UNABASHED Art & Style Magazine Vol. 1 - REUPLOAD by UNABASHED Magazine

UNABASHED ART AND STYLE

VOL. 1

Letter from the Editor FirsTof all, I wanted to thank everyone

Haley Eyre is a Calgary born and raised

artist and photographer. She is currently at the Alberta College of Art and Design, studying for her Bachelors of Design with a Major in Photography. To check out more of her work, go to: www.haleyeyrephotography.com or visit her Instagram @ haleyeyre_art.

who supported me and this magazine. Thank you to all the models who volunteered their time. Thank you to all the artists who accepted my invitations to be featured. Thank you to all those who gave me ideas and suggestions. And thank you to my friends and family for being patient while I spent almost all my free time this summer making this happen! I was inspired to create this magazine because every time I open a fashion magazine, I wish for more representation for people who don’t represent the standard of beauty set forth by society and the fashion world. It does make me happy to see more and more inclusivity within the pages of magazines, but it’s not enough yet. UNABASHED promotes real people who aren’t afraid to be themselves and break societal standards of beauty. I want future generations to open fashion magazines and see themselves represented in a beautiful way. I can’t wait to continue this project and release many more issues! Along with my passion for body positivity, I have a passion for promoting new and upcoming artists. UNABASHED introduces all different types of artists from around the Calgary community. Please check out all these amazing people and be inspired by all they have accomplished and all they hope to accomplish in the future! Deepest gratitude,

Mature Content Each artist expresses their own individual opinions and ideas. They do not reflect the opinions or ideas of other artists featured in this magazine or the editor.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Stars from Outer Space

Sara Perry-Din

Matthew Springer

Mariah Blanchard

Generations

Katelyn Liakos

Sarah Kirk

Rhiannon Babyn

Bodies

Sabrina Shamsudeen

Quinn Thomas

101

Pastel Dreams

111

Art and Model Index

121/122

STARS FROM

OUTER

SPACE 1

SARA PERRY DIN 16

SARA PERRY-DIN Sara Perry-Din is a jewelry and metals major at the Alberta College of Art and Design. You can see more of her work and contact her through her Instagram @saranoelperrydin.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself; where are you

from, what kind of education do you have?

S: I was born in Montreal but then I moved here

when I was three because my parents couldn’t speak French. And they’re like “I can’t get a job.” Anyways, we moved from Montreal and then I went through high school and all that and I took all art courses. I graduated with honours because of all the art courses. And now I go to ACAD. And I’m a second year... No, now I’m a third year!

Q: What are you taking at ACAD? S: Jewelry. Jewelry and metals. Q: How would you describe your art style? S: I’ve been trying to find a [style] but I’ve been

really focused on spiritual imagery; not spiritual as in religion and crosses and the star of Joseph or anything like that. I’ve been focused more on stars, and I’ve been taking imagery from Taro and nature type things that I find spiritual.

Q: What inspires you/your art? S: Spiritual nature, taro… I get a lot of my

inspiration from spiritual things. I do like the candle imagery; I use a lot of candles. I use the stars because I really like astrology. I also have flowers, because… fucking flowers are nice. Who isn’t inspired by flowers?

Q: So the earrings you’re wearing now

(featured on page 22), are they inspired by the stars?

S: Yeah! How I do my work is I make a shape and

if I like it I continue with that shape or I just keep making shapes until I find a good shape. So this is one of the shapes. And then [I] put it on the computer, and then [I] hack. I work the best if I have everything in front of me and just kind of try things out with my hands. So it’s very much layering and seeing what happens.

Q: What kind of materials do you use for your

earrings and such?

S: Ideally, I’d like to use metal. But since I

don’t have a studio, I use acrylic plastic that I outsource. I [design] the shapes and then I outsource it and they cut it and it comes back [to me]. And I just glue it all together. And then I use stainless steel ear backings. So I’m sorry if you have an allergy.

Q: What do you hope for in the future? S: The ideal top top goal is that I’m a designer

and I design the earrings and then I go into the studio and I have a tiny team that works for me and together we make the product. And I'll do commissions. And I’ll have things for red carpet events, for my friends, for soccer moms. And it'll be a good time. And if I can’t do that, then I’d like to be on the team for somebody else and have my own line, just kind of on my own.

Q: Do you have a favorite piece? S: That’s hard. I don’t know. Actually I do, I do know. I made some sterling silver earrings, which I brought with me (featured on page 19). They’re silver and they’re little faces. They’re just an outline. I’ve wanted to make a pair of earrings like that for so long. I wanted the really minimalist face type of thing. I’m also really inspired by faces because I think the act of wearing a face on your body is really funny but also kind of empowering.

Q: Where can people buy your art? S: I don’t have an Etsy right now, but you can contact me via e-mail, Facebook, Instagram. You can text me. And if you see me in public just yell! Be like “hey I want some earrings!” and I’ll run quickly.

Q: Was there anything else you would like to add? S: Um… Please buy my earrings, I’m so broke. And wear them everywhere. There’s nothing that makes me happier then seeing someone wear my stuff, like, it’s so satisfying. And I also offer free repairs, just incase.

...

Matthew Springer

Matthew Springer is a Calgary born and raised photographer and illustrator. Matthew studies photography at the Alberta Collage of Art and Design. You can see more of his work at @wubulus, @springatus or on his FB page: Matt Springer Art and Photography.

: Can you tell me a little bit about your art practice?

: Do you think that these kinds of memories influence your practice at all?

M: I do photography, illustration, graphic

M: Yes. Yeah, I guarantee it. A lot of the places

design, whatever I can usually get my hands on. A lot of it is comic book based things.

Q: Where do your ideas come from? M: I get a lot of inspiration from music; every

time I’m doing something I have music. It’s a constant thing that helps me focus. Other than that, illustration for me is different than it is from photography in the way that it's my means of creating things that I can’t see in the real world. I basically just draw from what’s in my head. My photography is for the real world and the representational, and the illustration is for things that can’t be seen: the things that are in my brain that I have to just get out onto the paper.

