February 2019: a note to you,
T
his issue is about renewal. To be quite honest, I have felt a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety about the coming year. I’m going to be graduating from college in May, and for the first time, my life won’t be divided into bite-sized pieces or semester-long stages of goal setting and work followed by a break to reset. It’s interesting how on the edge of transition, we become much more heightened to the realities of our present. I find myself wanting to latch onto the pieces of my life that for the past years have been nothing but mundane. And at the same time, I feel filled with energy to leap out into the uncertainty. Comfort can only be so calming. For me, when I’m too comfortable in my routine, it’s a sign I need to dip into something new. I’ve been reading more books in the past six months than I ever have in the past. This has felt like a personal renewal. With each story, I create a new iteration in my mind of “what life can be”. I find this motivating and comforting since I often feel there’s a templated life timeline for success that our culture outlines. Reading reminds me this isn’t the case. In the same way, the works in this issue reveal the stories of various artists and the way they see the world. I hope through reading their stories, you feel a sense of renewal. I know I have. Always,
Taylor Seamans
founder / editor-in-chief instagram: @inbtwnmag
what page is ..? 07
In Rhythm
08
Michael Cukr
15
“Little Red Nothings Who Dance”
18
Flipbook
24
Jennifer Xiao
30
“SHRINKING” and other poems
32
Submissions
38
Ryan Leahan
43
“Renewal in Repurpose”
44
Artist Insight
46
“Catharsis”
52
Anna Beam
58
Maxwell Farmer
A special thank you to everyone who supports this magazine. Whether you have submitted work, skimmed through an issue, or read each page, we’re thankful to have you as a part of our community. Like the title says, we’re inbtwn where we started and where we hope to be, and your support is helping us get there.
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THE TEAM
ON THE COVER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MICHAEL CUKR
TAYLOR SEAMANS WRITERS
MAXINE FLASHER-DUZGUNES
Michael is a San Diego based photographer and videographer. His
work embodies a very natural, documentary style which he explains
to be “cinema vérité”, meaning that the work avoids artificiality in favor
JESSICA BROCK
of capturing untouched moments. He worked for some years with the
ARTISTS
alongside other photo and video jobs.
brand What Youth but now works on individual surf and skate projects
HARPER KUO
JENNIFER LANGEN CONTRIBUTORS MICHAEL CUKR
CONTACT US
JENNIFER XIAO
ANNA BEAM
RYAN LEAHAN
@inbtwnmag
PAO-LENG KUNG
SUBMISSION INQUIRIES
MADELINE YOUNG BAILEY JAMES
info@inbtwnmag.com
WILLIAM LANCASTER
ADVERTISING INQUIRIES
ADAM SHIMOTA
ALEXIA ANGELONE
advertising@inbtwnmag.com
CORISSA IBARRA
WEBSITE
SARAH YANNI RUBY CRAIG
www.inbtwnmag.com
COURTLYN COLLINS NOAH CRIDER
EMMA BLAINEY MORAIN AN
JESS BETHUNE MISAAL IRFAN
JOLINE FLORES
KATIN PESARILLO ERIN CLIFFORD
Front Cover, Table of Contents, and Back Cover: courtesy of Michael Cukr
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in rhythm Flaming Hot Cheetos // Clairo Trippy (feat. J Cole) // Anderson .Paak No Tissues // Postcard Boy CHANCES // KAYTRANADA, Shay Lia INFATUATION // BROCKHAMPTON Photosynthesis // Saba, Jean Deaux Them Changes // Thundercat Swang My Way // bLAck pARty Savriers Road // Anderson .Paak Silkk da Shocka (feat. Syd) // Isaiah Rashad Sundress // A$AP Rocky Habit // Still Woozy Whatever You Want // Sports People Wathcing // Sen Morimoto Childs Play (feat. Chance the Rapper) // SZA D’Evils // SiR Best View // bLAck pARty Realize // Benny Sings music Selection: ERIN CLIFFORD
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Michael Cukr
interview by Garrett Seamans Q: To start, could you just introduce yourself briefly? Michael: I’m Michael Cukr. I’m 24. I’m from all around Southern California. I moved around a lot. I’m originally from El Segundo. Then, I moved to Murrieta, and then I moved to San Diego. Q: What made you interested in film and photography? How’d you get started? Michael: I was 11 or 12. All of my friends and I skated. It was kind of the age where you started trying skating more, and you’re all like, “We should try to film and get sponsored.” Fast forward a few years, a lot of my friends got a lot better at skating, and I got more into the film side of it. I started to try to develop those skills instead of skating. That was how I got into filmmaking. I also watched lots of skate videos. The earliest film influences were videos like Baker 3 and The DC Video. Pretty much anything you see at that age seems super cool. So anything I saw around that time, I was obsessed with and wanted to copy the style of. Photography came later. My grandma is good friends with John Dykstra; he’s a special effects artist and is most known for doing special effects for the the original Star Wars. When I was 14 or 15, my grandma asked me what I was doing with
film and what my goals were. At the time, I didn’t know. I was skating with my friends and filming. She said she wanted me to meet John. When I met him, I didn’t realize how important he was. He told me, “If you really care about film making and photography, you need to take it back to the beginning phases of photography. You need to shoot on a film camera and develop your own film in the dark room.” So, when I was 16, a sophomore in high school, I enrolled in independent studies so I could take an elective darkroom class at a college. I took 3 years of black and white photography at Palomar in San Marcos. That’s where I learned how to print and shoot 35mm, medium format and large format. During that time I was filming skating and surfing a lot too. And then once I graduated high school I started traveling a little bit on various surf projects with Warren Smith. He kind of brought me under his wing and got me my first few gigs in the surf industry. I shot a little commercial for Insight and did a trip for Monster Children. Q: I know you’ve done work with Kai Neville for What Youth. How did that get started? Michael: Kai definitely took me under his wing. What Youth hired me and that was Kai’s company. I got an email from Kai before I even knew him saying, “I want you to meet with the inbtwn. — 9
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dudes from What Youth to see if you wanna work for us.” I was like, “Uh, yeah.” I thought it was my friend pranking me. Of course I wanted to work for What Youth. I ended up getting hired by them and worked with them for four and a half years. During that time, Kai definitely took me under his wing. We worked really closely together on a bunch of stuff.
pressures to make a video for any reason besides to make a good video. So, this motivated us to reach out to people we were genuinely curious about. When you’re genuinely curious about something, it’s really easy to do a good interview. The person you’re talking to can tell if you’re coming from a genuine place.
Q: With Kai, was that more cinematography work or were you editing as well? I know on a lot of videos, you come up as head editor.
