CREEP A C U L T U R E M A G A Z I N E
JUNE 2014
ISSUE No.2
WE’RE SECRETLY WATCHING YOU.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ZARAH CHENG
11 Songs to Blare When You’re Packing Your Life Into a Suitcase for a Summer as an Advertising Slave 25 Bucks by Danny Brown ft. Purity Ring Stoner (Evian Christ Remix) by Young Thug No Rest for the Wicked (Klangkarussel Remix) by Lykke Li Still (Tiano Edit) by Daughter 100 Shades by Nü Sensae Habitat by Austra Running to the Sea (Man Without a Country Remix) by Röyskopp Boom by Le1f Getting There by Cyril Hahn You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive Dragula by Rob Zombie
EDITOR’S NOTE
I have a lot of questions. For instance, is Avril Lavigne aware that Hollaback Girl happened 10 years ago (I’m referring to the “Hello Kitty” video. A great slew of people are pissed about it and I personally don’t find it racist, but it’s just so awkward to watch. We get it, you’re trying to be all edgy and progressive but come on – your schtick sucks and we’re bored)? Why did Pete Burns do that to his beautiful face? What does a turducken taste like? Why isn’t Pepsi Blue still a thing? I’m probably never going to be able to find answers to these questions but maybe that’s something to aspire to. I’m sure most publications are concerned about any number of other things, such as generating profit or being endorsed by Oprah. I, on the other hand, just want to be able to ask strange questions to the people that can give me the answers. From launching the first issue to putting this second one together, I’ve realized that these questions matter and readers are monitoring the answers more than I anticipated. Granted we are still a very small, independent magazine but media is media. People are going to be reading content that we put out so we have an inherent responsibility to not make ourselves look like assholes. Regardless, I’ve had quite an eggcelent time putting this June issue together. It’s strange but after working with and reaching out to so many different contributors and features for this issue, I realized just how small and large Vancouver is. There are so many artists, designers, musicians, photographers, just people doing amazing work that I’ve never heard of but at the same time, am connected to in some way through friends I already know. Six degrees of separation, baby. I’ve also learned that whenever life becomes overwhelming, watch interviews of Carole Bouquet or Willam Belli. They’re both therapeutic in their own ways, goddammit (maybe too much Willam). Side note, I got the visa. I’m moving to New York. Sharon and Alaska forever, Zarah
SPECIAL THANKS
PLACES Biltmore Cabaret El Kartel Inventory John Fluevog Oak + Fort PEOPLE Josefa Cameron Paulette Cameron Grace McRae-Okine Blaine Metzgar Sabrina Wong
CONTENTS
MUSIC Interview Krista Michaela
FASHION Interview Trevor Fleming of Lifetime Collective Editorial Dylan Ford & Misha Oreshkov photographed by Cassandra Shier
CULTURE Interview Stick and Poke Tattoos The evolution of stick n poke from party aftermath to specialized artist. We hang out with Jenny Cleland.
ART + DESIGN Interview Brit Bachmann Awkward Kiss. Friends & Strangers. We chat with this Vancouver-based artist about her works, often based on voyeurism and surveillance. Feature Joshua Silver A Toronto-based photographer who captures the “normal� through film media.
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KRISTA M I C H A E L A words Josefa Cameron
photography Jonathan Mak
photography Olivia Bee
How has moving back to California influenced or changed your life in general? Do you think this change comes through your music as well? California has always been particularly special to me. I feel distinctly connected and endlessly curious with the people, imagery, and memories that surround me here. I’m a sixth generation Northern Californian. Since moving back, I’ve had plenty of time to travel up and down the coast. I’ve had countless adventures with old and new friends, from the rooftops of San Francisco to the neglected trailer park towns of the Salton Sea. I would say that living here inspires me to try and keep up and capture all that I am experiencing; it’s so important to understand where you are. Your sound is very tender and ethereal, it could be said that your aesthetic pertains heavily to that of young, adult girls. Do you write your music with this audience in mind? When I recorded my EP, it was an ongoing process that I didn’t intend on making public. It was kind of like my experimental, daily journal. To imagine anybody reading my private journal while I was trying to write it would’ve definitely changed what went down in
the pages. I wouldn’t say that I have ever had an audience in mind while writing, although I suppose that it would make sense for other young adult girls to resonate with what’s going on in my daily life. You found a fascinating mix of an acoustic/organic and web-y chillwave sound, how did you do this? I spend endless amounts of time experimenting. I started out on the piano when I was young, and then moved to guitar. It wasn’t until last year while I was living in Vancouver, my friend Jade and I decided that we wanted to start a chillwave band (Glass Veils), write and record a single (“West Coast Indians”) and have a party all in the same day. It was a blast and then I just kept experimenting on my own from there. Though I still strongly believe that there’s something special and present in the simplicity of an organic sound, it’s a great challenge as a singer to be able to work in continuum with different mediums. What made you transition from being a university student playing music on the side to dedicating the majority of your time to music? My university education was a bit all
photography (top) Olivia Bee (middle) Kasia Shebloski (bottom) Olivia Bee
IT FELT LIKE NOTHING ELSE EXISTED.