: What is your strongest childhood memory, or the memory you think of the most?

M: Oh my god, that’s tough. It really depends.

A lot of different memories will come in and out of my head daily or throughout the week or something, depending on what my mood is or what I’m currently thinking of. Do you have one that jumps out at you particularly, like being particularly weird or influential in your life? Oh, there’s lots! I get a lot of fascination out of really strange places, like really odd things. There’s even a place in this run down Sears in North Hill Mall that’s way in the back that looks like it’s from the 1970’s, and I remember going through there as a kid and just thinking ‘this is a strange area, these walls and things don’t look like what I’ve seen normally.'

that I’ve come across as a kid, that I felt were kind of outstanding to me, were just places that were odd. Things that I couldn’t compare to things I see in my normal everyday. And I really like the feeling of being in a place that feels strange, that just gives you an "off" kind of feeling. And I always try to recreate that in my art: being in a place that is not normal.

Q: Are you working on anything right now? M: Yes! Yes, I’m doing a lot actually. Can you tell me about maybe one or two of them? Yeah sure, one of the things I just started recently, now that school is over, is I’m getting a bunch of works collected together. I want to do a solo exhibition of my illustration work. Everything is based off of the concept of brick walls. I’m not going to get into too much detail because it’s still just in the beginning stages,but yeah, I’m doing that. There’ll be a lot of illustrations; they’re really large and I’m going to try and figure that out. Other than that I’m doing a children’s book and constantly working on drawings and comic books and zines and what not.

Q: Do you have any future aspirations? Where

do you hope to see your art go in the future?

M: I still want to continue doing comic books

and I kind of want to get that further out there and I’m trying to get more into the publishing aspect of it and stuff. I don’t know, I kind of just take it as it goes and see where the flow takes me.

Q: Who inspires you? Are there any artists that really inspire you? M: Yeah I do… I have a list on my phone actually, ‘cause I always forget who I enjoy [laugher], because

when I’m put on the spot I’m always really bad at coming up with answers for things… but uh, let’s see here [Matt makes *on hold* music for us]. Oh yes, of course, my favorite artist is Micheal DeForge; he’s a Canadian comic artist and his work is incredible, I really like it; it’s really philosophical and goes into a lot of things of everyday life and just the insides of our brains and things like that. I really like Tyler Spangler. John Baldessari is always good. Asger Carlson is a really awesome photographer who mixes a lot of stuff with sculpture and photography, it’s really interesting. There’s lots.

Q: How do you usually choose your colour palette, because it’s quite out there? M: Oh, instinctively! Whenever I look at a drawing that I’ve finished, I already automatically know what I want them to be coloured; I just kind of know. Like, ‘that has to be purple, it just has to be’. Or, ‘this needs to be yellow’, or whatever. ...

Mariah Blanchard 33

Mariah Blanchard Mariah Blanchard is a painter currently studying sociology at Mount Royal University. You can find more of her work at her Instagram @mariahblanchard or on her Facebook page Mariah Blanchard Art.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself; where are you

from? Education? Etc.?

M: So I’m born and raised in Calgary and I’ve

lived in the same house my entire life. I’m currently in sociology at Mount Royal, in my third year, and I’m minoring in art history. It’s funny, I always grew up doing art, like, as a kid in preschool I’d always be coloring and scribbling, and then in junior high I did so much art. But in high school I stopped doing it because I was like ‘oh I need to be academically focused’. That’s my biggest regret, my only regret in life. Then in university, I [thought] ‘oh I’ll just take an art history course for fun’ and it’s my favorite part of my program. And because of that, I [decided] ‘I’m going to try oil painting!’, and I just gradually got into art again. And that’s why I’m here!

Q: Can you describe your art practice? M: Generally, I really like drawing people, and

lots of portraits. I find I’m very interested in human behavior and just people in general. Yeah, I’m in sociology and that’s the study of people and groups. I feel like sometimes [facial] expressions, by themselves, can’t necessarily show what you’re feeling but then if you distort it a little bit in art you can really see the emotion.

Q: What inspires your art? Do you have any

people who inspire you?

M: Well, I really like this one artist, he’s from the

States. His name is Mauro C. Martinez and he has a lot of figures in his art and also some realism. His art is just so different and I find it really inspirational for myself. When I did my first more realistic portraits, I really drew inspiration from

him. There’s also Chloe Wise, she’s a New York artist and she also works a lot with figures, and she always has them with food. I think it’s really cool what she does. Also, Sylvia Sleigh, she does a lot of male nudes and she does them as the typical Venus pose so it’s really cool the contrast of her work. And then, I also really love the impressionists, and I know how everyone loves the impressionists but I just love how it captures that essence of life. Is there anything else you get your inspiration from? Really it would just be events in my life. So say a big event happens, I’ll do a portrait to kind of commemorate that. Or if I’m ever given flowers, I love to paint flowers. I love nature too so I feel like that’s like another essence of life.

: What was your inspiration behind Women (featured on page 38)?

M: I follow a lot of feminist meme accounts on

Instagram, and it’s kind of funny, but I’m really connected to this idea of feminism, right? And I feel like more people need to learn about it and I feel that social media is really promoting what feminism is about. Also, in my art history class, I’ve done a few projects about women in art and I [wanted] to do an art piece that’s more representative of different kinds of women, because a lot of my pieces are just portraits of myself. I wanted to do one that shows different ethnic groups and different ages and something more collaborative.

I find that an idea needs to brew in my head for about a month and I just kind of work through it. I never really do [have a full concept when I start]. Occasionally I do, but normally, the idea just takes hold of itself.

Q: Can you tell me about your piece A Chance

of Rain (featured on page 42)?