For portraits, I feel really uncomfortable directing subjects to do anything unnatural or energetic. So, most times, I find a nice piece of light, and I’m like, “Hey can you go stand over there?” I don’t ever take a portrait if I don’t see a moment. It’s kind of a subconscious thing where the light looks perfect and the person I’m with seems cool, so I decide to take a photo. I don’t know that I really have a formula for portraiture.
Michael: The projects with Kai were always for specific projects because he was based overseas. So, anytime he was over here it was business stuff for What Youth. One of the projects I worked on was “Anonymous Zone”. We filmed and edited that together. Then, there were a handful of projects where Kai would oversee what I was editing. He’d email me notes like, “Oh, why don’t you try this? Or, why don’t you try that?” Q: What was the experience like working for What Youth? Michael: Well I was there for about four and a half years. I was there from Issue 5 to Issue 19. It was a really small crew. It was the editor, Travis Ferré, the art director, Scott Chenoweth, and then Blake Myers and I doing the films. That was when What Youth was kind of at its peak. I’d say there was a window of about a year and a half to two years where Blake and I were employed full-time and everything was working really well. We had a really solid crew together. Before that, we were still trying to figure things out. Q: What was the transition like of phasing out of What Youth as things began to change? Michael: Stuff started falling apart internally. Blake quit, and then Scott quit, and then there were a few of us left that were keeping it going. Eventually, we had a final falling out with the investors, and we all quit on the same day. Q: Let’s talk about your creative process a little. In so much of your work, your portrait photography included, there seems to be such a high level of comfort between you and the subject. Do you typically go in knowing the people? Or, what’s your process for making people feel comfortable being on camera? Michael: There’s a few things. The first is that I generally reach out to people through a mutual friend. Through that, you already kind of have their trust. Also, doing projects for so long, you learn what tricks work and don’t. I’ve learned sit down interviews can be very awkward. You’re trying to keep it casual and keep it flowing, but at the same time you can’t talk over the person because then you can’t use that audio. So, I learned that if you do the interview in a tour kind of way, where the person has things to hold or to show you, then they feel more comfortable. They no longer feel like they’re the focus. Instead, they’re stoked to tell you about what they’re showing you. Also, working at What Youth was really special because there were no obligations from advertisers. There were no
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Q: A lot of your photos are taken in people’s homes. Does this have to do with what you were mentioning before about your portraiture being a very subconscious process? Michael: Yeah, I just shoot people that I hang out with. So, I’ll be hanging out at their houses and take a photo there. If we’re skating, I shoot them at the spot where we’re at. I don’t ever try to stray away from that. For photos and videos, I feel like I’m not trying to direct it too much. It’s a very documentary or journalistic approach. The style of my films is technically “cinema vérité”, where the role of the director is essentially not to direct or take more of a backseat and film the world in front of you. Q: One of my favorite photos of yours is your photo of Nick Rose. He’s in bed and just eating some soup or cereal. Could you talk about that one a little? Michael: I love that one. He’s like a little brother to me. That photo was super early in my photography years, right about when John Dykstra had told me to start shooting photos. I’d been shooting 35mm for a few months, then I got my first medium format camera, a Yashica Mat 124 G. So, that photo of Nick was medium format in his room. Q: Would you say medium format is your go to now? Michael: I think different formats have their own identities. I like shooting half frames a lot. I also like shooting medium format and even large format as well. And I like digital. It depends what you’re trying to get out of the moment. If it’s a moment you can’t recreate, and you have to get it right in terms of having to nail the focus and the exposure, digital with flash makes the most sense. If it really is about just getting one really nice image, then medium format is pretty hard to beat. Medium format just has a different atmosphere because the piece of film is bigger, so the physics of the light is different. It doesn’t have the “everything in focus, flat snapshot feel” that 35mm and digital have. I’m not sure how to describe it exactly, but it has a very authentic feel. Q: What do you want people to take away from your work? Michael: The films I watched growing up really inspired me. They made me want to go film, or they made me want to be the subject I was watching in a documentary, or they
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made me want to pick up on some work ethics that they had. That’s the only reason why I’m doing what I’m doing today. So, if I could get anyone that’s watching my videos or looking at my photos to feel the same way about whatever they’re trying to do, that would be my goal.
Q: That’s great to hear the honesty behind that. I feel like there’s an unspoken pressure that as a filmmaker you have to at some point transition to making short films. But, it’s nice to hear that you’re planning on sticking to what you’re doing.
Q: Do you see yourself continuing with this path of skate, surf, and lifestyle content, or do you ever think about going into any other genres?
Michael: That’s always been the goal. I’m working on a ton of stuff that’s going to come out soon.
Michael: I’ve thought about short film or fiction because that’s where a lot of people go with filmmaking. You write a screenplay with dialogue and go shoot it. But, for me, film comes from such a different place that it feels hard to think about doing it like that. Like I said, I do “cinema vérité” style work which just doesn’t cross paths with that at all. So because of that, I’d say for now I’m not thinking of going into other genres. That being said, in the surf and skate world, it’s really hard to make money off of your films. So, if you want to make work in that genre, you have to take that into consideration. You most likely have to do surf and skate work on the side and pick up something else to make money. That’s what I’m doing right now. You can take the money and be comfortable and then make skate and surf work on the side.
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Q: Really? Sounds interesting. What’s the future looking like for you? Michael: I have plans to create my own website that is basically the projects I was doing at What Youth but just myself doing them. It’s not going to make me any money, but in my free time I’ll reach out to people and work on this project. I have three or four videos shot, and I’m working on lining up some more. Once I have a solid body of work, I’m going to announce it officially and talk about it. The reason for starting this project was that I wanted a place where I could do stuff, have complete creative control, and do something start to finish on my own. The project will have its own Instagram and website, allowing the content to have a platform where it can live on its own without the pressure to compete with extraneous posts, like can happen on websites that need to do daily stories or videos.
