ART Habens Art Review - Autumn 2014

We glad to announce the winners of the third edition of ART Habens: this season edition has focused on a recurrent paradox in contemporary art: the vague and ambiguous but thoroughly entrenched boundaries between the different practices of new media.

In particular, we have selected artists dealing with process-driven changes in our society, who pair their observations with new media technologies to produce their art projects: this competition aims to give the impetus and opportunity to artists (fine art, media, architecture, design, music, theatre, visual communication etc.) to work between the boundaries of Contemporary Art.

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While some people plan on being a photographer, others are just destined to become one.Michael Nelson was raised amongst backgrounds such as German Gothic Churches and Baltimore’s urban landscape in the 60’s; he is inspired by the lush, romantic visions of Pino Daen, and the pure expressions of life by Monet and Andrew Wyeth. He has always been seeing, dreaming, imagining, and exploring. The result is an elaborately picturesque, mysterious, and passionate expression of his love for life.

"I am one of the rare people who can say that they have a degree in fiber. What initially swayed my interest towards the discipline is its attention to the handmade and concepts of accumulation. In college, we learned the quintessential process of making cloth: spinning fiber into yarn, and then weaving (or knitting, macramé, etc) yarn into cloth. This lineage of points to line to plane encompasses the foundations of visual thinking. These ideas can easily penetrate someone's practice. In my case, its relation to writing sparks my continual interest in the fiber field. "

Cairn's artwork explores the junction between technology and biology.

The dichotomy between organic and inorganic is in a constant exciting stage, especially in today’s contemporary tech driven culture. Excitement, sublimity, distrust, frustration, humor, and joy are presented in John’s multimedia workings. He often uses accessible technologies and natural objects in collaboration to communicate failed ambition.

4 Michael Nelson

Hannah

Daniel Bourke

Despite my work being about the contemporary experience of technology I am inspired by a range of different artists from a range of different eras. For instance the way I build up the layers in my work is heavily influence by my study of the Flemish old masters at the same time I am influence by the way contemporary artists such as Benjamin Edward’s utilize code and technological symbols in their work.

Anita Wexler

Wexler creates semi-abstract figurative work that expresses her inner emotions.She is not afraid put in the forefront her sadness, pleasure, pain and love that she has experienced in her life. Whether creating delicate details to express lovely moments or slinging paint as hard as she can to create the mood of harsh heartache.

Wexler is out to turn herself inside out to release both the demons and delights. She has exhibited in New York City, Florida, Indiana, New Jersey and many other states.

Cinema today has become toorealist : going in a metro station brings us more wonder than a well-developped french movie.Video however permits us to gobeyond today's cinema conditions bycreating emotions on the basis of atotally inventedvirtual - realitywhich has little to do with our everyday life experience. This is maybe what Husserl called transcendentalism.

"It all starts with who i'm listeningto. I'm aware enough in my own abilities to knowthat if i'm hooked on a certain album or even anindividual track, there's a reason for it. When Ihave no intention of picking up an instrument,that's when I know i'm ready to listen andsponge it all up. I've had my fill when somethingi've been listening to or something i've come upwith keeps running through my head."

Eveline de Lange was born at Wateringen, the Netherlands in 1986. She graduated in Design for Virtual Theatre and Games, at the Uteaht School of the Arts.

Her works are mainly paintings, painting with oil paint and painting with a needle, and the combination of the the two.

Michael Nelson Michael Nelson Michael Michael

While some people plan on being a photographer, others are just destined to become one.

Michael Nelson was raised amongst backgrounds such as German Gothic Churches and Baltimore’s urban landscape in the 60’s; he is inspired by the lush, romantic visions of Pino Daen, and the pure expressions of life by Monet and Andrew Wyeth. He has always been seeing, dreaming, imagining, and exploring. The result is an elaborately picturesque, mysterious, and passionate expression of his love for life.

Knowing early that he couldn’t sit still at a desk long enough to work a typical corporate job, Michael became a firefighter/EMT. As the lieutenant in charge, he learned to make life and death decisions in an instant when he arrived at a scene. Maturity, responsibility, and quick thinking are not optional in such a position. He considers them just as vital on the photo set when the client is counting on him to come through.

Through these other pursuits, the love of photography remained a constant. Michael took a part time job at a camera store and set out to learn all he could about the craft. Once an instructor explained the relationship between aperture and shutter speed, the proverbial light bulb went off. Soon, he was the one teaching the class.

One constant in all his endeavors has been Michael’s love of people. His effervescent personality and off the wall sense of humor have gained him access not only to interesting places but also interesting people, allowing him to tell the stories others might have missed. Perhaps this is why he is often commissioned to shoot images for book covers by the publishing industry.

Michael has spent the past few years refining his vision, expanding his personal portfolio, and focusing on a celebration of life. This new work is intimate, romantic, timeless and painterly, combining his unique understanding of light with his enigmatic view of the world.

In his latest work, Michael explores the concept of modernity, femininity, romance, and the changing course of photography. Borrowing tender, yet awkward poses from artists such as Rene Dijkstra, and employing lighting more familiar to old master painters, Michael’s photographs are a story that erases cliché. Michael’s only fear is mediocrity, and his approach to life and work is the same — full of humor, spontaneity, and a lot of passion.

Solitary Dancer, from Before the Curtains series

Michael Nelson

ART Habens

video, 2013

Michael Nelson

Bridget #1, a figure study

An interview with An with

Hello Michael, and welcome to ART Habens. To start this interview, would you like to tell to our readers something about your background? I have read that you have worked as a firefighter lieutenant in charge, and I guess that this intense experience has impacted on the way you work.

Well, I think I was always interested in photography, but the chance to pursue it came later in life. Most firefighters work a second job on their off days, so I owned my own sailing business, learned to fly a plane (the small kind), and became a PADI scuba diver. But photography remained an interest.

Finally, I bought some equipment and took a class. When the relationship between aperture and shutter speed was explained, the proverbial light went off. I taught myself everything else by trial and error. My interest in photography kept growing, and I kept shooting.

One of the good things about my time in public service was saving lives, helping bring life into the world at birth, or even offering comfort and care as they were leaving the world. I saw people at their worst and at their best, and at their most vulnerable.

The death of a young girl in my arms was a turning point for me. This beautiful girl had so much life in front of her, but it was wasted by driving too fast and not wearing a seatbelt after a day at the lake.

So in photography I choose to focus on the beauty in life, the strength, the fragility, the vulnerability. Currently I am focusing on celebrating femininity.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks?

In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on in your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and

during the process of creating a piece?

As a firefighter and EMT, the key to being able to save a life or contain a fire is knowing that any equipment you might need is available along with the personnel to use it. I guess this has translated into my shoots.

I put the all tools and the team in place that I will need for the shot I have planned, and more importantly, for the ones I haven’t. The equipment trailer is modeled after grip trailers from the film industry and allows me to have the majority of my equipment with me no matter where I am shooting.

Michael Nelson Michael Nelson

Michael Nelson

ART Habens

Michael Nelson

Bobby Barnett, from Before the Curtains series

When planning a shoot, first I develop a basic concept and feel for the shoot. Then I work with my creative partner (and wife) Andrea and my Creative/First Assistant, Haylee Anne to determine the type of model I want, whether to shoot on location or in a studio setting, and the types of wardrobe, props and sets. Then we pull the team together from assistants, stylists, makeup artists, etc. I’ve been blessed to have a great team really come together in the past few years, and the consistency has really helped.

I bring a lot of energy to the shoot, and on set, Andrea says that I bypass my brain and shoot straight from the heart. I guess this is true. I look for the connection with the subject, to break down the walls and have them become a bit vulnerable. I don’t look for people to pose, but just to be. I want to see something through the lens that makes me want to know more about them, to tell their story.

The best shoots for me are when the talent drops the walls and lets me in, lets me see a little of who they really are. This visual conversation that I am able to have is a very personal and intimate experience for me. When this happens, I fall completely in love with them (artistically) for sharing a part of themselves with me.

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from your series entitled Before the Curtain that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://michaelnelson.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

I photographed some projects with some models who were also dancers. I loved their sense of their bodies, their fluidity and gracefulness. Andrea was

Michael Nelson

a dancer when she was in school, and so her point of view was enlightening.

We connected with the Atlanta Ballet, and the marketing director was open to collaboration. I had unfettered access to the dancers during rehearsals and performances.

I found that the view from the wings, from backstage before the curtain rose to be the most

interesting. I took advantage of having great theatrical lighting, makeup and costumes and just had to capture what I saw. I spent two years like a kid in a candy store. I couldn’t shoot fast enough.

I had the honor of photographing Bobby Barnett’s last year with the ballet. The respect and admiration the dancers had for this ballet legend was obvious. One of my favorite images

ART Habens

Michael Nelson

Nature Observations Series 1 of 10 HD Video January 2013 - April 2014

Backstage #3

Michael Nelson

from Before the Curtains series

is Jessica and Bobby. Her body language was so beautiful as she stood there taking critique and direction about a specific combination. To me this image epitomizes the relationship between director/choreographer and dancer, and the emotion in that moment is what got to me.

There is a duality in dancers that intrigued me. They look so fragile, but they are tough as nails. At one point in Giselle’s Act One Variation, one of my favorites was dancing Giselle. During the "dreaded 'hops en pointe” she hopped on pointe over 30 times without coming down. I thought she was angelic as she floated across the stage. Then she exited into the wings beside me. She threw herself on the floor, pulled her leg all the way over her head to relieve the cramping and cursed until the air turned blue! I couldn’t believe my angel even knew those words, much less that would they come out of her mouth!

I have books of film from those 2 years. Everywhere I turned there was something to see, a story I wanted to tell. It is a different world - a sweaty, beautiful, painful, graceful, agonizing, lovely, tough and tender world.

A feature that I recognize in your "Schoolyard Tribute" series is the perception of the common in our environment and the challenging of it in order to create a new multitude of points of views: so I would stop for a moment to consider the "function" of the landscape, which most of the times seems to be just a passive background... I'm sort of convinced that some information & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

This was actually part of a commercial shoot for an

Michael Nelson

educational software company. The schools we photographed in and around ranged from very modern with the best technology in affluent California suburbia to inner city Baltimore with no computers at all.

Needing to scout the school before our shoot, we went to the office to notify the staff of our arrival, but there was a situation there. A gentleman – teacher or counselor – was sitting on an old wooden bench explaining to a young boy that he was not going home that day. Apparently he was being moved into foster care

and away from an abusive parent. The child’s face is still with me to this day.