over the place (I started out school in Arizona and ended up in Canada, changing my major a total of six times in two years). I felt like I was on this crazy chase after different universities and majors due to the fear of not being in school. It was definitely time for a pause. Contextually, what I was learning didn’t align with the concrete goals that I have been slowly but surely forming. The transition came naturally, and the decision was black and white. Being a university student was beginning to feel too abstract and future-oriented, whereas opportunities and ideas in music came up to challenge and motivate me in a very tangible way. I had to ask myself what I could do with the present. I want to go back and finish my degree eventually (now that I have a better hold on how I can apply what I learn to what I do), but music will always take up the majority of my time no matter what. It’s always on my mind. Photos and other art forms play a significant role in your life, how has collaborating with other artists and experimenting with other art forms helped you evolve? I love the connection between movement and sound. I got super into film around middle school and tried matching up fragments of random footage with sounds and music. I have years
and years of footage that I still love to go through and play with. Film has definitely changed the way I look at my own music. In a way, it’s a test: does the song that I just wrote make me look differently at what I see? This past year I’ve done film collaborations with my friend and photographer Olivia Bee (“Untied” for W Magazine and “Sacred Heart” for Hermes Paris). The special thing about working together is that the song and the video were both separate ideas that happened to lock. I think that this is because we have a similar “world” that we like to create with our work. It’s really effortless and special to watch side by side, and the imagery continues to inspire me. Most of the other collaborations that I have done are with musicians. It’s so interesting watching all of their processes because people can say, “I do music,” with such varied implications. Some people see songwriting as an equation, and for others it’s purely emotive. There isn’t any set way to write, and every time I work with someone new, my own process evolves. Is there a reoccurring theme you find threaded throughout your lyrics? I tend to obscure my lyrics, and even though they may sound sweet they typically envelop much darker themes.
Your Cat Stevens cover of, “Trouble”, is mesmerizing. What role does Cat Stevens have in your music making processes? The song “Trouble,” by Cat Stevens is one of the first songs I remember honestly loving. There is something so pure and direct about all of his music (I’m actually listening to him right now). Once, when I was about to drive down into the Palm Spring desert in the heat of July, my friends and I pulled over to the side of the road, sat on the cliff ’s edge, and blasted the song “Wild World” from the car. It felt like nothing else existed. It’s that feeling of timelessness that his music evokes that inspires me to write.
You travelled quite a bit for music, what are some crazy / interesting stories from your travels? My craziest experience was definitely flying out to Paris this past Valentine’s Day to sing at the Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art gallery right next to the Eiffel tower. One of my best friends, Olivia, was curating this beautiful event for Cacharel fragrances and there were flowers, perfume, and her amazing photos all around. After the performance and reception we hit up some boat parties along the Seine River, but had to plot how to sneak in because they didn’t want us Americans around. That next day we ended up at a massive chateau in the French countryside at the most extravagant birthday party. There was
a smoke cloud as high as the ceiling and little kids riding toy bikes around a massive dining room table stacked with cakes and alcohol older than we’d ever seen. Everyone in the room was related somehow. Then, the family gave us an incredible tour of their estate and we all got caught in a flash rainstorm while trying to pet horses. Olivia and I just kept on looking at each other like, “How, how is this real?” What does the future of Krista Michaela entail? I’m always working on new recordings, and will be releasing some of them soon. I just finished a really small tour, and am planning out some more shows around Southern California, where I’ll
photography Olivia Bee
be moving soon. I’d love to go on a larger tour once I finish up my recordings (maybe even revisit Arizona and Canada). This summer I’ve got new video plans that I’m pretty excited about, some collaborative and some on my own. I’m also planning to work with other musicians, and continue to build my live set-up. ~*Future is bright*~
kristamichaela.bandcamp.com/ soundcloud.com/krista-m-anderson facebook.com/kristamichaelaanderson
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LIFETIME COLLECTIVE words Zarah Cheng All images from Lifetime Collective.
