Storyboard

The Creators of Chicago: Artist Luke Pelletier Graphic designer...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

The Creators of Chicago: Artist Luke Pelletier

Graphic designer Lucy Hewett was 27 when she quit her job at a marketing agency and taught herself to take photos, experimenting on friends to hone her portraiture skills. Going freelance was a struggle (stylized portraits don’t pay quite like ad campaigns for McDonald’s) but Hewett credits her success, in part, to the support of her local creative network. This would have been the first in a series of ten profiles, but life had other plans. Enjoy this first and last installment anyway, and thanks for reading with us.

Luke Pelletier

Luke Pelletier describes himself as a “painter, printmaker, musician and skateboarder.” He’s a sophomore at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but spend several minutes on his blog and you can tell he was making art long before he entered school.

Pelletier’s West Coast vernacular and bright, sometimes tropical, imagery might lead you to think he migrated from SoCal to Chicago, but he’s originally from Brevard, N.C., where he grew up skateboarding, playing in punk bands and drawing.

At first, it’s astonishing just how much work he has — and how good it is. “Having a lot of different outlets kind of makes you wicked productive,” he says. Sharing something almost every other day on his Tumblr – songs, sketches, paintings and photos, has become a part of his work flow.

You live in Pilsen, on Chicago’s South Side, which is known for its artistic community. Is that why you chose it?

It’s wicked cheap here. And it has two things I like: not paying much for rent and lots of Mexican food.

What inspires you?

Skateboarding was when thinking creatively came into what I did. When you skate, you can look at a handrail and a switch can go off in your head and its not a handrail anymore, it’s something you can skate. That’s how I learned to think about art – taking something that already exists in the world and then making something new. Also, I got into punk when I was really young. Skateboarding and punk both have very distinct aesthetics and bounce off each other really well.

Has art school been a good thing?

School is weird, but it’s getting better. It’s great in some ways because it forces me to think more conceptually.

Do you worry that when you graduate you’ll have to get a “real” job?

The thing is, I don’t want to make trading cards for rich people. What happens when you sell your art to those dudes, especially the really rich people, is they put it in a closet for like 20 years and then when they’re about to die some gallery curates a room full of their stuff, so they can just show off what they own. At the same time I love making paintings and paintings have a certain amount of time and money put into them. There is a price that you have to charge. I think working on commissions kind of fixes that dilemma for me. I can make a T-shirt for a company and a kid can buy a print of my art for twenty bucks.

What kind of projects are you working on now?

Tumblr is actually how I started connecting with people all over the world. I did a split zine collaboration with Ben Jensen, who lives in Canada. After that I just started curating a bunch of different shows with people I met online.

—Photos and text by Lucy Hewett

Welcome to the Museum of Copulatory Organs It all started with a...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:27:00 -0400

Welcome to the Museum of Copulatory Organs

It all started with a flea circus. This is the story of Maria Fernanda Cardoso, whose biology-based artwork progressed from her very own circus of live fleas to detailed models of nature’s most intricate and unlikely reproductive systems. Industrial design, electron microscopy, and 3D printing were all brought to bear, and the results are fascinating.

This story, created in partnership with Symbolia and Popular Science, was illustrated and animated by Andy Warner. “My father is a marine biologist who specialized in fish sex change,” says Warner, “and I grew up learning about weird and wonderful animal behavior and morphology at the dinner table.”

Symbolia is an interactive digital magazine that merges comics and journalism. Symbolia tumbls and is also available on the iPad or via PDF subscription.

‘The Blue Umbrella’: Inside a Pixar Love Story The...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:01:00 -0400

‘The Blue Umbrella’: Inside a Pixar Love Story

The process began on one of those unusually rainy but otherwise ordinary California days. Pixar camera and staging artist Saschka Unseldwas walking through downtown San Francisco. Something caught his eye. He looked down, studying more closely an object stuck in the gutter in front of him.

“I still remember the moment,” he says. “It was a half-broken and drenched umbrella, and it was one of the saddest-looking things ever.”

Unseld had always been enthralled by the Venn Diagram intersection of the arts and computer science, and so he stood there wondering what happened to the contraption: how it got there; where it came from. He decided to make up a story about it — a 7-minute love tale called “The Blue Umbrella,” which will air in front of Pixar’s next full-length feature, “Monsters University,” in June.

“The Blue Umbrella” plays off that original San Francisco moment to introduce the story of two umbrellas (one red, one blue) as part of a dreary, rain-soaked cityscape, muted in blacks and grays. When red looks over at blue, there’s a spark of attraction. One stares longingly at the other. When the glance is returned, awkwardness ensues. It looks like love at first shade.

Part of the charm of a Pixar production is the way its animators and filmmakers sprinkle their moviemaking pixie dust over commonplace bric-a-brac like lamps, robots, and, yes, umbrellas. With a little studio wizardry and storytelling that brims with heart, they make the inanimate come to life.

But the process of creating such animation isn’t one that’s often seen outside Pixar’s walls. Which is why, about a year ago, Unseld decided to open up “The Blue Umbrella” to the world.

Armed with an iPhone camera and a Tumblr called Rainy City Tales 332 (the 332 stands for Unseld’s Pixar office number), he filmed his team trying to capture the sound of objects rattling in the wind. He documented them working creating the effect of cars on a wet street. He showed lighting experiments, and rainy street scenes of San Francisco and New York that he used for inspiration. He posted them all on his blog, ruminating about capturing the right “feel” for two umbrellas falling in love.

Ultimately, Unseld says, the film (as well as his documentation of the process) charted new territory — as the first time producers used photorealistic images to make the two umbrellas look, well, real.

Pixar has produced almost two dozen shorts now — each an attempt, says Unseld, to showcase the studio’s technical capabilities. (Pixar’s first short, “Luxo Jr.”, aired in 1986; a decade later, ”Tin Toy” became the first computer animated film to win an Oscar for Best Short.)

Unseld describes the shorts as “Pixar’s legacy, its roots.” He references the company’s charming early attempts with shorts like “Luxo Jr.,” the two-minute film that showed a pair of seemingly life-like lamps, one happily chasing a ball. (That lamp, of course, still hops out and bounces up and down on one of the letters in the Pixar name on the studio’s title screen before its full-length features start playing.)

“We have kept the idea of short films around not only to give people a little extra something at the cinema but also to mix things up a bit,” says Unseld.

How it works is surprisingly democratic: anyone can pitch. The best pitches are vetted by Pixar’s chief creative. If the idea is good, it gets made. Which is pretty much how it happened with “The Blue Umbrella”: Pixar, naturally, signed on.

The film pulls off a curious effect, seeming to attach animated features like eyes and a mouth to otherwise real-looking umbrellas. Life-like sunlight glistens off the umbrella covering, and droplets of water trickle down the side in little rivulets of melancholy.

“The reason for this unusual look lies in the story,” as the characters, Unseld explains, slowly morph from object to life. The transformations start incrementally, and early, against the backdrop of a wistful soundtrack, soft dripping of the rain and the kind of droning hum of pedestrians. Various features of the city — sewer drains, windows, doors — start coming to life at the 40-second mark, and they team up to help unite the two umbrellas unite.

“It was really important to me that this moment — the step from inanimate to alive — is magical and unique,” says Unseld.

In the end, the seemingly doomed lovers do what doomed lovers always do best on the silver screen: come together.

— Andy Meek

Cooking with Harry’s Pizzeria: Short Rib...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:41:00 -0400

Cooking with Harry’s Pizzeria: Short Rib Casserole

“People would show up early. In Miami, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

It takes a lot to surprise Miami chef and restaurateur Michael Schwartz these days. With four restaurants in his portfolio, and a fifth — a more formal room with an old Florida atmosphere called The Cypress Room — just open, he’s a pretty unflappable guy. But Harry’s Pizzeria, the affable, overachieving middle child in his family of restaurants, has the ability to confound expectations — even those of its owner.

