C r e a t i v i t y , C o m m u n i t y a n d C o n v e r s a t i o n i n t h e He a r t l a n d
CHEF
Ryan Santos, OH | A R T I S T Aram Han Sifuentes, IL | C R E A T I V E Leslie Fraley, MO
A RTISTS & A RCHITECTS A RTIST
Tia & Souliyahn Keobounpheng, MN | W R I T E R Eve L. Ewing, IL
Jenny Rush, OH | A R C H I T E C T & C O - F O U N D E R O F B L U D O T Maurice Blanks, MN
We tell the stories of interesting
people doing remarkable things in the middle of America.
L E T T E R F ROM T H E E DI TOR In 1943, my grandfather, Lewis F. Brandt, Jr., enlisted as a private of the United States Army. He was immediately sent from St. Louis to boot camp in Indiana and flown shortly thereafter to France to serve in World War II. He was smart and strong, and as a commissioned officer quickly rose rank to a Second Lieutenant Platoon Commander. Shortly following his enlistment, my grandmother found out she was pregnant with her first child. She was 18. Her baby boy, who she delivered while her husband was marching on the beaches of Normandy, was three years old before he met his father. His name was Lewis Frederick Brandt, III, but she called him her little “Bud.” After D-Day, Lewis’ 50-man platoon walked more than 300 miles from Normandy, France, to Remagen, Germany, where they fought in the Battle of Remagen, resulting in the American capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the river Rhine. During the successful fight, Lewis was shot with a machine gun so severely that the field doctors were sure he wouldn’t survive. Barely conscious, he was awarded a purple heart with a cluster and a bronze star and placed on a medical ship for America. He wasn’t expected to complete the trip alive. When Lewis returned home, he was wrapped in bandages and limped into a life where his family didn’t recognize him. When he said goodbye to his newly pregnant wife years earlier, he was 6-foot-5 and weighed 200 pounds. When he returned, he weighed 98. That same year, the Axis powers surrendered, and the Second World War came to an end. As Lewis’ battle-engagement medals arrived in the mail, his health strengthened. He returned to his electrician’s apprenticeship, built a home and enjoyed a marriage that awarded him a second and third child—my father. What became a habitual, ordinary life was motivated by a heroic past and a shared kinship with nearly 16 million other WWII veterans. The creatives we’re inspired by are often intrinsically motivated themselves by the journeys of their forebears. Artist Ar am Han Sifuentes sews protest banners with the same needle strokes that her mother—a Korean immigrant seamstress— used to teach her when she was five (page 22). Architect and artist Souliyahn Keobounpheng’s work is shaped by his early childhood in Laos and the Indochina refugee crisis he survived shortly following the Vietnam War (page 62). Crisis—and the trauma resulting—can either serve as an extinguishing crutch or an ignition of strength. Jenny Rush, a Manhattan urbanite during 9/11, channeled her fear and grief into inspiration to start a new life—and a new creative career (page 14). Ryan Santos of Please in Cincinnati, transformed a Crohn’s disease diagnosis into a chef’s career (page 26). Living with the social and political discrimination that often accompanies being a Black child in Chicago, writer and scholar Eve L. Ewing learned to transform daily occurrences into otherworldly narratives to inspire creativity in her readers (page 18). And Maurice Blanks, cofounder of modern-furniture giant Blu Dot, started his wildly successful career on the tail of his failed TV show and during the market crash of 2008 (page 44). I keep my grandmother’s memoir on the coffee table in our house. In it, she details those early years of her marriage when she sent letters to my grandpa, explaining to him the changes in his baby’s face as the years without his father wore on. I feel such gratitude for the pain when I read it, reminding me of the finality, impermanence and preciousness of life. Inspired by their sacrifice, smiling comes easy. Love, Rachel Brandt @RachelEBrandt
[ 2 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
[ 3 ]
ALIVE Media Group
CONTR IBUTING AR T DIREC TOR
GENER AL INQUIRIES
Karina Tiller
info@ALIVEmag.com
IG: @karina.tiller PRESIDENT
A DV E R T I S I N G
Elizabeth Tucker
B U S I N E S S M A N AG E R
IG: @Eliz_tucker
Molly Fontana
TWTR: @Eliz_tucker
IG: @fontana_molly TWTR: @fontana_mollyr
EDITOR-IN- CHIEF
Content in ALIVE labeled “partner” denotes paid-for content. Thank you for supporting the businesses that keep ALIVE growing. For advertising rates and information, email advertising@ ALIVEmag.com.
Attilio D’Agostino
O F F I C E A S S I S TA N T
IG: @_attilio
Laura Runde
SUBSCRIBE
E D I T O R I A L A S S I S TA N T
Lena Crown
Subscribe to ALIVE, view our digital issue and purchase copies of ALIVE at alivemag.com/subscribe, or call us at 314.446.4059.
CO N T R I B U T O R S
CO N T R I B U T E
Trudy Fogarty-Hayden, Eileen G’Sell, Sharday Johnson, Jacqui Germain, Lena Crown, Kea Wilson
For more information, please email contribute@ALIVEmag.com.
TWTR: @_attilio EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Rachel Brandt IG: @rachelebrandt TWTR: @rachelebrandt S E N I O R S TA F F W R I T E R
Jorie Jacobi IG: @joriejacobi E D I T O R I A L A DV I S O R
Jennifer Dulin Wiley CO P Y E D I T O R
Mack Korris IG: @no_good_sharks TWTR: @mack423
A L I V E M AG .CO M
@ALIVEMagazine @ALIVE_Mag @ALIVE_Mag CO N TAC T
2200 Gravois Ave. St. Louis, MO 63104-2848
ALIVE, Volume 17, Issue 1 (Periodical #025092) is published by Novel, L.L.C., 2200 Gravois Ave. St. Louis, MO 63104-2848. Periodicals Postage paid at St. Louis, MO, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ALIVE, 2200 Gravois Ave. St. Louis, MO 63104-2848. © 2018 ALIVE Media Group, LLC.
