All posts filed under: Art Life

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Eli Fola

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I traveled to Montreal, Canada in 2014 for the first time ever with a band I used to be in. My band mates and I got to perform at a festival in Québec, Montreal, known as the Orientalys Festival. Québec is the French part of Canada and most people there don’t speak English. So, it was really difficult to communicate with the locals because I don’t understand or speak French and neither did any of my friends. Communicating with the audience we performed for was also a challenge due to the language barrier however, the trip was still an amazing experience. This particular journey was significant to me because I got to explore a city outside of my comfort zone and enjoyed so much amazing food. I tried Poutine for the first time and Oh My! Oh My! Haha, it was so delicious, I had to order more! The city was also super clean compared to New York and I got to hang out with locals and played on a big stage. The trip made …

Err on the Side of Caution

Published by Khadijat Oseni

Caution and creativity are two words that tend to live on opposite ends of the spectrum. There is a common myth that if you’re too cautious, you cannot be creative enough, and on the other hand, if you want to truly push the creative envelope, you must live with reckless abandon. This binary train of thought can actually disrupt the process of discovering your authentic voice within your work because fear is often pitted as the enemy. However, fear should just be seen as a subconscious caution signal you encounter on the road to discovering your next path. Similarly, just like the striking yellow and black color combinations of street signs strategically mounted ahead of the traveler, we can easily notice when we’re approaching a point where our fears are wrapping around our thoughts, hindering our next moves. These feelings act as internal flags regulating if the moves we’re about to make are inherently meaningful to us as well as the speeds at which we’re willing to drive past fear to actually risk succeeding. From …

A Moveable Feast: 4 Hearty Lessons from Food Book Fair

Published by Khadijat Oseni

If the age-old phrase that “you are what you eat” manifests itself literally, I’d be one giant avocado rolling around the streets of New York City #deadsexy. All jokes aside, many of us don’t take the time out to recognize just how much food and the art of dining shape our collective identities, memories and social politics apart from the obvious physical implications food has on our waistlines. I got a quick reminder of just how significant each bite lends to food for thought when I accompanied the motley crew at Ace Hotel New York as they hosted this year’s Food Book Fair. Here are 4 hearty lessons I learned from foodies & bookworms alike: 1) “Come to the table with an empty stomach and leave with a full heart.” ~ Warren Bobrow aka “The Cocktail Whisper”  On opening night of the Food Book Fair, Warren Bobrow discussed his latest book, The Craft Cocktail Compendium, which encompasses a mixture of contemporary apothecary cocktails and silent nods to Robert Louis Stevenson.  I later struck up a …

On the Hunt for Inspiration

Published by Khadijat Oseni

Hunting for inspiration as a creative can be quite a daunting task. We aimlessly search high and wide for this elusive buried treasure of thoughts everywhere we turn. Our eyes are constantly thirsty for knowledge and each twist and turn along the road feeds a sometimes insatiable, mental beast obsessively documenting every move. The thrill is stimulating but can be draining and counterproductive once we’ve come down from this trip. We may feel overwhelmed, broken and lost. It’s at this point that retracing our journeys, simplifying our process, and finding stillness is key. The act of just closing our eyes for a second to meditate can reveal a new perspective to appreciate the tiny moments and everyday elements that surround us. In stillness, we often find the answers we’ve been searching for the entire time. I recently discovered this very important lesson accidentally. I was in a hurry to get out the door, occupied by jumbled thoughts for future posts and couldn’t find my set of keys. Tearing apart a path before me, I finally …

Bronx Rising: No Commission and the Politics of Ownership

Published by Khadijat Oseni

Sway may not have had the answers for Kanye when it came to finding a Medici family to support his dreams of creating art freely outside of the confines of rhymes, beats and breaks. However, hip hop artist & producer Swizz Beatz and his Dean Collection are fulfilling this patronage act in an unexpected arena- the high-brow world of art dealing. Through his No Commission: Art Performs series, Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean is helping both established and emerging artists like Swoon and Delphine Diallo bypass “the man” in the form of sales & gallery representation by empowering artists to display and sell their work directly to the highest stakeholders with no frills attached. The radical factor which some view as naive is that zero costs are associated with being included in his tightly curated shows along with having 100% of proceeds go straight to the artists’ pockets. Swizz’s philosophy behind this experimental model, “If you free the artist, you free the world,” stems from the idea of allowing living, working artists to enjoy the fruits …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Erick Hercules