I think I took his pain with me and decided to shoot some for myself while I was there. I’m not sure what I was seeing when I was photographing, but I know what I was feeling. Even the playground equipment seemed foreboding and almost threatening. I wasn’t sure if the “landscape” of the schoolyard was there to protect or to imprison, but the contrast between the cold chain link and metal spiked fences and the simple playground equipment

ART Habens

Michael Nelson

Accidental Sculpture

Drawing from Stelarc

Sliding Board #1

was jarring to me. It didn’t feel right, so I tried to make sense of it with the camera.

Then I saw the “memorial” painted on the basketball court. It was tough to face, that loss of innocence. So I guess I have to leave it up to the viewer to try to decrypt the images. I’m still trying to do the same thing.

How big is the impact of digital technologies as digital editing in your process? By the way, do you think that nowadays there still exists a dichotomy between art and technology?

The technology is just a tool. Light, whether it comes from the sun, strobes, tungsten, candles or car headlights is still light that can be captured. A camera is a camera, a tool to capture a moment, a feeling, an expression or a simple composition whether film, digital, pinhole or an old Polaroid.

That being said, I am old school and do still shoot most of my personal work in film. It does capture the light differently – not better – but differently than digital. Color negative film has a magnificent tonal range. I even shoot some old expired film and love the results. And black and white film is just different than a digital shot converted to black and white. I still process my own black and white film to get the results I am looking for.

We do combine analog with digital in that I scan all of my negatives and then use archival digital output. I do love the wide choice of papers and inks that are available now. But with negatives, I can always go into the darkroom if I want.

I do think that as a photographer, you should have the ability to capture at least your basic intention, especially your lighting. I really can’t stand to hear “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it in PhotoShop,” even in my commercial work.

There are digital artists where the computer and software are their tools used to completely

transform or combine images, and I respect that. And I of course perform basic retouching on my images, sometimes more on commercial work if the clients requests. From a fine art perspective, I think it is a matter of being honest about it. But I do see digital prints hanging in museums now, and I think that the final image is paramount, no matter what technology was or was not used to create it.

Your latest works explore the concept of modernity, femininity, romance, and the changing course of photography as in 407 West Howard. One of the features of this interesting series that has mostly impacted on me is the capability of creating a deep involvement in the viewers, prescinding from the "initial background"... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

No. For me at least, my creative process is always linked to direct experience. I have been preparing for a shoot that I have upcoming this week for over 20 years. The last shoot and tomorrow always influence the shoot that I am working on. Andrea says she sees experiences that I had as a child reflected in my work.

The experience of photographing, the act of creating the image is almost more important to me than the final result. I know that sounds strange, but I get such a rush out of shooting that for the first few days afterwards, the images are secondary. I can’t appreciate my own work until I get some distance from it, because I view it through the lens of the shooting experience, not from an objective perspective. When one of my team is later working with an image, then I will see it with fresh eyes and be able to decide if I like it, if I did what I intended (or hopefully more than I intended), and what the next shoot that proceeds from it will be.

I know that the experience of the viewer is different than mine. I think that is a good thing. We did an experimental project one time in

collaboration with a friend of mine, Chuck Holmes, who is a writer. I gave him a group of images, and asked him to write about them. We produced it in a volume called Small Stories, where he took about 30 images and wrote a few lines of free verse telling the story he saw in each image.

It was fascinating to see how his experience of the image was so very different from mine in creating it. (You can preview on Blurb here: http://blur.by/112sPAn)

Another interesting project of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled "Mississippi Blues"; the pieces from this series seem to focus on moments of physical or emotional tension between people. What attracts you to these moments? Do you intervene when you are shooting to stimulate tension or do you take more of a ‘fly on the wall’ approach?

Mississippi Blues was a personal and

ART Habens

Michael Nelson

Sunlight Dreams from the 407 west Howard series

photographic adventure. As a musician, I have always loved and been influenced by the music born of this place. When the opportunity arose, I grabbed Andrea, the college age daughter of a friend and a Hungarian flight attendant who was one of my models and headed to the delta.

I wanted the stories, the experiences, the music, so I listened in order to achieve that goal. I became the audience, letting these people tell –and play - their stories. It’s not about being a fly on the wall; it’s about having a conversation. In general, I like to capture people as they are, to have them lower the wall and show me something about themselves. Then hopefully I can show them something about themselves that they might not have known was there. Sometimes I do have to prod a bit, force them to be slightly uncomfortable. I think the passion I have for shooting helps in this regard. Passion is contagious, and I put everything I have out there, put my heart on the table so to speak.

By the way, I daresay that there always seems to be a sense of narrative in your images. How much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your projects?

Wow, that’s tough. I’m glad that you perceive a sense of narrative in my work, but I don’t know if I have ever achieved it. I have managed bits and pieces, some individual frames from the movie so to speak, but I don’t feel that I have ever truly been able to relate the story that I see in my heart.

I remember the rock stars of the 60’s not wanting to just write single songs, but entire operas. Every song was a bit of the story, but they wanted to tell the whole tale. Even before The Who came out with Tommy, Ray Davies with the Kinks wrote a rock opera called Preservation. It just never made it out into the general public. (There was no internet back then!)

I take 2 different approaches. Sometimes, as in the projects you have highlighted, I play the role of documentarian or visual biographer. I want to capture people as they are.

In some of my newer work celebrating femininity, I mentally and emotionally cast my subjects in a role. I will look at a woman and in

my mind I see her as ___. Fill in the blank. Here I pull images from my past, from the world, from movies or songs. In these cases I do set the narrative. I want to push people into these roles, set the scene, and have them help me interpret my heart. Often I fail.

During your 25 years career your works have been exhibited in several occasions and moreover your pieces are often seen on book and magazine covers. It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

I don’t think about creating art – I create photographs. I think that where on the spectrum of commerce and art that image falls is up to the viewer. When does a product shot become a still life? Does the fact that you are being paid to create an image preclude it from being art?

I hope that my images are appreciated by either the commercial or the art world, but I don’t create an image with the expectation of an award. I just love the act of photographing.

Thanks for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Michael. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I am working on an ongoing series called Breaking Boundaries about young women, their self-perceptions, and the image that society tends to want to impose on them. And I am continuing a series of figure studies, celebrating the female form, and exploring iintimacy, vulnerability and femininity.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator, arthabens@mail.com

Frank Frost #4” from “Mississippi Blues

Hannah Hiaasen Hannah Hiaasen Hiaasen Hiaasen

Six punctuators punctuating for nine minutes

Performed on a chalk-glazed rectangle

Performed at Maryland Institute College of Art's

Black Box Theater, April 28, 2014

Performed by seven people

:

Hannah Hiaasen

Megan Armstrong

Dani Burke

Grace Davis

Zoe Graham

Kat Kinnick

Lee Heinemann

Video Documentation by Sara Sowell

PUNCTUATE, a performed poem

"Lately, I had been spending a lot of timestaring at paragraphs: feeling the texture of the textand punctuation intermingling"

Hannah Hiaasen

ART Habens

video, 2013

(Hannah Hiaasen)

PUNCTUATE, a performed poem

Maryland Institute College of Art's Black Box Theater, April 28, 2014

An interview with with

Hello Hannah, and a warm welcome to ART Habens. To start this interview would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, you hold a Bachelors of Fine Art in Fiber, that you recently received from the Maryland Institute College of Art: how much does this experience impact on the way you conceive your works?

Hello. Yes, I am one of the rare people who can say that they have a degree in fiber. What initially swayed my interest towards the discipline is its attention to the handmade and concepts of accumulation. In college, we learned the quintessential process of making cloth: spinning fiber into yarn, and then weaving (or knitting, macramé, etc) yarn into cloth. This lineage of points to line to plane encompasses the foundations of visual thinking. These ideas can easily penetrate someone's practice. In my case, its relation to writing sparks my continual interest in the fiber field. I come from a family of English teachers, journalists, novelists, and lawyers: people devoted to the craft of writing. I grew up thinking that reading the written word is the most effective way for information to travel.

I feel like there is a lot to a written language that cannot be fully felt or understood by just reading it. When I work with my hands, especially weaving (because of its relation to writing) I feel like I've gotten closer to that full understanding of the signified. Weaving and writing are so similar because writing is a collection of lines on a page-- just as a weaving is a collection of threads in a pliable plane. It's a very very very old kind of handwriting (pre-ceramic).

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your works? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

I'm a big note-taker… in any location: sometimes even at the bar when talking to people. Information has to travel through my hands in order for me to fully obtain it. I feel like I'm harvesting up for winter. I rewrite and re-read and re-word to the nth degree before I commit to a performance or sculpture.

Hannah Hiaasen is the creator of Studio HH. She is an multidisciplinary artist who works between the visual and textual. Lately, the studio has been focusing on translating words on a page to people on a stage by relating patterns in textiles with patterns in speech and movement. From page to stage, studio HH's work spans across fields such as sculpture, weaving, visual poetry, and performance.

HH is driven by the pleasure of brushing. A brush is a repetitive touch in motion-scrapings, mingling, stroking, grazings: gentle collisions of forms: threads brush, objects brush, words brush, sounds brush, people brush.

Hannah Hiaasen

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from PUNCTUATE an interesting experimental work that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to visit your website directly at http://studiohh.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

PUNCTUATE is a poem and a performance. The poem dually acts as a choreographic notation for a collection of movements triggered by the punctuation and a poem.

Early this year, I stumbled on an essay by Theodor W. Adorno called Punctuation marks on UBUweb. Adorno argues an overuse of punctuation while listing poetic descriptions of each mark such as: "an exclamation point looks like an index finger raising in warning"… "a question mark looks like a flashing light, or a blink of an eye" and "a semi colon looks like a drooping mustache". Pretty great, right? Punctuation signifies silence in a spoken sentence. They seem like underdogs-voiceless. I wanted to create a gestural platform for them.

In regards to that gesture, around the same time, I was reading Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton, a favorite of mine. She breezes through a general history of typography mentioning the boundaries between hand and machine, organic and geometric, the human body and abstract system. She mentions the visual origins of words stemming from gestures of the body. These ideas developed the beginning stages of PUNCTUATE's choreography. I like imagining letters and punctuation marks existing as people moving with, stumbling on, settling into, brushing against each other: mingling, stroking, rubbing, squeezing, twisting, bending, perching, sipping and swabbing in space. One of the features that has mostly impacted on me of your approach, is the way you have been capable of re-contextualizing the dichotomy between visuals and sound, as in the interesting Monotone Monologues: I would go as far as to state that you Art in a certain sense forces the viewers' perception in order to

challenge the common way to perceive our environment... I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

This question is pulling me towards talking about humor as a way of revealing vulnerability. I definitely do not know enough to really begin a real discussion on why anyone laughs, or what

makes something funny, but I'm sure most of us would agree that humor is often used as coping mechanism. Monotone Monologues dip into an comedic absurdity level that is made uncomfortable with melancholy. This character has a heightened sense of touch paired with skewed boundaries of intimacy padded with my personal loneliness. Monotone Monologues bare a hefty load of honesty. This is as close to the bone as I've ever gotten in portraying such a personal level in a performance. At the moment, it's really as far as I can go. In regards to the tail end of that question, for my own sake, I'm constantly digging and observing

Monotone Monologues in monochrome minimally manipulate the monotonous mundane. They are a live series that have been performed at the Brooklyn Art space, NY (2013), LabBodies, Baltimore, MD (2014), and The Bunker Projects, Pittsburgh, PA (2014).