Tel: 314.446.4059 Fax: 314.446.4052
C R E AT I V E D I R E C T O R
Sales: 314.446.4056
Mark Arnold
ALIVEmag.com
ALIVE Magazine is published by Novel Creative. hownovel.co
SUBSCR IBE TO A L I V E M AG A Z I N E FOR $48, SUPPORT ARTISTS AND GAIN ACCESS TO STORIES ABOUT INTERESTING CREATIVES DOING IMPORTANT WORK IN THE MIDDLE OF AMERICA. Subscriber and stockist inquiries visit alivemag.com/subscribe
ALI V E Subscription Benef it s
• Quarterly print magazine
• Early access to the latest issue
• Artisan gifts from featured makers
• Complimentary access to digital issues
• Exclusive ALIVE event access
• Extended content online • Monthly digital newsletter
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S 14 Artist | Jenny Rush 18 Writer | Eve L. Ewing 22 Artist | Aram Han Sifuentes 26 Chef | Ryan Santos 32 Fashion | “Some Fine Things” 42 Creative | Leslie Fraley 44 Architect & Co-Founder | Maurice Blanks 62 Artists & Architects | Tia & Souliyahn Keobounpheng 80 Poem | Jacqui Germain
COVER PHOTO
Third Avenue Bridge, Minneapolis, Minnesota. RIGHT
Ellingson Island, Little Two Harbors, Minnesota. B AC K C O V E R
Earrings by Jenny Rush, Four Eyes Ceramics, Cincinnati, Ohio. Photography:
Attilio D’Agostino
PA RT N E R
Sourcing from the highest-quality manufacturers and most respected designers, CENTRO Modern Furnishings remains St. Louis, Missouri’s go-to retailer for design enthusiasts, business owners and career creatives. The meticulously curated showroom housing high-design furniture, lighting and accessories—including sought-after brands like Blu Dot—is at once accessible and inspiring. Driven by a team boasting more than 60 years combined experience, CENTRO’s coowners Todd Lannom, Ginny Stewart and manager Steve Schuepfer will help guide you, often sharing personal stories from their close relationships with world-class designers. CENTRO-INC.COM @ CENTROSTL
CONTENT
BRANDING
D I G I TA L
S T R AT E G Y
ALIVE Magazine is produced by Novel. Visit hownovel.co to learn more about how we can help you tell your brand’s story.
PA RT N E R
As an urban anchor of the heartland, St. Louis is a sprawling metropolis, balancing a rich and diverse history with technological and artistic innovation. Urbanites, nature enthusiasts, families, art aficionados, lifelong residents and transplants alike mix in the Gateway City, which has paved the way for an influx of makers, artists, writers, entrepreneurs, scholars, musicians, visionaries and more. ALIVE is proud to call St. Louis home. EXPLOR ESTLOUIS.COM @ EXPLOR ESTLOUIS
FOUR EY ES, T WO H A NDS An introduc tion to ar tist Jenny Rush. by JORIE JACOBI / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
Cincinnati-based artist and jewelry designer Jenny Rush had been working full time at a photography studio for 14 years when she began making her own ceramic jewelry, crafted from thinly rolled porcelain and molded into light, large shapes for unique statement pieces. Think Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol’s muse—who would have adored Rush’s designs. “I grew up in the ‘80s, and I love fashion from the ‘60s and ‘70s. I especially love the big, geometric shapes of ‘80s fashion, but using a different color palette,” says Rush. “My pieces are not hard colors, like neon or hot pink. I really like how some of these more muted tones work with the big shapes.” She pulls inspiration equally from modern art, plants and forms found in nature and geometry. “I’m not always aware of what’s been influencing my pieces until I make them.” While Rush has a background in art, she originally started making jewelry to satisfy her own aesthetic tastes. She couldn’t find a light statement piece that
she’d consistently wear, and there was nothing on the market quite like what she was envisioning. “I knew if I was going to make earrings out of clay, they’d need to be pretty light. The challenge was figuring out how to get them as thin as possible, but big enough so they could still be chunky and fun.” After finding a design formula she was happy with she decided to start her own Etsy shop, taking on the moniker Four Eyes Ceramics. As demand for her fresh designs rose, the challenge of running a small business required a level of creativity tantamount to actually designing and creating the jewelry. At first, she worked out of a local ceramics studio, but running Four Eyes and working full time was nearly impossible—until she bought her own slab roller and kiln for a home studio in her attic, where she now works. Rush, originally from Cincinnati, graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a BFA in painting.
J E N N Y
RU S H
[15 ]
“While my concentration was in painting, I almost switched to ceramics. I loved it so much—I’ve always loved working with clay,” she says. After finishing college, she immediately moved to New York City, where she lived for six years, finding work at a design-and-production agency while making art in her spare time. Yet making the jump into full time art making—a leap of faith accompanied by a near-flagrant disregard for most practical concerns—intimidated her. “I just liked hanging out with my friends, talking about art, making things and seeing shows,” she says. “A lot of my artist friends were living day to day, taking whatever odd jobs they could find. I almost wished I had that ability, so I’d have more time to make my own stuff. But I’m a very practical Virgo. I need to have some type of steady job and my bills paid.” When Rush felt comfortable enough to quit her fulltime job to focus entirely on making art, she was quickly rewarded. Her work was featured in a popular national magazine, and she secured a number of art shows in both New York and Cincinnati. While back in Cincinnati for a visit, she met her husband, and eventually moved back home. “New York is an amazing city; I felt so guilty leaving,” says Rush. “But being in Cincinnati has allowed me so much more time. It’s nowhere near as expensive, and the days seem twice as long. I can afford to not work so much, and make things. I also got married and started a family. I have an 11-year-old son—he’s a hoot. He’s in fifth grade
[16 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
now, and he’s really coming into his own.” Faced with the question of how to balance all of her varying pursuits, Rush answers with what sounds like a combination between a sigh and a laugh, which is perceptible even over the phone. “There are points where it’s been really hard. Like last fall when things started getting really busy, I felt like I was doing everything poorly. Being a wife, a mother and working full-time, I kept feeling like I was letting things slide. Nothing could get my full attention.” Rush has now hired a part-time employee and maintains product demand through Instagram. “Social media is a necessary evil, and it’s hard to keep up with,” says Rush. “I also think, ‘How many more photos of earrings can I possibly post?’ But honestly, I wouldn’t be doing this without Instagram, and an amazing community of stylists, photographers, designers, artists and more. It’s been really great.” Covered in clay dust and the trappings of her craft, with questions of time, money and balance swirling above, Rush carves out space to continue. She begins by rolling out a large slab of clay as thinly as possible, cutting out shapes from a hand-drawn template. Each piece dries for a minimum of a few days before Rush softens their edges, fires them in the kiln twice and adds a glaze, if the design calls for it. “Let’s say I make 20 pieces—not all of them are going to come out properly. And that just happens with clay,” she says with acceptance, and a sense of relief. “Not everything is perfect.”