M: I find it kind of hard to get models

sometimes, not everyone is always available, so sometimes I’ll just look on social media for inspiration of a figure. Just because I feel like that’s a lot more real. So I just found some random person on Instagram and then I [thought] ‘OK I really like their pose, I’m going to build on that’ and I kind of wanted to do Impasto, so a little bit thicker [application] than normal and something different. I also like that it has an androgynous look to it. I think that day I actually got in a fight with my boyfriend and I had [these] stormy emotions. I really wanted to put that on the canvas because I know that if I just kept it inside it’s not really therapeutic; but if I released it then it [would be]. So that’s kind of where I got the idea of A Chance Of Rain. And I think it might even have been drizzling out. But it’s just very [much] what I’m feeling inside. I also like how when I look at the piece, [I wonder] what the person’s thinking.

Q: What media do you paint with? M: So the medium I first started painting

in, funny enough, was oil, even though in my opinion it’s one of the more difficult mediums to work with. I’ve actually switched to acrylic because I like to work fast and I like to just get my ideas out, so [I can't] wait two days until a layer dries. I mostly do acrylic but I also do a lot of oil pastel. I love it because it’s so fast and it just flows from me more naturally.

: Do you have any goals in the future, in art or in life?

M: So in my life: I want to travel a lot [and] I

also want to go to lots of museums. I’m currently learning French and I want to learn Danish

[because] the judicial system in Denmark and a lot of Scandinavian countries is way better than Canada. So I feel [for] social purposes and for what I feel is right I want to go to Denmark, just to check it out. Art wise: I want to exhibit eventually because I find I just have a stack of artwork at my house that I just keep accumulating. And I want to do something with it. I’ve never done [any exhibits] before, so I think that would be really neat. And I [just want to] keep making art. Oh, [I'd also like] to learn some more techniques! I have taken one course at ACAD [when I was 16]. It was 100 drawings in a week. Did you find that actually helped you? I found that it did help me but I never realized how much work art can be until then. It’s mentally tiring. So I’d love to learn more things like that and experience more like that.

Q: Do you ever consider selling your art. M: Yeah, I do sell my art sometimes but I think

I just want to find a better platform for it. I’m doing commissions but I think I’d like to work on what I want first before I do more commissions.

Q: Are you working on anything currently? M: I am working on something currently. It’s

outdoors [with] a peach sky, [has] a circular sun and a Japanese influence. It has two figures and one is a nude woman and one’s a guy wearing clothes. I haven’t really finished the figures but I kind of want to play with ideas of gender roles and what’s appropriate (featured on page 42, Top). I have one friend from London and he says most of the beaches in Europe are nude beaches whereas in Canada I feel like people are more like ‘oh what is nudity? That’s not appropriate!’ They’re not comfortable with it. I find [Europe] is very liberal. I’ve watched a few documentaries on nudist colonies and it seems interesting. And I think [the painting has] just a cool dynamic too because of how someone from North America would perceive [it] versus someone from Europe. I also want to play on the idea of a traditional gender roles in art. Females are normally nude but it’s not an empowering thing. So I’ll see where it goes.

Q: What is your favourite piece you’ve

painted?

M: It might actually be January 2017 (featured on

page 39, Top). This one’s a really different piece. I was trying out a new technique and also it’s not a full portrait and I was just kind of seeing where it went. I actually finished it really quickly. It’s kind of about stress and anxiety and just like the feeling of it. I’m not sure if it impacts other people, but for me, when I look at it I actually would feel stressed at first. And I think it’s just so emotionally powerful for me and it’s kind of a reflection of myself so it’s just always been really special to me. Can you tell me what inspired this? I think at that time I was just really stressed about work and school and I just quit a job that I hated and relationships and everything. And I was ‘this is so tense’. So I just needed to get it out. And I feel this is a piece that people can relate to. I think there’s a lot of art work that’s really happy and cheerful that I do, and of course people can relate to that, everyone loves being happy. But I kind of like getting out the darker emotions. One thing people [tell] me [is that] I’m a very bubbly, happy person, and generally I’m very happy. But my artwork, it’s the darker, intense emotions in life. And I guess for me it’s a way I can get that out.

Q: Was there anything you wanted to add? M: I think that people should just always pursue

their art. I think oftentimes people will think ‘Oh, well, I’m worried about making money or I don’t want to show it off or I’m not good enough’. But the thing is, it takes so much time. I’ve been doing art since I was five. Baudelaire was a 19th century art critic and writer and he talked about how people shouldn’t want their art to be liked. You know Clement Greenberg? He believed that the great thing about artists, Avant Garde artists especially, is that they want their work to be hated because art is such a personal thing. If you’re just making art for other people, then I feel like that’s not what [art is] about. Art is really innovative. Where do ideas come from except for the individual? So just keep making art always and enjoy it and pursue your passions in life. ...

" If you’re just making art for other people, then I feel like that’s not what art is about. Art is really innovative. Where do ideas come from except for the individual?"

GENERATIONs

Silent Boomer millennial

Katelyn Liakos

Katelyn Liakos is a Media Arts major currently studying at the Alberta College of Art and Design. You can find more of her work at her Instagram @katelynliakos or on soundcloud.com/katelyn-liakos and vimeo.com/katelynliakos

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself? K: My dad works in a warehouse and mom's a

manager for a business and so there's never really too much art [around]. It’s just something that I took on and I never took it serious until high school when teachers said "you know you need to decide what you're going to do with your life". I was always one of those kids who one year [wanted to be a chef, then the next something else]. [Currently] I’m going into my third year Media Arts Major at ACAD.

Q: Can you describe your art practice? K: So my art focuses in sound work, video,

animation and I'm just starting to dive into some interactive programming. I work a lot with exploring relationships. [There are] so many relationships we sustain as humans; like to people, to food or to different concepts and stuff. I usually like exploring in depth, exploring their different layers. So yeah, that's my main interest in my practice but I also end up doing a lot of random stuff. Just exploring how to do things and different materials.