Another interesting work of yours that has particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Oral Exercises. By the way, I strongly believe that interdisciplinary collaboration today is an ever growing force in the all form of Art... I would go as far as to state that our traditional distinction between different disciplines fields is rapidly breaking apart, making room for cross-platform projects, as experimental cinema and video art, that question the authority of each classification... And I daresay that most exciting things happen when

creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project...

I agree on the point that borders between disciplines are disappearing. I think concrete poetry is a perfect example of this. The reader becomes the viewer, the words become performers, the poem becomes a performance, the page becomes the stage. Everything switches around. Oral Exercises stems directly from these ideas. The work is a dance, a series of sounds, prints, poems and instructions used to underline the sexuality of speaking-- a mouth's muscular exercises. I

can't imagine it any other way.

ART Habens

Hannah Hiaasen

Oral Exercises is a collection of dances comprised of words as performers. Those words are brush, shuck, husk, flesh, fish, flush, chosen for their sonic unity. Each exercise is stenciled with powdered graphite onto a singular wall. Paired with this ephemeral installation, an audio recording of an androgynous voice annunciates the exercises on repeat.

MINIMAL ANIMAL is a six person weaving performed on a grid. Each performer is responsible for singing MINIMAL inevitably passes through ANIMAL and ANIMAL through MINIMAL.

performers: Courtney Cooper, Marissa Fein, Kate FitzGerell, Zoe Graham, Kathe Kacxmarzyk, Helen Steggall

Multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your approach and I have highly appreciate the way you are capable of creating such an effective symbiosis between elements from different techniques,manipulating language as in Bitchy Teeth and re-contextualizing images and concepts, as in the extremely stimulating work entitled Desk Exercises which has particularly impressed me: while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

Yes, definitely. When mixing mediums, at the moment, I am interested in borrowing rules from one medium and applying them to another such as weaving. This might be a good time to actually describe what weaving is, to people who

are unfamiliar. To weave is to interlace horizontal (weft) threads through vertical (warp) threads at a right angle. Variations of this plain weave result in patterns. In Desk Exercise, I take a vignette of text, break it down into a spoken sequence between three people using a balanced weaving pattern. So the order of speaking is {1,2,3,2} on repeat until we have run out of words from the vignette. The vignette written is {Our legs are sweating together under the desks as we take the oral exam. The exam is an exercise for our hands and mouths. It ends only when we have reached completion.}. Major sexual undertones which are subdued during the jumbled performance.

The performance is done with three school desks (borrowed from a local school) with scripts written on typical lined paper. In my education, especially in foreign language classes, I was told

Hannah Hiaasen

Bitchy teeth, Installation, detail

vocabulary words 20x and then we would recite them 20x with my class. Repetition was THE way to engrain knowledge. These repeats and sequences bonded the performers together. We relied on each other's vocal speed, and pronunciation abilities because our choreography was so specific. I don't think that could have been achieved without either of those regiments.

During these years your works have been exhibited in several occasions and you recently had the solo Oral Exercises at the Pinkard Gallery, Baltimore. Moreover, I think it's important to remark that you have been awarded as well... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a professor months ago. She had a brilliant idea to stop recommending artists to students who were

doing similar projects to them, but to start recommending artists who make the opposite kind of work. I loved that idea-- the best compliment. I'm still searching for my opposite, so I've got some work to make for sure.

I'm kind of dancing around the question because I think I may be too young to answer, too young to answer and not feel like I'm jinxing anything, you know?

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Hannah. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Yes. I've been following up on a shower brainstorm idea. By shower brainstorm, I mean I had the idea in the shower. The idea is to have a night (or a day) of poetry readings and performances in the Baltimore aquarium. There are many rhythmic resemblances to speech and water, and characteristic resemblances between humans and fish that should be explored. Baltimore is one of those cities where people are down for just about anything, as an audience and as artists. Experiencing both realms, I am very excited.

More private projects on the horizon are:

-looping tapes to create an assemblage of sound. I've been collecting sounds of loops (steps walking in a loop), diving in the relationship between sound and textile.

-writing a play consisting of a conversation between 2 printers-- a video of two printers printing out a dialogue about a dislike towards sans serif fonts (as for now).

-making a shag rug that (when rubbed) speaks

In terms of shows, I am a part of a juried exhibition at School33 coming up, in Baltimore, which is where some of my favorite local artists are attached to. I am very honored to be entering their atmosphere.

I'm embarking on some performative collaborations that will stretch me far-- I am pretty fearful of them. Some will occur at a new space in Baltimore called The BB (or the vest, for short) in collaboration with Lucas Harroldson and Kate O'Brien. Great artists I cannot wait to create with. That's kind of all for now.

ART Habens Hannah Hiaasen

Pile of Sentences, 2014

Digitally printed linen, 8.5"x11"x3", written contents in a woven form: sound documentation.

Desk Exercise, Performance

This work combines the repetition of a learning regiment with a weaving vernacular. Weaving, a form of clothmaking, involves interlacing horizontal (weft) threads though vertical (warp) threads. It is a way of ordering a lines to create a plane. This order directs the sequence of speech for each desk's pile of exercises.

Performers: Jasmine Cindy, Lee Heinemann, Hannah Hiaasen

Materials: school desks, loom benches, notebook paper

September through December of 2015, I will be at the Bunker Projects in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania doing a residency encapsulating the production and release of a smart textile-based project.

Essentially, I am weaving a large shag rug (part wool, part conductive thread) embedding soft circuits within the weave structure, so when touched, stroked, grazed, or brushed, it will make a noise. At the Bunker projects, there is a labor exchange program for other artists and students to engage in. So, it will be a community production process. A lot remains to be

researched, but overall, I am interested in people becoming writers with their bodies. It's a collective poetry project triggered by touch.

I am really looking forward to it. What's especially lovely, is right that right after the residency, I am off to the Vermont Studio Center for 2 weeks of blissful making of who-knows-what. That's my future.

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator arthabens@mail.com

ART Habens

Hannah Hiaasen

John Cairns John Cairns

John Cairns grew up in Willowick, a small suburb on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. John gained an appreciation for art, nature, and industry during his youth from his grandmother, Eleanor. He earned an Associate’s degree in Graphic Communication Technologies from Columbus State Community College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ohio State University with a focus on Art and Technology, and a Master of Fine Arts with a concentration on Electronic Art from the University of Cincinnati.

Currently Mr. Cairns is employed as the Admissions Counselor for Graduate Studies at Columbus College of Art & Design’s Master of Fine Art in Visual Arts: New Projects program and lives in Dublin, OH with his lovely wife, Holly, and their mischievous cat, Proteus.

His artwork explores the junction between technology and biology.

The dichotomy between organic and inorganic is in a constant exciting stage, especially in today’s contemporary tech driven culture. Excitement, sublimity, distrust, frustration, humor, and joy are presented in John’s multimedia workings. He often uses accessible technologies and natural objects in collaboration to communicate failed ambition.

Hobbyist Operating Theater, Live Performan

John Cairns

video, 2013

ce with electronics, May 2013

John Cairns

ART Habens

Wind Wheat Machine, 10x10x17”

January 2012

Audience's Breath, Clear Acrylic, Plastic Gears, Servo Motor, Brass Rods, Paper, Wheat Stalks, Wind Sensor, Arduino Micro Controller, Wires, Bread Board

An interview with with

Hello John, and a warm welcome to ART Habens. To start this interview would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, you gained an appreciation for art from his grandmother and then studied in many universities, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ohio State University and a Master of Fine Arts with a concentration on Electronic Art the University of Cincinnati: how much have these experiences impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks and on your evolution as an artist?

Hello. It is great to be apart of the Art Habens experience and thank you for this wonderful opportunity. I believe experiences greatly influence my artwork. By looking at my current situations, external influences, and my past, which includes family, friends, and education, my work evolves. My earlist memory of artistic training came form my family, especially my grandmother who taught me how to draw and paint the industrial, natural, and supernatural scenes of Cleveland, Ohio.

From an ealry age I had a basic understanding of the technical foundations of art making, but it is in school were I developed an appreciation of mechanics and the digital world, as well as a love for heavy reserach. In my studies I constantly challenged myself with new software and hardware. The instructors at the Ohio State and UC gave me the technical training in digital production and enlightened me about commenting on the new materials that I work with. This made sense and as I continue to study, I use the materials to communicate a message, but also allow for the the natural narration of materials to present themselves.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

I work on the extreme ends of the technical process. On one end, I work quickly with fimiliar found materials creating narratives that are distrubted digitally through social media series. This type of work allows for play and

randomness while also allowing my hands to keep working with accessible materials. An example of this can be seen in the work Straw Sculptures Series.

Simultaneously I am also conceputlazing, planning, researching, producing, and installing artwork that takes 3, 6, to 12 months or longer to bring to fruition. It is also important for these projects to challenge the conventional systems and to work with unfimiliar materials or technqiues. Because working with unfimiliar systems is difficult, it is nessecary to work in a studio environment researching materials and techniquies

John Cairns John Cairns

John Cairns

(photo by Karl Allsop)

but also I need to go outside the studio space and seek the expertise/collaboration of multiple disiplines. These larger works need the suggestions of Biologists, Medical Doctors and Nurses, Engineers, Performers, Directors, Community Leaders, Programmers, and Skilled Technicans to bring the Frankenstienen creations to life. I must state because of the online ability to access communities’ diverse knowledge and assistance this parctice of exploration has worked for me but it is not only digital presence where the relationships are buregoning. I must put in the ground work and reserach a visit to experts seeking advice and collaboration for a variety of work. Examples of this form of work can be seen in the Hobbyist Operating Theatre, Observation Series, and the Wind Wheat Machine.