J E N N Y
RU S H
[17]
EVE L. EW ING ON WRITING, ON LINEAGE, ON HOME. by JACQUI GER MAIN / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
Wearing thin circle-rimmed glasses, dark-brown curls pulled back into a ponytail and all smiles, a young Eve Ewing walked into a Chicago auditorium with her mother alongside her. She had recently won her middle school’s writing contest, and it was the night of the recognition ceremony. At the end of the evening, she left with her award and another unexpected item gifted to each of the awardees: “Very Young Poet,” a limited-edition writing primer written by Gwendolyn Brooks—a serendipitous memento foreshadowing the years to come. “Now, I cherish it,” says Ewing of the childhood keepsake, recalling the memory fondly. “I’m so glad I kept it all these years.” More than a decade later—and now sporting electricpurple curls—Ewing is a well-known multidisciplinary writer, visual artist and scholar with multiple degrees, including a Ph.D from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In the last year alone, the Chicago native published her debut book, co-wrote a stage play recently featured in The New Yorker and contributed an essay for The
[18 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
Atlantic’s commemorative Dr. Martin Luther King special issue. More regularly, the established sneakerhead teaches at the University of Chicago, serves as the co-director of Chicago-based arts organization Crescendo Literary and organizes the Chicago Poetry Incubator’s annual multi-day retreat and festival. When asked about upcoming projects—a presumably short list given her current workload—Ewing sighs lightly, chuckles at the question’s unwitting query and begins listing off a number of other creative projects, forthcoming books and progress on her academic research. Busy is an understatement. Still, her nearly 150,000 Twitter followers likely know her best for her recently published and widely celebrated book, “Electric Arches.” The collection of poetry, prose and visual art uses science fiction and fantastical elements to explore “regular life stuff, and quotidian things that I try to make into magical things.” From well-known authors and novelists Roxane Gay and Kiese Laymon, to longtime feminist scholar bell hooks, readers around the country have been enthralled by Ewing’s otherworldly stories of space-traveling
E V E
E W I N G
[19 ]
[ 2 0 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
Black revolutionaries and floating children. Dancing through creative re-imaginings of Ewing’s own universe of experiences, the collection offers an energizing twist on the everyday. “Electric Arches” provides a detailed series of scenes from Ewing’s own childhood memories and inspired narratives about being young and Black in Chicago, replacing the would-be violences with lush, buoyant alternatives. “Poetry allows me to imagine the world that I want and imagine other ways of being in a way that is unlimited and without restriction and without constraint,” Ewing explains. “And I really like that.” Still, Ewing admits that she’s equal parts nervous and excited every time she tackles a new idea, or publishes writing in a genre she’s less familiar with. The short story in “Electric Arches” is actually her first published piece of fiction. She’s looking forward to stretching and growing her skills with each new project she attempts, learning to move with dexterity between research writing and fiction, from journalism to poetry. Ewing’s approach to writing also weaves seamlessly into her sense of community, regularly committing time to connect with young writers in Chicago and uplift local political and community-organizing efforts across her hometown. Even as she writes a new, brighter world into her poems, Ewing uses her visibility to provide critical commentary on Chicago’s political leadership, public-school system, police brutality and more, ultimately encouraging a new, brighter world in real life as well.
extraordinarily beautiful and yet a complete mystery; she didn’t understand it at all. “That was a profoundly spiritual experience for me, because it made me realize for the first time the agony and ecstasy of literature. It was so different from ‘We Real Cool,’ you know?” she remembers. “My whole life, I thought I knew this poet, and then I read this poem and didn’t get it at all. I had zero comprehension of what I was reading. It just made me that much more entranced by her.” Considering Brooks’ literary versatility, numerous accomplishments and lifelong commitment to mentoring Chicago’s community of young poets, Ewing’s own path isn’t too far off. Hers is an easily traceable track record of communal pride, having spent several years teaching in Chicago public schools and now teaching regularly at Chicago’s Stateville Correctional Center. For Ewing, feeding into the same local avenues and pathways that helped her grow means using her resources to support and inspire the current and next generation of Chicago creatives. “I’m a big believer in wherever you are, trying to build something. And I don’t mean starting something new or being a founder,” she explains without skipping a beat. “Figure out where the assets already are in a place and fortify those assets. Build bridges and connections between people who are already doing the work. Build recognition, pools of resources, infrastructure and platforms for those people and for the work that still needs to be done.”
Years after first receiving a copy of “Very Young Poet,” it’s easy to see how Ewing’s literary practice and community work have both been deeply influenced by Gwendolyn Brooks’ own legendary career. The first poem Ewing even remembers hearing or learning was Brooks’ “We Real Cool,” arguably the late poet’s most famous and widely taught work.
Just the week before, Ewing shares over the phone, she did a book reading and signing for “Electric Arches” with an afterschool program for third graders in the same neighborhood she was raised in. Days earlier, she visited a nearby university to talk about poetry with a group of college students taught by the same professor who’d been her writing mentor when she was a teenager.
While “We Real Cool” was especially memorable for 8-year-old Ewing—and still is to this day—the visually sparse, ten-line piece seems in a separate sphere entirely from another one of Brooks’ poems, “The Anniad,” which Ewing didn’t come across until she was an undergraduate student. She found the sprawling, rigorously structured, 43-stanza-long poem both
The cyclical nature of these stories aren’t happenstance, and Ewing has plenty of them to share. In reality, it’s a rather organic consequence of Ewing’s own philosophy of re-investing in the communities she calls home. The Chicago literary lineage is a clear and evident one, sure to last through Ewing’s career for years to come.
E V E
E W I N G
[ 21]
L ABOR OF LOV E Introducing Chicago ar tist Aram Han Sifuentes. by EILEEN G’SELL / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
It’s a humid morning, and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in Saint Louis’ Grand Center Arts District is wreathed in a bevy of shifting clouds. Sifting through colored fabrics in the museum’s upper gallery, summer artist-in-residence Aram Han Sifuentes prepares for an afternoon community workshop as part of her ongoing Protest Banner Lending Library, launched in collaboration with fellow Chicago-based artists Verónica Casado Hernández, Ishita Dharap and Tabitha Anne Kunkes. “At the heart of it,” reflects Sifuentes, her hexagonal eyewear framing serious eyes she has playfully edged with eyeliner, “the initial idea of the banner library was for non-citizens to be able to participate in the protest process. But it has become something more than that, more open. Anyone can learn to make a banner to use themselves, or donate to others. It’s become a project to support each other in protest.” Born in South Korea and raised in California’s Central Valley, Sifuentes received an M.F.A. from The Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 and has since steadily gained a reputation for exhibition and performance across the globe, from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to the Design Museum in London. Applying fiber arts to interrogate the intersections of immigration, citizenship, racial and gender identity, her praxis is at once public oriented and deeply personal. “The needle is a political tool,” declares Sifuentes’ artist statement, but for banner-making workshops, one needn’t bring a sewing kit. “We don’t do any sewing
now,” she explains. “Instead, we use an iron-on fusible web, a glue that keeps it all together. The banners are easy to make, and approachable to all ages. I basically say, ‘If you can cut, you can make a banner.’” As someone from the West Coast now living in Chicago, you’ve gotten different perspectives of what it means to be a citizen and activist. Was there an exact moment that the protest banners became a project?
I did a project called the “Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting for All Who Legally Can’t,” collaborating with over 15 different artists, activists and organizations from all over the U.S. and Mexico. At the Jane Addams Hull-House, we did an installation with Lise Haller Baggesen and Sadie Woods that was all fabric and protest banners. With all the protests erupting when Trump was elected, I was already making banners, so I just kept making them. I thought, “I really want these to be used,” but also realized that I did not feel safe taking them out and protesting myself—because I was a non-citizen at the time, and I’m a mother. Most of my work had already been working with communities of non-citizens, but then I knew they couldn’t take the banners out, either. That’s how it became a growing library. We were in this urgent moment, and the banners needed to be used. How is the Protest Banner Lending Library related to your earlier work?
I’ve always made work about immigration, and I’ve always made work that’s subversive, bringing to light some of the injustices that we face, and how to fight back in the ways that we can. Growing up, I
A R A M
H A N
S I F U E N T E S
[ 2 3 ]
always thought I’d be an immigration lawyer. I studied Latin American studies, with a concentration on immigration policy, at UC-Berkeley, and have always been political, and invested in empowering immigrant communities. When did you decide to move from the law to art?
