence and freedom. The latter one ranks higher because it rests more on inner competence won through experience. Deprivation of these needs can lead to an inferiority complex, weakness and helplessness.
After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs are social and involve feelings of belongingness. This aspect of Maslow's hierarchy involves emotionally based relationships in general, such as:
Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs, or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression. This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure; an anorexic, for example, may ignore the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of control and belonging.
Serpell, James. In the Company of Animals. Cambridge University Press. New York, 1996.
Maslow, Abraham H. Toward A Psychology of Being. John Wiley and Sons. New York, 1999.
Blum, Deborah. Love At Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. Berkley Book. New York, 2002.
Animals Are Outside Today examines the intersections between humans and animals, studying how animals are woven through the fabric of culture. I began this project looking at fake nature, considering how substitutions for nature might satisfy people. Looking deeper I began photographing real animals, investigating how they provide intangible links to a deeper world of instinct and rawness.
Contradictions define our relationships with animals. We love and admire them; we are entertained and fascinated by them; we take our children to watch and learn about them. Animals are embedded within core human history--evident in our stories, rituals and symbols. At the same time, we eat, wear and cage them with seeming indifference, consuming them in countless ways.
Our connection to animals today is often developed through assimilation and appropriation; we absorb them into our lives, yet we no longer know of their origin. Most people are cut off from the steps involved in their processing or acquisition, shielded from witnessing their death or decay. I am interested in moving within these contradictions, always wondering if the notion of sacred will survive alongside our evolution.
Plumb’s work is in several collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, IL and Fidelity Investments in Boston, MA. Her photographs are part of the Midwest Photographers Project at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Chicago Project at Catherine Edelman Gallery and are featured online in Photo-Eye’s Photographer’s Showcase. Plumb’s work has been widely published.
She was a 2008 First Edition Hot Shot at Jen Bekman Gallery. She has upcoming solo shows at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO and the Historic Water Tower Gallery in Chicago.
Tema Stauffer was born in 1973 and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches at The School of the International Center of Photography and William Paterson University. Her work is represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art Gallery in New York City.
Tema graduated from Oberlin College in 1995 and received a Master's Degree in Photography from The University of Illinois at Chicago in 1998. She received CAAP grants for projects in 1999 and 2000 and also contributed a series of photographs shot on ride-alongs with police officers to the CITY2000, an archive of photographs examining the city of Chicago in the year 2000.
In 2001, Tema moved to Minneapolis. She collaborated on projects with a minimalist music ensemble called Smattering, including a fusion of digital photography, drawing, and sound at the Cowles Conservatory of The Walker Art Center in July 2002. A large body of her work was shown in an exhibition with The Minnesota Center for Photography at The Katherine E. Nash Gallery at The University of Minnesota, and in a solo exhibition at The Rochester Art Center in 2004.
She has participated in seven group shows at Jen Bekman Gallery and her solo show, “American Stills”, opened in October 2004. Fifteen images from this body of work were selected by The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago for the Midwest Photographers Project. Her work has also been exhibited at Fotofest 2010 Biennial in Houston, The Chicago Cultural Center, The Terra Museum of American Art, The Musee Departmental d' Art Contemporain de Rouchechourt, The Hyde Park Art Center, The Detroit Contemporary, The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, The 3rd Ward Brooklyn, Tyler School of Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Adrian College Gallery, Central Lakes College Gallery, The Joymore Gallery, The Butcher Shop Gallery, The Gallery 400, The Icebox Gallery, Heaven Gallery, David Allen Gallery, Jon Oulman Gallery, The Lyceum Theatre Gallery, Dean Jenson Gallery, Moti Hasson Gallery, Randall Scott Gallery and Sasha Wolf Gallery.
Tema has shot for The Chicago Reader, The City Pages, The Rake Magazine, Lavender Magazine, The Village Voice, and W Magazine. She has contributed to online publications including Ausgang, A Field Guide to the North American Family and Humble Arts Foundation’s Group Show. Tema was a finalist for the McKnight Photography Fellowship in 2005 and was nominated for the KLM Paul Huf Award in 2008. She is also currently a curator for Culturehall, an online resource for contemporary art.
Jill Greenberg was born in Montreal, Canada in 1967. At the age of 2, her family moved to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where Greenberg began her arts education while attending Cranbrook’s elementary school where she was in the photo darkroom in 5th grade. Many extra-curricular courses supplemented her arts education: Kingswood, Birmingham Bloomfield Art Association, and the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. Before senior year in High School, she enrolled in Rhode Island School of Design’s pre-college program in Illustration 1984. Senior year, she was the recipient of the Traub Scholarship for Art from Andover High School, which afforded her the opportunity to attend Parsons in Paris for Photography the summer before entering college in Providence at RISD.
She earned a BFA with honors, RISD ‘89 Photo with a senior thesis called “The Female Object”; took a class at Brown University, in Semiotics. After graduation, Greenberg moved to New York City. Interned at Pace MacGill, and enrolled in continuing education classes at School of Visual Arts: Studio Art, Contemporary Art History, Photoshop 1.0 in 1991.
Then, after almost-but not quite- getting into the Whitney Program for fine art in 1992, she opted to focus primarily on assignment work until 2001, when the “Monkey Portraits*” series began.




Throughout her art practice Beverley Veasey makes wry and gentle observations on the relations of humans to the world around them - the landscapes we build for ourselves and our engagement with the natural world.
Beverley Veasey's previous exhibitions, Natural History and Natural History #2 depicted animals and birds in artificial environments. In Habitats, exhibited at Stills Gallery in 2008, she is still interested in the artificial however this time the inhabitants, the animals, are nowhere to be found. We are left to gaze at the man made spaces created to replicate the wild - taking us 'into the wild'.
There are monkey bars, but no orangutans; forests, but no bears; and token logs absent of reptiles lizards or snakes. Water holes suggest life just out of sight, but no matter how much our eyes search the crevices amongst fake rocks and grass, we find nothing. At the back of the habitats, positioned in rock faces and painted landscapes, are doors - leading nowhere. Most remarkable are the painted landscapes reminiscent of Namatjira paintings or American recreations of the Grand Canyon. These mythic landscapes are the stuff of postcard dreams of travel beyond the limitations of the urban.
In 2008/09, a selection of works from Habitats were featured in Dubbo Regional Gallery's exhibition, In Captivity, which focused on the theme 'the animal in art'. Dubbo Regional Gallery acquired a number of these works for its permanent collection. In 2008 works from Habitats also featured in the exhibitions Beastly, MOP gallery, Sydney and It must be love, Mars Gallery Melbourne and Veasey was selected as a finalist in the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize 2008, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne.
Natural History 2006 and its continuation Natural History #2 2007, are a collection of images depicting animals and birds in artificial environments. Unlike the animals in a zoo amongst fake rocks and ponds, these animals are in stark white enclosures. In removing all traces of a natural habitat Veasey's works amplify our often-mediated experience of the natural world in a subtle and potent way.
In isolating animals such as monkeys and goats and presenting them almost as if they were subjects of a studio portrait she also creates pathos. Their animal expressions have a melancholy air that we could read as a response to their spare and finite world, an effect enhanced by the subtle tonal quality of the works.
Beverley Veasey has been a practising artist and teacher for over 10 years. She currently lectures in Photomedia at the National Art School in Sydney. Her work has been selected in many major prizes including the Citigroup Portrait Prize, the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize and the Olive Cotton Prize and continues to be featured in numerous exhibitions both in Australia and overseas.