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from Hobbyist Operating, that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://johncairnsart.com/index.html in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

I typically use inductive reasoning in conjunction with material studies to start a work. The Hobbyist Operating Theatre was inspired by a personal family account when my Grandmother suffered heart faliure and was misdiagnosed. I believed in the transhuman theory at the time but after the misdiagnosis started questioning the portrait of positivity in technology sustaining humans past biological functions. It was not only the ethical question of whether it is just to never allow a human biology to fail but also the question of the general populations’ ability to access new techologies. Who can obtain new life saving materials and what are the ethics involved in the distubution of life extending technologies? Failure was also very important for the conceputal and technical process of The Hobbyist Operating Theater. While researching medical procedures and medical technologies I began to understand faliure and it’s postion in process. Failure, although extremely difficult to confront, is vital for

John Cairns

the evolution of art, boiology, and technology. As the project moved forward things evolved through nesseciaty, access to materials, and collaboration. Failure and access to technologies are themes that trail through many of my thoughts.

Another interesting works of yours that have particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words are entitled Nature Observation and Drawing from Stelarc: one of the features of these pieces that has mostly impacted on me, is the way your

investigation about the junction between technology and biology brings a new level of significance to the an image, recontextualizing the idea of the environment we live in, which is far from being just the background of our existence. I would go as far as to state that in a certain sense this project forces the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive environment... By the way, I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way-

to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

This is an excellent point about revealing the unexpected. I am not an illusionary magician, using slight of hand to distract or entertain an audience. What seperates the art from the magic is the ability to communicate a deeper message through observation and technique. There are definetly artists that observe, decipher, and present . The role of the artist, as I see it in

addition to ODP, is also to challenge or to be challenged. Artists consider the context of art, challenge the audience, or the status quo.

I agree with you and believe art is a communication method. I use messages in artifacts to engage in conversations with an audience. This is why working with others is important, so that it is many voices speaking, allowing for complexity. A participant can enter the work even if they do not support the message of a single artist and appreciate it on other levels but the ability for the audience to reflect and question must remain.

ART Habens John Cairns

Drawing from Stelarc 1920x1080 HD Video 00:00:32 October 2012

Multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your art practice: besides performances and videos, you also produce sculptures as well extremely interesting illustrations: if I have been asked to sum up in a single word your artistic production, I would say that it's kaledoiscopic... while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

Kaledoiscopic, that is a great expresion and I love it. In my opinion, a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to achieve results that you could have never predicted. I was once told if you do not know something research more and do not be afraid to ask someone. I have many questions and this world(s) is full of incredible talent and intelligence. I am always invigorated when I meet passionate people who are trying to express a message and work towards similar goals.In particular, I would like to spend some words about Organs for sale, in which I can recognize

Heart and Balloon

1920x1080 HD Video 00:00:34

December 2012

John Cairns

such a subtle bu effective social criticism...

By the way, although I'm aware that this might sound a bit naïf, I have to admit that I'm sort of convinced that Art -especially nowadays- could play an effective role in sociopolitical questions: not only just by

offering to people a generic platform for expression... I would go as far as to state that Art could even steer people's behaviour... what's your point about this? Does it sound a bit exaggerated?

Not at all. This steering of a social or political

Organ Store Series 1920x1080 HD Video October - December 2012

behaviour can be a powerful tool or scary, depending on how you use it. Another art form my Grandmother introduced me to as a child was political cartoons. From this early experience, I understood Art as communication tool and I have tried to utilize this aspect of art without abusing

1920x1080 HD Video October - December 2012

There have been many examples of propoganda with questionable motives, so it is important for the artist to to use the tool effectively and have a personal invesement in the messaging.

Contemporary artists are utilizing social media and digital technologies as platforms of expression and I believe current, as well as future artists, are influencing the communities they work in and beyond. They create a call to action and not just observation. With my own work, expecially the series Organs For Sale, I am expressing a sociapolitical viewpoint about the state of the health care sytems and ethical considerations the for future possibilities of medical technologies. From posting my work online I have recieved comments by individuals who agree with the viewpoint of the work but I also use humor and fimiliar cinematic troupes to difuse the critical nature of my message, allowing for a broader entrance into the work. Participants can come in and go from the work as they please.

And I couldn't do without mentioning your Rehearsal series, a project that I have to admit is one of my favourite ones of your rich and stimulating production: in particular,

from the Rehearsal Series

A still from the Reharsal series, video

A still from the Reharsal series, video

I have highly appreciated the way your lively usage of modern technology, which is very recurrent in your works, as in Wheat Wind Machine ... In this sense I daresay that your approach creates such a bridge between Tradition and Contemporariness: by the way,

maybe because I have a scientific background, I personally think that digital technology will soon fill the apparent dichotomy between Art and Technology... what's your point?

Thank you for your appreciation and I always challenge myself with larger works to use unfimiliar contemporary technologies. These technologies include but are not limited to electronics, software, coding, 3D printing, 3D scanning, GIFs, digital video, microcontrollers,

mechanics, and sensors. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not appropriately convey the mixture of messages but this reinforces my belief in failure.

I have a great appreciation for the history of art and have a difficult time breaking fully from referencing or using traditional means of art creation. I mean it has worked for so long. Instead of abondaning tradition, I have found success in utilzing the combination of new media and traditional. My friend and artist Joe Hedges once commented about this topic of transition from traditional to new media and compared it to a gradient rather than hard edges. Organic or fimiliar natural references/techniques/found artifacts develops similarites and contrasts when positioned with new gadgets while commenting on the historic trends of combining biology or nature with human technology or rigid mechanics.

Studing at the Ohio State University’s Art and Tech program, also gives me the belief that digital techology bridges Art and Technology. Art has always commented or used new ideas/technologies; from Cave paintings having a comprehension of movement to Nam June Paik using resistor in robotic video sculptures. This is why I am very excited to see what bridges will be connected by current and future creatives.

During these years your works have been extensively exhibited in several occasions and I think it's important to remark that you have been awarded as well... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

If the artist is supose to reveal an inner nature or challenge the status quo and really try to make the world a better place than the idea of passion

ART Habens John Cairns

Exhibition

and ethics go beyond money. Be passionate, make excellent work someone cares about and the accolades will be there.

I am very happy audiences are able to see and inteact with the work. This is important for the

projects themselves because they need to keep growing in a postitive direction.

I am truly interested in the interactivity between the artists, artifacts, and audience. This is where feedback becomes vitial. I ask questions like,

how are audience members interacting with the artwork. Are they excited by the piece or question what is exaclty happening here and go in for a closer look? My works change as the audience participation and the world of digital communication grows.

The audience is important for my art because the interactive elements continue to grow but feedback from my collaborators in other disiplinces is the most critical. Their input and expertise makes the work happen so it is important their feedback of the work be recognized. This also makes the art piece greater for the community rather than a single individual artist.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, John. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. How do you see your work evolving?

I have really enjoyed this interview and again, I want to thank you and the team at Art Habens for this opportunity. I look forward to contintiuing to invest in local and internet communities while researching the place between art and science. Currently I am working on a interactive sculpture that references my Wind Wheat Machine project and focuses on the intersection of the natural and unnatural. I really apprecaited the audiences reaction when they interacted with the digital portion of the Wind Wheat Machine and with this new project I am looking to expand the interaction. This expansion will really put the audience in control of the new work. I continue to challenge myself and work outside of my comfort zone, using new materials, plus finding experts and communities that will collaborate in the creation of an artwork. Creative mechanisms, digital technolgoies, intertwined with natural elements will be reserached extensively for this project. My converstion of art and culture will continue to grow with a mixture of fimiliar and encrypted symbols/materials. Cheers!

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator

arthabens@mail.com

ART Habens

John Cairns

Daniel Bourke Daniel Bourke Daniel Daniel

My work is about the fluid boundary between the digital and real. Where real world environments can be overlaid with digital information and manipulation and change the relationship which we have with the real.

I begin most of my work in photoshop where I stitch together digital images, QR code, blocks of colour as well as photographs that I have taken. This process allows me to have much more control of my compositions and allows me to move elements of the painting around on a fluid and instinctive level.

Once I am happy with my composition I take my work into painting. Oil paint gives me the opportunity to have a much more personal relationship to my paintings I really believe in the poetry of the marks that can be made on the canvas with oil paint.

Despite my work being about the contemporary experience of technology I am inspired by a range of different artists from a range of different eras. For instance the way I build up the layers in my work is heavily influence by my study of the Flemish old masters at the same time I am influence by the way contemporary artists such as Benjamin Edward’s utilize code and technological symbols in their work.

Drawing @1

Daniel Bourke

video, 2013

An interview with with

Hello Daniel, and a warm welcome to ART Habens. To start this interview would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, you have a solid formal training in artistic disciplines: you hold a BA in fine art that you have received from the prestigious Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, London... how much has this experience impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks and on your evolution as an artist?

At Central St Martins there was a strong push towards the type of conceptual art made popular by the YBA’s. We were encouraged to produce work that fitted into quite a strict conceptual criteria. firstly we were encouraged to produce work that would either have quite a clinical look to it or would aim to shock the audience either by its subject matter or by its technique.

The idea that an artist could engage tradition in a way that wouldn’t use irony or shock value was not a common one. I feel this quite rigid definition of art gave me a healthy starting point to react to. I knew what I wanted my art to be as St Martins had given me a definition of what I didn’t want it to be. I remember watching Robert Hughes’ New Shock of the New in my second year of University which left me with the belief that art could deal with concepts such as self, identity and tradition in a deeper and more meaningful way.

One phrase used by Hughes really stayed with me and came to influence the kind of art I wanted to make. “Art that holds time as a vase holds water” I believe what Hughes was say to me was that for artists to be relevant over time artists need to engage and deal eternal themes such as the way light illuminates the world, self doubt, uncertainty and what it means to be an individual in complex society.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you

mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Each piece can take as long as 4 months to produce the first stage of which starts off as a long and experimental time where things rapidly change and evolve. I do this in photoshop were I digitally collage my photographs together until I get a composition which resonates with me.

Once I am happy with the composition I begin with a base coat oil paint where I map out my composition on canvas. I like to stretch my own canvas as it gives me control over the entire process of the work. The penultimate layer of paint is always painted in one go alla prima. I then oil out the surface of the painting and apply glazes of oil colour to add depth to the surface of the painting. This cannot really be seen in the reproductions but has a greater impact in the flesh.