[laughs] Well, a few different things. Studying law and its distinct language, I was having to fight within a very structured, bureaucratic and rigid world. It was a big turnoff. I also had a great ceramics teacher—Richard Shaw—who was amazing, inviting me to everything, giving me a sense of the artist’s community.
Was Saint Louis an important place for you to go in terms of the library?
I hadn’t been before, but of course being very aware of the political scene here, it was important to come. Ultimately, what’s most important about this project is that these banners get used. So, thinking about which cities could make the most use of them, Saint Louis came to mind. In Chicago, a good number of banners are about the public school system. In Philly, at the Asian Arts Initiative, a lot of the banners made were about bail and incarceration—with the big prison being right there, close to the Asian arts center. In Saint Louis, of course, it’s police brutality and Black Lives Matter.
How did you shift to fiber arts throughout your career?
I learned to sew when I was six years old. My mom is a seamstress and still does that work today. She used to be an artist in Korea—she’s a painter and ran her own art center. She said to me as a child, “You’re not going to be an artist. I’m not going to teach you how to do that.” We came to the U.S. when I was five, and my parents started immediately working at a dry cleaner. My mom always knew how to sew, and with all the extra work she was bringing home all the time, she taught me to sew, so that I could help out. I was learning out of necessity.
What does “political” mean for you?
I feel all work is political; even the absence of politics is political. You can only be apolitical or disengaged from politics if you have that choice. But being of Korean descent—from a working-class family, working with non-citizens in immigrant communities—how can I not make political work, especially in this moment? But really, in any moment, because when has immigration policy ever been generous, or given us a break? Never [laughs]. With what your mom said to you as a kid about not being an artist, what does she say now?
It took some time, though, before sewing became a part of my artwork. But once it did, things just clicked. I mean, my art talks about immigration, and I grew up inside of a racially aware place in a poor immigrant family. So the process of sewing itself goes hand in hand with the issues I want to talk about. Different types of making have long been privileged—that tension between craft and high art. The integration of sewing into art seems rife with that tension.
Yes, but the problem here is, “Who is pushing for that type of integration?” White fiber artists often talk about labor, but it’s kind of ironic, because who are the actual laborers in the garment industry? They are women of color, but they are pretty absent from the fiber-arts field. That’s something I really fight against. People will rail against how fiber arts have been dismissed as “women’s work,” “domestic space,” “sewing circles” and “femininity,” but that’s such a narrow way to think about it. They call that “labor,” and that’s what’s damaging. For so many white women, sewing was, really, a form of leisure. And they were able to do that leisure work because women of color were actually laboring.
[ 2 4 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
Well, at first she was upset. She said, “I sewed all my life so you don’t have to. Why are you choosing to?” But, seeing how hard I work, she’s become really supportive and really excited. And in a way, she’s been able to return to art. She hadn’t painted since 1992, the year we moved to the U.S. When I had my daughter, in 2015, my mom started drawing her—taking painting and drawing materials to the cleaners at her sewing desk. In the summer of 2016, I had a solo show at the Chicago Artists Coalition and could use the space however we want. Seeing my mom’s new drawings, I said, “Hey, Mom, do you want your own solo show?” We did a whole show of all her work, from Korea and from here. Something I really fight against in the art world is how exclusive and elite it is—how closed its circle becomes. Busting that open is really important for me, trying to create inclusive spaces where anyone who comes to a workshop learns the same techniques that I use. In that way, I try to ask these questions, “Who’s an artist? Who’s given that right? Who’s given the opportunity to express creativity?”
A R A M
H A N
S I F U E N T E S
[ 25 ]
A NOM AD COMES HOME A conversation with Cincinnati chef Ryan Santos. by KEA WILSON / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
In a culinary scene obsessed with bold flavor and brash personalities, you might not think the word “polite” is the biggest compliment you could give to a dish. But when the chef who made that dish is a Midwestern boy who’s ventured home after roaming the world in search of flavors his hometown might love, that invitation starts to sound appealing. As chef of Cincinnati’s acclaimed Please, Ryan Santos creates food that invites you in with a hint of middle-America-nice and the soft-spoken comfort of approachable, deeply familiar ingredients. But there’s a subtle complexity to Santos’ food, too—and that’s what keeps diners asking for more, whether or not they mind their manners. You took an unconventional path to becoming a chef. Tell us how you made your way into the food industry.
I was going to college for graphic design—I definitely
[ 2 6 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
thought that was going to be my path—when I discovered I’d been battling Crohn’s disease for years without knowing it. My doctor put me on a strict diet, so I learned to cook for myself quickly. I took my new diet very seriously, and through the process of becoming a home chef, I just sort of fell in love with it. Those restrictions eventually went away, but my passion for cooking stuck around. But your next step wasn’t culinary school. Why did you decide to get your education just by working in kitchens around the world, rather than in a more formal environment?
I think I was just chasing experiences, honestly. I was lucky to end up in locations all around the world that had the same sort of crayon box of ingredients that I’d had back home in Ohio—I definitely didn’t want to go to, say, South America and work with ingredients I’d never have access to again—but rather somewhere that would still push me on my technique, still help me
discover something new. I ended up in Denmark, France, Pittsburgh, L.A.—all working with chefs I admired. But then I came back for a visit to Cincinnati, and I was so impressed. So much of the city had changed and progressed. An old friend of mine said, “Hey, you should put together a pop-up dinner. I know a restaurant that would love to have you.” Pretty soon we were doing it again and again, and I had moved back home. [Laughs]. Things progressed from there. In a way, you were still pretty nomadic even when you returned to Cincinnati. What did you learn from your years of running Please as a pop-up restaurant?
It was a good opportunity to learn the Cincinnati palate again: learning who our diners were, what their level of adventurousness was in terms of food. As we changed neighborhoods with each pop-up, we’d see different clientele, and we’d gain a bit more of a regular presence as well. It helped me hone the food of the restaurant—what worked and what didn’t, what my guests were comfortable with, and where it might be okay to make them a little uncomfortable. It helped me hone my own voice as a chef, too. Why’d you choose the name “Please”?
I wanted to do something food-adjacent and not too literal. It hits on an aspect of being a diner—you say “please” when you order a certain dish; service aims to please—but I think the word also harnesses a little bit of that classic sense of Midwestern nice, too. I’ll be honest: some of the restaurants I worked in during my pop-up years felt a little pretentious, a little like you were being judged if you didn’t get it; even I felt uncomfortable there. I wanted my food to feel comfortable, inviting and polite, in that way. Tell us about the inspiration behind the Black Hawk Beef dish you made for us.
Honestly, Please had never really done a steak dish before I made this. So after a while, it felt like I needed to take that challenge, just for my own growth and maturity as a chef. It’s a really ingredients-focused recipe. We work with a farm over in Kentucky that makes a beautiful beef; we have a local winter spinach leaf that’s the foundation of our take on creamed spinach. It’s all pretty clean and simple, but it has some personality. We switch out the butter for bone marrow. We add some ramps—those are everywhere in Cincinnati—and some really nice local peas, chive blossoms and microgreens. It comes together as a lighter steak dish that’s still really rich. And it came together on the first go, which is always really rewarding as a chef, not having to tinker and tinker and tinker.