When I first walked into Little Mountain Workshop, I wanted to try on all the clothes and smell all the soaps. I was there to meet with Trevor Fleming, co-founder of Lifetime Collective, so I didn’t have time to try on anything but I will tell you that I indulged in some soap-smelling (hello, Coffee Bar Soap). As we sit at a nearby café over more caffeine and sorbet, the designer-slash-boutique owner tells me about Lifetime Collective’s spirited beginnings as a collaborative effort between friends. Founded in 2002 by Reid Stewart and Trevor Fleming, the collective has grown to become a diverse and dynamic group that ranges from artists to photographers to skateboarders to musicians. Never forgetting its roots, Lifetime Collective is ever-evolving and never sleeping.
photography Joey Indriei
photography Joey Indriei
Creep: What is Lifetime Collective? Trevor: It’s always evolving and always changing, but it’s basically a huge collective of friends and the medium just happens to be sharing clothing. The collective [takes on] a lot of different forms: artists, musicians, videographers, photographers. And all that comes together and is expressed as a clothing brand. That being said, the clothing brand is multi-faceted. It has collections in both the boutique direction and within skate culture. We did that about four or five years ago – we segmented the brand to be able to service those two different areas. How does Little Mountain Workshop tie into Lifetime Collective? It kind of just happened because we needed a new office space [laughs]. It’s not as simple as that, but we just bought our brand from under our investors and were going out on our own again. We were looking at office spaces around the city and went in a bunch of different directions. We were looking at places on the second stories of buildings and
art spaces and warehouse spaces. And we were debating, “Should we get more space than what we need and take it over, renovate it, and rent it out as artist spaces and run an art community out of it? Or what would be best for the brand?” But we felt that having this [store] more tied to our customers and being able to interact with them on a more regular basis was important. So I would say it’s a curated space to showcase things that we’re interested in. Lifetime includes everything from fashion to skateboarding to film. What motivated you and Reid to expand the collective so dynamically? The collective just grew organically. When we started, it was just friends that we grew up with that were part of the collective and it grew organically through word of mouth. And luckily for our friends and for us, these guys went along to do some pretty amazing things in their own genres. That helped us to get exposure on a more global basis – them introducing us to their friends – and so it’s always just been
that, really organic. And we don’t pay anyone on the collective, so everyone is doing it for the cause. I mean, if we use artwork we pay our artists, but everyone is there because they want to be involved in something like this. What helped it grow into the different directions, from skate into more of a fashion boutique direction, was [us having] this company for 13 years and changing over those years. We never wanted to have a company that was always standing still because our customer is always growing up and changing too. So we didn’t want to hold back and just be that company that we were then – we adapted our company with our interests. So my interests took a boutique direction from going on trips buying with my wife and helping her open her boutique. And Reid is still very deeply entrenched in that skate culture so it’s great to have those two outlets to design for. And that’s really why that happened. Not because we were thinking, “We need to tackle this other market!” But it happened because we are genu-
photography Joey Indriei
LET’S JUST GET A VAN FULL OF PEOPLE AND SHOOT IT THERE.
inely still interested in what we are doing and have a passion for it. Without change, it’s pretty tough to force yourself to do that. Everything works very well in the store and is still very cohesive. Yeah! We have companies and shops that buy both of the collections in our stores and make it work. Not that the collections are completely different, but it allows us to use better materials on a higher price point item that has more detailing. What inspired the Spring/Summer 2014 collection? For inspiration, I can speak for my side of it – Reid would kind of have to speak for his side – but on a boutique level for the Men’s and Women’s collections, we design all of our own fabrics in-house. All the prints that you see are designed in-house. We don’t really have very many market fabrics in the collection. Fortunately, we’re at a point where we’re able to do that. So when we do our colour storyboarding, we can carry that through into our fabric productions. There are a lot of things that get influenced. This specific collection had a huge pull from early 90’s pop culture. Two of the main prints, one’s called the “Zack” and the other the “Slater”, so straight up Saved By The Bell ref-
erences. It always pulls from different things. When we’re storyboarding, sometimes it will go in a whole other direction from where we started out because we’re collecting images from all over the place. And that will lead us to another direction for designing fabric or pulling inspiration for the prints in the collection. Inevitably, photos and inspirations for the prints end up drawing us into another place to shoot the collection. What was your creative process in developing the art direction for the look book? For the first part of the Spring 2014 [look book], we actually did a lot of studio work here – we did it at Little Mountain Workshop before it was open. The spring part of it was shot around back of the studio and that was all Ian [Lanterman]. But the summer portion was shot in Joshua Tree in Palm Springs. Because we were working on the new [The Living Dream] film, we decided to shoot the summer portion where we were shooting the video, just to give the seasons a very different look to them. There is an image in the look book that I’m obsessed with. It’s one with a man and a woman looking through a window at each other. It’s so creepy