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from your Still life series, that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would

Daniel Bourke Daniel Bourke Daniel Daniel

Daniel Bourke

An interview by Dario Rutigliano

still life no 6, oil, 60-70 (cm), 2014

Daniel Bourke

still life no 6, oil, 60-70 (cm), 2014

suggest them to visit your website directly at http://danielbourke.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

When I started this series it was a way of seeing how something from the past could be reimagined in a contemporary context. The initial

aim was to explore what would happen when the visual language of still life could be reinterpreted with the visual language of the glitch or code and photoshop mash up. I do not feel that these issues are fully resolved, however I do feel that something interesting has evolved.

One of the features of your investigation about the fluid boundary between the digital and real that has mostly impacted on me, is the

Daniel Bourke

still life no.7, oil, 60-70 (cm), 2014, 1100.jpg

way you have been capable of bringing a new level of significance to the an image, recontextualizing the idea of images, and I would go as far as to state that in a certain sense this project forces the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive the environment we live in, which is far from being just the background of our existence. I would go as far as to state that in a certain sense these works stimulate the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive environment... By the way, I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a wayto decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

I think that more then any other time in human history people have come to experience the world through some kind of mediated technology. I believe that it is common for people to go for an entire day having meetings talking to people entertaining themselves finding out about the world without actually having to leave their house. It really is a phenomenon of the 21st century.

I also believe that it changes the psychological spiritual and cultural collective consciousness. I also believe that this must have some deeper shift in the way we understand the real as changeable and fluid state that can be deleted copied and pasted and overlaid.

I have highly appreciated the way your work reveals a deep symbiosis between Art and Technology, and it goes without saying that modern technology -and in particular the recent development of infographics- has dramatically revolutionized the idea of painting itself: this lead us to rethink to the materiality of the artwork itself, since just few years ago an artwork was first of all -if you forgive me this unpleasant classification- a manufactured article: it was the concrete materialization of an idea... By the way, I'm sort of convinced that new media art will definitely fill the dichotomy between Art and Technology: I daresay that Art and Technology are going to assimilate one to each other... what's your point about this?

Artists have always responded to technology how

it changed our relationship to the world. Either in the way artists embraced technology or in the way artists reacted to it, from the camera obscura in the Dutch golden age to the impressionists reaction at the Paris Salons amidst the rise of the photographic image. I believe that as an artist it is my role to react to technology in my own way. At the same time I also believe that paint is still the best technology by which to explore these issues. It still seduces and entices us with its smell and its touch and tells of a very intimate story in the way the brush work is handled. I remember standing in front of the Goyas in the Louvre and standing in awe at the way the whole surface would feel as if it were moving as one. It was almost as if the painting had a life of its own.

Now let's deal with the tones of your pieces: I would focus on your new drawing series: what has mostly impressed me is that it is capable of establishing such a dialogue, a synergy with all the other tones instead of a contrast... By

Daniel Bourke

the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

This series has been made entirely with a drawing tablet and has been produced in photoshop. This has allowed me to copy and paste different parts of the drawing and apply different filters and effects to it in a more intuitive way. The sensitivity of the tablet and quality of the brush marks in photoshop has really allowed me to produce a type of drawing that simply was not possible 5 years ago.

Although your works are clearly marked with a contemporary feeling, as you have stated once, you draw inspiration by a range of different artists from a range of different eras, from the Flemish old masters to contemporary artists as Benjamin Edward... In this sense, I would state that your work goes beyond the artificial boundary that separates Tradition from Contemporariness, so I would like to ask your point about the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork.

I think what makes art contemporary is, the ability to engage with what is happening right now. In other words are you examining your own life and your own experience and can you put it onto canvas. I also feel that it is imperative for an artist to study the work of the past and to build upon what has been. As every great artists of the past has found some way of channeling their own feelings, thoughts and fears as well as the time and culture they occupy into the work they make. This is all an artists needs to become original.

During these years your work have been exhibited in several occasions and you have recently participated to the UK Young Artists Festival: could you tell us reader some fresh impressions from this show? By the way, goes without saying that positive feedbacks are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience?

When you are working away in your studio it can be very difficult to see what works and what doesn’t. Exhibitions can be a really helpful way of evaluating the successfulness of your work. The UK young Artists festival was a really fun, well organized event that left

Daniel Bourke

ART Habens

me buzzing with loads of ideas that I feel have yet to materialize. I think the motivation for art should always be in the process of making and not be influenced by external factors such as awards as

they can be a distraction to what the work is really about.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Daniel. My last question deals with

your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I would like to develop my use of tablet drawing along side my painting practice and see where that takes me.

Anita Wexler

Wexler creates semi-abstract figurative work that expresses her inner emotions.

She is not afraid put in the forefront her sadness, pleasure, pain and love that she has experienced in her life. Whether creating delicate details to express lovely moments or slinging paint as hard as she can to create the mood of harsh heartache.

Wexler is out to turn herself inside out to release both the demons and delights.Wexler has her BFA from Parsons New School of Design and her Art education from Bank Street College both in NYC. Wexler has exhibited in New York City, Florida, Indiana, New Jersey and many other states.

Wexler artwork has been included in many Art book including Best of World Wide Mixed Media 2013. Her work has been exhibited in South Florida museum, Georgia and internationally Vienna, Austria Ormond Beach Museum, Andrews Art museum and Museum of the Americas and is part of the permanent collection of the Lake Eustis Museum of Art. Her work is in many private collections including that of William Wegman.

What is Within, part of my ongoing floral series, creating shapes, designs

and patterns to create lively interesting twists and turns of the botanical studies.

Conquer, layers of paint seem to start to wash away slowly revealing the figures stacked against one another. The relentless souls having been conquered.

An interview with with

Hello Anita, and a warm welcome to ART Habens. To start this interview would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, you hold a BFA from Parsons New School of Design and an Art Education Certification from Bank Street College, both in New York City: how much your studies and your do impact on the way you currently produce your artworks?

I loved attending Parson; my focus of study was graphic design so I think that is why my paintings became so bold and illustrative. The instructors challenged me to go farther; push my creativity and refocus my mindset.

New York City was a strong influence, as well, because of the constant movement of the city. The lackluster winters left me with the desire to create my own constantly changing and colorful world. I starting teaching art ten years ago in Sarasota, Florida. I am currently teaching drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics. I like to continue experiment with new mediums, textures and techniques.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

When I do sketching of my ideas first; my paintings, sculpture or other project comes out much better. The pre-planning will also include what colors, size and technique I want to create in the series. Sometimes my life gets so busy with teaching, classes, family time and other activities that my creative goals have to be set aside. It is always hard to stop creating, but sometimes the delays work out for the best where then I truly know exactly what I want to start or continue my painting, drawing or sculpture.

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from Ghost Within and Life, death, war & peace that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://www.anitawexler.com in order to get a

Anita Wexler Anita Wexler

Anita Wexler has her BFA from Parsons New School of Design and her Art education certification from Bank Street College, both in New York City. Wexler has her Masters in Education with her thesis on Art research. Anita is both an artist and an Art teacher. She lives in Sarasota, Florida with her family.

Anita Wexler

Earth Day, 11"x14" mixed media on vellum a celebration of the beauty of a single flower slightly abstracted with vibrant colors and patterns

wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project?

What was your initial inspiration?

The Life, Death, War & Peace was inspired by a trypch that I had created and decided I wanted to take all of the energies of the three and combine them into one. The original inspiration was about terrorism and our battles for freedom. The painting is full of imagery and symbols that echoe the pain of defeat yet shows the strength of victory.

Your work What is within has suggested me the idea of such an hidden revelation and I would go as far as to state that you Art in a certain sense forces the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive ourselves... although I'm aware that this might sound a bit naive, I'm sort of

convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a wayto decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

I like to tell stories, reveal emotions, and has messages that are both encrypted and in your face obvious. I do believe there are many artists that do communicate lots of hints, clues, as well as, take us on a journey through their art.

Now let's deal with the tones of your pieces: I would focus on Passion Flower and in particular Love You Forever: I absolutely love the intense tones that reveals an intense emotion and which mix together, giving a dynamic feature to the canvas and what has mostly impressed me is that it is capable of establishing

ART Habens

Anita Wexler

Conquer - 4'x4' mixed media on canvas l challenged myself to create the thickest layers of paint and combine my love of color, figures and abstraction into one painting. My way of communicating the transitions that we all go through to become who we truly are.

such a dialogue, a synergy with all the other tones instead of a contrast... By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

Love Your Forever is a painting that can be hung from any side; vertical, horizontal, it doesn't matter. The emotions, pleasure, love; all create the composition reflecting the moment of ecstasy between two souls. So I felt this was the ideal way for me to express the forces that change one’s relationship for intimately close to isolated from one another. My earlier paintings were very flat and mostly focused on complimentary colors. My palette is much broader now and I use tons more layers now to create significant amounts of texture as a reflection of the experience. Veridad was inspired by a visit to Madrid smashed between a dream, a fantasy and stretched into my reality. My painting Conquer was a challenge for because I really focusing on creating as much texture as I possibly could and still create an image that was easy to interpret.

ART Habens Anita Wexler

Life is full of ups and downs. Those rollercoasters also can create emotional turmoil. My art is my way of communicating, expressing and coping with those experiences. Physical attraction,

sexual, soft erotica are all part of what encompasses the images that comes from mind and onto my canvases. My painting, New Love, is a little more abstract than most of my artwork, however there is still clear imagery of power, desire and attraction. The viewer can find hope that as one of my friends

ART Habens AnitaWexler

has reminded me,”You never know what is just around the corner.”

branches out from inside of me and are mere expressions of a moment, event or dream within my life.

I am very lucky to have three wonderful children so they influence some of my artwork, but I also use the infant as a representation of new life, new beginnings, a rebirth. I love Hieronymus Bosch’s work and travel around the world and seek out his paintings. I have travelled to Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, England, Amsterdam and Belgium to see his works, as well as, wonders these countries have to offer. I also have travelled to Australia, New Zealand, India, Mexico, Guatemala, Philippines, and other locales. I explore the natural beauty, the museums and archetectural wonders these places have to offer. I started creating my ‘mask’ series inspired by Maori, Aboriginal, African, as well as, my Native American roots. All of my artwork

As an artist, I have had my share of frustration,

rejection and artist blocks. No one enjoys the non-acceptance letters or notices. Most artists are seeking to receive positive feedback. I met William Wegman when I was still attending Parsons. I was interning at a magazine and they sent me to meet him to convince him to the company publish he fortune teller image on their cover. Bill was warm, friendly and welcoming when I arrived. He liked my mask series so he has one of mine in his collection. I have a polaroid from him. Also, I have a detailed illustrative drawing and a sculpture in the Lake Eustis museum. Unfortunately, most artist just

want to create (okay, that includes me), but the most successful artist excel at business or collaborate with others to market and create a true art business to find the greatest success.