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I’ve had the battle between stillness and chaos be primary subjects in my head – artistically speaking – even before I learned to distinguish them both apart in my photographs. Growing up, I was always drawn to images that depicted still backgrounds combined with a subject “on the move”. Stills with people running, looking back, jumping, or even walking were always more thrilling to me than a simple picture of someone standing still.  After attending music school, I realized I might have found a link between “action” in an image and why I was so interested in them.  In music, a “cadence” is the end of a musical phrase. It is the end of a sentence. Where the notes finally return home. Where everything is finally at peace. But before that cadence, music is always at unease. That’s what makes music so appealing. Your ear is waiting for music to return back “home”. An image with movement causes the same effect. There is an untold story told in one frame. What happened before? What will happen …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Laurs Kemp

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I moved to Portland from Arkansas in 2012 to launch my clothing line and seek out more creative opportunities with like-minded people. There is such a rare atmosphere of collaboration and encouragement in the Portland arts and fashion community. My collaborations with all the amazing female artists and makers in Portland is truly one of my biggest inspirations and influences. I became the designer-in-residence at a Portland shop called Backtalk, where the owner Katie Freedle exclusively features the work of independent designers. In my year at Backtalk, I was able to develop my line and meet so many amazing collaborators. One of my favorite collaborations was a photo shoot I had at Backtalk using local photographer Hillary Boles for my most recent collection. This collection was inspired by the 1991 arthouse film, A Little Stiff, 1980s Japanese minimalism, and the song, Yama Yama, by the Yamasuki Singers. In fact, I titled the collection Yama Yama. For models, I reached out to the gorgeous Kassala Holdsclaw through Instagram, and I also used my all-time favorite muse, …

#Artlife: Dan Flavin’s “Corners, Barriers, and Corridors”

Published by Khadijat Oseni

Fluorescent lighting isn’t exactly the sexiest invention known to man but somehow Dan Flavin mastered transforming this mundane and sometimes annoyingly buzzing source of light into magical works of art. A minimalist who referred to himself as a “Maximalist”, Flavin was able to create transcendent, futuristic teleports through fluorescent light tubes and bend reality in ways that were so delicate yet strikingly alluring at the same time. Last month, I was glad to have been able to actively explore perceptions of space through the beautifully curated, “Corners, Barriers, and Corridors,” a collection of some of Flavin’s noted works from the 1960s and 70s at David Zwirner Gallery in New York City. Though the exhibit has since ended, Dan Flavin’s pieces still conjure up many thoughts on duality which have helped expand my definitions on style and aesthetics. While at the gallery, I unknowingly started to play with binary oppositions like femininity vs. masculinity, anonymity vs. recognition through the masking silhouettes, tones and shadows formed from the different color gradations of each piece. Here are some …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Tobias Hutzler

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I was always very hungry to experience the world. As a teenager, I was backpacking through Europe with a friend and we somehow ended up in Africa. That imperishable moment when I stood at the edge of the Sahara was carved in my memory. I looked into the endless vastness, the giant space and the beauty of light and space. I wanted to cross the Sahara, and I did. One year later, I started from Timbuktu and went on this long journey alone across the desert in a caravan. This shaped my life. I started to take photographs on this journey. I experienced extreme opposites in a short span of time such as light & darkness, heat & cold, silence & noise, these are the basic components of our lives. We reached “the other side” but this moment didn’t really matter. Looking back now it becomes all very clear. My photography was born there, my use of light and space. The essence of my experiences made during my many trips gave me another perspective and …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Jules Julien

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“The first thing impacting me when I arrive in a new country are people…how they look, how they speak, how they are dressed, how they live together. I go generally to cities. The countryside bores me. I can still be moved by a landscape, but one day is enough for me. About a city and its livings, when I like it, I can stay watching it as long as possible… Tokyo is my favorite place. After my first visit I have returned 6 times the following years and I will go back again. I love its places, its people, its fashion and lifestyles. The first time in Tokyo, I was shooting everything. I wanted to bring back with me to Paris as many memories as possible…people in streets, subways, bars, parks… During my second trip in Tokyo, I was contacted by email by a Japanese guy, just a coincidence, he didn’t know I was in Tokyo. He was the director of the Diesel Art Gallery and he proposed I have a solo show at his space. The …