Q: How did you discover that you wanted to

go into Media Arts?

K: My dad’s a big computer guy, so there's always

technology [around], and I was interested in it and I would dabble around. But then in my first year I took a media arts class and I fell in love with it. Then I had a semester without it and I always found myself thinking ‘oh I want to do this project in media arts style’. I think that's the biggest thing, if you keep thinking [about] how you want to go back to that medium, it’s probably the one for you.

Q: What inspires your art? K: A lot of books; I’m a heavy reader. I love music.

A lot of music inspires my art, but that’s always a big thing in video work; you don’t want your video work to be a music video! It's always something the media arts profs tell us! A lot of times I’ll find a song I want to use and then put the video to the song. I guess I’m a bit of a pop culture junkie and I have a love for obscure sci-fi.

Q: Do you have any favourite artists? K: I take a lot of inspiration from the artists I

follow on Instagram. I never really liked the kind of artists we learned about in school but there are so many Instagram artists I follow loyally. And they really inspire my style for animation and stuff.

Q: What are your goals for the future? K: I have basic ones that everyone has, like not

having to work in fast food anymore and to be able to live off my art. I would love to be one of the artists that help make media arts prominent in the art world, because it’s still difficult to get video pieces and stuff into galleries. And just being able to make art my full time job, you know, being able to live off doing something that I love.

: Do you have a favourite piece that you’ve made?

K: I have this sound piece called Grace. I quite

enjoyed that. I'm so happy with how that turned out. And also The Blues; that was a really fun piece to make and I really enjoyed doing that. That was all filmed with VHS.

Q: Are you working on anything currently? K: I’m just starting something. I start, next Monday (June 5, 2017), the residency at ACAD. I'm starting on

this series of pieces spanning from video to sound on religion and spirituality because I grew up with nonreligious parents so I never went to church or Sunday School. So what is it like coming from a 20-year old’s perspective entering religion? I’ve just started doing research for that.

Q: How long does it take you [to make a video piece]? K: Grace took me somewhere between six and eight hours. It was [mostly] piecing together where things

should flow together. Some [video pieces] can take just one day of committed filming and some can take even longer. The most I’ve spent on something is two weeks. The biggest [time] factor is what you're filming on and your designated length. [For] a video that I want to be 1-2 minutes, if I have one day of dedicated filming [that would be good]. But for anything beyond the range of 4-10 minutes, it could take a week, or up, of filming and editing. It's more the editing that takes a long time, not the filming.

Q: Do you find that you are inspired by past memories? K: I think I’m inspired a lot by my relationships to my family, especially my younger brother. I come from

a traditional Greek household. Family is very strong. Me and my brother are very close in age. I feel that I’m inspired by things I’ve gone through growing up with him and how our relationships really grow and change so much. ...

SARAH KIRK 60

SARAH KIRK

Sarah Kirk is a poet, writer and journalism student at Mount Royal University. You can view all her work at www.queenoftheamateurs.blogspot.ca

Q: What Inspired you to start writing poetry? S: I was 14 years old, and in grade 8 English class we got poetry assignments. Then, I don’t know, I just really liked it and I kept writing poems. I think I had to take some homework with me on a trip to Florida and I started writing some and I didn’t stop.

: What inspires your poems? When do you feel the most inspired to write?

S: It’s kind of just what I’m feeling at the

moment. So if I’m feeling strong emotions and I have no kind of outlet to express them then it really helps to write it down in the form of poetry.

Q: Who inspires you? Do you have any

favorite poets?

S: I actually like Sylvia Plath. I enjoy Shakespeare,

[too]. I haven’t read all of the plays, so nobody should quiz me on that, but from the few that I have [read], I really like them and I like the style of writing. And, you know, even TV shows, if it has a script work that has cool ways to speak the English language. Where people actually express themselves through words that we don’t typically use anymore today. I find it’s interesting, it’s kind of refreshing.

Q: Where do you see your work going in the

future? Where do you hope it goes?

S: Honestly, I have no idea. I’m in the middle of

a communications degree right now and I’m not sure where this is going to go but I kind of just want to keep doing it. I always wanted, since I

was a little kid, to write a book, a fictional story, and hopefully I can pursue that soon, or after my degree is done.

Q: What is your favorite poem that you’ve

written and why?

S: It was a poem about a friend of mine who

started smoking cigarettes very heavily, and this is in high school. They used to tell me that they would never smoke ever. And I just kind of felt sad maybe for their mortality or maybe for their will being bent just by smoking cigarettes, because before they never had any inclination to do so. I don’t really have anything against anybody smoking though. It’s a personal choice. I think at the time, because I was younger, I just didn’t quite understand it and so I really felt for it and I wrote a poem. That’s probably one of my favorite ones because it was kind of just yelling at the whole addiction part of it, not at the person because it’s not really the person’s fault; it’s more what happens in your brain, the chemicals it needs to feel okay again. (This poem is titled Cigarettes and is featured on page 62).

...

Cigarettes I see the way you look at her, How you hold her to your lips See that crawling smile of satisfaction, Your mind awakens and then it slips The only thing you’ll never know, When your soul leaves you in smoke, She’ll have the stronger hold on you, And one day you’ll start to choke It’s not every day that you see a man, Who openly welcomes death I guess it may be easier, When she takes away your breath As she is the lovely Azriel, Disguised as cigarettes So she steals your cares and gives you pride, And leaves a promise; no regrets

A Player’s Losing Hand Prologue to epilogue No story in between As nauseating as The filmy white sheen Found on a bowl of milk Left outside to dry The faeries come to drink it They have heard her plea to die Not one soul has been so willing To join their murderous hell I guess that you’d be willing too If you had no story to tell

A Beautiful Stranger I don’t know what’s more pathetic That I dreamed of you Or that the dream was romantic Lies that wrap around your brain Like silk ribbon flows in the wind Entangling between branches Catching on hope Like a wildfire spreads Through dry twine On a hot summer day Incomparable to the mud filled puddle Sloshing in my heart With hands desperately reaching Up and out To meet you

A Simple Regret You were once alluring Like my first shot of tequila I then had ten of them It was only later As I was lying on the bathroom floor When I realized Not everything enticing Was safe for me to know

Rhiannon

Babyn

Rhiannon Babyn Rhiannon Babyn is a ceramic major at the Alberta College of Art and Design. You can find more of her work and contact her through her Instagram @rhipottery.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself; where are you

from, what kind of education do you have, what do you do?