Partly opened to provide a more casual and less expensive destination in Miami’s design district, Harry’s has also made its mark as the venue for a hugely popular monthly guest chef pop-up dinner that has brought the likes of Paul Kahan of Chicago’s Publican, Philadelphia’s Marc Vetri and New York’s April Bloomfield to Miami. So eager are ticketholders for these dinners, that they’d show up to the restaurant before the appointed hour- something unheard of in a city that exists in perpetual mañana time.

Not bad for a little pizza joint.

The pizzas that keep the crowds coming on a day to day basis reflect the sensibility Schwartz honed in his flagship restaurant Michael’s Genuine, rather than a bow to pizza orthodoxy. “I wouldn’t classify it as any single style of pizza. “It’s on the thinner side, but with a nice chew in the crust,” he says. “I like to do unusual and interesting topping combinations. It’s all in a good place right now. We don’t change the menu that often; it’s not that kind of place, but we do change with the seasons, as ingredients come and go.”

The centerpiece of the restaurant is the wood-fired oven, and more often than not, during the pop-up dinners, that’s just where you’ll find the visiting chef, chatting with guests and keeping an eye on the kitchen, seeing to it that the family style platters are up to snuff before they head out to diners.

The work starts long before food crosses the pass, though. “We invite friends; chefs that have common sensibilities about how we prepare food, and have similar philosophies. We work with them on a menu format that we’ve found has worked; there’s a welcome cocktail that the guest chef inspires or provides a recipe for. Then there will be some passed around snacks, which usually includes a pizza at that point. Then it’s typically four courses, all family style, with lots of sharing going on. Instead of pairing wines or beverages with each course, we just offer a great selection of wines and our Homebrew beer. And that’s all just put on the table for people to pour and pass so it’s a real casual family style thing.”

Recently the restaurant launched brunch service, and along with the full lineup of pizzas, came a slew of more “egg-centric dishes.” One early favorite from Schwarz’s sous chef Manny Sulburan is a casserole of braised short ribs, rice and beans topped with an egg, put in a blazing hot oven until the egg just sets. When it comes out, the rice has formed a bit of a crust at the bottom of the pan — you end up with something like a Miami Bi Bim Bap.

It’s a dish that you’ll want to show up early for, even if your watch is set to mañana time.

While the recipe may look like a lot of work at first glance, the short ribs and beans can be made at the same time, both largely unattended. Both can be made in advance, so come brunch time, you’re only assembling the dishes and baking the eggs.

Short Rib Casserole

Serves 4-6
Short ribs:
1 tablespoon sweet smoked paprika
1 tablespoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon chili powder
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 Large, meaty short ribs
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
½ tablespoon chopped garlic
2 cups chopped tomato (approx 1 28oz can)
1 cups chicken stock
Red Beans:
2 strips of bacon, chopped
½ cup chopped onion
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 bay leaf
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 cup dried red beans
Salt and pepper to taste
Casserole:
4-6 eggs
1 tablespoon chopped scallions
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
3 cups cooked white rice

In a small bowl, combine the paprika, ginger, chili powder, garlic, canola oil, salt and pepper; stir thoroughly to combine. Rub the spice mixture all over the short ribs to evenly coat the meat. Transfer the ribs to a large resealable plastic bag and refrigerate overnight (or up to 24 hours). At the same time, cover the beans with 3 cups of water, and leave to soak overnight as well.

Preheat oven to 300˚F.

Arrange the short ribs in a casserole or deep skillet and cover. Bake for 90 minutes.

While the ribs are in the oven, put a medium saucepan over low heat and add 2tbsp olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the 2 cups of onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, and saute for another 5, then add the tomatoes and chicken stock. Let simmer uncovered until it reduces by half, about an hour.

At the same time, place a medium saucepan over medium heat and sauté the bacon until crispy. Add the ½ cup of onion, the cumin and bay leaf, and sauté until the onion softens, then add the garlic. Pour in the beans with the soaking liquid. Simmer until tender, about an hour. Add hot water as necessary. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

After 90 minutes, pour off some of the fat from the short ribs, and add the tomato-onion mixture to the pan. Cover, and return the short ribs to the oven for another 90 minutes.

Allow the ribs to cool to room temperature, then cover and chill completely in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Remove the short rib meat from bones, pull apart into small pieces, and place back into the sauce.

This can be done up to 3 days in advance.

When you’re ready to serve, preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

Combine ½ cup each of of the short ribs, beans and rice in a 6” skillet or casserole. Top it with a cracked egg and bake until the egg just set, about 10 minutes. Garnish with scallions, cilantro and drizzle with olive oil.

— Matthew Kronsberg

The Paddling Machine: Berlin-Style Ping Pong A couple years...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

The Paddling Machine: Berlin-Style Ping Pong

A couple years back, Allan Hough went to Berlin and came back to San Francisco a changed man. He had a snappier wrist. A lager-filled belly. And he was inspired. Why don’t we play ping pong the way they do in Berlin? he pondered. It sounded silly — but this is a man who takes ping pong seriously.

On a recent afternoon, Hough is leaning against a pool table, arms crossed, staring into the corner of his cluttered, Christmas light-laden garage in San Francisco’s Mission district. In a chaos of surfboards and bike wheels and beer cozies and wooden chairs, two emerald slabs — the gigantic halves of a brand new ping pong table — are neatly propped up against the far wall. “I think we’ll use the new one tonight,” he says matter-of-factly.

It’s Monday evening — League night — and in two hours, an assembly of young San Franciscans will pack into to a dimly lit room at the back of Dear Mom, a Mission watering hole that overflows with bearded, flanneled folk sipping fernet on the rocks. Upon arrival, they’ll take a moment at the bar (PBR, please) and regroup in the back room, where a pristinely glossy ping pong table awaits them. And then something magical will happen.

A paddle in one hand — the pros bring their own, the amateurs grab from a box — and a beer in the other, members languidly ease into formation, forming a circle around the table like devotees to a shrine. Lil’ Wayne plays overhead; small chatter ensues. And then, quietly, someone begins to rap her paddle on the table. Soon, everyone’s doing it, and a lady in pink — SAN FRANCISCO BERLIN-STYLE PING PONG LEAGUE emblazoned across her back — raises her paddle. The communal rapping stops, and she serves a tiny white ball across the table. The group swirls in a circular rotation, each taking their turn hitting it back. Weekly practice has begun.

It’s rare that you’ll find an amateur ping pong player who’s been able to leave his day job for the craft — and yet, that’s precisely what Hough has done. The League (founded by Allan’s good friend, Jessica Kelso), in its second season, enlists one hundred hardcore members. Official, large-scale parties are hosted twice a month. Those who attend are young and old, internet techies and librarians, unemployed couch surfers and CEOs. Everyone communes over the pong.

At a recent gathering, one sparkly-topped regular was leaning against the bar, sipping from a frothy glass and watching the rotations. “This is SUCH an amazing game,” she murmured between screams of encouragement for the ongoing players. “And Allan’s totally living the dream. I mean, he’s making enough money to pay the bills and he’s totally passionate about what he does. That is the American Dream, after all. Right?”