and unsettling. To what extent do you collaborate with the photographers for the look books? That was definitely tied to the narrative of the video. We were doing this whole play on light, shape, and reflection. There are a lot of geometrical shapes and stuff like that in the prints as well. That shot was definitely exploring the space and if you see the video, it makes sense. That was shot by my friend, Joey Indrieri, who’s part of the collective. He’s a photographer out of Venice. He was the photographer and the film director for the video as well. At the end of the S/S 2014: The Living Dream video, there’s a quote: “The Living Dream has nothing to do with sleep.” What do you mean by that? This is more of Joey’s direction but basically, to always have your eyes open. I always feel that for so many people, the things they do in their dreams or what their dream is is never their reality. And to a certain extent it’s a play on that. You’re awake, you’re conscious, and you’re living it to the fullest. Nothing too complex [laughs]. Do you and Reid design all of the collections’ pieces? Our collaborators within the company are the collective. Especially in Reid’s collection, we’ll have collaborations
photography Joey Indriei
photography Ian Lanterman
with artists within the collective to do a print for the Rick McCrank collection or for anything else within the Uniform Standard. We’ve done that in the past with my collection too. I draw a lot of my own stuff now and we just kind of do our own thing. We have an in-house Women’s designer, Laura Tanner. She designs the Women’s collections and I work mostly with her because we share some fabrics. But aside from that, as far as collaborations go inside the company, we work with the collective. Especially for the t-shirt art. To expand on that, pretty much everything we do through the whole process tends to involve the collective in some way. T-shirts for the season are always designed by artists in the collective. Photography for the season is always with a photographer in the collective. Videography goes the same way. And then we have our publication, Free Thinkers. It’s a way for us to expose those in the collective and also to work with people outside of the collective that we’re interested in. Maybe they’re not part of the collective, but we’ll do interviews with people and feature photographers like Glen E. Friedman. He’s obviously not in the collective but he was a huge part of us growing up. He’s
an amazing photographer so we did an interview with him and featured his photography. It’s a way for us to work with new people. The Men’s and Women’s collections are very cohesive together. When you come up with designs, do you focus more on how they will look for a particular gender? I feel that the Men’s and Women’s collections look so cohesive because we will work on the same colour storyboard for the collections and then we design our fabrics with some crossover fabrics in mind. That tends to make it look very cohesive. You need to use so many yards for a fabric and use it across so many styles within the Men’s and Women’s collections. So we do design them to work well together. But there are also some fabrics in the Women’s collection that are women-specific. You guys are based in Vancouver but a lot of your photos and videos are shot on location in different places all around the world (Thailand and Iceland to name a few). Do your travels influence the designs for your collections? Oh, 100-percent. Maybe it’s not always noticeable, but our whole company phi-
photography Ian Lanterman
losophy is influenced by the people we meet and the places we go. When we get out of the office or Vancouver and Canada in general, we can’t help but be influenced creatively by these things. It always flows into your work, no matter if you realize it or not. We did a shoot in Iceland one winter, filmed with Salazar, and I have a dobby-woven shirt in the following collection that actually has the pattern print from the Icelandic currency on it. There are always things you can incorporate, and whether they’re super “in your face” and noticeable or not, you can pull ideas and inspirations from all that. Also, with storyboarding up to a collection and deciding how that can influence where we’re going to shoot or what’s going to influence colour, we can all of a sudden just be like, “Oh, where is that?” And then we decide, “Let’s just go there and shoot it.” We did this shoot at Lake Powell – which borders Utah, Arizona, and Colorado – and a lot of our colour storyboarding included shades of clay and turquoise. A few of the shots on the colour storyboard were actually at this epic place so we thought, “Awesome! Let’s just get a van full of people and shoot it there.” So we did. We camped there for a week and we shot it there. But that made it merchandise perfectly with the whole col-
lection we developed. All the colours work together and everything just fits. Lifetime Collective includes a very diverse group of artists from filmmakers to photographers to snowboarders. How does the collective inspire you and who you’re designing clothes for? I think for us, we do such different things between Uniform Standard and the main Lifetime Collection. On a creative level, you are aspiring to do things that are worthy of the creative community that you are apart of. But on the other side of that, you have to understand your customer and really dissect what is selling versus what you’ve been selling. This includes trends, right from colour to fabrics to silhouettes. It’s not just about what you’re into because as a designer, what you’re into is always a season or two ahead of what your customer is going to be buying. So it’s always a little bit of that and a little bit of what you really love. Lifetime describes the Uniform Standard as “a call back to the skate and snow roots of Lifetime.” How do you differentiate the designs for the Uniform Standard collections and the Men’s collections? The reason that whole thing happened was because we grew up selling in an
industry of skate and action sports. When the company started to grow, boutiques started buying garments from our collections and we tried to service this other customer. The more we did that and explored this other direction, the more it took away from the original group that supported us in the beginning. Not just by design, but also by price point. Because now we’re using fabrics that are getting more expensive and it’s taking away from what that customer base can afford. So in order for us to not completely lose where we started and these shops that we’ve been servicing, we decided to split the design of the company and to be able to service both industries. What’s on your iPod right now? Nothing [laughs], because I just took my iPhone hot tubbing with me the other day. But I do have podcasts. So my number one favourite podcast right now is Reverberation Radio. Lifetime Collective’s S/S 2014 collection is now available at lifetimeclothing.com and at Little MountainWorkshop.