R: Basically I’m from Edmonton, Alberta, aka

“Deadmonton”. And I moved here because I wanted to start photography, as weird as it is. But once I got my hands dirty with some clay and ceramics [I got] really obsessed with the process. So right now I've kind of realized that I want to [practice] the mold making aspect of ceramics. And some sort of wheel throwing integrated in there with the mold making because last year I found out that my great grandma was a mold maker too. I knew she was a ceramic artist but I didn’t know that she was a mold maker and so I’m just like 'oh my god!' I just want to learn about what she did. And I really do like the mold making process just because it’s fast and it’s not necessarily easy but it’s just quicker and you can pop out a whole bunch of things; [for example] I made my honeycomb bowls (featured on page 71) for this semester. I made, what, 40 to 45 of them. And I even lost count of all of them. I had three sitting on the bisques shelves at the end of the semester when I was going to clean up the studio space of all my stuff. I was like 'oh my god I can’t believe I forgot these!' That’s why I like the mold making process. My honeycomb bowls are kind of to highlight the importance of bees and what they can do for us because their populations are declining and whatnot and they’re starting to go extinct and be an endangered species. Which is crazy to me to think about because when you were young there were bees everywhere. You couldn’t even avoid them because they were abundant. You’d see ten in one bush but now you only see one

in one flower bush you know. It’s so crazy! So anyways, I want to highlight the importance of helping nature and whatnot. [After making] the honeycomb bowls, I realized that what I want to do with every other [functional] art piece that I [make], like dishware, is make it related to some sort of cause, to some sort of endangered species. And then have 10 percent of the proceeds go to like World Wildlife Fund and stuff like that. I basically want to be an artist with a cause, I don’t mean to say that but yeah.

Q: That pretty much answer’s some of my

other questions, so I’ll ask some questions specific to mold making. Can you explain mold making to us?

R: Well basically with the honeycomb bowls

I had to put a lump of clay on the wheel. And then form it into the outer shape of a bowl. So basically just a regular bowl shape and no indenting it with your thumbs and opening it. You just make it a solid form. And then you take it off the wheel and then you shave off whatever you want and you have to make it so that it doesn’t have any undercut; so if it’s more angled inward like a mountain top then it’ll slide out and pop out easy. If it’s angled open on the inside of the mold it won’t come out and you’ll just wreck your mold. After you have your shape all nice and ready to go, you basically have to put it on this plastic sheet. And you have to put clay around the edges and smooth it to the plastic. And then you put on this metal sheeting stuff, but I’ve been using buckets to put around the bowls after they’re sealed to the plastic. You have to put clay around the bucket too because when you pour [the

plaster] in your little area, you don’t want plaster to seep out all over. The clay seals those edges. You have to do this whole process and it actually takes a long time if you want your edges to be nice. Now you have to get your plaster ready because if you’re doing this while you already have your plaster ready, your plaster will set. But anyways, you mix up some plaster in a bucket and you just pour it in. One time, when I was trying to make more molds, I wanted to have five honeycomb bowl molds because then I could just pop out five in an hour, you know what I mean? I was making two bowl molds at once, and I poured in the plaster and it went underneath. I didn’t seal it enough; the edges went underneath the completely solid bowl and lifted it up. So you can’t even use that at that point and like frick, now I’ve got to wait till the plaster sets and basically just throw the plaster out. So it’s a kind of a long process. Then you have to wait 'till the plaster sets if you have a good one. Oh, I forgot to mention, I put Vaseline on the inside of my bucket so that the plaster mold slides out more easily. And then once you have that, you wait an hour or two until the plaster cools down and it’s room temperature, because once it’s setting and it starts to get solid, it heats up. And so anyways, once it cools down, you know that it’s set completely. Then sometimes you can shave the sides if you have a square mold, to be a little lighter and easier to handle. Once you have your mold, you put it in a drying rack for two days to dry out all the moisture and then once it’s dry you can basically pour slip in any time you want. You can make the slip, the deflocculant, thicker or thinner. So in 5-10 minutes you’ll get a nice thick but still kind of thin side or outside edge. And the inside stuff still stays moist and wet. And so usually there’s a film that develops on the top that you have to scrape away and discard, and then you dump out the slip once it’s ready. If you have less deflocculant in it then I’m pretty sure it takes a longer time to set up and makes the walls of your product thicker. Usually, I like to give 30 to 40 minutes for them to set up and get thick. Then I can work on other ones at that same time. Once you dump out

the liquid, you actually have to let it dry upside down so it flows out and sets. Then you have to let it sit 20 minutes to dry and then you just pop them out. Then they’re ready to clean up, because at that point you have little nicks or stuff on the inside that you don’t want: irregularities that your mold has captured. You can clean those up after by wiping them with a sponge and vinegar. That’s what we use; that’s why it smells like vinegar a lot in the ceramic studio. That’s just getting them to the form. Then you have to clean up the edges because when you have them upside down and dripping, the top edges collect little bumps, and so you have to wipe them away. So it’s a pretty long process. And then I like to put slip on mine. You can color your clay slip, but I don’t necessarily like to do that because certain things with certain colors are toxic, like the yellows. What we use with the yellow is rutile and that is actually toxic. So, if we mix that with the clay base material, the clay base material will actually be toxic even though it’s a glaze.