— Sky Dylan-Robbins

Finding Fulfillment in ‘Bending Steel’ Of the...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:01:00 -0400

Finding Fulfillment in ‘Bending Steel’

Of the thousands and thousands of micro-cultures extant today, the pursuit of bending things is a particularly niche obsession. This is the world of Bending Steel, which follows the personal journey of Chris Schoeck as he tries to find path forward to improving his body, mind, and spirit. He locates this path via the traditions of the vaudeville strongmen of Coney Island, who were known to bend nails, horseshoes, and steel bars with their hands, legs, necks, or even their hair and teeth. As Schoeck trains and challenges himself to bend, he finds a family of sorts among other would-be strongmen — the kind of kinship and validation that had eluded him for his entire life. The story culminates in a strongman show on Coney Island where Schoeck attempts to bend a steel bar that has always defeated him before, in front of his friends and a crowd of strangers who represent all his fears and doubts. We spoke to director Dave Carroll and producer/cinematographer Ryan Scafuro about how Bending Steel became a film and what its narrative means for Schoeck and for themselves.

— Chris Mohney

Everyday Africa: Stories Between the Headlines In March 2012,...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:36:35 -0400

Everyday Africa: Stories Between the Headlines

In March 2012, two photojournalists — Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill — decided in the middle of a project in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, to begin a new, raw media outlet, which portrayed the mundane and casual life of everyday Africans on iPhones and Instagram. A year on, Everyday Africa curates photography from journalists across the continent, and they’re looking to involve locals, too. We spoke to Peter DiCampo to see why he think these images have captured our attention.

What made you decide to start Everyday Africa?

Austin Merrill and I were in Ivory Coast, and we were working on a very specific story on the aftermath of crisis and conflict there. He and I were both Peace Corps volunteers in west Africa, so we spent two years of our lives living in villages. We noticed all of these in-between, daily life, mundane moments, and we realized that, working as journalists, you don’t even shoot these moments. You edit them out ahead of time because they don’t fit into the story you’re trying to tell, which is kind of one of the funny parts about journalism: In some cases, it’s kind of preconceived. In order for a story to make sense, you have to look for certain things.

So we wanted to capture all these other things we were seeing as we went along, which is basically the stream of daily life. Of course “stream” is the key word, because the perfect way to shoot it and the perfect medium to share it is on places like Tumblr, and shooting it on a phone, casually. I think casual and mundane are the key words for this project.

Do you think that it’s a failing of the media that news coverage has to focus on these basic narratives we have of Africa?

I don’t know that I’d call it a failing of media because by its very nature media is there to look at the big events, so you’re often seeing the extremes: either the crisis or these stories of rich Africa.

In the US, or the UK, we do often see stories of poverty in western countries. But when I look at a story of poverty in the US, I see this family going through these depressing moments; but because the setting is more familiar, I know it’s not like their entire lives are lived in extreme moments. When the setting, to our eyes, looks as exotic as an African setting looks, you very easily have the assumption—– if you see 10 pictures of Africa, and all of them are of starving people looking sad in a refugee camp — you just have this natural assumption that’s what life is like for people all the time.

I’m not really sure there’s something the traditional media could do to correct this; it’s not their role. But I do think there’s an amazing role for social media to correct it. Aside from Everyday Africa, you have a simple fact that American and European youth can be following African youth on Tumblr, and understanding that their lives are more similar than they realize.

Is that what you’ve seen from your travels?

There are obvious differences. It’s not like we live in a hut. But I mean much more basic than that, in terms of how our time is spent, doing basic everyday things. Every culture in the world has a strong emphasis on family, has a love of a good meal, has a love of certain types of music. We can lose sight of similarities that are that basic if we just look at the news.

And you’re shooting this on your phone; it’s very much rough and ready.

I think there’s something interesting about keeping it on a phone only. For me as a photographer, it’s interesting in the way it has me shoot, which is much more casual. I find that my images are a little less composed, which I like in terms of the audience we’re trying to reach.

The other thing is all the implications of mobile technology in Africa. We’re going to start including a lot of the work of local Africans, as well as trying to look at what regular people are capturing on their phones anyways. It becomes a cliche to talk about this, but it’s amazing to see the influx of cell phones on the continent. Every time I go back, it seems more and more people have phones, and it’s got to the point that when I visit a village in the Ivory Coast, everyone is photographing me on their phones.

What is it that makes the everyday image so powerful?

I have to say, I’m constantly shocked at how much attention we’ve gotten with a project based on normalcy. It’s mindblowing that it’s apparently enough of an interest to get people’s attention. What I think that means is we are not alone in realizing that this is a gap, that this is something we don’t normally see. It’s a fine line … we want to photograph the mundane, but we want the pictures to be interesting. I think the key element is these are moments we’ve seen in our own lives, in the places we live, and just simply don’t see in a place that seems as foreign as Africa does.

There are people, photographers, who have said, “You know, if you want to photograph on your phone, that’s the sort of thing you should use to photograph your girlfriend or your family.” To me, that’s exactly the reason we should be photographing Africa with phones. It’s just a family snap of a foreign place that you don’t usually see.

* * *

In the past few months, Lindsay Mackenzie, a Canadian freelance photojournalist based out of Spain and Tunisia, has joined Everyday Africa’s ranks. She tells us about how societies’ similarities can bring together western and African youth.

How did you get involved?

I got an iPhone last year — my sister gave me her old one — so I started using Instagram and at some point I read about Everyday Africa. I really like their philosophy because having spent a lot of time in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, I get where they’re coming from when they say what they see and experience in Africa and what they see from the other side of the world in coverage is different. We only really see the extremes and the worst cases. People say, “Oh, it must’ve been really terrible being in Tunisia.” Not at all. I lived by the sea. They have fashion shows, and art events, and people go to the beach and the mall. I wanted to show this is a very normal place most of the time.

So this is filling in the gaps TV news and print media miss?

Yeah. There’s only every one story about Equatorial Guinea. Google it. You’ll only read about Teodoro Obiang and the depth of his dictatorship. While that’s valid, it’s nice to show that people go get pedicures at the market, or that there’s really beautiful in the south. You usually see pictures of Africa that have been filtered through editors and through the constraints of print. It’s what people think we should see. With iPhones and Instragram, there’s nobody between you taking the photo and the person on the other side seeing it.

How important is using a phone for the photos?

I think the type of people using Instagram are a much younger generation. When you think of a 15-year old on Instagram, when they see an Instagram-style photo from Equatorial Guinea or Namibia, they’re used to that. It brings it closer to them, being in the photographic language they know how to speak. The whole photo and platform makes people more normal, more human.

— Chris Stokel-Walker

Table Manners: Turning Restaurant Stationery into Art When New...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

Artist Jay Batlle, at home. (photo: Graeme Mitchell)

Table Manners: Turning Restaurant Stationery into Art

When New York-based artist Jay Batlle dines out, he’s still on the clock. Of course, he’s at the restaurant to feast and imbibe and commune with friends. Upon the meal’s consummation, however, he poses a question he’s been regularly asking restaurant staffers for the past decade. They oblige, and a blank sheet of the venue’s stationary is carefully placed in his hands. He’ll return home, and on it, in watercolor and pen and wine and coffee grounds, he’ll express his thoughts — on the evening, the atmosphere, the idea of decadence and societal consumption and what fine dining has become.

Batlle (pronounced “Battle”) chronicles this gastronomic collection, The Stationery Series, on his tumblr, Restaurant Restaurant. He eventually plans to turn it into a three-volume book, but he’s not stopping anytime soon. Here, we talk to the artist about New York cuisine, Balthazar, and pouring wine down the drain.

Your art is decidedly epicurean. Why?

The conflation of dining and art is something that most people can relate to. I chose gastronomy because of its immediacy and because of my experience running restaurants.

I had no idea they freely give out their stationery.

I just ask. But I’ll use whatever they give me, so if a restaurant doesn’t have its own stationery, I take a menu. Sometimes, friends give me stationery they’ve collected, and then I have to imagine what the atmosphere was like. It’s the contradictions in my life that mean something, and so I contradict any sort of structure I create — even the decision to use only restaurant stationery.

How do you choose the place?