Little Red Nothings Who Dance written by Maxine Flasher-Duzgunes illustration by Harper Kuo
Yesterday, our choreographer stopped us, asked us to sit down, asked us a question: Why are you here? What is your impulse? She was fairly stunned by a performance she’d seen the previous night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It made me feel nothing, she said, or rather, it didn’t make me feel anything. What is dance when you feel nothing? The minimalists said less is more, that nothing is better than something if that’s what you want to achieve, but then why use human beings, and not just acrylic paints for the process? Why not smear a stage with something that does not laugh or cry or breathe instead of costuming those who do breathe, but choosing not to have them breathe at all? Upon seeing the work--at least a dozen dancers and video art the size of a three story building--our choreographer claimed nothing beautiful remained on her insides. She admitted she
never wants to work this way: when dance is a race, or when identity is advertised to performance venues like a brand is pitched to a company. How much humanness can anyone take away from the only thing that makes us human? She does not want identity in her work, primarily because of its political implications, but she does want feeling. And in the expanse of a choreographic canvas, she wants each of us dancers to convey the reason we exist and clarify the origin of our movement. I answered first by distinguishing the idea of the “why” from the idea of the “impulse” she mentioned. “Why” was so interrogative, as if challenging our choice to attend university, and “impulse” so poetic and open, like a plea for our bodies to reveal their truths, their cause for moving. I cannot tell whether the two are connected, but my attempt to answer them began this way:
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Time is a sweet, glorious rose in a glass dome-the Little Prince himself kept his rose inside it because he feared it would be eaten by his lamb. I often feel I exist inside this dome, my limbs petals that flutter and eventually fall with the wind of a new dance or dancer. And in dance, our tendency to imitate strips us of our once ugly authenticness, covered with dew--we move farther away from true impulse and closer towards a universal mirror where any dancer could easily become the other. Sometimes, I’ve almost arrived somewhere, at the conclusion of a workshop or performance, when I land in the arms of a classmate I never really knew. But when it is over, they let me go and all the petals drop, and I go back to casual greetings with this person in the elevator or at the barre. What if I held on a little longer? Maybe at the heart of this problem are people impatient to feel something. Maybe holding on to one lousy dancer who thinks too much will accomplish no more than the preservation of a lot of stuffy diary entries about how she feels.
But preservation is partially at the heart of this: I told our choreographer that I move in an effort to perpetuate even the briefest of gestures. I want to hold on to a place in my body as tightly as I hold on to the place where I was raised. I do not want to be passive like the dancers I’ve met who insist every movement they conjure will go away because it doesn’t mean anything.
Tomorrow, our choreographer will have us dance as smoke, as rivers, as water wells, as triangles, as pixels in a game of tetris, sublime landscapes without identities but with thoughts to allow these images to arise in the eyes of the viewer. And like every river which dries, and every triangle bisected, we dance true to our ideas before we disappear.
So many of my professors have stated that improvisational frameworks were invented to keep us from being bored, but who would ever become bored of their own body? In a way, a dancer denies their humanity by being bored, which raises the question of whether dance only exists to prevent us from drowning in a pool of nothings. Our choreographer said so herself that this work was a half-baked mistake, and while perhaps it was intended to be visually stunning, it cast doubts on the point of moving at all.
Perhaps I fear this boredom inside dance because it signals an early departure. To be bored with dance is almost like forgetting that you dance. And to forget you dance is to forget your humanness. Tomorrow, I will dance as nature, to dance as place, to dance as time, to become a rose, which hopefully no prince will have to keep inside a glass.
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illustration by Jennifer Langen written by Madeline Young
Madeline Young // fiddled in yellow, familiar forgetful Madeline Young is a third year student at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Design underway to receive a BA in Art and Design. A lover of the outdoors and the curiosity of the unknown, nature serves as the greatest inspiration for her photography. Her work is mainly analog — she can often be found in the dark room developing film while simultaneously loading a new roll into her camera. When she isn’t out creating art, Maddie is most likely to be found at the beach sipping a mint mojito from Philz or in her room dancing to Rex Orange County. fiddled in yellow, familiar forgetful is a project that was inspired by a quote she wrote during the summer: “suddenly, life itself became a dream. and as for the boy; he was never truly important. in fact, her mind was filtered in rose and fiddled in yellow. rose, because of her wildest peachy thoughts and stubbornness that kept her from being attentive to the cold truths. and a butter yellow from the sun beams and toasted air that held northern california true to its stereotype.” — Madeline Young She had specifically picked film to be beneficial to the aesthetic and help guide the viewer to what it is like to be in an abstracted daydream. All photos were shot in Joshua Tree National Park.
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PHOTOGRAPHY MADELINE YOUNG LOCATION JOSHUA TREE, CA inbtwn. — 19
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“suddenly, life itself became a dream. and as for the boy; he was never truly important. in fact, her mind was filtered in rose and fiddled in yellow. rose, because of her wildest peachy thoughts and stubbornness that kept her from being attentive to the cold truths. and a butter yellow from the sun beams and toasted air that held northern california true to its stereotype.” — Madeline Young
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Jennifer Xiao Q: Introduce yourself a little bit. Where are you from/where do you live? How old are you? Do you introduce yourself as an illustrator, an artist, none of those? Jennifer: I’m Jennifer Xiao! I grew up in North Carolina and for now I’m based in Jersey City. I’m currently 22 years old. I usually think of myself as an illustrator. Q: How did you get into art? Jennifer: I always really loved drawing and grew up watching a lot of cartoon shows and staring at picture books. I spent a lot of my free time making things, but it was really after I taught myself Photoshop in middle school when I realized I could do art as a career. I just graduated from RISD this year where I majored in illustration!
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Q: Are you pursuing art full-time? If so, did you ever consider pursuing something else? Jennifer: Yeah I am! I pretty much always wanted to do something visual arts related full time, but for a brief period in high school I really wanted to be a TV writer. I can draw better than I can write, so it’s for the best I didn’t try doing that. Q: What are your main mediums? Is your work done all digitally? Jennifer: My work is basically all digital. I do most things just using the default hard round brush in Photoshop, but I also draw a lot in my sketchbooks with markers. I used to screen print a lot in school which I would love to do more of if I had the space for it.
