“To Recognize, Record, Recap a Life”: Obit

No one reads obits when they’re young. For Vanessa Gould, it took the death of Eric Joisel, an artist and subject of her Peabody Award-winning documentary Between the Folds, in 2010. Gould learned of his death and “got this real panic that his life and his work would just disappear like smoke.” Struck by this fear, she called newspapers across the country to pitch his life story. The New York Times—the longest shot of the bunch—called her back. She spoke with obit w