[ 2 8 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
R Y A N
S A N T O S
[ 2 9 ]
Black Hawk Beef with Marrow Creamed Spinach, Ramps & Peas Ingredients
Procedure
Beef (Cut of your choice, cooked to your liking)
Prepare the beef-onion broth. Caramelize six onions. Cover with four quarts of beef stock and reduce, to thicken. Season with sherry vinegar, salt to taste and set aside.
8 onions 3 tbls tendered bone marrow 1.5 cups of cream Spinach Chive blossoms Spicy Microgreens Pickled R amps Peas 4 quarts beef stock Sherry Vinegar Salt
Prepare the Bone Marrow Soubise by heat-rendering the bone marrow and sweating the onions until soft and almost all liquid has evaporated. Do not color. Add cream and lightly simmer for five minutes. Transfer everything to a blender, season with salt and pass. Cook steak to desired doneness. While the steak is resting, add some soubise to a wide pan over medium heat, add two handfuls of spinach, some salt, and stir. Stir to wilt the spinach until it’s coated, or “creamed,” in the soubise. Add more spinach and/or soubise to reach desired consistency. Spinach should be wilted but coated in creamy soubise. Cut steak into slices, cover steak with creamed spinach. Add four ramp pickles, some peas, chive blossoms and spicy microgreens. Add the beefonion broth and serve. Place on a plate or platter and drizzle with the sesame balsamic vinaigrette.
[ 3 0 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
SOME FINE THINGS A COLL ABOR ATION WITH FINEFOLK IN K ANSAS CIT Y, MISSOURI. Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
MODEL:
Donovan Green @ Wilhelmina Models
Trudy Fogarty-Hayden
ST YLIST:
HAIR AND MAKEUP:
ARTIST:
Gina Holmberg Quynh Huynh
FINEFOLK
@shopfinefolk Special Thanks to Leslie Fraley and Jennifer Scott of Finefolk. WITHIN APOTHECARY
@withinapothocary
OPPOSITE:
Lauren Manoogian Fisherman Pullover + Clyde Hat [ 32 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
FA S H I O N
[ 33 ]
THIS PAGE: Lauren Manoogian Fisherman Pullover + Nomia Pleated Skirt + Clyde Hat + Intentionally Blank Bernard Shoe
[ 3 4 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
ABOVE LEFT: Creatures of Comfort Long Sleeve Gold Fringe Tee + Black Cr ane Ak ari Pant + Intentionally Blank Bernard Shoe + Tak ar a Hoops ABOVE RIGHT: Creatures of Comfort Cotton Shirting Trisha Top + Elsa Crinkled Pant + Mirit Weinstock Party Ornament Earring + Freda Salvador Babouche Flat
FA S H I O N
[ 35 ]
THIS PAGE: Creatures of Comfort Jacket + Base R ange Gr ace Long Sleeve Bodysuit + Isabel Mar ant Etoile Cabrio Pant + Freda Salvador Wit Oxford + 8.6.4 Earrings
[ 3 6 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
Black Cr ane Classy Dress Leaf Print + Reinhard Plank Comme Paper Spiga Hat + Intentionally Blank Bernard Shoe
FA S H I O N
[ 3 7 ]
A Detacher Thurston Top + Clyde World Hat
[ 3 8 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
R aquel Allegr a Column Dress + Lauren Manoogian Cashmere Cardigan + Common Projects Suede Loafer ABOVE: Nomia Long Sleeve Twist Shoulder Top + The Horse Moon Clutch + 8.6.4 Earrings
ABOVE LEFT:
FA S H I O N
[ 3 9 ]
ABOVE: Nomia Utility Jumpsuit + Isabel Mar ant Etoile Fred Pullover + Intentionally Blank Woven Mule RIGHT: A Detacher Thurston Top + Creatures of Comfort Trouser + Clyde World Hat
[ 4 0 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
M. Patmos Rochelle Dress + Tak ar a Umei Cuff Heavy Gold + Freda Salvador Babouche Slip On Shoes
FA S H I O N
[ 41]
[ 4 2 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN A conversation with Leslie Fraley, the creative mind behind Finefolk in Kansas City. by LENA CROW N / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
Finefolk boutique and lifestyle shop in Kansas City thrives on personal connection. Owner Leslie Fraley has curated a space that prioritizes community, comfort and vulnerability. She and her team strive to cultivate that specific sense of exhilaration when a piece of clothing slips effortlessly over your curves.
it fits correctly. I do closet consultations, and you can often find me in the dressing room with a customer, making recommendations. My mother does all of the alterations in-store, so we’re able to customize any garment and make work them for a wide range of bodies. I don’t believe that clothing should fit you right off the rack.
You led a creative design life since before opening Finefolk. You’ve also worked as a domestic-violence
What excites you most in the store at the moment?
victims’ assistant advocate. How did you decide to
I’m a big shoe and bag fan. One of my favorite new additions is a Copenhagen-based line called Aesther Ekme. We’re excited to be one of the first stores in the country to carry it. I love the bags’ minimal, streamlined design, without any zippers or hardware. I’m attracted to classic fashion with an edge or a freshness that comes from unexpected details.
work in retail?
I have so many diverse interests. What I love about Finefolk is my ability to tap into my love for fashion, art and design. We try to orient our mission toward more than just the clothes, both in our collaborations with other artists, designers and businesses, and in our interactions with the local community. We work with independent, small-production designers that utilize ethical practices. Nearly all of the names we stock are women designers, who often employ women’s cooperatives around the world to execute their handwork. How does your background in jewelry and clothing fabrication influence your curation and management of the shop?
Understanding the process of clothing construction helps me to know how something should look when
On your website, you publish glimpses into the daily lives of the Finefolk team and the local community, from music playlists to interviews with friendly faces and featured designers. How have you seen this community evolve over time?
We are part of a very strong art community by nature of our location in the Crossroads Arts District in Kansas City. When we opened, there wasn’t a lot of retail in our neighborhood, but that has since grown. We’re grateful to be surrounded by independently owned businesses.
L E S L I E
F R A L E Y
[ 4 3 ]
[ 4 4 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
M AUR ICE BL A NK S DESIGNING THE FUTURE WITH BLU DOT FURNITURE. by FR ANK BUR ES / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
Sitting in his Chicago office in spring 2001, Maurice Blanks took a call from a Los Angeles-based telephone number. It was from the producer of a new design show, “Area,” looking for a host. Not long before, the producers at the Style Network had interviewed Blanks about a company he’d started with some college friends called Blu Dot Design—which made simple, modernist chairs, tables and other furniture. Blanks, the network thought, would be the perfect host: tall, photogenic, articulate and with a mind steeped in design history and theory. But he had also recently started his own architecture firm while still working part time for Blu Dot, traveling to Minneapolis on weekends. He had to make a choice. “I said to my wife, ‘It’ll be fun. I’ll go to L.A. for two or three days, and nothing will come of it,’” he recalls. “Then I got offered the deal.” Blanks wound down his architecture firm, and they headed west.