The series is a trail of breadcrumbs of all the places I’ve eaten — a way to collect all these fabulous meals and the people I share them with. In a way, it’s a very classic approach to making art. I live in one of the gastronomic centers of the world, and there are so many restaurants to inspire me here. The choices are random and deliberate at the same time, like getting dressed in the morning. I wear a tie every day, but I change the color and pattern.

You’ve repeated a few venues’ stationery many times — Balthazar, for example.

I think Balthazar has such an international appeal. Honestly, though, I recently went back after a few years of hiatus and became obsessed with drawing on their stationery. It’s really quintessential New York for me. It reminds me of the late 90s when I first came to the city to make it as an artist.

What materials do you use?

I mostly use custom-made watercolors, oil sticks, and ink. I’ve also used wine, coffee, food coloring, and squid ink. Like the stationery, my medium is just one aspect of the process. It all comes together to form a visceral experience.

The series is replete with places like Mr. Chow and Momofuku. What about, say, a family-run restaurant in Harlem?

It’s definitely a focus of the work to question the value of social aspirations. I’m using iconic places that have a cultural value and past, similar to art, and contrasting those trajectories. Rao’s would be a place from Harlem that I would choose, because it’s iconic and has a certain type of majesty. But now it sells its own brand of pasta sauce.

Are the proprietors aware of your art?

Many are, and they’ve been very supportive. Some have commissioned works.

I heard that one especially pleased patron expressed his thanks in fine wine, and you poured it down the drain. Really?

Yes. I took $5,000 worth of red and white wine — given to me as a gift from a collector of my work and very good friend — and, indeed, poured it down the drain. It’s an homage to Chelsea and the recent flooding from Hurricane Sandy that destroyed a lot of art. I called it “Apres Le Vernissage,” and set it to Brahms’s intermezzo opus 117 no. 1. It’s a simple gesture, but I think it makes its point.

— Sky Dylan-Robbins

The Last Book I Loved: Joan Didion’s ‘Slouching...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

The Last Book I Loved: Joan Didion’s ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’

The Last Book I Loved is an ongoing series from The Rumpus to highlight emerging Tumblr writers (and the books they love). This is the final installment of Tumblr Storyboard’s version, but you can still submit to The Rumpus for publication! Thanks for reading.

I came across a Facebook post recently in which someone offered W.B. Yeats’ poem “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” as encouragement for a peer going through a quarter-life crisis. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” Yeats writes. It’s a feeling everyone has at some point, but for a twentysomething in the midst of an identity crisis, it sounded especially appropriate.

Joan Didion must have felt the same way when she chose the poem as an epigraph for her essay collection of the same name.

It was Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, not Yeats’ poem, that has been my totem throughout my 20s, because she has that gift that all great writers do of hitting on universal truths by admitting very personal ones. “One of the mixed blessings of being 20 and 21 and even 23 is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened to anyone before,” she writes in “Goodbye to All That,” an essay about her time in New York in her 20s.

Reading that sentence for the first time at 21 and knowing, at some level, that she was right, was not nearly as comforting as realizing that there was an antidote to feeling young and confused — and that antidote was narrative. As Didion writes in another equally brilliant collection, The White Album, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” The trick to getting through your twenties intact, it seemed to me, was looking ahead to the narrative I could impose on that decade later in life.

I don’t recall why I first picked it up, but I can still conjure up the musty smell of the paperback I borrowed from the University College London library and the jarring contrast of being engrossed in Didion’s 1950s New York during a train ride between London and Manchester.

Mostly, I remember how homesick I felt reading Didion’s take on the American dream at a time in my life when, living far away from home for the first time, I was finally figuring out my own national identity. The irony of this feeling is that Slouching Towards Bethlehem isn’t what you would call a “feel-good” read. Most of the essays are set in California in the 60s, some of them are reportage on Haight-Ashbury hippies and Howard Hughes, and others are personal reflections on Didion’s life in exile from a California that “resembles Eden,” where “it is assumed that those who absent themselves from its blessings have been banished.”

Throughout the book, Didion is constantly shuttling between the coasts, back and forth from this promised land. In “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” in which Didion reports on a woman who murders her husband, she writes, “The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past.” California stands in for the American dream: Its streets are always paved with gold, but its promise is never attainable. Didion’s writing — and her whole concept of California — nonetheless operates on the premise that all things are possible, because they have to be:

California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things had better work here, because here, beneath that immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent.

But Didion’s California (and New York, for that matter) is a promise that never delivers, which she nonetheless can’t seem to give it up. She admits, “Someone who lives always with a plane schedule in the drawer lives on a slightly different calendar.” I understood that differently upon first reading it in England — during a semester abroad in which all time was suspended for me and all post-graduate futures infinitely possible — than I do during my fourth year of racking up frequent flier miles on the US Airways shuttle between DC and Boston.

It’s a romantic point of view to hold when you come from a place that makes you feel exiled for living outside it, and in that sense my hometown of Boston and Didion’s Sacramento have much in common.

Mostly, I keep reading and rereading these essays because Joan Didion is a writer’s writer. In the spirit of her declaration in “Goodbye to All That,” I have to imagine that there are many other twentysomething writers out there with dog-eared copies of this book, but since I haven’t met them yet, I continued to think I was the only one for years after I discovered her. More recently, I have taken to recommending her to anyone whose literary taste I’m trying to judge. I lent a friend my copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem once with the earnest warning, “If you don’t read this, we can’t be friends,” and during the months while I waited for him to return it, I sometimes worried that I would have to cut him off.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem isn’t just a collection for hopeful writers or even for people who are young and unmoored. It’s for all people who have lost their sense of place or sense of time or sense of self. It’s for “the quiet ones” that people always tell you to beware. Didion is all of these things, but especially the last:

My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.

It’s easy to forget that line in the preface once the essays about Charles Manson and John Wayne give way to more personal ones about Didion’s relationship with her hometown and her grapples with self-esteem. It’s easy to think instead that the stories she tells of her struggles with depression are unvarnished, but at some point you have to ask: Why is this self-proclaimed shy, aloof reporter spilling so many of her secrets?

Her power to mythologize is so great that it must extend even to the stories she tells of her own life. Early in “Goodbye to All That,” Didion writes, “It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.” But by writing years later, she already knows the ending; she alone controls the narrative. In life, sure, it’s easy to concede that “things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” but writing is different from life, and the contrast between the two in Slouching Towards Bethlehem makes the former a much more appealing occupation.

— Kara Hadge

The Fine Art of Coffee Portraiture Here’s more evidence to...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

The Fine Art of Coffee Portraiture

Here’s more evidence to back up all those studies on boredom inspiring creativity: Meet Mike Breach, barista extraordinaire, who “paints” everything — and everyone — into his lattes. “I’m an esspressionist,” he proudly proclaims. Just last year, Breach was idling away his customer-less hours in the back of a hotel kitchen with only a dormant espresso machine for company. He was “so, so bored.” So he taught himself how to inscribe ornate hearts in coffee foam, with a bamboo skewer as his paintbrush. “People got so excited about it!” says Breach. He took it further; out came the teddy bears (“the girls just love those”), a portrait of that hotel boss (“I didn’t show it to him, but my coworkers and I laughed about it”), and Salvador Dalì, and Edward Scissorhands, and Beyoncé.

We’re at the Smile To-Go, and he’s frothing some milk behind the counter; the shushing of the machine almost drowns out his words. He reflects. “It’s like, if something is lacking, you’ve got to find a way to make it exciting and fun. Right? I mean, I’m so happy that my old job was so boring! Otherwise I wouldn’t be making these! And this is just the beginning. I want to start a movement.” The milk is now pillowy, foamy-soft — perfect for the latte Breach is about to pour. He stares into his empty chestnut-colored canvas, and suddenly looks up. “I’ve been wanting to try Snoop. Let’s do that, yea?”