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Q: I find your work to have a very playful tone, often with bits of humor. Would you define it in the same way? Or, how would you describe it? Jennifer: That’s a good way to sum it up! My friends know that I’m always trying to be the funniest person in the room which is very annoying for them, but I definitely try to put my sense of humor into my work. I like to think of it as thoughtful playtime. Q: Have your illustrations always had this playful, almost child-like (in a positive way) style, or when did it develop into this? Jennifer: I think when I was younger (and by younger, I mean like 3 years ago), I had an idea of what my work needed to look like and tried harder to draw a certain way. I eventually realized I can draw literally however I want and stopped trying as hard. My work hasn’t changed an enormous amount, but I used to draw more interior spaces with actual perspective. Q: Your illustrations are very color forward. What draws you to this? Jennifer: Color makes everything more fun! Q: You did some comics for It’s Nice That. How did that come about? Do you think about illustrations differently when the story can span across multiple panels rather than being a stand-alone image? Jennifer: They sent me an email asking if I’d want to be their comic artist for that month and I said yes! This is how I get most of my work. Someone sees my work, likes it, and then sends me an email. Yeah, I definitely think of my comic work in a different way than other illustration work. For me, it’s a lot less about the drawing and more about the writing and timing. Reading a comic is different from reading a single image, so I’ll think about the experience of reading text and image together. I also got total creative control with that series which is different than other illustration work I’ve done where I’ll have some sort of a theme or brief to go off of. Q: A lot of your illustrations personify objects—such as a car or a fruit or a rain drop. How come? Jennifer: I could lie and come up with an academic sounding reason, but at the end of the day I just think it’s cute. Also, humans love seeing themselves in everything, so I
think we have a natural desire to personify objects which is why people like to name their cars and stuff like that. Q: Do you work for a studio or is all your work freelance? Do you have an opinion or preference in terms of working for a studio or freelance? I went to a panel recently about artists who have chosen the “nonstudio route”, so it’s something I’ve been curious about lately when talking to artists. Jennifer: I’m all freelance right now. I do regular freelance crafting work for a studio that makes kids craft toys, so in a way I do work for a studio but I’m not there full-time. I think the type of work I want to do lends itself towards freelance because it’s hard to find any full-time illustration position in a studio that is open to you working in any style. I can be stubborn, so I like being hired by art directors who won’t tell me to make my work look a certain way. Location also matters to me, so I like that with freelance you can work from anywhere. Freelancing is hard though and very unstable, so some days I definitely get the appeal of working at a studio. I think it just depends on your personality too. To be a freelancer you kind of have to be a workaholic. Q: Where do you draw inspiration from? This can be in terms of the style of your work as well as the subject matter/stories. Jennifer: I’m never quite sure how to answer this question. I’ve just been influenced by every piece of content I’ve consumed growing up. A lot of my comics come from whatever happy, sad, weird, funny feelings I have that I wanna share with the world. Q: You’ve made illustrations that find themselves as stickers, on socks, etc. Do you create certain illustrations with the intention of them being these physical items, or does the decision come after the fact? Jennifer: It’s a mix of both! Sometimes I’ll draw something and then later someone will ask me to put it on a shirt or a sticker and I’ll do it. Other times I know I want to make a specific product and will design around that. Q: What do you hope people take away from your work? Jennifer: Sometimes people send me nice messages saying my work makes them happy, and I like hearing that.
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“For me, it’s a lot less about the drawing and more about the writing and timing. Reading a comic is different from reading a single image, so I’ll think about the experience of reading text and image together.”
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SHRINKING and other poems written by Sarah Yanni
When Frida is twenty she only eats almonds. Whole raw ovals, slightly pointed, grating against her gums. She sucks on them first, wet saliva softening the brown skin, then crunches on the leftover core. Frida has always had more skin in places she dislikes - no estás gorda, estás llenita. Little full girl, all her life. That summer, she protests against the conditions of crash dieting and soulless cardio at the gym. Take it further, she tells herself, make a real change. If you don’t like the way you look, do something about it. Almonds only, sometimes cabbage, sometimes crackers, mostly water. By mid-summer, Frida’s skin droops off the bone like leaves preparing to fall off a tree during autumn. Soft, supple, pale, almost purple. Her body has not consumed a full meal in thirty days. The high of success radiates through her unfilled abdomen. Not good enough, need to lose more, she tells herself. Amorphous clothing hides the protrusions of her ribcage around her family, but they know. How could they not? At the third month of restriction, her mental clarity begins to fog. A ripened fruit teetering rot, her inner spaciousness slowly dying. She faints in public, once, twice. The first time she’s at the mall and people stare. I’m fine, I’m fine, she picks herself up and walks to the car, shutting the door and breathing loudly. School starts again and her thin figure floats to class and parties and work. She goes to parties and gets attention from senior boys. It’s working, she says, except it’s not. Her mom calls to express concern, classmates make subtle comments, relatives that rarely play a role are suddenly present and dipping their toes into her dysmorphia. Months of hunger during daylight hours carry into night, a rabid binge-eat of everything in sight. Frida tumbles into a rich black hole of self-hatred. The aroma of chip crumbs, cookies, and oil penetrates her single dorm, it’s been like this for weeks. Hours of strictness followed by a 10pm craving as big as the sky, the guilt swallowing her whole. The resonant feeling, the post-stuff feeling, is stronger than any she’s felt before. She cries and sobs at her bodies misaction, and eats a fifth brownie to calm the nerves. Two months of breakdowns later and she knows, once more, she has to make a change. I will get better, she tells herself. I want to get better, she tells her mom. Finally a size 24, but the unhappiest she’s ever been. It begins slowly with breakfast, then eventually, lunch. A banana, some oatmeal, a salad. By second semester, she’s almost eating three whole meals a day. People tell her she looks good, they had been worried. Frida retrains her relationship to food and slowly her brain and stomach soften, until her pant size expands by four and she’s back where she started, mildly unsatisfied, but pulsing, alive.
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questions for you in the form of haikus do you remember the feel of my mouth, the taste yours was always salt how many products must you collect and consume till plastic me melts is the summer an amalgamated mess of memory of us are you happy now new car, your renewed manhood a master’s degree questions for me in the form of haikus did you really think plummeting from warm to dirt would peel back the scab when will you confront your green sexuality nebulous for now why did you accept parasitical sorry he’s in therapy are you listening so you’ve been screaming lately do not mess this up
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inbtwn. community a p l a c e f o r y o u t o s h a r e a b i t o f y o u r s t o r y.