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 45 ]
“Area” was a virtual magazine, with recurring segments on “aspirational house tours,” practical design solutions and product reviews. They filmed a full season, and Blanks felt good about it. It did what they wanted Blu Dot to do: get good design out in the world. But times were changing. America was changing. And it did not want to watch a program at the heart of this kind of “lifestyles-of-the-smart-and-stylish” ethos. Opposite “Area” was another show—“Trading Spaces”—which was becoming wildly popular. In it, neighbors redecorated each others’ homes, and the format centered not around design—but the homeowners’ reaction to it. “That show was really about people and psychology and personalities,” says Blanks. “It wasn’t about design.” Nonetheless, word came down from the network that “Area” was too high-brow, too intellectual and needed to be more like “Trading Spaces.” The word design was to be replaced with decorate in the show’s vocabulary. Blanks was done. But by this time, Blanks and his wife Sally had started looking at apartments in L.A. They had a 10-month-old daughter, and he had no firm to go back to in Chicago. “So I called John [Christakos], and I said, ‘If I’m ever going to return to Blu Dot, now is the perfect time.’” As it happened, their friend—the third Blu Dot founder, Charlie Lazor—wanted to branch off and get back to architecture. Blanks agreed to jump in while Lazor fazed out. But he still had to convince Sally—who
[ 4 6 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
was from Chicago—to move to yet another new city. “I said, ‘It’s not going to be forever,’” Blanks recalls. “The idea was to stay for three to five years, build the business up and see where it was. That was 15 years ago. It took us a little while, but we really came to love it. It’s hard to imagine anything else now.” Blanks is not originally from the Midwest. Most of his youth was spent in the plains of Midland, Texas, where his father worked as a geologist, until high school, when they moved to California. Growing up, Blanks would occasionally play with his dad’s T-square and drawing table, making house plans that he later realized were to scale, if wildly impractical. It wasn’t until he got to Williams College that his interest turned more serious, after an art-history class with a charismatic professor who introduced him to the writings of the patron saint of modernism, Le Corbusier. “That completely changed my life,” Blanks says. “It was transformational. I quickly realized that I wanted to be an architect.” Until then, he had seen buildings as solutions to the problem of weather. But once he started reading Le Corbusier, who called buildings “a machine for living in,” his worldview would never be the same. “Architecture is about society and about our aspirations and about culture,” he says. “Le Corbusier saw it as an instrument of social change. That was such a new thing to me. It was astounding to think about how a building could change cities and culture.” With a mind swimming with new ideas, Blanks graduated in 1987. Two of his best college friends,
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 47]
[ 4 8 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 49 ]
[ 5 0 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 51]
[ 52 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
Christakos and Lazor, went to Japan to teach English for a year. When they finished, Blanks met them in Kyoto, and the three spent the next six months backpacking through Thailand, Nepal and India, staying in dingy hostels with no toilet seats and sleeping on dirty pillows. It was the best time of their lives. “Asia was different than it is now,” Lazor says. “It was less developed. And being immersed in a place where everything was so different had a big impact on me. The way the buildings were built, the way the cities and villages were organized, the way people lived and how they did the daily things of life … it was very much about the built world, the world that people make.” “We were really interested in the built environment,” Blanks remembers. “We’d see some anonymous little building in a town in the Himalayas that was beautifully proportioned, the texture of the brick beautiful—something that wasn’t done by a fancy architect; it was done by somebody in this community, and there was just something elegant about the combinations of the material. We liked those humble, everyday things.” Back in the U.S., the three went their separate ways. Christakos decamped to Minneapolis for a consulting job. Lazor ended up in Phoenix working for an architect, and Blanks went to study architecture in Chicago, where he met Sally, who was his classmate’s sister. The three friends kept in touch, and when Christakos decided to start Blu Dot in 1996, they were all in. Together they designed their first collection of 12 items, and in 1997, they took the ensemble to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. Their line was a huge hit. They left with a long list of orders.
“It was clear that we’d struck a chord,” says Lazor. For most Americans at the time, modern design— with its clean lines and elegant curves—wasn’t all the rage and was hard to come by. To most Americans, midcentury modern felt like being stuck in the Brady Bunch living room, or in a low-tech, less-evolved version of The Jetsons. But a modernist renaissance was beginning, and Minneapolis was the perfect place for it. “There’s been a strong modernist impulse here going all the way back to the Prairie School,” says Larry Millett, author of “Minnesota Modern: Architecture and Life at Midcentury.” Philip Johnson’s IDS Center still towers over the city, and some of the pioneering midcentury architecture firms, like HGA and Close Associates, are still headquartered there today. Toby Rapson, son of modernist master Ralph Rapson, still sells classic modern furniture in the city. “There’s a tradition here,” says Millett. “There’s also a Scandinavian reserve. People like to keep it simple, not overly ornate.” That reserve and practicality made Blu Dot a perfect fit for the city, where it would be based as the modernist tide rose. “The nice thing about being in Minneapolis, and not New York,” says Blanks, “is that you don’t feel like you’re always looking over your shoulder. You can sit down and do your work. We’ve always seen being here as an advantage.” Their reputation grew as modern design became more mainstream. In 1998, one of their coffee tables appeared on “Friends.” (“It didn’t boost our sales,” says Blanks. “But it did boost our egos.”) In 2002, Blu Dot was a finalist for the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. In 2007, “Mad Men” debuted,
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 53 ]
[ 5 4 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 55 ]
[ 5 6 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 57]
[ 5 8 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 59 ]
[ 6 0 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
stoking the flames of midcentury design’s mainstream-culture stylistic revival, and in 2008, the company opened its first store in New York. Even though the opening coincided with the financial crash, the store managed to turned a profit in 2009. “We were definitely in the right place at the right time,” says Lazor. “If we’d started five years earlier, I don’t know if we would have been able to make a business of it. The past midcentury work was just being pulled out of basements, dusted off and recognized for its intelligence and its beauty and attitude. When I got out of architecture school, doing a modern house was a really hard commission to get. Now it’s every day. ” According to Nada Bibi, a designer based in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, about 50 percent of her work is now modern. “Blu Dot is kind of a play on midcentury,” She says. “It’s the contemporary version of Danish modern. They’re taking a bit of a Euro sensibility and making an American version of it.” According to Minneapolis architect Gabriel Keller, the modernist revival is the result of both a demographic and cultural sea change that has seen both young and old people creating spaces that hark back to midcentury in some way. Blu Dot fills a void between the highest-end brand, which most people can’t afford, and Ikea-level products, which most people can afford. “What I appreciate about Blu Dot,” says Keller, “is that they’re designing everything. They’re building quality products, and they’re really hands on. They’re involved. I bet everyone in our office has Blu Dot furniture in their home. They’re part of the design community here. And Minneapolis is known for great design.” In 1997, the three friends started with 12 items. Today they have 150 different designs, as well as 11 stores in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Mexico City, Sydney and elsewhere. In 2018, Blu Dot finally won the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award—for which it was a finalist in 2002—but, in a sense, that isn’t their biggest achievement. “Good design,” says Blanks, “ultimately comes down to thoughtfulness and to the attention that’s put into creating something that exists in the world. It signals that there is something important about it, and that there is something important about our lives. It ties us in, and makes us feel like we’re part of something bigger than just ourselves.” The sign that they have achieved Blanks’ version of “good design” is the fact that their works have endured their “Chicago Eight Box”—an innovative set of shelves and poles—in their first 1997 collection. Unlike “Area” or even “Friends,” it hasn’t met its end. The set is still in their catalog today. When they first looked back to the godfathers of midcentury design for inspiration, they were not only rescuing an elegant piece of the past—but helping to design a piece of the future.