— Sky Dylan-Robbins

Speaking Up for STFU Parents When Blair Koenig started STFU...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

Speaking Up for STFU Parents

When Blair Koenig started STFU Parents, a Tumblr that lightheartedly pokes fun at the myriad parental oversharers of the world, she had no clue that four years later her inbox would be overflowing with enough tantrums, dining table diaper changes, and placenta casserole recipes to fill an entire book. And yet, STFU Parents (the book) hits stands this week, complete with vomit, snot, and of course, those perennial potty-training updates. Breaking down the submissions into categories like “Mama Drama,” “Mommyjacking,” or the ominously titled “Gross-Out Factor,” it’s a cautionary tale for anyone who’s ever considered giving birth — or even been friends with a parent.

Do you just hate babies? Why start the blog?

I noticed a big influx of information — kidformation — in my Facebook status feed. I kind of loosely complained about it to a parent friend, so then she started sending me screen shots of her annoying friends, who were mostly bragging about their kids. Up until then I’d only witnessed more boring, minutiae-type updates — how many naps their kid had, how much their kids had eaten. But the updates she was getting were a whole new level.

I’m probably going to regret asking, but what’s the most revolting thing you’ve ever seen?

It’s all a matter of taste. Some people are not grossed out by snot, but personally, I think pictures of kids with snot hanging off their faces are the worst. Anyone who takes an aerial picture of an open diaper or a toilet with shit in it … I don’t even understand how a person thinks that way.

What about all the placenta eating? I mean, I grew up with animals, I know dogs and cats do it, but until I became a regular reader I thought it was limited to the animal kingdom. And then one of my own friends posted a placenta smoothie.

The placenta shake is a powerful image. People are taken aback by that shot, because there are no red vegetables that create that color, and it looks, at first glance, like a cocktail. The fact that it’s an HD picture that looks like it belongs on a menu … that’s what’s so funny about it.

What’s been your most popular post?

Definitely the Brenda post. Brenda clicked “like” on a lingerie company’s Facebook page and so pictures of underwear kept popping up in her feed. She kept posting furious responses, demanding this company stop posting “pornography” on her page. Her relatives kept trying to explain, “Auntie, you can ‘unlike’ the page,” but Brenda’s fury kept growing.

I’ve read a lot of bitching about how you have no right to do this blog because you don’t have children.

Movie critics aren’t generally also filmmakers and food bloggers tend not to be chefs. I don’t understand a lot of the criticisms. I mean, are you really defending the right to change a diaper on a restaurant table?

Which is your favorite category?

“Sanctimommies” are hard to beat, though a good mommyjacking is up there too. My favorite is when someone posts something really sad like, “My brother RIP,” and then some idiot replies “happy birthday to little Samuel … in four days.” It’s not even their kid’s birthday THAT day — they just have to take the attention off the guy with the dead brother to talk about their child.

STFU Parents will celebrate its book debut with a baby-shower comedy session tonight at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. RSVP here.

— Judy McGuire

Photo via Shutterstock

Noelle Stevenson’s Guide to Blowing Up on Tumblr Noelle...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:00:00 -0400

Noelle Stevenson’s Guide to Blowing Up on Tumblr

Noelle Stevenson, aka gingerhaze, joined Tumblr to share her fan art — comics based on movies like X-Men: First Class and Lord of the Rings. In the summer of 2011, she started posting “The Broship of the Ring,” a modern interpretation of the LoTR characters as hipsters and fratboys, and everything kind of … exploded. Stevenson’s online following shot way up, and since then, she’s landed an internship at a comics publisher and has signed with a literary agent.

She’s also been offered a contract to publish in hard copy her original webcomic project, Nimona — the story of aspiring supervillain Lord Ballister Blackheart, who never seems to get anywhere with his evil plots. That is, until he takes on a new sidekick, Nimona, a shapeshifter with poor impulse control who likes to solve problems by blowing things up. Nimona recently won the Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Webcomic of the Year by Slate Magazine and the Center for Cartoon Studies. It was also named one of io9’s top ten Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012. We had a chance to talk to Stevenson about breaking out and Hulking out.

How long have you been drawing?

I’ve been drawing pretty much as long as I can remember. It was a hobby of mine as a child, and I grew up and that was still what I wanted to do.

Where do you get your ideas?

I take a lot of inspiration from movies. I like going to the movies a lot, and comics are a similar kind of art form. You have to think cinematically when you draw a comic.

Describe your drawing process.

I draw everything digitally. I used to use a Wacom Bamboo tablet, but I recently switched to a Monoprice tablet. I go right into Photoshop. I don’t generally sketch things out beforehand unless it’s a Nimona page or a finished illustration. I find drawing right in Photoshop comes really naturally to me, because I like to draw in as few lines as possible. Drawing on pen and paper, you have to be more committed to your lines because you can’t undo them easily. I like to draw hands all in one line and that’s really easy to mess up when you’re drawing on paper. But in Photoshop, you have Ctrl+Z. I also color my art in Photoshop, and I use a lot of paper and watercolor filters to give it more of a handmade feel.

What are your favorite things to draw?

Well, I really like drawing the Hulk, and I really like drawing Hawkeye, and I really like drawing Hawkeye’s butt. I really like drawing a lot of stuff. I like drawing Nimona. She’s got a lot of really fun shapes. And I like drawing sailors as well.

How did the Tumblr thing happen?

I joined around 2010, I think? It was just me for a while, posting whatever I wanted. 2011 is when I started posting “The Broship of the Ring.” People really liked them, and I got more followers. And then every time I got into a new movie like X-Men: First Class or The Avengers, I posted fan art, and connected with people about the fan art, and kept going and getting more attention for the various things that I drew.

**How did you get started doing Nimona?**

Nimona started as an assignment for school. I got tired of just being known as a fan artist online. I wanted to get known for my own characters. My friend Amy at school challenged me to do a two-page comic of my own characters for that assignment. So I drew Nimona and Ballister Blackheart and Ambrosius Goldenloin. I took another comics class the next semester, and drew more Nimona, and in summer 2012 decided to make it a webcomic, and kept going from there.

You’ve mentioned that you got an internship in the comics industry through Tumblr. How did that happen?

At my school, we can get class credit for an internship, so I was looking for one for the summer of 2012. I knew I had some industry professionals following me on Tumblr, and I thought they could help, maybe give me some tips and advice on how to get an internship. So I put up a post asking for help. Shannon Waters at BOOM! Studios followed my Tumblr at the time, and she shot me an email saying BOOM! had an internship program. We emailed back and forth for a while, did an interview on Skype, and so I ended up going to BOOM! Studios during the summer for an internship. It was a really cool experience.

You’ve also mentioned you got signed with your agent and got a book contract through Tumblr.

It kind of started with my Avengers fan art comics going viral at the time, and posting Nimona pages, bringing more readers to my Tumblr. Charles Olsen, an agent at InkWell Management, found my blog through my Avengers fan art comics, and then found Nimona through my blog. Charlie then reached out to me, and we emailed back and forth, and talked on the phone, and I visited New York to meet him, and then signed with him as an agent. He shopped Nimona around to various publishers, and HarperCollins signed me for a contract to do the hardcover young adult version of Nimona in Summer 2015.

What projects do you have lined up for the future?

For the next year or so, I’ll be working on finishing up Nimona, and I have a two-book deal with HarperCollins, so I’ll be working on my next book for them. It might be a sequel to Nimona, or something related to Nimona, stylistically. I’m not sure yet. I’ve also done some comics with BOOM! Studios, some backups for Adventure Time, and I’d love to do more of that. I’m also exploring animation opportunities, but everything is unfolding right now and there’s nothing definitive yet.