COME ON SAM, LET’S GET OUT OF HERE. BURN RUBBER! - T H E L O S T B O Y S -
photography Cassandra Shier model Misha Oreshkov model Dylan Ford styling Zarah Cheng
left shirt El Kartel pants El Kartel right shirt Inventory pants Oak + Fort
left shirt Inventory pants Oak + Fort shoes John Fluevog
right shirt Oak + Fort pants El Kartel shoes John Fluevog
shirt Inventory pants Oak + Fort shoes John Fluevog
left shirt El Kartel jacket Oak + Fort pants El Kartel shoes John Fluevog right shirt Inventory jacket Oak + Fort pants Oak + Fort shoes John Fluevog
left shirt El Kartel jacket Oak + Fort pants El Kartel right shirt Inventory jacket Oak + Fort pants Oak + Fort shoes John Fluevog
(left) shirt El Kartel jacket Oak + Fort pants El Kartel shoes John Fluevog
(right) shirt Inventory jacket Oak + Fort pants Oak + Fort shoes John Fluevog
left shirt El Kartel shorts El Kartel right shirt El Kartel shorts El Kartel
left shirt El Kartel shorts El Kartel right shirt El Kartel shorts El Kartel
shirt El Kartel shorts El Kartel
left shirt El Kartel shorts El Kartel right shirt El Kartel shorts El Kartel
top left shirt Oak + Fort top right (left) shirt Inventory shorts El Kartel (right) shirt Oak + Fort shorts El Kartel bottom (left) shirt Oak + Fort shorts El Kartel (right) shirt Inventory shorts El Kartel
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S T I C K AND P O K E words and photography Zarah Cheng
I felt like I was in a movie when I went to go take photos of Jenny Cleland giving her friend, Nathan, a stick and poke tattoo. She threw down her keys to me from the window of the second floor and as I walked into the building, a black cat followed me in. When I got into the apartment, a band called Gandalf was playing in the background as Jenny showed me the work she had done so far. This is the kind of environment that most stick and pokes are done in: carefree and amongst friends. If I was still considering the stick and poke stigma, Jenny quickly debunked it. She took extreme care in making sure that her work environment was sterile and her work was comparable to ones I’ve seen from a shop. This ain’t no Andrew W.K./Ke$ha safety pin-administered stick and poke (look it up). This is the real deal. So prepare to have all your notions about stick and poke flipped on its head, shaken like a dirty martini, thrown into a garburator and served to you in the form of a vicious cat with a knife.
How does stick and poke work? There are many different techniques that people use to do stick and poke or hand poked tattoos all over the world, ranging from bamboo tattoo to a thread wrapped needle. What they all have in common is that they are machine-less. So every single mark requires one poke from the needle to form an image. In my practice, I use tattoo gun needles but without the gun, dip it in the ink, and do a ton of tiny pokes by hand, sort of like pointillism to draw the image. How did you get started with doing stick and poke tattoos? I guess me and some friends just started out by doing little stuff on each other for fun. And they turned out so nice that more friends wanted drawings and started to ask me to do bigger images on them and it sort of just progressed from here. I’ve seen some pretty rough stick and pokes online. How were the first few tattoos you did? Oh my gosh, there are some very terrifying horrific ones online! Surprisingly
the first ones I ever did were really nice. I was so nervous to begin with permanently stamping someone’s body and the possibility of messing up, but I just did the best I possibly could. I really care about what I’m putting on people’s skin and so in the beginning, I just took my time and made sure they were as perfect as they could be. Your line work is extremely fine and precise. Are people ever surprised that it’s not done with a machine? Yes, people are often surprised because of the stigma behind stick and pokes being a drunken homemade tattoo, but people are surprised when they find out it’s a stick and poke. People usually think of friends getting super wasted and “scratching” each other with safety pins when they think of stick and poke. Have you experienced any negativity towards your work because of this stigma? Not really, mostly my experiences have been quite pleasant when they see my work. And I don’t really surround myself with negative people.