I have want to have more shows, including a one woman show. I want to get my work into shows that get write-ups and my goal is to get into major

, Mixed Media on Canvas

, Mixed Media on Canvas

working on some grants so that I can exhibit my artwork into more international shows. I have been working on my marketing of my artwork and I am looking into hiring an art agent so that I can get my artwork to be viewed my a larger audience so my messages, imagery and experiences can be

carried by word of mouth, internet and into various conversations. I am looking for creating large scale sculptures so that I can have a larger impact where everyone is the audience. Public Art will be the next thing that I want to tackle. Bringing my art to the people; big, bold and in your face.

Nino Fournier Nino

, 2013, experimental short film 2

An interview with An with

Nino Fournier Nino Fournier Nino Fournier Nino Fournier

Hello all, and thanks a lot for giving me and other artists the chance to answer to an interview with such developed and thoughtprovoking questions ! Thanks as well for their interest to the people who are reading this !

To begin with I must confess that I did not recieve any formal education, training or anything practical, in the field of cinematography or art. I however now have the chance to study the theories and history of film at Lausanne University. These studies bring me a lot of knowledge about what has been done in this field, and such education represents as you may expect a great inspiration for the films I try to do! The more you learn – and this is true for each and every field – the more humble you become : you suddenly clearly see that you are not the first one and will obviously not be the last one to work in this field. You realise that you are nothing like a summit but can only hope to stand for a very, very small brick in the wall.

On the other hand however you should try not to let history become a strict boundary to your creation. While you are only a tiny part of a greater whole, you should try not to forget you are also unique in a sense. For me actually, the balance between history and originality – in an existential perspective – is one of the most challenging matter to deal with.

I must also confess that I am not particularly well equipped for film making. This has probably led me on the side of "found footage". Working on the basis of found footage is particularly easy from the point of view of technical and practical aspects. What I mainly focus on is editing, the question of ratios, and coloring.

Nino Fournier

The music is then particularly important too, and I often edit after having found it. It is always time to re-adapt it afterwards in order to create the best effects ; and at this point of the working process I have the chance of knowing well the music composer Christian Giger.

Time and preparation vary immensely from one project to the other – and I am luckely passionated enough to feel the preparation time not in terms of time and preparation but in terms

of happiness ; I am lucky enough as well to be able to manage enough energy and time to invest in my film projects. This is a chance that I will never forget and always try to manage.

Thanks for speaking so kindly about this film. The very first impulse to this project came after some lessons about the history of film and more precisely about the very beginnings of cinema –and photography as well. I suddenly became aware

of all the very different moments and practicies which alltogether influenced the way we see films today, and I felt a strong nostalgia about it all. I decided I would try representing this feeling towards film history in a film. I do not know if it is really successful, because one does not directly think about the very first moments of film history while watching it – however I strongly believe one can easily feel that there is something before the now-a-day common cinema or the actual mainstream conception of film.

So showing that there was something different before cinema as we concieve it today, which was however already the main fundements and directions for it was the main influence for this film. As always however, other influences and modifications irrupt during the process of creation, which sometimes drastically redefine the original idea ; and it is also the case here !

I do not totally agree on the idea that there would be some hidden information encrypted in the environment we live in or into nature. This brings us on the sides of some spiritual interpretation of the world which is a little bit too fantasy-based (or even religious) for me… I would go further even and say that our environment – the world, the nature, the universe, as you want – is empty of any general or universal signification.

But we should be very careful here : I am not saying that there cannot be any sense, I do not speak for a pessimistic or even nihilistic vision of what would be a senseless world. I strongly believe on the contrary that it is indeed everybody's role to bring a certain dose of

signification into their natural environment. And not only does the world itself ask for people to make it significant, but each and every life, each and every individual taken in its personal relationship to the world, must be capable of creating an existential reality full of sense.

As a consequence, I do not think that the word “artist” is only dedicated to some people ; in a way, because everybody has to create its own significant life and reality, everybody is a bit of a creator, a bit of an artist. Of course some of us use the chance of being capable of creation much more strongly than others ; but creation is a human principle which you do not have to be born a genius to use.

But I agree on the fact that some works – and I feel strongly grateful that you believe “The White Stones” to be one of them – can challenge our usual perception of the world. It seems nearly tautologic in a sense : did not all of us once experience changes in the way we see ourselves and the world through contacts with somebody else? Why would it not be the case in contact to art, which is fundamentally born from human people? This is a strength which particularly touches me in art, and this is also why I love art.

, three pieces in the shape of a pear, 2013, tribute short film

You are right : the distinctions between different fields are breaking apart. However, it has always been the case. The ancient greek plays gathered texts, philosophical ideas, music, lyrics, choirs, choregraphies ; which makes me think that we are not in such a unique situation as one sometimes wants us to think.

To answer frankly to your question, I must confess that I do not know if collaborative projects can achieve greater effects than “isolated” practicies. Some of the works I love most are the fruits

, three pieces in the shape of a pear, 2013, tribute short film

, part I, 2013, experimental short film

of a plurality of practicies: Philip Glass' music and Godfrey Reggio's images marry extremely well in ; on the other hand I love all of Salinger's novels, which he wrote all alone using words only. So in my opinion, crossing the borders of different fields in not the ONLY way to achieve some results, whereas it might of course be very useful, in the sense that other fields remain a huge inspiration for your own field. I would add that the idea of the total art work is a myth for me – even if

cinema gathers many, many arts alltogether ; but cinema itself has to find its own way, and should not exist only as basis for the encounter of other arts.

Artistic empirism is a good thing I believe ; but it

is not necessary: let us think about Proust, who wrote one of the greatest literary work without getting up from his couch – if we want to exaggerate a little bit of course. But this does not mean that he did not experience everything he wrote, and especially it does not mean that he did not think, again and again, about what he wrote. In the same way, I cannot even imagine that direct experience can replace thinking and working in the creative process. We should remember that art is not journalism : we do not care to know wether the creator lived or imagined what he created. On the contrary, I feel much more touched by the impossible and imaginative universe of David Lynch and Peter Greenaway than by any social empirical cinema.

Is not art the best way of dreaming ? Yes it is. Using the term transendence to describe cinema – and art more generally – is an attempt to transmit this idea. You do not need immanent reality – and should even fly away from it – to dream. If I think back to our discussion about our natural environment, I remember to have stated that one has to give a signification to what is around us, and to one's own life. But nothing should prevent us from escaping from the sense we have given to our own lives – and of course, nothing should prevent us from escaping from the sense others want to give to our lives.

Art is the best way of transcending our immanent reality, to fly away from what schools, governments, families, or even oneself, want to impose on us. And in the very same time, art is the best way of creating a very personal interpretation of the world, of creating the interpretation that we enjoy most. All in all, art frees as much as it builds – it is open to a plurality of uses.

, part I, 2013, experimental short film

This is not naif at all : art can play an effective role, and – as the media often purposely forgets to mention it – it actually plays an effective role. There is a beautiful documentary on the question, called , a film which shows the close connections between art and rebellion, and the way people can make their protest more

effective by making it more artistic and original. And this is happening now, all over the planet. This is happening in dictatorial countries on the one hand, but also in «  democratic  » countries where little by little we reduce freedom in the name of economics or security (think about this by the way  : we always take liberties from us by saying that this is going to be for our good – for our security, for our life level, for our well? being…). This is happening now on the impulse of young and old people alltogether. But our politics and journalists do not often tell us this is happening.

Art has always been an inspiration for revolutionary movements, and conversely of course. It is an inspiration for political rebellion, and can serve rebellion directly by becoming the spokesperson – sometimes on a very large scale –of the voice of alienated people. But it can turn into a philosophical rebellion as well  : while the Western society becomes more and more logical, rationnal and normalised, art still remains one of the least rational occupation  : it is mostly not economically interesting, most artists do not become famous, etc. and however, people are still inspired by it. Consequently, I totally agree on

the fact that art can steer people  ; this is beautiful and this is a huge chance for every minorities which want their revendications to be heard  !

Positive feedback – wether it be effective or only expected – is always both very gratifying – for the work already done – and motivating – for the work to be done. But I also always try to remember that I do not make the films I do in order to be rewarded. While I primilarly do make them for others (with the expectation that one will watch them), I do not primilarly do them for jurys‘ members. In other words, I make them not so that they can be judged, but so that they can be seen, nearly in a disinterested way. But I make them for myself as well, because as the person who makes, I can make exactly what I would like to see. Moreover, I know I have let something behind me : it is maybe a way of existing...

At any moment I can watch one of my films and remember I have existed at the time of creation and had certain feelings which lead me to this particular piece. Maybe this is a way of feeling less lonely (you know, this existential solitude you sometimes feel just before you go to bed, when everything is stopping around you and that remain only the silence or the far away echo of music).

And finally I make them for the people who count in my life ; it is also a way of saying them things I could not tell with words.

, part I, 2013, experimental short film

So you see, positive professional and institutional feedback is not necessarily the first thing you look for while doing videos !

It is clear however that positive feedback and good reception of your practicies can influence strongly the way you percieve yourself and your working process. For instance, why would you spend endless hours correcting a very minor detail while you are already famous and you know people care more about your name than about your works ? We know it well now : sadly enough, glory is not necessarily a good friend of good works and serious working processes...

This is closely connected to the relationship between business and art. But I think this question can be easily handled : are you working to become rich, or are you working because you like to work ? Let us refer to Rilke who stated, in his letters he wrote to a young poet : "There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write?"

I do not make films at a professional level  : I do not "economically" live from my films, and will obviously not in the coming years. I have not finished my studies yet, and I plan to finish them well. This is the first thing to do, in my opinion. Video?making is a secondary activity for me – which is also why I feel so grateful towards Art Habens for having given me the chance to take part in this very interesting interview  ! This is also why I always feel so lucky when a gallery or a festival is showing one of my film – a luck whose I enjoy the scarcity with all my heart.

, part I, 2013, experimental

Craig St. Cyr Craig St. Cyr

An interview with An with

Hello Craig and welcome to ART Habens. To start this interview I would ask you something about your background and the way you think it could have informed you as an artist and influenced the development of your artistic production.

Thank you for the warm welcome. My background in music has been both formal and informal. I say this because there were lessons peppered throughout my adolesence but I never really took to them for extended periods of time. I always preferred the unrigid, unscheduled attempts at musical creation.

That's not to say I haven't grown and matured since then. I can (and will) appreciate and respect a deadline. However, overscheduling and overworking (especially at one piece) can either have a tendency to burn away at inspiration or it will further ignite it, depending on the personality of the artist.

I've found a calmer approach to be more conducive for recording.

