by Alexis on November 12, 2012
Pop-Up Magazine is a live event that’s been taking place in San Francisco since 2009. The magazine is made up of a series of pieces by writers, film makers, photographers, and radio producers sharing stories live on stage. I’ve been trying to make it to an event for quite a while now, and finally had the chance to see Issue No. 7 last week. It was worth the wait and the extra effort to get tickets!
Wendy MacNaughton is a fantastically talented San Francisco illustrator, and she also presented one of my favorite stories. Her piece was an illustrated interview, telling a sweet story about the life of a particular man. Part of the magic and charm of Pop-Up Magazine is that the work presented only happens once and isn’t recorded or available in any other format. But I was delighted to discover Wendy’s series, Meanwhile, on her website this weekend. In a similar format, Wendy is taking interviews and stories and translating them into illustrated documentaries. San Francisco Public Library, The Dolphin Club, and The Winemaker of Bolinas (excerpted here) are three of my favorites, but they’ll all make you smile if you take the time to scroll through them. If you are looking for a little inspiration to kick off your week this Monday, be sure to check them out. And if you are in the Bay Area and have the chance, I highly recommend checking out a future issue of Pop-Up Magazine as well.
{Images from Wendy MacNaughton}
Nancy and I spent yesterday afternoon talking about color palettes for an upcoming project. Color can be such a tricky thing, so when I see a scheme I like, I try to bookmark them for future reference. Often a single image can be the perfect color study for a whole room, project, event, or photo shoot, and these paintings all have palettes that inspire.
Dale Frank, the Australian artist who created the pieces shown here, has a signature style involving pouring, drizzling, and blending paints that results in beautiful layered, mingling effects. I especially love the apparent translucency in some of the colors as they interact, like in the painting above, and the unexpected combinations of reds, pinks, corals, and purples in all of these. If you’re looking for color inspiration for a weekend project, I’d suggest looking through Dale’s gallery. His bold color palettes will kickstart any project.
{Paintings by Dale Frank via Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery}
by kate on October 24, 2012
This past week I was in New York, and right before I returned to the West Coast, I had the pleasure of experiencing two of the most exhilarating and enjoyable minutes of my life: standing alone (twice, for one minute each session) inside Yayoi Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water, a temporary installation which is currently open (for just a few more days!) at the Whitney. Yayoi is one of the preeminent Japanese artists working today. Her exuberant, iconoclastic work take many forms: paintings, installations, performances, and more. The installations shown here are variations on the same theme: Yayoi’s experimentation with infinite space.
These are rooms lined with wall-to-wall mirrors and a shallow pool of water covering the floor, with a single narrow platform that juts into the center of the room. Hundreds of LED lights dangle from overhead, multiplying into thousands upon thousands in the infinite reflections that bounce back from the walls. Being in one of these rooms can be slightly disorienting at first, but the experience quickly transforms into something quite magical. The images can’t capture the full experience, obviously, but they are also stunning in their own right. I wanted to share them with you, in hopes that you will seek out one Yayoi’s installations if you ever have the chance. For those of you in the New York area, rush to the Whitney and reserve yourself a minute inside Fireflies before it closes this Sunday. I guarantee you will love it!
{Image sources, from top: The Whitney Museum, Youngna Park, ARTBoom, Art 21, The Whitney Museum}
One of the most rewarding parts of putting an issue of Anthology together is seeing the finished magazine. When a new issue comes out, I love to sit down with it and go through each story with fresh eyes. But when you have the final, polished product in your hands, it’s easy to forget all the steps that go into each story and project. From the initial spark of an idea, through the scouting, writing, styling, photography, editing, and layout, all these steps blend into the completed issue. And while that seamless finished product is the goal, the process can also be just as interesting.
This concept is an idea Colin Chillag explores in his series of finished unfinished portraits. While they may look like works in progress at first glance, Colin has deliberately left evidence of his process behind so viewers can see how the works come together. The initial sketches and palette of colors he’s mixed for each portrait are a little window into his work as a painter. The effect is especially striking since his style has such a photorealistic quality. It’s a good reminder of the layers of work involved in any creative endeavor.
{Images from Colin Chillag}
Years ago, an artist friend introduced me to a small screenprinting device called Gocco. I liken it to the Easy Bake Oven of printing because it relies on flash bulbs to operate. In 2008, Gocco’s manufacturer, Riso, closed its doors. Thus, my foray into printing pretty much ended, too.
Which is why I was both thrilled and envious when I met Kate Roebuck—who works for Hable Construction and also runs her own fantastic site, Bowerbird (she and her sister-in-law make and sell limited-edition art and accessories). Kate’s Oxford, Mississippi, home was featured in Issue No. 8/Summer 2012 of Anthology. And while I love her decor—everything seems to have some personal significance to Kate and her husband—it’s the outdoor space and how she uses it that I can’t get over.
“My neighbors think I’m cuckoo because I am almost always doing a project of some sort outside,” she told us. Screenprinting is just one of those projects. And, when photographer Thayer Allyson Gowdy shot her house earlier this year for our print pages, she was also able to capture Kate at work. I hope you enjoy this peek at her process as much as I did. (Now I’m inspired to hunt down some Gocco supplies on eBay!)