The whole stick and poke culture seems to have become a lot more normalized over the past few years. What do you think has contributed to this growth? I think as more awesome and innovative stick and poke artists become visible on social media like Instagram and such, people are beginning to understand the history behind the method and learn that there is more to it. And as it becomes more recognized, so does the work of impressive artists out there that are keeping the tradition and origin of body marking alive. Why do you think most people get stick and poke tattoos? Perhaps it feels less intimidating than going into the shop and people feel like they can get something little and simple. And there seems to be a growing trend and interest in the aesthetic of stick and poke and its larger role within DIY culture and creative communities. I know when I got my first stick and poke, it was not only a fun and rewarding experience but felt like friendships and bonds were formed.
High Fashion models, such as Cole Mohr (Marc Jacobs), are known to have stick and poke tattoos. Do you think publicity like this elevates or glamourizes this form of tattoo art, almost to the point of becoming a trend? I think publicity like that maybe lets people know that it’s not just drunk people stabbing each other with sharp things. It could be that that’s the case with Cole Mohr though, who knows. I wouldn’t call it a trend but you could argue that tattoos in general have become a trend in the last 20 years. It’s rare to find somebody without a tattoo of some kind these days! Tattoo shops can become pretty defensive about tattoo culture and the whole idea of apprenticeship as a rite of passage. Have you experienced any backlash so far by bypassing that step? No, not at all. I have a lot of friends who are tattoo artists and work at shops and they have been nothing but supportive. Many of them have even pushed and encouraged me to pursue it more as its own art form. I have never had any negativity at all.
photography Jenny Cleland
Do you prefer a particular aesthetic or type of design? What is it? I love doing portraits of animals and textbook diagram line drawings. I really like the look of bold black lines and negative space and try to emulate some of that into my work. Whenever I need inspiration, I look at 40’s and 50’s American tattoo styles as well as old traditional stick and poke styles. I just love making little funny creatures and enjoy collaborating with different people and the ideas they have. Is there anything you would say to the people out there who still dismiss stick n poke as an art form? I would say that the oldest evidence of tattoo body art was found on a mummy dating back from 6000 BC. Cultures all around the world have been doing beautiful intricate machine-less tattooing for centuries and still continue today. In my opinion it creates a different energy and style to the whole thing and is an appreciation of the old ways.
I think it’s really neat, and I have seen some beautiful work and hope this tradition continues as tattoo culture grows as its own art form.
Check out more of Jenny’s work at howtocatchaghost.tumblr.com.
IT CREATES A DIFFERENT ENERGY AND STYLE TO THE WHOLE THING.
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BRIT BACHMANN words Zarah Cheng All images from Brit’s portfolio.
As we browse around Brit’s studio a couple blocks down from Victory Square, she tells us the story behind each illustration pinned on the white walls. From first kisses to heartbreak, her works explore a range of emotions and memories that we have all been through. Inspired by the strangers and pedestrians around her, she is unafraid to use unconventional methods of collecting subjects. Influenced by situationist theory and continuous narration, Brit Bachmann pushes boundaries in a refreshingly subtle way.
Awkward Kiss No.2 pigma micron, sequins and embroidery thread on paper
How would you describe your art? I create continuous contour line drawings, hand-cut vinyl installations and limited-edition zines. My subjects are generally filmed without consent through methods of voyeurism and surveillance, or taken from photos I find online or in books. I consistently use my line as a metaphor for qi, or prana. How do you incorporate situationist theory into your work? Early concepts for Situationist International were based on ‘psychogeography,’ a term Guy Debord wrote about in the 1950’s to describe new ways for pedestrians to explore the urban landscape based on individualized experiences rather than fixed geography. It was a modern response to the vanity of the flâneur, or someone in a state of privilege who strolls just for the sake of it. Psychogeography grew into dérive, which are routes completely directed by the emotions and intuitions of an individual pedestrian. My art practice is dependent on spending days walking around a city and filming strangers, thus providing meaning to places and situations that others may consider mundane. Situationist International became radically anti-capitalist in its later years, and I’m not sure how that will manifest in my work. A lot of your art is very tactile. What influences your use of materials? Honestly, constant experimentation and a hyper active imagination. I am
attracted to materials that produce or mimic fine line. Thread, for instance, can be indistinguishable from an ink line if used in a certain way. Combining pen, felt marker, gouache, crayon, scotch tape, watercolour, and any other material I can think of is my attempt at channeling some textural intimacy with my art. I love your Awkward Kiss series. What inspired these drawings? Awkward kisses. I wanted to emphasize the excitement of kissing someone for the first time by highlighting the ‘point of impact’ with sequins and embroidery thread. My subjects were taken from photos of strangers that I found searching ‘awkward kiss’ on Flickr and Tumblr. This is an ongoing series that I am not satisfied with yet; I want future Awkward Kiss drawings to become even more gaudy and absurd, with the end result embodying the spirit of severely awkward adolescence. Has your work ever been influenced by a muse? While Nancy Drew has always been a silent muse, I don’t know the name of my current one. I fell in love with voyeurism watching a woman through a window in Paris. At the time I was living in a chambre-de-bonne that shared a courtyard with a finance building. One evening I saw a woman working late. She was on the phone. As soon as I started filming her she hung up and started crying. After a few seconds, she started talking to someone I couldn’t
Lepidoptera no. 2, February 2014 pen, sequins, embroidery thread on paper
Jessica preparing absinthe at 22h53, 12/31/13 March 2014:
A Neighbour Clipping Nails, 11H25, 07/23/11 (detail) ink and metallic gel pen on Japanese Moleskine, July 2011
Awkward Kiss No.1 pigma micron, sequins and embroidery thread on paper
see with expressive hand motions. It was the most beautiful and intimate thing I had ever captured with a camera. I drew it, and thus began my long continuous contour drawing style. That was over three years ago and I still think about her often.