M AU R I C E
B L A N K S
[ 61]
[ 6 2 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
A M A R R I AGE OF TRUE GR IT IN MINNESOTA
TIA AND SOULIYAHN KEOBOUNPHENG OF SILVER COCOON. by JORIE JACOBI / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
On the western edge of North Minneapolis and Golden Valley, husband-wife creative team Tia and Souliyahn Keobounpheng occupy a ’70s-style ranch home in the way that only two architecture-school graduates could. Lined with artwork they’ve made and collected over the years, the home has become a living gallery, bookended by Souliyahn’s wooden-wall texture explorations and Tia’s watercolor paintings. Over time, the property has become further layered with intimate details, like thumbprints left behind by their children on the walls and the expansion of the vegetable garden Souliyahn built with their son Silo in the back yard, who was four at the time. A gleaming silver Airstream they purchased—which served as inspiration for the naming of the couple’s brand—sits along a wooden fence in their backyard, nestled among plants and foliage. Together, Tia and Souliyahn run Silver Cocoon, a moniker encompassing their smorgasbord of creative projects: Tia’s art, design and jewelry practice, as well
as Souliyahn’s art and architecture work. Sometimes they undertake projects together; sometimes they buzz alongside one another, engrossed in their own explorations. In addition to Silver Cocoon, Souliyahn also works full time at a metal-fabrication company, MG McGrath Architectural Surfaces—which, as he says, is not dissimilar to what his wife does in her studio with tiny metal sculptures, albeit on a larger scale. Souliyahn’s litany of credits include designing several private residences, often inspired by midcentury-modern architecture, and among fans of Tia’s jewelry is famed author Cheryl Strayed, also a Minnesota native. Sitting down in their kitchen for an interview, Souliyahn pulls on his short black ponytail and offers dry humor while Tia eagerly gives a tour of their home. One can’t help but think she’d greet any guest—even one who wasn’t there for the express purpose of writing a 2,000-word print-magazine feature—with the same level of vibrance.
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 6 3 ]
We’re gazed upon by one of Souliyahn’s large abstract paintings on wood in the kitchen while their two young children—Silo, now 12, and Veli, 7—play with water guns in the frontyard. It’s the end of April, seventy-five degrees and sunny, but just last weekend, in true Twin Cities fashion, the city was smothered by a blizzard producing two feet of snow—the most they’ve had all winter. There are still piles of it on the streets, some the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, stingily refusing to melt. The couple met here years ago when they were both studying architecture at the University of MinnesotaTwin Cities, when Tia, a junior at the time, had been encouraged by a professor to attend a lecture about the design of the paperclip. Souliyahn had recently graduated with a master’s degree but saw that famous designer Bill Stumpf was lecturing about the Aeron chair and decided to attend. Souliyahn and Tia met afterwards while talking to a mutual friend, on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday morning. “It all started with the paperclip!” Souliyahn wryly jokes. “Tia’s class was encouraged to go to these lectures, and I just didn’t have anything to do on a Saturday.” Souliyahn had been planning to move to one of the coasts, having narrowed down San Francisco, Seattle and New York as possibilities. “He was eyeing New York, because at that time there was nothing keeping him in Minneapolis,” says Tia. “Then once we started dating, we planned to wait one year, so I could finish school. Then we’d move to New York City together.” Souliyahn began working for Tia’s father, renowned architect David Salmela, in Duluth, Minnesota, while she finished her degree. He was the first employee her father had, and what was originally intended to last for one year transformed into a working relationship that has endured nearly two decades. “I don’t think Souliyahn really knew what he was getting into,” Tia says, laughing. “After that—we just never left.” Born in the tiny town of Virginia, Minnesota, on the Iron Range, Tia and her family moved to Duluth when she was 12. Souliyahn, born in Laos to a family of
[ 6 4 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
rice farmers, came to the U.S. in 1979 when he was eight years old, during the Indochina refugee crisis after the Vietnam War. His father served as a clerk in the Laotian army and was forbidden to leave the country, so he sent his wife and children to Thailand, where Souliyahn’s mother is from. The family awaited resettlement in a refugee camp in Thailand while his father took the perilous journey across the Mekong River to get to Thailand, using homemade decoys. “He had a fifty-fifty chance the patrol would shoot at the decoy instead of him,” Tia explains. Souliyahn’s father survived but was immediately sent to a refugee camp in Thailand, where the family joined him. “It’s a common story: refugees escaping Laos at the time to go to Thailand or surrounding countries,” says Souliyahn. When asked about what life was like in the refugee camp, as one of their sons did recently, his answer is surprising, to say the least: “Honestly, I don’t know how to say this. But as a kid—it was fun. We didn’t really know what was going on, and I got to run around and play with all the other kids all day,” he remembers. The family was eventually sponsored by a church in Minneapolis—which may as well have been another planet—where they landed in the dead of winter on Feb. 1, 1979. “Souliyahn sees everything really differently, because of all that,” says Tia. “He has such a fresh perspective.” Souliyahn has since made it a point to absorb as much information as possible about the conflict, among other topics. “He’s not constantly sharing it, but he’s this untapped pool of knowledge. You might be talking to him about a random topic he happens to have researched, and you’ll know 10 times more about it than you did before. He just knows things,” says Tia. Around the time Souliyahn began working with Tia’s father, she decided to embark on a master’s program in design, which she soon found to be an ill-fitting solution. “That became very clear, so I dropped out. I
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 65 ]
[ 6 6 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 67]
[ 6 8 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 6 9 ]
[ 70 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 71]
was really floundering during that time, so I just went back to making things,” she says. She’d been joyfully experimenting with weaving and linoleum-block printing when the September 11th attacks happened, plaguing her with the fear that what she was doing wasn’t practical enough. “I just completely closed up. I thought, ‘I need to get a real job and be responsible.’” She took on a string of jobs in Minneapolis: managing a design shop, crafting showroom settings for IKEA and working for her father among them. She began making jewelry 11 years ago, in 2007, around the time she and Souliyahn had planned to move again—this time, to Portland. Tia’s father, who still employed Souliyahn at the time, awarded him a sizeable raise, which kept them in Minneapolis. “We never made it to New York or Portland,” says Tia. “And for a while, I think we felt that dream had gone unfulfilled. But now we’re happy where we are, settled in this house.” Through the continued process of experimentation, she made her way into laser-cut jewelry made of wood and acrylic, the foundation for the pieces on the Silver Cocoon website, which range from chunky earrings and bracelets to statement necklaces. Bit by bit she kept at it, culminating in a trunk show at the Walker Art Center. It was the push she needed to transform her passion into a business when yet another blow came: the 2008 recession hit, and architects were laid off in droves. “No one was building houses at the time,” Souliyahn explains. “It was pretty rough for a while,” says Tia. “We’ve gotten good at renovations because for many years that was all people were doing, and we took on a lot of smaller projects—which actually made for some of our best work.” Tia kept making jewelry in earnest, trying every possible strategy to transition it into a business while caring for her two young children. Plagued with emotional and physical fatigue, which she later learned was attributed to a bout of postnatal depletion, by 2014 she had grown utterly weary. “I started having really strong
