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Publisher Chase works Backer on the puzzle is going to have the same
experience I had in making the painting.” Editor-in-Chief Adam Kluger “Callisto” is one of the vibrant pieces selected for Assistant Publisher Jaime the ArtBacker x Puzzles initiative, which features more than 100 contemporary artists from around Art Director the Bobworld. HartleyIt was art expert Rachel Vancelette’s inspirational idea on how to reconnect people Associate Editor with art, and hopefully help people cope with Margaret Bastick Luce the anxieties of the pandemic while galleries Assistant Editor and art fairs remain closed. Willy Nichter Editor to me that the benefits and joy “ItCopy occurred Sean Buttimer
which puzzlers seem to get could be extended
Special Editor in some way to connect with andProjects expanded Norah Bradford international artists worldwide and uplift the art Lifestyle world inEditor such a terrible moment,” said Rachel Elizabeth Langevin Vancelette, Founder of ARTXPUZZLES: Puzzles
with CoverPurpose. Editor Adam Kluger
The puzzles Features Editor range from $65 to $450, and the sales divided between the artists, artist relief Jadanare Horyn initiatives and other charitable organizations, Luxury Editor including Black Lives Matter, the Animal Welfare Stephanie L. Howitt Institute, First Responder’s Children’s Foundation
Editor at Large | Art, Culture & Fashion and Vancelette several other Artist Charity Choices. While Rachel
Gumby has been a fan of puzzling since
Fashion Photographer childhood when his grandmother always had Matt Licari
Alteronce Gumby
a puzzle on the dining room table, it made Profiles Editor in the causes a no-brainer. participating
Alexandra Appino-Tabone
Social Editor “Being an artist of color and someone who cares Clara Morgan deeply about their community and who stands
Puzzles with Purpose
against police brutality, I immediately thought Food Editor Andrea it wasCorreale a great idea,” he said. Nutrition Editor Lindsay Brustein Rosen, M.S., R.D., CDNAXP’s 2nd guest curator Christopher Eamon,
PUZZLING THROUGH THE PANDEMIC WITH ARTXPUZZLES BY ALYSSA FISHER
I
for Coast December, Gold Writer said the artists “have been very excitedRandall and very positive about it.” They’re Monica not just donating a piece, he explained. “It’s a
Digital Media Director reproduction, Nancy Molina it’s a multiple, it’s more accessible.
They like it, it’s quite innovative in that way.” He Make-up one of his pieces from the series, Callisto, was paused for a moment. “The word innovative Peggy Mackey reproduced as a puzzle for ART x PUZZLES: Puzzles comes up a lot,” he said, and we both let out a Interns with Purpose, a project designed and launched laugh — puzzles, we know, have been around Jolie Hudson, Lonee Telemaque exclusive limited collector edition jigsaw puzzles forever (the first was said to be made in the 1760s). Contributors in close collaboration with artists from across Rachel Vancelette, D.D. Rice, Prince, PeterofElston, Johnny Angel, the globe. The project launched officially in YetPaul at the height quarantine, when uncertainty Harry White, Victoria Crosby Fall of 2020, to support artists’ studios, existing and fear were pervasive, people around Contributing Photographers Matt Licari, Rene Bernal, tama66, pixel2013, Michael Gaida,the wider artist relief efforts, andKlandt, causes of personal, United States turned toCarroll, puzzling forStucker, activity, Benno Michael Paniccia, Jay Mathews, Filip Shobot, Chris Lenny social and economicPatrick concern to participating distraction and of course, some much-needed McMullan, MA , Tom Fitzgerald and Pam Deutchman, Sandy Ramirez, Jan Klier, Mitchel Gray, fun. PaulNPR Prince, Kristiinathat Wilson contemporary artists during the Covid-19 reported in the beginning of March, pandemic. sales at Ceaco, one of For advertisement info: 646-300-1852the largest producers of jigsaw puzzles in the country, were up 300 percent Info@metmagny.com | metmagny.com “If I were to teach a seminarFacebook.com/metropolitanmagazinepb on how to make compared to | the same time the year before. Twitter.com/metmagny models, musicians and photographers, please inquire. one of my paintings, we wouldWriters, probably start Eamon recalled his social media feed was full of with putting together a puzzle without looking photos of friends who fled the city for their country © Copyright 2021 by Metropolitan Magazine, All rights reserved. at Metropolitan is published year. Reproduction permission the publisherpiecing is prohibited. The publisher the box,” the Neweleven Yorktimes Cityperartist said. “It’s without homes, eitherofattentively together a puzzle and editors are not responsible for unsolicited material and it will be treated as such and unconditionally assigned for publication subject to Metropolitan magazine’ s right It feels like a full-circle moment, he said, that heartwarming to think that everyone who or showing off the finished product. to edit. n 2018, artist Alteronce Gumby, selected by AXP’s first curator choice Alaina Simone, was working on a series of iridescent paintings inspired by how color materializes on Earth when he paused for a lunch break and headed to the bodega. It was a sunny day, and his eye caught a puddle of broken glass by the bus stop, shimmering with the colors of the rainbow. It reminded him of the pigments he was working with, and of how Sir Isaac Newton discovered rainbows refracting through a prism. Inspired, Gumby took two buckets of glass back to his studio, and over the course of a year he incorporated it into his paintings, placing each piece one-by-one, determining where it fits.
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