As for your creative process, do you usually work on a melodic line or on a chord progression till you find your way to the piece, or do you think that it's more effective -as I was told times ago- to find the solution in the inspiration? In other words, do you think that studying in minute details the structure of a song could make it better?

At this point, it all starts with who i'm listening to. I'm aware enough in my own abilities to know that if i'm hooked on a certain album or even an individual track, there's a reason for it. When I have no intention of picking up an instrument, that's when I know i'm ready to listen and sponge it all up. I've had my fill when something i've been listening to or something i've come up with keeps running through my head.

It stays on a loop until I do something about it, or until it simply tires of trying to get my attention. Madman, for example, started with plucking two strings after listening to a lot of Thom Yorke. Unaware, on the other hand, was written words first, chords second after listening to a lot of Oasis (my earlier days).

Sometimes though, I think I may need less inspiration than I used to.

Craig St. Cyr Craig St. Cyr

By the way, you are a fine guitar player: when you are writing music is it primarily on guitar or do you ever write on a different instrument?

Thank you, my guitar playing is something that has sort of crept up on me these past few years. I've been much more concerned with writing and learning how others write than the actual playing of the guitar. I've gotten much more comfortable with my sense of timing and ability to create with it. In the past, all of my works have started on guitar, but lately I have started to branch out and get a feel for certain projects before they come to light. It's hard to explain, but it's almost like the feeling becomes clear before the actual project gets underway. This gives me more time to breathe and experiment. It also doesn't hurt that I have this giant folder of lyrics and I feel like I need to put them all to music.

Craig St. Cyr

As you have stated once, "music is all about how you perceive yourself as a musician"... since I'm a musician myself I absolutely agree with you... By the way, it goes without saying that a lot of musicians, both from the Pop scene and of the Classical panorama has effectively reached such sociopolitical targets... and even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I have to admit that I'm sort of convinced that Art could play an effective role in sociopolitical questions: not only just by offering to people a generic platform for expression... I would go as far as to state that Art could even steer people's behaviour... what's your point about this? Does it sound a bit exaggerated?

I'm glad you agree. Self-perception can be a double-edged sword if you think of yourself as an artist. For me, it's hard to even think of myself as an artist. I think that title is too often self-imposed on people by themselves. "Oh by the way, I'm an artist now." That kind of thing. It's almost the public's responsibility to validate you as an artist, I feel. If you hit a nerve with those you're playing to, than you are doing something right. Then again, that may also depend on if you are playing for yourself or if you are playing for others.

Art (modern or classical) can never be ignored in sociopolitics, though it often is. Human beings take in their enviornments, hardships and shortcomings through self-reflection and nobody reflects more inwardly than the artist, in my opinion. All of that energy being reflected inwards has to come out, and that is why art is the perfect guage for the big picture of human progress. People are troubled, happy, bothered, euphoric and they're touchy about it. To be able to convert or shrink that down onto a canvas or piece of music is not something to be taken lightly. It's easy for an artist to insult people with their work, but most of the time it's all about insulting the right people.

People love artistic expression because it speaks to them, especially when they find an individual that can say or paint all that they would want to, but don't know how. This can give a person confidence in themselves, as they know they're not alone in their line of thinking. People are being controlled by more than what immediately surrounds them, so why shouldn't popular art and music be right in there with the mix of influences?

The problem is that there isn't a big enough ratio of beneficial:detrimental. Some of the 'artistic expression' that's constantly shoved in our faces these days can and should be moved to a smaller spotlight, in my opinion. You shouldn't need to scream from a mountaintop to get your point across, although sometimes it's necessary. I just feel that there's too much emphasis on the "MTV Cribs" way of life. We need to retrace our steps a bit. On a side note, i've always been very interested in the private lives of artists. Their routines, eccentricities. There are definitely things to be learned from the controlled chaos inside the mind of an artist.

Craig St. Cyr

Now I would like to focus on your upcoming EP, 'Unaware': I think that the best way to get to know this stimulating project is to visit directly http://www.reverbnation.com/craigstcyr. By the way, I have read that the genesis of this project has been rather long... would you like to tell us more about the development of this project?

The Unaware EP is currently being recorded at a music space I share with other musicians. Kind of a collective approach to what i've already written, and it's nice. I never open up and ask for input on these kinds of things but it's nice to be around like-minded individuals that respect what we try

and do. This is my first dive into the musical pool so i'm not interested in shortchanging anyone. The majority of the album can already be found online but I feel that massive improvements can and will be implemented into the remaing tracks.

They're just a reflection of my muse I guess. I've been trying them in live scenarios and am seeing what works and what doesn't. At this point, it'll be 5 tracks: Madman, Unaware, Immediate Answer, Too Much Fun (Ballad in G), and Suggestions, which will need some fine-tuning lyrically. The standard for an EP is 25 minutes, so i'll have it just short of that. The fact that it's an EP makes it less stressful as recording a full album. I have enough tracks for 2 albums but it's the process that i'm still getting comfortable with. In addition, the collaboration i'm receiving from those around me is shedding some new light on projects I've had on the backburner for years. Songs that I didn't wish to bring forward now have a new level of confidence behind them. It's promising.

Getting to the timeline of this undertaking, it has grown as I have. The original tracks that I had planned for this project have matured so much that they're almost unrecognizable to their previous versions. The first track for this was written in 2006, Unaware. This is why I feel I need to title the EP after it. It was the birth of the project, in my opinion. After Unaware was written there was a new-found momentum to continue on writing. There may be more suited tracks to name the project after from an aesthetic standpoint, but I feel I need to remember where it came from, with one song written in my premier attempt at songwriting. When finished, the EP will initially be available online. In addition, there is currently artwork being done for the physical version of the album, which will also be digitized for the releases online.

I like the way MadMan is capable of creating such an atmosphere of intimacy but at the same time forces - ina certain sense- the listener to reflect to the meaning of the text... by the way, do you think that the text of a song could be disconnected by the related music?

Thank you. Once it was written, I knew that I was capable of producing an ambient, thoughtprovoking piece. I made a serious effort not to overdue it, as far as production and layering go. I wanted to keep it as simple as I could, while still

ART Habens

Craig St. Cyr

maintaining the message or feeling I wanted to convey. As mentioned earlier, I was currently listening to a lot of Thom Yorke, mixed with the staple Bob Dylan tracks that I never stray from. The simplicity in which Thom could play such meaningful pieces inspired me to write one likemindedly.

Lyrics are at the forefront of much of what I do. As important as the melody is, it's main purpose is to give way for the words. The music is the red

carpet rolling out and the lyrics are the participants that walk upon it, to use a modernthemed metaphor. As far as the words becoming disconnected from the lyrics, I think it's possible. In my works, it's unintentional if it happens.

When I start a song (always inadvertently), it's in two parts. When the song is finished it's one object. It has many parts to it, mind you, but still becomes one when I walk away from it.

Follow Me Round reveals a subtle but very effective work on the "sound side": reverb plays a very crucial role... any comment about the post-production of this interesting piece?

Follow Me Around is a Radiohead track that I decided to take-on. You're right, it's superreverby. Even the guitar. Perhaps too much, now that I listen to it more. That track was more about seeing if I can maintain a high chorus,

fiddle with the settings in the project itself. As with all covers, they're done out of fun and not to be taken too seriously. If you've noticed, I don't sell any of the covers I do. They're all free downloads. I feel it's not fair to make money from simply replicating something, even if it is in your own way.

I would say that you are surgically precise with words. What’s the most important element in your lyric writing?

Surgically precise? That's quite a compliment, thank you. For me, it's all about what you're saying. I'm not a fan of musical styles that mince words or drone on and on and on endlessly with seemingly generic mesages or simply nothing to say at all, in the end. I'm not into wasting anybody's time, especially with my music. I'm really not a fan of anything top 40, as I feel there's just nothing to it. In my opinion, that entire class of music sounds the same as the track that played before it. I feel insulted as a musician when I listen to some of it.

The music is the only true creative outlet that I have, and therefore I wouldn't dare of shortchanging the end results. It just boils down to why you're doing what it is that you do. As far as the most important element in my writing, it's truth and zero misdirection. With a track, I sometimes like to bury the lyrics a few feet under, so that not everything is noticed on the first listen. I like people making connections later on, after they've had a chance to formulate their first-listen opinion. I just like the idea of people coming back to something, thinking they've fully grasped it, and then discovering something new within. With more time and writing experiences, I hope to one day create complex and thoughtprovoking pieces with levels and layers.

By the way, when you look at the whole of your work as a songwriter, do you see large themes that characterize it or maybe distinct musical ideas that define certain areas?

I definitely see trends in what I do, good and bad. I see alot of second-guessing but yet at the same time, a lot of confidence in what i'm capable of. There are very distinctive valleys and I must avoid. It's settling to know they're recogzizable to me by now. They weren't always. Laziness can literally ruin what I'm trying to do sometimes.

ART Habens

Craig St. Cyr

Hypersomnia is another problem I'm currently having. It's just those kinds of things that can easily halt a musical progression. If i'm aware of them, i'll be alright. That's kind of the beauty of leasing a music space outside of your home. It's a force that makes you want to be there, among all the musical instruments you and your friends have obtained, recording gear, etc. It's humbling. At this point, it just seems like the more I do the less I worry about it. And the less I do the more I worry. It's a perfect symbiosis. I'm just trying to keep moving because when I stagnate, I really stagnate. It's like sitting in a ditch and not

wanting to move. I suppose the amount of success I will achieve will determine my confidence level and therefore my ability to create more fluently for future releases.

And I couldn't do without asking you something about your recording process: I have highly appreciate the natural feeling of your sound... although I do guess you -as most musicians nowadays- use compressors, equalizers and similar devices, but I would go as far as to state that you are searching for an extreme freshness of the sound...

Craig St. Cyr

I don't like music that disassociates itself too much from the original idea. You can ruin a song by adding too much to it, and it's a delicate balance between thinking you haven't done enough and thinking you've drowned in layers. When I first started songwriting, there were only two elements in what I did: the lyrics and the guitar. I like to think that I maintain the same mindset as I did back then. Maybe i've figured out the perfect amount of modern-day technology coupled with my fundamentals? Also, when i'm involved in the process I keep in mind that at some point i'll have to recreate this in a live setting. That is a huge help in making sure I don't overdo it. My current undertaking (the EP), specifically the track Immediate Answer, will have between 7 and 10 layers of instruments, all pointing in the same direction musically. It's hard not to want to keep going but at some point we have to stop ourselves and move on to the next.