My name is Corissa Ibarra, or “cori$$a”, and I’m a young 20 year old film photographer located in the Imperial Valley. After a long period of being uncomfortable to share my vision through photography despite how badly I wanted to, I’m now pushing myself to get out my comfort zone and share my work. The renewal of breaking through a barrier and pursuing something you enjoy is so comforting. // Corissa Ibarrra
My name is Noah Crider. I am a Director and Photographer from Encinitas, CA. My goal is to inspire. Not only creativity, but emotion. I want people to feel something when they see my work. Feel a form of magic, as if a spell was cast on them to cry, or to laugh, or remember a long forgotten memory from when they were younger. Hope you enjoy. // Noah Crider
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Something that has always fascinated me is the insignificance of my being. Not in a particularly existential or afraid-of-dying kind of way, but rather the idea that everyone is having an entirely different experience on Earth to what I am. My lovely friend Blaze and I visited an odd place called The Renovation Barn, which I drive past almost every day but have never actually been inside. Upon leaving I have been thinking a lot about some of the completely normal, yet fascinating things we encountered upon. Leaky bathtubs and couches sat upon by hundreds, silk Chanel from the 70s and enough bulbs to light up a city’s worth of houses. Every single one of these items in some way attached to a different individual’s life. Perhaps a house was torn apart due to termite infestation, but a terrible painting of London – which the little old lady living in the house could never quite reach to hang straight – was able to be salvaged. Or a couple moved out of their tiny rental apartment and could finally buy a sofa big enough for the two of them to sit side-by-side instead of on top of each other. Now, these insignificant household items appear in The Renovation Barn, and will one day have a new life in another place – whether it be another termite-ridden nightmare, a devastatingly small excuse of a house, or even worse, the dump. These items, now untethered from their past lives, are left to have new, imaginary ones, dreamt up by the curious and wandering mind of an 18-year-old. // Jessie Bethune
I’m 18 years old and new to photography. I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee and will be attending the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the fall. Photography is challenging but exciting to me and I enjoy capturing emotion in such a tangible way. These images, to me, show someone who once was lost but now is finding himself. // Emma Blainey
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I’m Ruby and I’m a 17 year old photographer based on the south coast of England. I have always loved photography and film, but in the last couple of years I have begun to take it more seriously - I’ve just finished applying to film school! I think the word renewal implies bringing back something that was much loved. For example, when a show is renewed it’s because of how successful and popular it was. For me, the 1970s is a decade that is having a renewal in terms of fashion and style. This photo was influenced by 70s and a little bit of 80s fashion. Everyone now wants to wear vintage clothing and statement items. I feel the photos show the renewal of 70s vibes in the 21st century. On top of this, renewal connotes to nature and the environment for some reason for me. The photo’s location is at a spot called Hengistbury Head; a place that has seen a lot of renewal in recent years and is truly a beautiful place where someone can take a deep breathe and have break. // Ruby Craig
An excerpt from Matthew’s Rising Sun There’s a place inside of us, with a wide yellow field to which our thoughts roam. There, the trees and birds make conversation at dawn. The grass grips our bare and cold feet, and the sky grabs hold of our hands, guiding us; there is peace. All is well, until the night falls upon the sky, and the deer abandon the stream and scurry into the forest, and the birds are silent, and the trees whisper with the wind, as the leaves rustle in the ominous breeze. We turn in every direction, looking for our friend the deer, or our companion the sky, who have left us, in the wide open. We are disoriented by the dense darkness, hoping the moon will guide us, but the moon ignores us. It is silent now, so we are hypervigilant, because the world in the night is unknown. We aimlessly wander, focused on our breathing now. We are quiet and attentive, because of the dangers our mind has crawling all around us; they’re all around us, the thoughts, the ones stuffed far into our minds, the ones we’ve deliberately repressed. We are vulnerable to them now, in the night. We are vulnerable against any potential danger, because we are blind. The millions of eyes felt on us drives us into the dark, the desolate, and the distorted. The more we walk, the voices carried by the light wind, become scribbled and scattered. The further out we are, in the dark, we begin to converse with ourselves, because we are alone. We talk to the cricket too and the moon and the stars. The world in the night is a different place, an unsafe place that we all go; the sun we soon forget. It’s a while before we realize that the sun will never rise again, no matter how far we go to reach it, we are too far now to turn back. The dark will always be with us, the place that we go, in the world inside of us. It’s a dark place, but it’s a part of life, some just get there sooner than others, until they are completely gone. // William Lancaster
renewal - a situation in which something begins again after having stopped for a period of time: “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again; Perhaps the earth can teach us, as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive. However in the act or process of making changes to something in order to improve it so that it becomes more successful: you must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be. There’s an expression among those with chronic pain and illness: “When all else fails, go to bed.” I see this quotation as a nice little variation on that: “When all else fails, look inward.” What do we find when we take sanctuary in ourselves? We find someone deserving of our forgiveness and compassion. And so is /Renewal/ // Joline Flores 34 — (renewal)
I’m a 19 year old independent artist from Johannesburg, South Africa and I go by the stage name of Mikey Rockstar also styled as MIKEY ROCK$TAR. I create music in my bedroom. I started making music from the age of 15 in 2014 when I was inspired by one of my friends who told me I could rap. My sophomore project ‘Life Of A Rockstar’ is a 8 track EP which was released on September 14th 2018. I was able to develop renewal with my art because I was able to work with so many artists and producers from my hometown, Alberton. ‘Life Of A Rockstar’ is very trap influenced and is heavily inspired by Kurt Kobain, David Bowie, Kevin Abstract, Jack Larsen, Roy Blair, and Rico Nasty. // Mikey Rockstar
I am a seventeen year old girl from MA. This isn’t a portrait of anyone I know, rather it is a portrait of my idea of youth. Renewal is visitation of something that already has existed, like your childhood. I find that I get stressed when I can not make a piece of art work that I am proud of. When I was a kid, I was content with drawing smiley faces on my math tests and hearts on the knees of my jeans. This is a part of myself I’m starting to associate with youth again, my art. Unrestrained, youthful, and renewed. // Alexia Angelone
As a sixteen year old, renewal symbolizes the reconstruction and improvement of everything going on around me. This idea is reflected into my work as I believe my art shows something that may have initially appeared as if something else had been done similarly before, however it has been through a new process, and has found a different ending point. My work aims at thinking differently in a way that not only excites me, but hopefully captures the thoughts of others, pushing them to also see things in a different, reconstructed way. // Adam Shimota
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I am a lifestyle and portrait photographer from La Jolla, San Diego. I have been shooting since my sophomore year in high school. I am a sophomore in college right now. In my photos that I have submitted, I really wanted to express my view on renewal and how my photos represent my style of renewal. I feel like in my photos that I take, I really emphasize on more than just the subject. Of course, the subject is very important to the photos but you must also think of the surrounds of the subject and how you can incorporate different elements into the frame. I try and give a story with my photos and to give them a feel of what it was like in the environment I shot my photos in. // Katin Pesarillo
My whole life I wanted to create something that meant something to someone. Specifically through a lens. To tell a story with a photograph and sometimes just to do a fun shoot with a friend. To capture life in that one moment. I never thought much about how much our decisions, as voters, affected others until I opened my eyes. I met a friend who is a dreamer and realized how hard her family fought to have the life they have today. To me this is Renewal. Picking up your whole life so that your family can have a better one. Pausing your life as you knew it. Pressing play in a whole new place. Then continuing and reestablishing your whole life. // Courtlyn
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I am a Pakistani American senior in high school in Arizona. The duality of my heritage has allowed me to view society through a unique lens which is why I think I photograph such different subjects. Photography has been my way of preserving the precious memories I make when I travel, experience different cultures, and spend time with my friends. The goal is to capture something other than what is on the surface. This picture is Bahawalnagar Pakistan: I visited my grandmother’s home for the first time in 8 years, not only was it a rebirth of my understanding of my culture, but I gained new and wholesome relationships with the townspeople as well as my mother’s side of the family. // Misaal Irfan