— Caitlin Moriarity

Director Hannah Fidell Talks ‘A Teacher’ At this...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

Director Hannah Fidell Talks ‘A Teacher’

At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, half the dramatic competition finalists were brought to life by women. It’s about time, boys. One such feature was written and directed by precocious, feminist filmmaker Hannah Fidell. Her film, A Teacher, delves into the emotional hills and valleys a female teacher experiences while having an affair with her student, reversing all those American Beauty tropes we know so well. We sat down with Fidell — and the film’s star, Lindsay Burdge — to talk about turning the tides on the omnipotent male gaze.

The Last Book I Loved: ‘The Unnamed’ The Last Book I...

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:01:00 -0400

The Last Book I Loved: ‘The Unnamed’

The Last Book I Loved is an ongoing series with The Rumpus to highlight emerging Tumblr writers (and the books they love). Want to have your essay considered? Submit it here.

When you go to the website for Joshua Ferris’s 2010 novel, The Unnamed, your screen fills with static for a second. Then it resolves into a grainy gray video of the main hall of Grand Central Terminal, like security camera footage, commuters walking to and from their trains. And then fuzzy blue circles appear over a handful of heads. When you click on one, the video pauses, and a small text bubble comes up. One says, “I look around, I wonder if I’m just sick.” Another quotes a poem by Percy Shelley. “Art thou pale for weariness / Of climbing heaven and gazing on earth/Wandering companionless / Among the stars that have a different birth.” They feel like a little of what each person has inside them, a bit of story or sorrow they keep inside themselves.

This is what Joshua Ferris’s work is — a song of this secret world. He writes about the isolation of modern life, our disconnect from the world at large and from the people around us. And he writes of the small, beautiful hopes of connection — through love, through hope, through body-breaking exertions.

The Unnamed is about a man named Tim who cannot stop walking. Tim comes home to Connecticut one night from his job at a high-powered New York law firm and tells his wife, simply, “It’s back.” She bundles him in winter gear, packs a bag with provisions and a GPS. She finally falls asleep in the middle of the night and wakes up to find Tim gone, walked out of the house to who knows where. In the grips of this condition he is driven to walk, for hours on end, stopping only when he collapses, exhausted. No one knows why. No one has a cure.

Is it a metaphor? Maybe. Is it a conceit? Sure. But it’s a starting place. Every story has to start somewhere, and Tim’s starts with “It’s back.” For the first dozen or so pages, you don’t even know what “it” is, and the suspense builds like really good sci-fi: something is wrong, and you don’t know what. Ferris takes this conceit and builds a full, rich story about it. All of the rules — as in the best sci-fi — hold tight. All of the repercussions feel deep and true to the human heart.

Tim has a wife, Jane, and they have a daughter named Becka. Tim’s condition ravages his life, but their lives are intertwined, and so it ravages them all. Becka reads her father stories while he’s handcuffed to the bed. Jane picks him up from parking lots and police stations and curbsides, and waits for the next call when he’s gone. She worries the call will never come.

Tim is at war with his body; his legs that won’t listen. Walking forces him to shed his attachment to his career, to comfort, to any sense of plan or control. Walking takes him out into the world, first within a radius of a seven or eight hour walk from his office or his home, but then farther afield. He is completely alone. All around him, the world is falling apart.

Tim’s world is a world frighteningly like ours, with superstorms and deep snow. The winters are too cold, the summers are filled with droughts, fires, and floods. A carpet of dead bees covers Madison Square Park. Birds fall out of the sky. The great cracks in the rightness of the world hover in the background of Tim’s life — just as they do in ours. Maybe Tim’s story is set just a couple of years into our future. Maybe that’s what our world is really going to be.

The real reason I loved this book is that this world — Tim’s condition, the ailing planet — is just the backdrop of the heart of Ferris’s story to nestle into.

Little bits of The Unnamed are stuck in my head. A man clinging to a telephone pole in a flood. A daughter and her father on a bench in Tompkins Square Park. A sense of loss. A sense of isolation. A sense of love. For all its desolation, for all its characters’ helplessness, it’s a hopeful book. Because even when they can’t connect, can’t reach each other’s inner world, they try. They valiantly, desperately try.

— Jaime Green

Crashing the Black Box with ‘Charlie Victor Romeo’...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:01:37 -0400

Crashing the Black Box with ‘Charlie Victor Romeo’

It doesn’t get more real than this. Charlie Victor Romeo re-enacts — almost verbatim — transcripts from the “black box” recordings of six plane crashes that occurred from 1989 to 1996. Originally a stage play produced in 1999, CVR has since been performed worldwide in many different venues (it’s even been used for pilot training by the Pentagon). Gripping, harrowing, and poignant, the play has now made the leap to a film that preserves the spare and chilling authenticity of its creative predecessor. And in 3D no less (by way of New York’s 3-Legged Dog Media & Theater Group), which somehow makes the film seem both hyper-present and dreamlike. While at Sundance, we spoke to director Bob Berger and co-director/editor Karlyn Michelson about translating the play to the big screen, the artistic life of a the project, and respecting the borders of reality.

500,000 Refugees, Countless Stories: Welcome to Dadaab When the...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:42:00 -0400

500,000 Refugees, Countless Stories: Welcome to Dadaab

When the idea for a documentary project about the world’s largest refugee camp came about, in early 2011, Dadaab, Kenya was a place that few had heard of. A haven for those fleeing armed conflict, disaster, or persecution, on the border with Somalia, Dadaab was already home to the world’s largest refugee camp — a dubious honor it held by a wide margin. And yet to most, Dadaab simply drew a blank.

All that changed in early 2011, when the looming famine in the Horn of Africa sent refugees flooding into the camp. Soon after, as famine was formally declared in Somalia, international journalists followed. For the first time in years, Dadaab was suddenly in the news: an international symbol for a humanitarian crisis. There were 500,000 refugees in a camp that was built for 90,000.

I had spent time in Dadaab as part of my role at FilmAid, a humanitarian organization that uses film to address the needs of the displaced around the world. At the time, we had already begun the process of applying for funding for a project we would call Dadaab Stories — a vast multimedia campaign, launched this week on Tumblr, that aims to document daily life in one of the most challenging environments in the world, through video, music, images and personal stories. Though Dadaab was now in the news, its refugees were often seen as numbers, not people. Much of the coverage seemed to eliminate any possibility for self determination. Dadaab Stories, we hoped, would fill the void: to bring color, light and shade to the pencil sketch presented on the news.

And then everything changed all over again, when two Spanish aidworkers were kidnapped from the camp and taken across the border. It was part of a series of incidents that resulted in armed Kenyan forces crossing the border into Somalia. Suddenly, we were filming on the edge of a warzone.

The security situation in Dadaab changed quickly. There were a number of IED attacks, and many humanitarian agencies temporarily pulled out. As police changed their focus, banditry and petty violence rose dramatically.

It became clear that not much production could happen during this time. Humanitarian agencies were focused on relief, not storytelling. Police began to stop people with cameras, for fear they were planning an attack. But while the security situation hasn’t really improved in the months since — in June, four more aidworkers were kidnapped — residents seem to have gotten used to it. An IED doesn’t stop marriages, camel markets or football games. And it hasn’t stopped Dadaab Stories either.

— Rafiq Copeland is creator and executive producer of Dadaab Stories.

At Gowanus Canal, Turning Toxic Waste Into Art New York’s...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:01:00 -0400

At Gowanus Canal, Turning Toxic Waste Into Art

New York’s Gowanus Canal is notoriously toxic — full of dangerous chemicals, industrial waste, and yes, poop. It reeks in the summer and lives in the popular imagination as the perfect dumping ground for dead bodies. No plant or animal life can survive in it for long. This tends to inspire two kinds of images: gritty photos of the filth and pollution, and scenic landscapes that try not to dwell too long on the former.