Q: How many pieces do you get from one

mold?

R: Well, the more you use the mold, the more it

deteriorates. The more you use your mold, the less durable it gets, the more the plaster starts to wear out. So once you start using your mold more often you will start to notice that it will take longer for it to set up, just because it’s already been used like a hundred times.

Q: We already talked a bit about what inspires

your art but what else inspires you?

R: My interest and love for nature, animals,

plants and stuff like that. I just always want to learn more about that kind of stuff. So being able to incorporate it into my art is really great. I think that’s about it. I said I’m interested in the endangered animals and species side of it but I’m still trying to figure out how to integrate that into a more meaningful way.

Q: What do you hope for in the future? R: Well, I hope to be at least somewhat well known. I hope that my art inspires other people to change the way that they’re viewing the world, in a sense, and the way they’re interacting with the world. You know what I mean, look deeper into the nature aspect and just be more aware of our surroundings and our world and whatnot because we only have one and I don’t mean to preach, but yeah.

One of my dreams, because I have those leaf tiles (featured on page 74), is to have a whole gallery full of leaf tile molds all set up on the wall. There’s this one artist, her name is Jennifer Angus and she has real bugs and sets them up in little Mandalas and fills up rooms. So she’s got an entire bug collection of real bugs and they’re preserved and they’re crazy. So I hope to kind of be like her in a sense and set up little galleries with my leaf tile molds. I also have my functional pottery, so I hope to at least be somewhat of a gallery artist as well as have a functional side that serves society. Some ceramic artists are trying to get people to use more ceramic things instead of Tupperware. I’m kind of interested in exploring that aspect too: making ceramic Tupperware. Maybe not be totally famous but somewhat well-known maybe in Alberta, around Canada.

Q: What is your favorite piece that you’ve made? R: Probably my honeycomb bowls just because they were so successful. I don’t mean to say that and boast and brag, you know what I mean? But my uncle loves them and everyone that I happen to talk to wants to buy them. So I just really like that. It makes me happy, you know, that people are really wanting to buy something that I actually made. You can put them in different formations and it’s like a cool puzzle game almost. Yeah. So that’s my favorite piece so far I think; the honeycombs. ...

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SABRINA Shamsudeen 92

SABRINA SHAMSUDEEN Sabrina Shamsudeen is a painter, currently studying at the Alberta College of Art and Design. You can view more of her work at her Instagram @bean_is_awkward

: Tell us a bit about yourself; where are you from, what kind of education do you have?

: What was your inspiration behind your set of 'marbled' paintings (featured on page 98)?

S: Born and raised in Calgary. I went to a

S: Whenever I get in a funky mood I sort of just

Christian school and so I was very conservative for the majority of my life, until junior high and people realized I was so innocent and decided to destroy it there. And this is how I turned out: an art student! I have my high school diploma, going into the third year here (ACAD).

Q: What are you studying at ACAD? S: I am studying painting and I’m planning on majoring in that.

Q: Can you describe your art practice? S: When I first started [my paintings] were

very small, just photo size. And then I started having Brian Flynn as my teacher for painting at ACAD and he [said] ‘Go big or just go home, don’t bother’. And so, last year was my first time using a giant canvas (36”x40”). Just recently I did something that was three by four feet. It was that purple and yellow squiggly one (featured on pages 99 & 100). It was in the Show (and Sale). It hurt me so much just staring at it and painting for six hours straight. It made my eyes cross because of the complementary colors. What was your inspiration for that one? The segment was basically how to mess around with vision. I had done this previous design and pattern in my color theory class, and I thought, what if I blew that up bigger? I wasn’t too happy with it actually, but everyone loved it. And then I ended up painting over it.

like to express myself in some way. I don’t like painting in color. Sometimes I’ll do it and I’ll enjoy it, but I have to be in that right mood in order to be inspired to paint with that color.

Q: What are your goals for the future? S: One of my major goals that I’d love to achieve is to own my own gallery and be able to support myself and present my own paintings and other upcoming artists or some of my friends’ art works. Do you have a specific place you’d like to go as your dream location? Probably downtown or in Kensington or Vancouver.

Q: Do you have a favorite piece? S: Yeah, actually. It was part of a six week

[assignment] and it was two canvases combined into one, with red on one side and black on the other (featured on page 98). That one is my favorite one. And why is that? I wasn’t expecting how it turned out. I sort of just winged it. I throw the paint down I [think] 'OK so I’m sort of trying to go for this theme or this new look of it.' I was sort of thinking what would hell look like? That was my thought process when I was thinking of that. At the time I was in a classroom, one of the painting studios, and I thought there wasn’t going to be a class there. So I was painting it and then [the class] all walked in and I [thought] ‘well this is my hell’. Now I’m stuck here waiting for my paint to dry. And I’m trying not to make noises while they’re discussing assignments.

Q: What kind of environment do you like to paint in? S: I sort of like being secluded from people. I can’t really stand people watching me. I feel so nervous. It’s

sort of like when you’re drawing and someone looks over your shoulder and they’re like 'oh draw me'. I’m sorry. I only draw abstract. I can’t draw people. I normally paint on the floor too. ...

"I sort of like being secluded from people. I can’t really stand people watching me." 98

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Quinn Thomas 101

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Quinn Thomas

Quinn Thomas is a Vancouver based musician. Born and raised in Kelowna, he moved to Calgary at the age of 12. After high school, he moved to Vancouver to pursue a career in music. You can find his solo work at www.blessyourpureheart.bandcamp.com and his band work at www.prettyfilthy.bandcamp.com. Pretty Filthy also has a Facebook page, so hit that up.

: Tell us a bit about yourself; where are you from? Education? Etc.?

: Who or what inspired you to start creating your own music?

