Spritely Animals Spring from Cubes of Wood in Yoshiaki Ito’s Series of ‘Morphits’

By in Art World News

Spritely Animals Spring from Cubes of Wood in Yoshiaki Ito’s Series of ‘Morphits’

All images © Yoshiaki Ito

Slender pieces of beechwood connected by strings of elastic form a playful menagerie of toys by Brooklyn-based designer Yoshiaki Ito. Morphits begin as cubes, carefully packaged in a box, then expanded to reveal a stable of animals, which currently include a giraffe, monkey, pig, hippo, or a tiger. Bendable and posable, they can be displayed on a surface or puzzled back together into a compact form.

Find more of Ito’s work on his website, where he sells the toys in his shop in both color and natural options. You can also follow Ito and the monkey’s world travels on Instagram.

 

A menagerie of wooden toy puzzle shaped like animals.

Two wooden toy puzzles shaped like a tiger and a hippo.

A wooden toy puzzle shaped like a monkey sitting in Japan.

Two wooden toy puzzles shaped like a pig and a monkey.   A wooden toy puzzle shaped like a tiger.

A wooden toy puzzle shaped like a giraffe, pictured with its box.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Spritely Animals Spring from Cubes of Wood in Yoshiaki Ito’s Series of ‘Morphits’ appeared first on Colossal.

Art educators challenge ‘art world’

By in Art World News

Art educators challenge ‘art world’

Marina Perez, a contemporary Indigenous arts PhD student at the University of New Mexico, struggles with the concept of the art world.

The art world often creates barriers for communities of color, which makes it harder for them to enter it, Perez said. It produces a binary between fine arts and community arts, contemporary arts and ancient arts. The separation, they said, often makes it hard for people of color to participate in the art world.

“The art world is a colonial construct. To even think that we need to construct a completely different world away from our everyday lives … Communities of color don’t have access to be able to enter the art world,” Perez said. “Our knowledge is not embraced or acknowledged.”

Perez attended “In Context: New Mexico in the Art World” as a panelist. The event was co-hosted by Southwest Contemporary and 516 Arts on July 13. Perez said they saw their role on the panel as a graduate student representing the next generation of the New Mexico art scene.

The talk centered around the relationship New Mexico has to the art world and the hierarchies present within the local art scene, Perez said. They are working to use their past art experience to start to break down those hierarchies – a topic that they wanted to focus on during the event.

“A lot of my work revolve(s) around community arts, and I’m trying to figure out (in) what ways that we can integrate this fine arts world with community arts. I do see that as one of the challenges currently,” Perez said.

516 Arts, a contemporary art museum, focuses on public programming and does not charge admission for their events, according to Daniel Ulibarri, the education and engagement coordinator at 516 arts.

“We want to bring contemporary art and contemporary artists to everyone, to make it available to everyone … Every chance that we have to engage with the community is really great,” Ulibarri said.

The gallery worked with Lauren Tresp, the publisher and editor-in-chief at Southwest Contemporary – a contemporary arts and culture magazine – to assemble a panel of art educators and professionals that are active and knowledgeable of the art world, Ulibarri said.

Tresp moderated the event and said that the goal was to examine and think about New Mexico art as an economy, community and as its own art world. The panelists were challenged to define and question the “art world.”

Nancy Marie Mithlo – a UCLA professor in gender studies and American Indian studies – spoke about the connotations and feelings that the term “art world” often creates. The art world refers to something we are outside of – something we are arguing with – Marie Mitho said.

“Usually it is used in a negative fashion … It usually is something that you are not, and maybe you want in. It does stand for institutions – it stands for power and there’s a lot wrong with that,” Marie Mithlo said.

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The panelist addressed how New Mexico is often thought of as a time capsule – thinking of art created here as inherently old as well as romanticizing and exploiting native life, even when the art is contemporary. This makes it seem as though New Mexico is “removed” from the traditional art market, both spatially and intellectually. Perez said that these ideas are rooted in colonial logic and legacy.

“This construction of a myth that New Mexico is somehow removed completely from communities and art ecosystems … We need to start reframing or rethinking the way we talk about the art market here in New Mexico because it’s very localized,” Perez said.

The art world requires a redesign, Marie Mithlo said. Many of the legacies and stereotypes that it upholds don’t support communities that want to enter it or are excluded.

“We need to outgrow a lot of the systems that we have normalized – that are pathological, unhealthy. They are built on unsustainable systems,” Marie MIthlo said. “I think the sooner we get to that conversation, the better.”

Addison Key is the culture editor at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @addisonkey11 

Feeling Lost as a Photographer? Watch This

By in Photography

Feeling Lost as a Photographer? Watch This

We live in an era in which we are absolutely inundated by images every day, from every direction and in which we are often encouraged to think just as much about the tools of the trade as the images themselves. All that can lead one to feel frustrated or even disillusioned with the craft. If you find yourself feeling that way, give this insightful and motivational video a watch.