ed for blooming artists? I do. It has taken diligent socializing to understand which collectives, galleries, and organizations to invest in. Vancouver has networking resources that many towns can only aspire towards. I chose Vancouver post-BFA because it offered an immediate job, illustrating subTerrain Magazine issue #66. I relocated from Kelowna where I had experienced very little support for emerging
What was the inspiration for your Sketchbook Project submission, Strangers ? I was looking out a window towards a coffee shop. After an hour of surveillance I saw a man drive up and get out of his car. He looked around, very skittish. Rather than enter the coffee shop, he leaned against the back of his car, lit a cigarette and started reading a book. He stopped reading and left once the cigarette was done, not even entering the cafe. It was such odd behaviour that it seemed like the perfect response to the Sketchbook Project topic, Strangers. My decision to incorporate different types of paper was the direct influence of Antigonik by Anne Carson, which I was reading at the time.
artists, except for the efforts of a few organizations. There was a general air of conservatism and censorship that was suffocating, but Vancouver has a lot less of that. By moving from a smaller town to a city like Vancouver, I have started out completely invisible to this art scene. Lucky for me, I use invisibility as a motivator.
Do you feel that Vancouver provides the support and opportunities need-
Your Friends & Strangers series contains several images that feature a
time lapse. Is storytelling and narration an important part of your work? Incredibly. My continuous line drawings are my attempt at narrating a few seconds or minutes at a time, in a similar way to animation. That being said, since my drawings are usually based off surveillance I don’t even understand the context of the moments I document. I can only speculate the story lines. A more spiritual interpretation of my art practice is that my line symbolizes a universal narrative- the continuous flow of energy from one organism to another.
IT WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND INTIMATE THING I HAD EVER CAPTURED WITH A CAMERA.
You are a co-founder of the Studio One11 zine collective. How did this project start and what do you hope to accomplish in the future for it? The idea for Studio One11 began when I overheard Lorna McParland, the director of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art in Kelowna, talking about getting rid of an old Xerox. Within 24 hours, I had written her a proposal for a provocative zine collective in the Alternator’s available studio space. Membership with Studio One11 was
The last breakfast before D went back to his ex, 08/16/13 ink, gouache and metallic crayon on paper, November 2013
a revolving door, but co-founders Lucas Glenn and Jeff Ellom provided the project with life and legs. We promoted indie publishing by hosting all-ages zine launch parties. Studio One11 is currently inactive; we gave up our studio space and ditched our broken Xerox at the door of a recycling depot in Kelowna. I don’t think the collective is completely dead, though; Lucas and Jeff are both still using concepts generated in Studio One11 to inform their inde-
pendent and collaborative art practices. As a group we had participated in zine exchanges all over the world, and created an archive we want to display permanently one day. I hope that for some young artists in the Okanagan, Studio One11 demonstrated that low-budget art can overcome geographical limitations. The role of the Institution is always a topic of discussion among art circles.