QT: I was born deep in the Sahara Desert under

QT: It was really hard for me not to write music.

tumultuous and very dangerous conditions. It was a time of peril for both of my parents as their birthdays were approaching, yet my mother had to deliver a child. Both their birthdays are on the same day and the day after mine. All of a sudden God granted them one final wish and they were teleported into Kelowna, where I was born. Kelowna General Hospital is a very weird time in my life, I try not to talk about it too much. My uncle was a mongoose and my grandfather was a pair of used skis. Thus I was born. I had a pretty average childhood. I was talking to [my mom] yesterday, and she [said] ‘Quinn, you've always been the most creative person in your class’. I was like ‘Hell yeah’. [Interview is interrupted by a man clearly on something. Before he leaves he says “One more thing… I’m boned like a saint, with the conscious of a snake”.] The trick is you just don’t look at them. I’ve made many mistakes in my life, one of them is looking at people on drugs in their eyes. Anyways, story short, I wound up in Calgary when my parents divorced. I started playing music; the bass clarinet was my first instrument. Pretty wild.

Q: Can you describe your style? QT: I guess my style is continually figuring out

who I am and the best way to express it, and who I am in that moment, and learning to channel that in the most appropriate way possible.

The first time I really sat down on the guitar, I just wanted to write stuff. You know, I was like, doesn't matter if I didn't know a lick of theory. I didn't know anything but I just really wanted to start writing, just cause I like making things, pulling shit out of the ether. I don't know, I just played a lot of Rock Band and I picked up the guitar one day and I played Day Tripper on the real guitar. And [the rest] is history. I've played the guitar for hours every day for the past six years.

Q: What is your favourite part of creating

music?

QT: Aw there's a lot of different aspects that

I really really enjoy. Obviously there’s the one where I have an overwhelming emotion, like, I'm frustrated, I'm sad, whatever the emotion and everything all comes out at once; the lyrics, melody and chords, all come and BAM the song writes itself in 30 or 45 minutes. And then there's also the kind where you spend [lots of time]. I wrote a song called Stitch in Time. That one took me soooooo long to make. It’s 20 minutes long. It took me, imagine three times that length, I mean three songs for each part. And then I would go back and [decide] ‘No, that doesn't work’ and then try something else. And ‘No that doesn’t work’, go back redo and I'd spend hours recording all these different parts. And it would be ‘nope, doesn't work, doesn't fit the mood, doesn't fit the narrative of the song’. And so I'd go back and keep redoing it until I had the perfect flow.

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When I finally showed my mom the copy of Dance Your Life Away. She [said] “Holy shit, I knew you're good but I didn't know you were this good!” And then she was looking at me and she had the widest grin on her face; ear to ear and she said “this is you?!”. And then when the song was finished she said “Put it on again”, like she wanted to hear it on repeat! How crazy was that. So, just, I really like those moments you know. And also someone Snap Chatted me a video of themselves lip syncing along to one of my songs. You know? And here's another; one of Logan’s coworkers came up to him while he's at work and said “hey man, I listened to your album [signing] 'We were Queens of the Universe!'”, and he starts singing that to him. Then Logan catches him on his lunch break and he's listening to A Stitch In Time and taking notes on it. That's a pretty cool. So those are definitely some of the highlights of my life. I finally understand the biggest appeal of becoming an artist and finally having those moments with other people. Because I definitely have some of those moments myself, of lip syncing along to something that really [hits you] deep inside you know?

Q: Do you have any idols? QT: Yeah, I have many idols. You know for

guitar rocking out-ening, I guess the most recent person that I've had for idol worship is Josh Homme. Recently I'm starting to really get into Tame Impala. I mean these guys are obviously pretty big acts. They're not an obscure artist because they've been able to take something like an experimental idea, like throwing a really big phase over a mix or throwing a flange over a mix and doing all those really wacky shit. Or just having a one part loop for three minutes straight in a pop song and having strings go over it and like, you know filters and shit and still have it come out to be a pop song. Just being able to take really wild ideas and to really make them accessible. Idols, I mean. I think the people I idolized most are people who are really themselves. Just average, normal, everyday people, who just are authentic to them. I think it's like a really beautiful thing, like naivety. It's magnificent.

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Q: Where do you want your music to go in the

future? Do you have any goals?

: It's so hard because that's like saying "What feelings do you want to have in the future?", you know? Music is just an inner reflection of a narrative that you have with yourself or conversations that you wish you could have with another person. Sometimes you want to be able to share a certain feeling through telling a story, and then stories that have morals. Shit like that. But I really enjoy storytelling. So in the future I don't know what kind of things I'm really going to start to indulge in. You know, when the time comes, and I’m able to afford more and more and more gear and stuff, then I’ll start to experiment with more textures and weirder sounds and maybe break into alternate genres and start blending more intelligent dance music. I like techno, I like trance music, I like, you know, trippy shit, I like wonky music, I like all different kinds of music. And maybe I could be able to start blending that with pop. You know, pop accessibility, really generic songwriting and aesthetics and then blending it with all that other stuff, like Radiohead kind of did with Kid A. But for my future goals, I want to be playing festivals. I want to have a giant crystal rotating castle that me and my band members can interact with. And we just have giant architecture and we're all playing around and we’re climbing around in this architecture. And there's light shining in it and shines down in different lights and colors on the audience and I'm wearing a giant flaming costume, like giant shoulders. I have a cape and I'm wearing a giant birds mask, like with a big beak and shit, and giant feathers and everything. And I look like a ten-foot-tall monster. And with colors and neon and disco balls and shit like that. Reflective. And just everything looks crazy, like I'm literally on fire. And then playing a rock and roll show like that.

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Q: Is there anything you're working on right

now?