[ 7 2 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
anxiety and panic attacks; I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “Going back to the roots of what Silver Cocoon has always been, for me, is part of what really pulled me out of that place. I started working with metal and received a really competitive grant to help build out that part of my practice. I began to tear down those walls I’d put up, about needing to be practical and responsible. I’ve been working really hard to sift out exterior pressures from interior desires. And I’ve been able to really grow from there.” An influx of jewelry orders came when author Cheryl Strayed posted a photo of Silver Cocoon earrings on Instagram, requesting to know who made them. Strayed had previously come to Minneapolis for a public talk and book signing which Tia and Souliyahn had attended, where they waited in line with hundreds of other people to meet her. Strayed’s talk had focused on her early writing career and life in Portland with her husband, a documentary filmmaker, as they struggled to make ends meet as working artists. It felt much like Tia and Souliyahn’s story. At a crossroads between writing her first book and taking a steady teaching job, Strayed shared with the audience that it was unlikely she’d have the capacity to write what became her enormously successful memoir, “Wild,” if she’d taken the teaching job. “She talked about how our energy is finite: what we give of ourselves to one thing takes it away from something else. That really resonated with me. It was so powerful,” says Tia. She had brought a special pair of earrings she’d made for Strayed, who graciously thanked her upon receiving them. Then, in May of the following year, Tia got a text from a friend, imploring her to check her Instagram page. “Cheryl had posted a picture of herself wearing the earrings I’d made with a caption asking who’d made them. I posted back, and within a few minutes she had placed an order. I couldn’t believe it!” Tia recounts. They’ve since continued a mutually fruitful
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 7 3 ]
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 75 ]
[ 76 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 7 7]
[ 7 8 ]
A L I V E
M AG A Z I N E
partnership—Tia even designed the piece Strayed wore for a televised interview with Oprah. Souliyahn says his own path—or a stumble, as he calls it—that led him into the design field began during long hours in the art room at school. Upon moving to the U.S., his parents found work and focused their efforts on gathering basic living expenses, while the children were thrust headfirst into the American publicschool system. They had to quickly learn English and also negotiate between the cultures at school and at home. The language barrier was isolating, which led him to spend extended time in the school’s art room, where he’d draw, paint and craft pieces out of clay. He attended community college after high school until a few friends, who’d gone on to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, encouraged him to apply to the school’s architecture program. The first time he applied, his application was rejected—which led him to attend a portfolio review held by Dennis Grebner, who would later become his professor. Grebner told him that he had the skills to be an architect, but that architecture was really about learning to communicate through design more than anything else, which his portfolio needed to reflect. “The next year, I got in,” says Souliyahn. In school, he was exposed to great architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Antoni Gaudi, whose works continue to inspire his own. As he gained knowledge and skill, the endeavor to become an architect unveiled itself as a much deeper journey than he’d originally anticipated. “Design is a cumulative process,” he says. “As you absorb more information, knowledge and experience, it shows up in your designs as you mature. Architects are really at their peak around age 50 or 60, when people in most other professions are retiring.” “What was the other thing that your professor told you?” Tia asks Souliyahn, quizzically. “What did he tell me? He told me a lot of things,” he answers, laughing. “The thing about how basically anyone can be an architect.” “Ah. Right. Dennis always told me that with architecture, to be successful, you really have to put in the time. You may have an innate skill or talent, but if you don’t put in the time, you’re not going to go anywhere. And if you don’t have the skill, but you put in the time, you might.” The concept exemplifies the kind of faith required to make successful art that led Tia to her current watercolorflow practice, in which she creates a new painting every day. She says it conjures a similar effect to yoga or meditation, forcing her to stay in the present moment. Looking at the paintings, you can see her reaching for a kind of freedom in each brush stroke. “If the moment is all you have, you can’t project too far out. You can’t think to yourself, ‘I’ll get that when I’m 65.’ You might not make it to 65. Instead, I try to focus on what I can work on today.” With their tightly wound family unit, they’re free to enjoy the sun, harvest vegetables from their garden, watch their children grow and continue tackling life’s larger questions, transforming into their own answers. “I remember very consciously thinking about how so often, people get a secure job that they might not love, but that they can handle doing for a number of years before they retire and pursue their passions,” says Tia. “I kept thinking, ‘Why wouldn’t you just find a way to do what you want to do and make it work?’ Making things brings me closer to my purpose,” she concludes, affirmatively. “Right,” her husband adds. “And if you’re doing something you really enjoy, you might not even want to retire. You don’t need a 401k, because you’re going to work until you die, doing what you love.”
T I A
&
S O U L I Y A H N
K E O B O U N PH E N G
[ 7 9 ]
Before the bombs & the fallout
by JACQUI GER MAIN
Our love, when it comes back, comes in the shape of a rusted car with the wheels hanging off, an engine that still starts & swallows dust but only after the fourth try. When our love comes back, it’s a swarm of bees in both my ears & your ears, in both my throat & your throat, our two heads swollen finally with forgiveness, so much that all we have left to do is watch. & touch. Our love comes back in the middle of the night like an old abandoned factory on the edge of town—how I should’ve been scared of the dark, but I wasn’t; how we could’ve walked past, but we didn’t; how nothing in the building worked, but some of the machinery was still there; how your laughter filled a room we couldn’t see the end of; how the dust made everything look like a war had just blown in through the windows; how we looked for blood & bodies & found neither; how you touched me gently, in celebration of this: of the broken windows swollen with dust, of the bees stuck in all our old gears, of the rusted engine that does not work, but is still there. When it comes back, our love bites your shoulder, becomes the moonlight, thankful the war has ended & we still have both our hands. Our love feels around in the dust for the levers it still remembers, wants to know what it felt like before the bombs & the fallout, before our bones became lost people looking for a new place to call home.
Jacqui Germain is a St. Louis-based poet and freelance writer, with work appearing in several literary journals, anthologies and media outlets. She is the author of “When the Ghosts Come Ashore,” published in 2016 through Button Poetry/Exploding Pinecone Press, and has received fellowships from Callaloo, the Poetry Foundation’s Emerging Poets Incubator and Jack Jones Literary Arts.
VOLUME 17 ISSUE 3
$12