How has your time at UBC for your BFA influenced your development as an artist? The following opinions are exclusively my own. While I believe the artist is a researcher and should be surrounded by a variety of stimuli, I am not convinced that art schools should attempt to fit an academic mold for the sake of generating interdisciplinary artists. I’m not even sure art schools with hierarchal structure should exist. The Visual Arts Program at UBC Okanagan helped me realize my independence as an artist, but not because of its resources as a university institution. The instructors gave me the freedom to experiment outside the curriculum because I demanded more from my art education than they could teach in a stiff institutional setting. The UBCO faculty is absolutely brilliant. They could impart so much more wisdom on young artists if given more flexibility in the restrictive university environment. What do you do to combat the artist’s equivalent to “writer’s block”? I like to dance it out, either with my friends or solo in my studio. There is no block that a cranked stereo and an aggressive playlist can’t dislodge. I get my best ideas jumping around. What do you hope viewers take away from your art? Children have the most animated and
excited reactions to my drawings, perhaps because they understand them immediately. I always hope adults channel that same sense of wonder for simplicity that children do. My drawings (especially my figures) are merely suggestions of the real, but not realistic. As humans, our brains fill in the gaps to see what we want to see. My imperfect line enables that process to happen. Who is your favourite artist (fine arts, not music), dead or alive? Sophie Calle, a conceptual artist and writer from Paris. She is very much alive. If ever I see her in the street I will fall to my knees and offer myself as a minion, or at least an unpaid assistant. Everything I create is either consciously or subconsciously for Sophie. What music do you listen to in the studio? I always bounce back to a quote I read from Devendra Banhart, where he describes a single creative impulse as being able to start as a song and end as a drawing, or vice versa. Because of that, I constantly mix up my playlist; I believe that the music I listen to subtly weaves into my drawings. I enjoy streaming Strombo Show, which is the perfect collection of new and old music, and cultural quips. It keeps me stimulated without distracting from my line.
You can check out more of Brit Bachmann’s work at britbachmann.com.
opposite she liked the quote New York City, USA December 2013 Fujifilm Xperia 400 ISO
JOSHUA SILVER words Zarah Cheng All images from Joshua’s portfolio.
Based in Toronto, Joshua Silver shoots a wide range of subject matter in film media. From Dublin to Paris to New York, he allows us to see through a lens that sometimes feels as if he is sharing with us a great secret. By capturing “normalcy” from a wide spectrum of different subcultures and locations, Joshua Silver documents a unique vision of the everyday.
top left solitude Calgary, Canada June 2013 Ilford HP5 400 ISO top right beaubourg Paris, France December 2012 Fujifilm Xperia 200 ISO bottom left dingle weekend Dingle, Republic of Ireland August 2013 Black’s 400 ISO bottom right basement art battle Calgary, Canada May 2013 Ilford HP5 400 ISO
cornice New York City, USA December 2013 Fujifilm Xperia 400 ISO
a valid question Calgary, Canada June 2013 Ilford HP5 400 ISO
top left life expectancy Dublin, Republic of Ireland August 2013 Kodak Portra 800 ISO top right petra glynt at cinecycle Toronto, Canada April 2014 Kodak Protra 800 ISO bottom right PORT Toronto, Canada March 2014 Kodak Portra 800 ISO
previous you are beautiful
New York City, USA December 2013 Fujifilm Xperia 400 ISO opposite the gaze Cork, Republic of Ireland August 2013 Fujifilm Xperia 400 ISO
Where are you from? I was born in Toronto but grew up in Calgary. What camera do you use? I use a Nikon F-401X. It’s seriously indestructible. What inspires your photography? There’s not really one thing that does. There’s a desire to take snippets from the everyday, this includes the cities I’m in and the subcultures I’m involved with as each one has their own “normal” that comes out in really interesting ways. My background in architecture is definitely an influence too. I like to photograph buildings and urban landscapes or spatial relations. Those are the two main ones, but I continue to internalize all the things I experience – music, art, books –into my photography. You travel a lot. What is your favourite city to take photos in? I can’t say I have a favourite city to take photos in since each city has its own feel and it comes out in the shots taken there. Although I did really like shooting in Paris. Why I like down that I
do you prefer film media? film because it makes me slow and think about the shot. I say could shoot 1,000 photos on a
digital camera and all of them would come out terrible or I could shoot a 36roll and a few would come out really nice. Plus, there’s a mystery in film, a bit of a waiting game. What is the biggest obstacle in shooting with film? The biggest obstacle is that it is an “obsolete medium.” Film, slide film especially, is getting more expensive and is hard to come by due to increasing processing costs and such. It really sucks because film photography is still a rich medium. What is an image by another photographer that changed your life? There really isn’t one image in specific, but Fred Herzog’s series of Kodachrome shots are berserk! The colours are super vivid and the way they intertwine in the shots is impressive. Plus, he captures everyday city life in a nuanced way that is really powerful. Best place to grab grub in Toronto? Queen Mother is always classic, definitely has never let me down! Who are you listening to right now? My playlist is all over the place. Classics like Miles, Coletrane and Horace Silver. Then some new stuff: Lab Coast, Fidlar, COUSINS, TV Freaks, UN BLONDE.
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