: I mean, I just got accepted to go into this festival in September at Westword Music Fest 2017. I'm just working on putting a live band together for the most part, because I did all these recordings myself in my room. It's a labor of love because I wrote all these songs because I wanted to hear them myself. I didn't do it for anyone else other than me. I just wanted to be able to hear this melody, I want to hear these words, I want to hear these textures, I want to hear these guitar riffs. I want to hear it all together. I want to be able to groove and rock out to it. I want to be able to do that for myself. And then bam. I just kept on doing it; I made six albums worth of material in one year. I was putting out an album every two months. I was doing everything myself, and eventually you just start getting kind of good at it. You start to figure out what your niche is. I didn't start with pop, I'm not sure if you remember, the first shit that I released was this really weird electronic shit. And no one knows that I put that shit out. They only know me for being a pop act now. You know, just making accessible music.

"I didn't do it for anyone else other than me." So I spent a lot of time making all this shit and eventually I was making weird shit, then I was making rock, then I was making weird rock that didn't really sound too good. I just started honing it in, and honing it in, until this one time when I [was on a spiritual journey] and I heard sounds in my head. And then from that point on I heard everything differently. I just literally experienced music differently. And ever since then, the quality of what I make has gone up drastically because my brain was forced into a state of artificial

perfection where absolutely everything was perfect, everything down to the molecules in its exact right place at that exact right time. After you go through an experience as traumatic as that, in a really beautiful sense, of being lifted up into a rapture almost and seeing golden hills and listening to sirens singing in your ears, you know, it's hard to be able to go back and make something that is mediocre. And then now I've just been really trying to nail something, and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Every single time I'm pushing myself more and more to try and pull people into this world that I was pulled into it once upon a time. So that's how I wrote Stitch In Time as well. I was trying to bring people into the same narrative.

Q: What is your favourite song that you've

written?

QT: I’d still probably have to say Stitch In Time.

That’s still the pinnacle of my favourite song writing. Well, it depends on which version you're talking about, because there's the long and the short one. The long one’s 19 minutes, the short one's like 8 1/2. The short one is just the last eight minutes of the long one. It's the last part where it’s just all electric, all rock music. Which one is your favourite? Probably the long one, just with the flow and all the EDM and everything. There's so many intimate moments that I personally share with that one. Someone who shouldn't be named because the last time I mentioned their name in a song they got mad at me. I just remember so distinctly in my mind; the sun's light coming through on a February day and it’s blue skies, super chilly but it’s still warm and she's sucking on a cigarette. She turns around [and says] “I think I'm starting to fall for you”. And that's why I have [the lyrics] ‘Think I'm starting to fall for you’. You know? Sunshine, cigarettes... Anyways I can’t remember the lyrics to my own song. The point is, that part was really emotional. I really tried to, in detail, write about what happened and then sonically try and fill in what I was seeing and experiencing. So that's the number one reason why. And there's subtle nuances, like when I was with Aiden, and he shared with me the Robert Frost poem Birches;

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so that was the poem I reference in Stitch In Time. And then there's noise sections; where it gets a little bit more chaotic. Because when there was absolute silence in the room, I still heard oscillating frequencies and static in my ears and it was the craziest, trippiest shit. And as much as I was seeing bright colors, I was hearing wild TV static. And then the last verse in Stitch In Time is the actually some of Daisy's poetry. Also at the same time, there’s a song I have on the demo reel called Summit; which is about working a lot and being a leader and trying to go for it. ‘If the summit is your home, get used to being alone’, because when you're at the top no one else is going to be there. That's why it's called "the top", because you're alone up there. You know. So it's really interesting writing a really heavy stoner rock song around leadership, you know, as much as it is [writing] songs about drugs.

Q: Tell us one weird fact about yourself. QT:I say I'm not a really weird person but everything I do is pretty weird, in the fact that it's like not

normal. I don't sit down and watch movies and eat popcorn. I don't do that. This is what I do five days a week: Get up. Read. What do you read? Self-help books and personal development books, like stuff for running a business. I read a whole lot of books. So I read, then I do my vocal exercises on the way to the gym. Come back, play guitar, then I go for a run. Come back. Shower. Eat. Go to work. And that's my life. So that's why I ended up writing a song like Summit, cause I seen no one else busting as much ass as me.

Q: Where do you work? QT: I work at the Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver. Come visit me. ...

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ART INDEX Matthew Springer Pg. 30 – Nihilistic Reasonings, 2016 Pg. 31 Top – Fungaloptodon, 2016, Bottom – Brothers, 2016 Pg. 32 – Heaven & Hell, 2016 Mariah Blanchard Pg. 38 – Women, 2017 Pg. 39 Top – January 2017, 2017, Bottom – Let There Be Religious Tolerance, 2017 Pg. 41 Top – Eve and the Media, 2017, Bottom – Engulf emerge, 2017 Pg. 42 – A Chance of Rain, 2017 Katelyn Liakos Pg. 55 – Still from HOLOCENE, 2016 Pg. 56 – Still from THE BLUES, 2017 Pg. 57 Top – Still from Growing Pains, 2017 Pg. 58 – Absence, 2017 Rhiannon Babyn Pg. 71 – Honeycomb Snack Bowls Slip casted, slip decorated, glazed with decals, 2016 Pg. 74 – Leaf Tiles, 2016 Sabrina Shamsudeen Pg. 95 – 12 Minutes, 2016 Pg. 96 – mAgic…, 2017 Pg. 97 – marble gOld (part 5), 2017 Pg. 98 – what hEll would be liKe? (part 6), 2017 Pg 99 & 100 – fUck uPs, 2016

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Models Stars From Outer Space Reza Abghari Amy Bergeson Emma Coniah Jade Steele Generations Sydney Eyre Susan Eyre Loretta Peterson Bodies Gordon Brook Ellie Clyne Jade Forbes Elise Hessel Michael Mackenzie-Cooper David Nguyen Pastel Dreams Chloe Frost Sarah Kirk David Nguyen

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