I am Morain. Most of my work is photography and illustration. I don’t remember when I started to take photos, but taking photos is a necessary thing right now for me. Before I was born, my grandma really enjoyed taking pictures. In her day, there was no digital camera yet. So she always took the photos, developed, and washed the film all by herself. When I was a kid, and I found those images, I realized I am addicted to photography, and I want to create some photos by myself. The photos I take I want to express what I see of the world, taking photos and drawing sketches, no matter what media, all of them are as a better witness of our inner states than my own memory. Sometimes, I prefer to chat with people and listen to their story, what happened to them. Therefore, some of my photos are based on people who I talked to, and then I try to find some tool to coordinate them and shoot. Doing artwork is the way I could export my thinking to the public. So keep exploring the small thing and catch those moments turn into my life journal. I am sure it will be pretty impressive after I see them again a couple of decades later. All the people I took, I hope they could be me, repeatedly me, in my photo. Every one who see my work, and they will know that is me. // Morain An inbtwn. — 37
RYAN RYAN LEAHAN LEAHAN photos by Danielle Meenan
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Q: Could you introduce yourself? Ryan: Howdy! My name is Ryan Leahan but you can call me blondie if you want. I’m 19 years old and I live in Philadelphia where I go to Temple University. I make music on my laptop in my bedroom on Diamond Street. Q: Are you studying music in college or is this something you’re doing on the side? Ryan: So I go to Temple for Music Technology, which pretty much means music engineering, but I’ve been making music since high school and it has consumed my life and absorbed a majority of my time. School has become something I do on the side of making music. Being in school, however, has been great for me because I’ve met so many other talented musicians that are in my major. I can also take things I learn in my classes and apply them to my personal music from time to time which makes me feel like all that money might be going to something useful. Q: What was your relationship to music as a kid, and when did you make the transition from listener to songwriter? Did this shift change the way you consume or think about music? Ryan: I did some musicals in middle school and high school but I was never super into it or anything, and I only really started getting into listening to music around 10th grade. I became depressed and very lonely during senior year of high school which is when I started fooling around on GarageBand to pass the time. I released a song and everyone made fun of me for it so I decided that I wouldn’t release anything
again until I was confident that it was good. I definitely do listen to music much differently now than how I used to because I feel like I can appreciate a lot more of what goes into it, but this doesn’t make the music I listen too better than what is popular or anything because everyone has different tastes. Q: How do you view song writing? Is it a personal narrative or are you creating outside stories? Ryan: Personal, why lie? If I am going to put this much time into something I want it to represent my life accurately. I want to be able to listen to my music and remember what each song is specifically about and how each event in my life inspired different songs. Also, as I look back on my older songs I get to see how I’ve grown and changed over the years. Q: Going off of the previous question, what is your creative process like? Ryan: Most of the time I’ll make the instrumental first and then start singing melodies with gibberish words so that I can replace them later with better lyrics. I used to suck at lyrics but that is just because I didn’t take my time with them, now lyrics could be the most time-consuming part of making a song for me. Q: What is your favorite instrument and why? Ryan: The human voice. It is the most versatile and easiest for me to express my emotion through. Often when I am making a beat I will hear a sound that inbtwn. — 39
Album art from Ryan’s latest release, “Platinum Green”.
it needs in my head and I just record it with my voice and destroy it with effects and amps until I find the sound that I want. This also applies to when I use samples from old music in my own music. Pitched up or down vocals are so mesmerizing and vocals that at one point were clear and easy to understand can be turned into an instrument themselves. The dynamic between aggression and being delicate is most spread out when using your voice. I can go from loud and commanding to soft and scared with the same instrument without having to think about it. It just comes so naturally and being able to sing while the beat is looping just to find more sounds and melodies to fit into the instrumental is such an instinctive and raw way to make music, and I feel that that is what makes some of the best music. Q: I love your song “Interstellar”— probably because piano always strikes a chord with me. But my love for piano aside, I love how you layer sound bits with piano and your vocals. How did you come up with the stacked-style of this song? Also, what is the inspiration behind this song? Ryan: Well, I had just watched the 40 — (renewal)
movie Interstellar, which is now my favorite movie of all time, and the music in the movie is beautifully powerful. Composed by Hans Zimmer the soundtrack has many genius parts that I took some inspiration from. In the main theme, it builds and builds and then when it reaches its climax it is just one single violin. In my song, it builds and builds using the sounds of a rocket leaving earth and then just as it reaches its climax it cuts back to the piano and bass. This has the effect of a “drop” but instead of finally adding in all the instruments it takes away all the stressful noise and the calming bass grounds you. The ticking of the clock in that song is also inspired by Hans Zimmer. In the song “Mountains”, from the movie Interstellar, there is a similar clock sound that stresses how fast time is moving and how little you have of it. Similarly to how the bass grounds you after the rockets cut out, the ticks from the clock help you grasp reality again. Q: I also love the visual you posted for “Farewell”. Can you talk about the concept for this visual? Ryan: So, the song “Farewell” is about falling in love with someone and committing to them, leaving all of your old lovers in the past. I used my parent’s wedding footage in the video
because getting married is one of the most common symbols for committing to loving someone. It also made it personal for my parents and I, because I really appreciate their loyalty to each other, having been together for over 30 years. It is filmed in their backyard, which is where I have many childhood memories, none of which would have been possible if they weren’t together. Q: When you create songs, do you already have ideas for visuals in mind? Maybe not in a formal sense, but are there any scenes that you find yourself thinking about? Ryan: Usually, when I make a beat or instrumental, I am thinking about colors and emotions. Then when I get to lyrics, I am usually thinking about the scene I am trying to describe and how I would describe it if I was there again. My song Paradigm is the best example of this, how I put myself in my shoes and walked through a certain night in my past as if I was there again. Q: Is there a genre you identify yourself as? Ryan: No. I don’t think I ever will identify as one genre. I don’t like limiting myself or the sounds I get to use.
I want to be able to listen to my music and remember what each song is specifically about and how each event in my life inspired different songs.
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Q: You’re part of Requiem Inc. Can you explain what that is about and how you got involved? Ryan: I love my brothers over at REQ INC. Requiem Inc. is a collective that formed over the internet a little over a year ago. Only a few of us have met each other in real life, but we talk all the time over our discord server. I joined when I was just starting to get confident in my music and knowing that the group had my back was a huge help when I released my EP Rocketeer. We are hoping that some of us can meet up this summer for a month or so that we can work on music together under the same roof. Q: Are there specific artists who inspire you and in what ways? Or where are other places you draw inspiration from? Ryan: Frank Ocean’s lyricism. Kanye West’s production. Brockhampton’s energy. Bon Iver’s vulnerability. Hans Zimmer’s grandness. There are many many other artists that I draw inspiration from but those are the top 5. However, I don’t go into most songs I make with an idea for what I want to come out of it, whatever happens, happens, and if I like it I roll with it. Q: You’re definitely building an online following. What are your immediate goals? What are your goals for the next 2-5 years? Ryan: I don’t have any long-term goals, whatever happens with my music happens, and I will continue to work on it and release it regardless of how many people listen to it. Short term, I want to be able to pay my rent with my music, because right now that debt keeps circling in the back of my mind. I would also love to start doing more shows, I have some coming up within the next couple of months that I am very excited for because I am going to go apeshit on stage and I hope that the crowd does too. I love every single person who gives my music a chance, even if they don’t enjoy it. I cannot thank you all enough. You have changed my life.