But in his Gowanus Canal photography series, William Miller evades both of these conventions. His photographs offer glimpses of floating clouds, glittering fragments, iridescent surfaces, and delicate whorls. Although he comes from a photojournalism background — he collaborated with Doctors Without Borders in Kosovo and has worked for The New York Post for ten years — these mesmerizing, dreamlike images leave reportage behind. Instead, they offer ambiguity and abstraction, capturing the fleeting, strange beauty of the Gowanus as well as the contradictions embodied in that beauty. We spoke to him about the inspiration behind his work.

What drew you to photograph the Gowanus?

I’m a photojournalist by trade. I’ve been doing that for most of my life, but in the last few years I’ve been interested in more abstract work and a different approach toward subjects, like with my “Ruined Polaroids” project. So when I was looking at the Gowanus Canal, how strange and beautiful it was, I didn’t want to approach it from a photojournalist’s perspective. I didn’t want to tell, necessarily, a story. I was interested in how it could be beautiful and disgusting at the same time, and I was attracted to those contradictions. And when you look down into the garbage and crap, you can see the sun and the sky and the beauty above.

What is your process for the series?

I go out whenever I can, and hope I get lucky. You’re literally running around, trying to get things from a certain perspective, to fall in the frame the way you want them to, to reflect the sky the way you want them to. But a lot of days, maybe ¾ of the days that I go down there, there’s nothing. The water is not cooperating. If there’s something floating, sometimes it’s too far away. Some days it looks perfectly smooth and there’s nothing going on. It isn’t successful every day, and there’s something rewarding about that.

Has living in New York influenced you as an artist?

The city’s scope gives you access to so much. When I started getting interested in fine art, I could go to MoMA and see the things I was reading about in textbooks up close, which is incredible. Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon — when I walked past it I was floored, because I’d been reading so much about it and it was just sitting there. You’re looking at it and you can’t believe it. Not just because the painting is amazing, but also that you can just have access to it like that. It’s pretty exciting, even for a New Yorker.

Where do you find inspiration?

Recently I’ve been really interested in painting, especially abstract expressionism: Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Milton Resnick, and Rothko, obviously. It’s this idea of, when you’re really close to something, it looks remarkably similar to when you’re really far away from something. Like if you think about pictures of the atom and then pictures of planets revolving around the sun. The only difference between those two things is perspective. When you don’t know what you’re looking at, your mind starts to make up its own narrative. I like that shift, or confusion, in perspective.

— Sue Ding

brain-food: Artist Jay Shells channeled his love of hip hop...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:02:48 -0400

brain-food:

Artist Jay Shells channeled his love of hip hop music and his uncanny sign-making skills towards a brand new project: “Rap Quotes.” For this ongoing project, Shells created official-looking street signs quoting famous rap lyrics that shout out specific street corners and locations.

Sevens Clash on Street Life in Jamaica Last August, photographer...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:01:00 -0400

Rising reggae star Protoje sits for a portrait with two of the singers in his band. Photo by Alexander Richter.

Mudtown dancehall artist Ice Cold.

Roktowa artist Dion ''Sand' Palmer. Photo by Alexander Richter.

Professional boxer Anthony Osborne. Photo by Alexander Richter.

Food Kartel; dancehall artist. Photo by Alexander Richter.

Gun Talk, illegal gun. Photo by Alexander Richter.

Ripon Road, 2AM, streetwalkers. Photo by Alexander Richter.

Half Way Tree: Jamaicans erupt in celebration during the Olympic finals in London where Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, and Warren Weir finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. Photo by Alexander Richter.

Sevens Clash on Street Life in Jamaica

Last August, photographer Alexander Richter and writer Sean Stewart set out for Kingston, Jamaica, with a singular vision in mind. The duo planned to document the city’s cultural scene for a new online magazine they founded with friend and graphic designer Anthony Harrison. The publication, dubbed Sevens Clash in homage to the reggae song “Two Sevens Clash” by the band Culture, was conceived as a vehicle to tell the lesser-known stories of Kingston from a street-level point of view. To provide readers with unfiltered access to the city’s art, music, sports, and street life, however, the pair would have to do so in a compressed, one-week time frame — the duration of their self-financed trip.

Stewart, who grew up in Jamaica, had arranged for he and Richter to stay at his father’s home in Kingston. And in order to gain access to a number of sources and subjects in a short amount of time, he enlisted the help of an old friend. “My longtime homie James Porteous, aka JP DA Manager, was our fixer,” Stewart says. “He was instrumental in getting shit together.” The resulting reports and photographs offer a colorful and revealing document of day-to-day life in Kingston — from profiles of dancehall artist Tommy Lee and the aptly named Tattoo Phillip (who is, after all, a tattooist), to record shopping at Rockers on “Beat Street” and late-night encounters on Ripon Road, to name only a few.

How did the idea for Sevens Clash come about?

Alexander Richter: Sevens Clash was born from the desire to create new work and to collaborate with talented people while doing it.

Sean Stewart: I’m always setting up interviews as an excuse to talk to people doing interesting shit, and a project like Sevens Clash is a great vehicle to help focus (and justify) that mania.

Anthony Harrison: Alex and I actually connected on Instagram after seeing each others’ work posted. It was a mutual respect thing. He told me about the big idea, and I offered up my services to create a brand identity. I looked at Sean’s blog and was blown away. One phone conversation with these cats told me that Sevens Clash was something I needed to be a part of.

What prompted you to choose Kingston for the first volume of Sevens Clash?

AR: Jamaica has long been a place I wanted to visit. I’m a big fan of reggae and dancehall music, so naturally once I started to make pictures, Jamaica was a place that I wanted to go to and cook up some serious work. After connecting with Sean who is from Kingston, it was a no-brainer to see if he would be interested in collaborating on a project documenting and exploring Kingston.

AH: My parents are both Jamaican and emigrated to England in their teens, where I was born. For me, this was a way to grasp my roots. The older I get, the more connected I feel. So when I spoke with Alex and he said, “Trust me man, this is going to be culturally authentic and not some fluff ‘Wha gwan Jamaica?’ piece, I was in. I didn’t actually travel with Alex and Sean, but I was there in spirit.

How did Sean and Anthony’s familial ties and knowledge of Jamaica help the project?

AH: When I think about the premise behind the project as it applies to the art direction, my roots help me to translate our stories to our audience. Jamaica is viewed in a certain light in England and America, so visual communication means that I can call on various cultural cues to get our stories across to a broad and diverse audience in a meaningful and authentic manner. Growing up in a Jamaican household — and being familiar yet somewhat removed — helps me to see things from an objective point of view. As I get older, I’m finding myself digging deeper and making more solid family connections.

AR: Well, the fact that Sean and Anthony have a direct connection to Jamaica was key to the success of Sevens Clash. Since Sean is from Kingston, he was integral to not only helping us link with the right people in order to pursue the stories that we covered, but because he was able to bring a unique voice to our stories. I think Jamaica is often written about by outsiders who don’t understand the complexity of the country, and having Sean writing for us from the perspective of a native Jamaican was essential because he was able to see the stories for what they were and not trying to create something they weren’t.

As for Anthony, even though he wasn’t with us on the ground in Kingston, he understands the culture, the sport, the music, and the food of Jamaica and is able to bring that knowledge to the visual identity that he was creating with each feature. One look at the artwork for our stories and you can tell that Anthony is dialed in. Look at “The Ballad of Tommy Lee,” “Record Shopping At Rockers International,” “Dancehall Bespoke,” or “Organize Dat!” just to name a few, and you will see there is no faking the funk.