Speaking of wanting to overdo it, my equipment has changed dramatically over the years. I started with a generic USB microphone and would sit and try things out. That was about a year of my life, just experimenting with different settings and environments. Places with good acoustics would start to stand out in everyday life, it was weird. At that point, I went to college for Broadcasting and really saw what microphones and proper recording equipment were capable of producing. We would have full access to entire sound studios for all hours of the night. Some of us would get together and sit and record some pretty good stuff. I credit those experiences to being one of the initial boosts that made me want to do this professionally. At the music space, we now have a professional Mackie mixing board, Mac towers, audio/video monitors, microphones of all different sizes and purposes, instruments galore, and all of it is almost the same caliber equipment I was using in my college days. We do the same thing now, just on a larger scale and with a sense of direction. Experimenting with difference techniques, using overdubs, compressor settings, etc. It's all about being comfortable with the gear you're using. It makes the recording process that much more relaxed.

Girl from the North Country rendition is a piece that I would recommend to our readers

to listen many times: although it might seem as a delicate, thoughtful ballad, there are lots of stimulating details that make of this piece extremely interesting: for example, I like in particular the way you handle with the tempo... I can feel the song breath, take the time, as to tell me to stop for a while and start to think... this has reminded me some of the first Radiohead's tracks...

Bob Dylan has always said things that I wasn't able to say. It's comforting to know that alot of my songwriting platforms came from his, and that i'll always respect meaningful, cutting verses such as his. As far as my rendition of his goes, i'm quite pleased the way it turned out. The timing of the piece was something that sort of came naturally and out of the blue. It suits my playing style more than the standard recording's tempo. It's a singletake, one-track recording and I feel it reiterates the message he intended to send across; loneliness and longing, and ultimately rejection. I was experiencing some of these shortcomings during the time of the recording and perhaps that's the reason it sounds as intimate as it does, while still maintaining my 'Radiohead style', as you put it. I'm honoured to follow in the footsteps of the masters.

By the way, dealing with influences, who would you say are some of your favorite songwriters and why?

As mentioned before, Bob Dylan is right up there among the top thought-provokers. His innate ability to cut through all the webbing that is put before us is uncanny. I strive to be able to deliver such truth without having to say it. That, in itself, is an art. I hear he's touring again and that he sounds like Tom Waits now, should be interesting. He's one of those guys that transcends time, in a way. Another big favourite of mine is Thom Yorke. His stuff always gives me the chills. The way he interprets the world, the way he packages it for mass consumption. It's fascinating.

I'm pretty curious to see what he will pump out in his older years. He's 45 now, so there's a lot of time left.

I think those two have influenced me more than I know. Their music is always nearby, ready to be called upon.

ART Habens

Craig St. Cyr

Thank you very much for sharing your vision of Art and Music, Craig. Now, I would ask you something about your current works: are there any projects on the horizon?

Thank you for having me, I always enjoy these interviews. I enjoyed your questions, they were very well-researched. The main thing that's been on the horizon is my upcoming EP.

Your readers can check craigstcyr.bandcamp.com for the singles, as they're released. The most imminent release will be Immediate Answer, the first track. The entire album will be available either late this year or early the next.

It will be reasonably priced and available digitally, initially.

Suggestions [Unaware EP]

http://www.reverbnation.com/craigstcyr/song/ 22395825-suggestions-unaware-ep

Immediate Answer [Unaware EP]

http://www.reverbnation.com/craigstcyr/song/ 22395825-suggestions-unaware-ep

Suggestions [Unaware EP]

http://www.reverbnation.com/craigstcyr/song/ 22395825-suggestions-unaware-ep

Suggestions [Unaware EP]

http://www.reverbnation.com/craigstcyr/song/ 22395825-suggestions-unaware-ep

Suggestions [Unaware EP]

http://www.reverbnation.com/craigstcyr/song/ 22395825-suggestions-unaware-ep

Eveline de Lange Eveline Lange

Eveline de Lange was born at Wateringen, the Netherlands in 1986. She graduated in Design for Virtual Theatre and Games, at the Uteaht School of the Arts. Her works are mainly paintings, painting with oil paint and painting with a needle, and the combination of the the two.

Untitles

Sculpture, Mixed Media

video, 2013

Anne Needlepainting, oil paint, acrylic paint

An interview with with

Hello Eveline, and a warm welcome to ART Habens. To start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any particular experiences that have impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks?

Thank you! I’m very honored to have this opportunity to share my works with you! I have a degree in Interactive Performance Design, from the Utrecht School of Arts. I´ve been interested in drawing and painting since I was a kid and got more and more of an interest in textiles during my studies.

It was after graduating that I started drifting away from interactive theatre and more towards fine art and started combining drawing, painting and embroidery. It seemed like a natural thing to do; for me, embroidery is an extension of the painting. It’s hard to think of them like ‘embroideries’ sometimes, to me they are paintings done in paint and thread. When creating interactive theater during my time at art school, my main interest was exploring the human nature and the human mind through our interaction with art and nature, and I’m still exploring that subject in my paintings and sculptures.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

The technique I use requires quite a bit of preparation, the fabric has to be prepared just right to be able to both embroider and paint on it, and then it has to be laced up on a large embroidery frame.

When I combine embroidery with oil painting, I usually do the painting first, then allow it to dry completely before embroidering, and then paint in the last details after the embroidery is finished. The embroidery technique I use is called needlepainting, where you use one strand of fine thread to blend colours and create a realistic image. It’s quite similar to oil painting in technique, actually. Conceptually, I spend a lot of time developing how I want a new work to look, what I want it to convey and how to best do this.

Eveline de Lange Eveline

Eveline de Lange was born at Wateringen, the Netherlands in 1986.

She graduated in Design for Virtual Theatre and Games, at the Uteaht School of the Arts.

Her works are mainly paintings, painting with oil paint and painting with a needle, and the combination of the the two.

December Daylight Ink, needlepainting, needlelace

The embroidering itself takes such a long time that I want to be sure about it before I start stitching! Usually, I start with ‘collecting’ inspiration, taking pictures, drawing sketches, stitching sketches to try out colours and shapes..this process can take

quite some time, but I feel it’s essential to a smooth work process. I also enjoy the preparation process, it’s exciting to start on something new and prepare everything just right to make the needlepainting go smoothly!

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from December Daylight, an extremely interesting piece that our readers can admire in these pages: and I would suggest to our readers to visit http://evelinedelange.com in

order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting piece?

During the creation of that particular work, I was on

Lianne, Oil and cotton on canvas

artist residency in the north of Iceland, from november to january, so, the darkest months of the year. The residency was in a tiny village with only 800 inhabitants, and in december we had about four hours of light a day, the rest of the day it was completely dark outside! The darkness of the winter was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Iceland around that season, as I was curious how it affects the people in the village as well as me and my work. One of the things I noticed is that the colours during the short day were different, much paler and softer than usual, and that every speck of colour and light was savoured and enjoyed by everyone who lived there.

During those four hours, almost the whole village was outside, walking, swimming, working, enjoying the beautiful light. Then, when it got dark, they went into their cozy homes, inviting each other to dinner, telling stories to each other, making traditional goods...You could really feel they accepted the way their surroundings-the nature of their country-worked and adapted themselves to it, rather than the other way around. In December Daylight, I wanted to convey the atmosphere during those two moments of December life, the very short day and the very long night, and the peaceful acceptance that came with it.

Another interesting works of yours that have particularly impacted on me are from your Sculptural series, that our readers can admire at http://evelinedelange.com/index.php/project/scul ptures and that you have started to create during an artist residency in Iceland: as you have remarked once, they are a kind of quiet beauty... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

It might be possible to create something without having any personal experience with the subject, but I think most artists will always have the urge to give their view on what they personally experienced. It’s those direct experiences that give you inspiration and give you the push to create something, because you want to share what you experienced and give your own view on it, and share it with the world.

ART Habens

Eveline de Lange

effectively capable of re-contextualizing the

As you have remarked your works are often small, inviting the viewer to come close to view the details, which creates a feeling of intimacy with the work... By the way, although I'm aware that this might sound a bit naïf, I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

I think one of the things that make us human is our appreciation of art, that we feel the need to create something just because we feel we need to create it. Art doesn’t fill any biological need the way food or shelter does, but we still need it and we feel the urge to express ourselves by creating art.

By looking at art that depicts nature, I feel we are both part of that nature but also expressing our humanity at the same time. For example, if I make a drawing of a rabbit and I show this drawing to my own pet rabbit, she will most likely try to eat it, or sit on it, but certainly not see it as a drawing of herself! If I show the drawing to you, you will understand it is supposed to be a rabbit.

Still, humans are animals as well, and a part of the animal kingdom just as much as that rabbit. Even if my work often portrays nature rather than humans, the subject essentially is always the human mind, and how we experience nature and the world around us.

Besides producing your stimulating artworks, you also teach and you give classes in your atelier in Delft, so I would like to ask you if you have ever happened to draw inspiration from your students... By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

My students are certainly an inspiration to me! They look at the technique of needlepainting with a fresh eye, and force me to question why I do certain things. I do think training should always come with freedom, a teacher is there to help the student to create what he wants to create in the best way he can, not to impose his own ideas on

the student or force the student to work things the way the teacher does himself. Only when the student is allowed to find his own freedom can the teacher and the student learn from each other, and to me that is the most effective way of training, also for me as a teacher.

During these years your works have been exhibited in several occasions and I think it's important to mention that you have recently had a solo exhibition for three months at Petite Galerie in Apeldoorn, Netherlands... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even in-

Untitled, Acrylic, Oil and cotton on canvas

fluence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

I think that relationship between business and art

is one of the hardest things about being a professional artist, and I wish there would be more attention directed towards those issues at art

Untitled, Ink, cotton and goldwork on silk

aschool, preparing the students for exactly that issue… Personally, I always try to make sure the art comes first, creating new works first and only after it’s finished and I’m completely satisfied with the works,

I’ll look for a way to exhibit the works or think of what I’m actually going to do with it. I’m lucky to have my atelier in a building with lots of other young artists, and we regulary look at each others work and give feedback, so that helps a lot in getting constructive feedback that is not based on a commercial interest! I do think the internet helps a lot with sharing your work and finding a market for it, the artist is no longer limited to his own surroundings and the styles and interests of the people/galleries that live nearby.

Now, the whole world is available, so whatever you make, there will be a place for it somewhere.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Eveline. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Thank you, too! Actually, I’m planning another residency in the winter, to Finland this time! My residency to Iceland made me very enthusiastic about the Nordic countries, and I’m very curious to look at the subjects I explored in Iceland from a different perspective.

It will be dark and cold again, I’m sure, but very different too.