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RENEWAL IN REPURPOSE: HOW THE “EXPERIENCE ECONOMY” IS CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE OF THE FASHION INDUSTRY written by Jessica Brock
The rising majority of young people today prefer that the experiences made in connection to the things that they buy, or the ideas that they value, to be genuine. From social media to news publications, there seems to be a never ending supply of services that specifically address the “Gen Z” or “Millennial.” The reality of these companies is determined by the lengths they go to reach their audiences in unauthentic ways, usually incorporating these cliché terms to increase sales. Most young people today want brand labels to authentically stand out to them as individuals, not as a collective grouping of people. This concept is referred to in many economic circles as the “experience economy.” By the Cambridge Dictionary definition, the experience economy is “an economy in which many goods or services are sold by emphasizing the effect they can have on people’s lives.” A 2015 Forbes article concluded that the actual buying power of many identified in the “Gen Z” category “is shaping up to have unparalleled buying power in the vicinity of $150 billion.” This proves that not every marketable person is going to buy the same things and should be treated as an individual with a variety of personal interests. Millennials also have been targeted by supposed “disrupter” groups in many industries, including fashion, by organizations that intentionally use advertisement and fake approachability to make themselves profit. Co-founder and CEO of Rent the Runway, Jennifer Hyman spoke of her transition into this industry and business M.O. in a recent interview hosted on the Business of Fashion’s podcast series Drive, saying “the idea of the experience economy today, that people prefer experiences over ownership is nothing new; but at the time it was radical to assume that the experience economy could be part of the closet, and part of getting dressed.” Her viewpoint is an organic look into the burgeoning idealist mentality that many companies, unlike hers, are buying into, to sell out. Today’s
younger individuals in these categories are given an overwhelming amount of collective attention that does not truly reflect the individuals who represent it. No matter what age-identified group someone aligns with, there are still issues surrounding the tactics used in specific categories of society that bring about global consequences. The “fast fashion” industry has grown significantly over the past five years, its heralding members include some of the fashion companies with most influence on millennials and Gen Z. From unethical business practices to contributing to widespread consumerism, the fashion industry does, in fact, impact the wider world, and needs to address issues like worker compensation and materials being used. In attempting to supply consumers with of-the-moment access to the same clothing looks from the runways, they cover up the facts that many consumers eventually dispose of these readily- available clothes into the garbage. Hence the phrase “fast fashion.” Popular brand labels like these post detrimental effects not just to the environment but to the buying culture as well. Many people, because of companies like these, buy regularly from them because their clothing is popular and accessible, rather than considering the mass production of their clothes. You cannot paint an entire age group with the same broad brush without taking into account their personal viewpoints on this buying culture. It is crucial for consumers globally to become aware of their spending habits. In affluent countries like America, society has overvalued the occasional wear of an item, rather than long-lasting or even rental options to satisfy a customer’s needs. Sustainable options will be the future for many young individuals who can appreciate a company putting them first.
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ARTIST INSIGHT
I am from Taiwan and currently am in London. in London. I would like to share share some some fragments fragments of of my my thoughts thought to give you a clue to know more to give you a clue to know more about about my my art. works of art. :: Keep it easy to digest, in a poetic way, for the viewers.
Keep though it easy to in a process poetic way by thequite viewers. Even mydigest working is always spontaneous, no plan in advance. But I keep thinking about the relationship between positive and negative space. Even though my working process quite no plan advance. It seems like light and shadow, thealways role and the spontaneous, relation between theminare meaningBut I keep thinking about the relationship between positive and negative space. ful. It seems like light and shadow, the role and the relation of them are changeful. Backward and forward. Back and forward. A handful of colour. I just feel that each colour gives me divergent sense of space. A handful of colour. I just feel that each colour gives me divergent sense of space. More than expressing narratives through pictures inside canvas sidelines, my work tries to construct the way More than expressing narratives through of picture inside sidelines, to interpret ideas through the interaction outside and canvas inside the canvas. my work tries to construct the way to interpret ideas through the interaction of out and inside canvas.
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CATHARSIS: FOREWORD I think that people are really stressed out and aren’t raised to know how to deal with it. As I am making this project, I am in the first semester of my last year of college—a time in my life where I thought I would be relaxing, watching things fall into place, and getting to cruise through to the end. In reality, I feel like I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and savor this time in my life in the way that I thought I would. I feel like I am quickly creeping towards the edge of something unknown, and that I know even less about what there is on the other side of it. I am really stressed out, and I wasn’t raised to know how to deal with it. I found that this project was a way for me to personify that feeling, share it with my friends, and realize that no one else knows what the fuck is going on either. I genuinely appreciated every single conversation that I had when I made this, and I hope that everyone that stood in front of my camera and yelled out loud for me walked away feeling a little bit better too. I hope you get something out of this. Bailey James
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“ I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable; I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” WALT WHITMAN —— SONG OF MYSELF
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Anna Beam
Q: Introduce yourself a little bit! Where are you from/where do you live? How old are you? Anna: I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. I’ve been in the UK since 2004, and I live on the London canal network in a little narrow boat. My studio is in Hackney, East London. I’m 32. Q: Was art big in your life growing up? How did you get into it? Anna: Art and craft were always a big part of my life. As kids, my older brother was really into art and since I copied everything he did, I was too. Both of my parents are very creative people. My mom spent years running her own business making doll clothes and selling them online during the early days of the internet. If I remember right, people paid her by sending checks in the mail! One of my dad’s big hobbies is photography, so he would often take me out on day trips to photograph architecture, nature, or whatever. Q: Did you study ceramics in college? Anna: I ended up studying embroidery at university up in Manchester. Embroidery might seem a world away from ceramics, but I think there is a lot of crossover and similar skills needed for both. The primary one probably being patience.