What surprised you the most about your trip through Kingston? You were approached by a pimp on Ripon Road.

AR: Ripon was a pretty funny situation because I was so focused on working with the girls that I didn’t really notice him when he rolled up. Some words were exchanged off to the side, but fortunately nothing happened. I shot a few photos of them standing in the middle of the street, and then we dipped off into the night without incident. As for what surprised me the most, that’s a tough question to answer. Jamaica moves in a different way than the States, and as a result my approach had to be different. That being said, it was an amazing place to visit and work.

Corruption, especially among law enforcement, is often talked about when discussing Jamaica. Did you encounter any trouble with police during your trip?

AR: None whatsoever.

SS: In my experience, the difference between the culture of corruption in the United States and Jamaica is one of degree, not kind. And when you really get down to it, it’s mostly a question of style. That being said, we didn’t really have any issues on this trip.

What’s the origin of the name Sevens Clash?

SS: It’s taken from a reggae song called “Two Sevens Clash” by the vocal trio Culture. The songwriter (and lead singer), Joseph Hill, was inspired by a vision of July 7, 1977, as the fulfillment of Marcus Garvey’s rumored prophecy that the oppressed would rise up “when the two sevens meet.” Whether the lyrics were taken literally or metaphorically, Hill’s predictions found easy resonance in the midst of the chaos surrounding the efforts to destabilize Michael Manley’s democratic socialist government. Recorded in 1976 and pressed up in early 1977, the song was an immediate hit — both at home and in the UK, where the punk and reggae subcultures were then colliding. And I think Anthony’s logo perfectly captures that energy.

You spent a week in Kingston, but have been publishing the stories over a number of months. Can you talk about the thought process behind the publication schedule for the project?

SS: Where possible, we try to peg each piece to a relevant event. The added bonus of the pacing is that we’ve been able to build an audience organically without losing momentum.

AR: This whole project has been based on feeling. I can imagine Volume 2 will be the same.

When you say you “peg each piece to a relevant event,” can you give examples?

SS: Definitely. We waited until right before Sting to drop the Isaiah Laing piece and published the Protoje piece shortly before the iTunes release of his single “Kingston Be Wise.” We put up our piece on the legendary Jamaican flyweight Richard ‘Shrimpy’ Clarke in anticipation of the 2013 season of The Contender, a hugely popular Jamaican boxing reality TV show.

Do you have a destination and subject matter in mind for Volume 2?

AR: Well, we’ve decided that for Volume 2 we’re going to stay close to home and explore some of the interesting stories that are taking place in our own backyard.

SS: For the next installment we’ll mostly be roaming around New York and New Jersey. We’ll still be digging up stories on music, art, sports, and street life, but this time without the seven-day handicap we had in Jamaica.

— Matthew Newton

I Am Legion: Universe of One Cheyne Gallarde was born and raised...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:01:00 -0400

I Am Legion: Universe of One

Cheyne Gallarde was born and raised in Hawaii in the 80s, but he claims “my soul feels like it was born in the 50s.” His affection for midcentury Americana is plainly evident in the fashion photography of Gallarde’s studio Firebird Photography. Gallarde’s work combines a love of theater (and the theatrical) with maximalist colors and a kinetic feel. All of these elements came together in his Universe of One project, where Gallarde photographs himself as various characters using all the tools at his command, from makeup and wardrobe to lighting and backdrops. After testing the waters with his Tumblr, Gallarde decided to transform his transformations into a book via Kickstarter, with a modest cash goal that was funded almost immediately. Before that’s even done, he’ll spin it off into a second book, Twinsies, which will get its own Kickstarter very shortly. To demonstrate his skills, Gallarde offered to incarnate our own David Karp, and the man himself graciously accepted. The results and process may be seen above, and our talk with Gallarde appears below.

When did you get interested in photography?

I’ve always been involved in art — been sketching since I was a child. Photography seemed like a natural progression, which combined my theater experience and graphic design background. I’ve been shooting professionally for five years now.

Who would you describe as your influences as a photographer?

I try not to follow other photographers because I feel that influences my work too much, so I turn towards other types of artists for inspiration. My biggest influence is actually American painter Norman Rockwell. His ability to tell a rich story in a single painting continues to inspire me to be a better storyteller. Photos for me should be self-contained movies.

You also aren’t afraid to get in front of the camera.

Actually, I’m extremely self-conscious. However, there was a turning point in my career where I realized I needed to get over that irrational fear. I believe that in order to be a better director, you need to experience what your subjects experience.

All your photo work is very humanistic — lots of portraits, lots of tableaux involving people as characters.

It definitely stems from my theater experience and love of films. Storytelling has always been one of my strong points, so I feel that by including thematic elements or characters, it conveys the story better. There is almost always a protagonist in my photos.

When and how did the idea for Universe of One come about? You mention Cindy Sherman as an inspiration.

Cindy Sherman’s art was the creative catalyst for Universe of One, but it evolved from there. After reading a magazine interview with her, I became obsessed with her art, and that obsession finally came full circle when I went to view her exhibit at the SFMoMA a couple months ago. I set out to create a self portrait project that continued the spirit of her work. In my opinion, her more powerful images were ones that reminded you of someone you may have met or known personally. I wanted to play with that blurry line that made people question “is this person real or not?”.

Had you ever tried doing something like Universe of One before?

Like most photographers, I’ve definitely shot the occasional self-portrait — but it was never at this grand scale! Luckily I had experience doing wardrobe and styling for Firebird fashion shoots, so the only difference was that I was the subject this time.

Were you always thinking of doing a book?

I started posting the photos to Tumblr, which was like my virtual archive. But the thought of “what next?” started to frustrate me, so it felt like a book was the most natural progression. Taking the leap from screen to printed page is exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

What have some of the reactions been like to your various characters? Are any more popular than others, particularly?

The reaction has been very mixed. There are people who appreciate it on an artistic level because they’re just aesthetically nice portraits to look at. Then there are people who know what I truly look like and they appreciate it on a deeper level because of the amount of work that went into each portrait. Recently though, some people have been in an uproar over some images they perceived as offensive. But that’s fine with me because I’ve always believed art should provoke … otherwise it’s not worthy of being called art.

Which character was your favorite to create?

Definitely Lindsey, the 80s blonde chick. I actually love being the female characters. There’s something very relaxing about putting on makeup and transforming. Twirling my hair is also fun!

Other than “acting” as each character, the Universe of One photos also seem like they must require a lot of technical work in costuming, makeup, props, and especially lighting.

Each portrait comes with its own unique set of demands. I never like doing anything too predictable, so even if a portrait is pretty straightforward, I try to think of creative ways to up the anté. For my recent Great Gatsby series, I could have easily bought some vintage flapper dresses, but chose to make them out of newspaper instead. Creative decisions like that help to elevate them beyond ordinary. But I must confess that sometimes when I’m sweating off my makeup wearing a fragile outfit that’s tearing at the seams and setting up my hot lights that I regret making those decisions! But in the end, it’s all good as long as it looks good!

Were you surprised at how quickly the book’s Kickstarter was funded?

Indeed! My network of friends definitely came through with their support, which I am so grateful for. It also surprised me when complete strangers backed my Kickstarter, which was awesome!

Any plans to tour with the book or any other special promotion?

Currently, I have a photo exhibit scheduled at Honolulu’s Loading Zone gallery in April, where some of the props and costumes will be on display. After that, I have a few clever ideas for book promotion involving some recognizable celebrities.

Do you think you’ll still continue to make and shoot characters like those in Universe of One?

Definitely! The project was designed as an ever-expanding catalog, and there’s an endless amount of inspiration in the world. The world is full of lovely faces. Lately, I’ve been signing off my emails with “I look forward to being YOU soon.”

— Chris Mohney