Q: You posted recently on Instagram that you do your creative work full-time. What was the process like building your brand, gaining a following, and reaching a place where you can do the work full-time? I think for so many artists, it’s the dream to be able to go full-time but it can be very daunting to get started or is difficult to gain a customer base. Anna: I’m not sure how much reliable insight I can offer, especially with regards to building a brand or growing a customer base, because I feel like I’m still learning and trying to figure it out too. I can say that getting to work full-time on my practice has been a very slow process, and a journey that has gone down a lot of dead ends to get there. For years I worked flexible, part time jobs so that I had time to do my own work, though maintaining the hours of both was tough. When I moved to London I shifted to freelance prop making and art department work and slowly...very slowly started to be able to say no to job offers and focus more and more on my own stuff. Being part of a shared working space has been really beneficial. I co-founded my clay studio, which is a co-op consisting of 12 members. Being in a community of like-minded people who are at the same stage in their practice has meant we can troubleshoot together and share out the cost of expensive inbtwn. — 53
equipment. My mom has also been great at offering advice (and commiserating with me when times are tough) even though some aspects are very different to when she was working for herself, like social media.
Q: Despite the medium, your pieces all have a recognizable look with the organic shapes and gentle colors. How did this look develop? Has it always been your style, or did you develop it over time?
Instagram has been a helpful tool, especially as someone who is not great at talking about my work in person. It’s also been a really great way to connect with people, and I like that Instagram provides a sort of consolidation of a portfolio website and blog. But navigating it and using it in a way that I feel comfortable took a while. This may sound trite and corny, but I think it’s important to use it in a way that pleases you first, and that will in turn come across well to other people. Don’t read bullshit articles about how to gain followers.
Anna: I guess that…both are true? There are definitely certain motifs that I have been re-working since I was at art school, but that was a million years ago, and things have been developing since and will hopefully continue to do so.
Q: What are your main mediums? You seem to work with ceramics, fabric, but also maybe more than that? What draws you to working in so many mediums? Anna: I’m indecisive! I also work on paper, doing collage and painting. Before I started working with clay, I made sculptures out of paper. Clay, fabric, and paper in my eyes are kinda similar - they’re flat materials (I roll all my clay in to slabs) that I want to make into 3D objects. I really like the process of dreaming up an object, and then dissecting it and planning how it’s going to be constructed. I’m pretty sure that if I dedicated all my time to one medium, I’d get bored.
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I try not to be too conscious of maintaining a certain style. I think hard about how an object is constructed, but I’ve found that if I think too much about shapes, patterns, or colors, I end up with work I’m not happy with. That’s why I like to use collage, the process makes things happen that you wouldn’t have come to if you’d tried to plan it. Q: For the ceramic pieces, are the patterns painted on? Also, do you work with different types of clay? Anna: The patterns are imbedded in the clay, I use a process that’s basically collaging, but with dyed clay. I prefer this to painting because I don’t know quite how the final pattern is going to turn out. I also never really know how the colors are going to come out because I’m too slack to measure out the pigments, so I just mix by eye. Sometimes, I use clay with grog for the more sculptural work, because it tends to crack less.
Q: Some of your pieces are very traditional shapes (like a mug) and others are much more sculptural, and some are bags. For each of these things (and the others that you create), what is the process from concept to final product? Is it the same across all or different? Anna: I think everything, in every medium I use, is just a way to play with shape and color, or a vehicle to apply pattern to. Things take the form of utilitarian objects because I like the idea of people getting practical use out of them and physically handling them. Q: You’ve done lots of collaborations or commissioned pieces for different brands and locations. Do you enjoy working on collaborations? What aspects of your process change when you are working on a project for a client versus pieces for your personal store? Anna: I like having the excuse, or reason to work on something new. Working with different brands or companies often gives me the chance to make new pieces I might not have otherwise, or to apply my work to objects that I wouldn’t have the ability to put into production on my own. For example, designing a woven throw or a skirt. Luckily so far there’s not been much I’ve had to change in my process, as everyone has given me freedom to design what I want. Sometimes they come with a very specific piece in mind, which tends to be something I’ve designed previously. Q: Do you ever want to completely change your style? Or to rephrase, now that you have a large following, do you ever feel pressured to stick with the style of work that people associate with you? Anna: That’s a good question, and I wonder if platforms like Instagram have made people feel more beholden to their audience than before? It’d be interesting to hear from someone who uses it now but whose career spans back to the days before the ubiquity of social media. But at the moment for me, no. I still feel like I’m learning and exploring. I guess it’s natural for an artist or a maker’s work to evolve over time, and all I can hope for is that folks want to come along for the ride. Were there to come a time where I wanted to completely change direction, then I imagine it would be a need that’s too deep and strong to ignore, despite what people may think. Q: Where do you draw inspiration from? Anna: A lot of places! I collect colors in a sketch-
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book. From found objects, photos, or paints I’m mixing. When I’m working, I take inspiration from some of the techniques used by artists in the Dada movement and Bauhaus school. Techniques and exercises based around play and chance. I admire artists like Sonia Delaunay, who was also indecisive about which medium she liked best, and whose work seamlessly floated between art and design. I spend a lot of time outdoors hiking, camping, climbing…that kind of stuff. I don’t know how much visual inspiration I take from it, but it certainly provides good headspace for dreaming up ideas. Q: What’s the most gratifying part of being a full-time artist? Anna: Being my own boss is pretty cool.
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Q: What’s the part you least enjoy? Anna: Sometimes my boss is a real jerk. Q: What do you hope people to take away from your work? Anna: Enjoyment. I hope the work I make conveys a sense of playfulness, and there’s a weird satisfaction I feel when I stumble across a good shape or colour, which I hope other people feel too. I don’t know what defines a ‘satisfying shape’ but when you see it you know it.
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MAXWELL FARMER Maxwell Farmer is an 18 year old photographer. He was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona and has been taking photos for 7 years now. He is dyslexic and has always seen the world in an altered way but has used this to his advantage as a photographer. Growing up, he always saw words and letters shift around on the page, which became very frustrating. But because of this, he found photography to be therapeutic in the sense that he was able to bring people into his mind so they could visualize the world the way he saw it, in a shifted and altered way. He now focuses on surrealist portraits, where the unusual and alluring are always present. Instead of letters and words showing up in unexpected places, his photography features unusual objects or subjects in unexpected places or configurations. His series of photos relate to “renewal” in the sense of destruction leading to the rebirth of personal self and identity. In his photos, you will see the subject being altered or positioned in a way that portrays destruction of the human body. This destruction represents the first step in the renewal of a person, a restoration in a sense. “Humans, as we move through life, will let different parts of us and our identity die, revealing a renewed person. This isn't a bad thing, in fact it is necessary for our growth as a human. But as we grow older and let more parts of ourselves die, we forever come closer to finding a renewed sense of self and identity. My photos represent this constant destruction of self that is necessary for our own personal renewal.” - Maxwell
58 — (renewal)
inbtwn. — 59
AS ALWAYS,
THANK YOU.