Coming to you from Maarten Heilbron, this fantastic video essay discusses what it means to be a photographer and what makes for impactful images. We are constantly bombarded, even assaulted, by the idea that we must constantly invest in the latest and most expensive gear, and while it is true there can be advantages in having modern equipment, it will not create a compelling image any more than a sharp knife will make a five-star meal. Just like the customers of the restaurant will not care or even know what brand of knife helped make their meal, the viewers of an image will not know or care what camera or lens made it. All that matters is how it captures their attention or evokes an emotion. And that should be the same reason we practice photography; that is the path to deeper fulfillment from the craft. Check out the video above for Heilbron’s full thoughts on the matter.

Printer Savant pays homage to bygone era of publishing, photography

By in Photography

Printer Savant pays homage to bygone era of publishing, photography
Open this photo in gallery:

Publisher Michael Torosian of Lumiere Press in his workshop in Toronto on July 14.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail

In the 1980s, a young photography grad named Michael Torosian decided to establish a small press and began teaching himself how to make a book. He released his first in 1986: a monograph on Edward Weston with a text by the American photographer’s son. Since then, Lumiere Press has published 22 titles, all set in lead type and printed on a vintage letterpress, bound by hand and issued in limited editions of about 250 copies.

In his Homage series, Torosian’s subjects have included American modernists Aaron Siskind and Frederick Sommer, crusading documentarians Gordon Parks and Lewis Hine, and his mentor Michel Lambeth, the Canadian photojournalist.

Torosian’s archive was acquired by the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto in 2017. To commemorate that transfer and celebrate more than 35 years in fine press publishing, Torosian has now written a memoir entitled Lumiere Press: Printer Savant & Other Stories.

You trained as a photographer at what is now Toronto Metropolitan University but had no credentials in publishing. How did you start?

When I came up in the seventies there were very few galleries, few museums showing photography. It was almost like an underground network where the language was passed on and studied through books rather than through exhibitions. Books were the medium of photography.

It was a matter of finding a way to do it that worked for me. Because the industrial method of trying to compete with big publishers is lunacy. I saw photographer after photographer attempt it and they would end up with a basement full of books they didn’t know what to do with.

Lead type and the letterpress disappeared from commercial publishing in the late 1970s, but you don’t fetishize the old technology. You also use digital means to reproduce some photos. Why the letterpress?

It’s indisputable that the most beautiful way of getting words on paper is with lead type on a letterpress. The technology has been around for 500 years and nobody really figured out a way of making it better.

When I discovered it, it wasn’t totally antiquated yet, but it really wasn’t commercially viable for the big companies. Big printing plants, newspapers and book publishers were dumping all their equipment. What had been exorbitantly expensive equipment was being sold for just a bit over scrap value. So, I hit the sweet spot, the moment where I could scoop up all this stuff and set up my own shop.

You began printing the Homage series, books dedicated to leading photographers. Why start with the big names?

If I had emulated the photography books of the day, they would have been all pictures with a negligible amount of text. But if you’re going to be a fine press printer then you’ve got to have words. So, my books are books about photography rather than just books of photography. And if you’re going to have a lot of text, you better have something to say.

I wanted to explore the aesthetics of the medium. I wanted to explore the biographies of the creators and see how this informed their work. You said that I picked the big names. But when I started, there might have been 10,000 or 15,000 books on Picasso, but you pick one of the greatest figures of 20th-century photography like Alfred Stieglitz, there might have been six books on him. The literature on photography was very scant. That has changed in my lifetime.

Why did you donate your archive to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library?

It was actually an acquisition/donation. They purchased half and I donated the other half.

I had hit this 30-year mark of publishing and I really wanted to have an exhibition at the Fisher. It is one of the most beautiful galleries for books. Most libraries or galleries just have a bunch of vitrines, but the space there is almost magical the way the galleries are suspended above the reading rooms.

I went to visit the director and I had barely got out my proposal for an exhibition when she said: “We want your archive.” I had no reason to believe they even thought I had an archive, but I had been very fastidious, very conscientious and, in fact, I had assembled a detailed archive.

When I did my first book in ‘86 on Edward Weston, I went to the New York Public Library and they were having an exhibition on Truman Capote’s papers. It was really extraordinary: They had his little notebooks where he had handwritten in pencil, train tickets and scrapbooks. I was astonished at how you could tell the story of creativity through artifacts. I decided at that moment that I was going to save absolutely everything.

When I took Aaron Siskin to get a haircut one afternoon, I got a business card from Vito’s Barber Shop, which is in the archives.

How big is the archive?

It was 85 boxes.

Why did you publish Lumiere Press: Printer Savant?

I wanted to celebrate the history of the press. It’s not just a story about how you get from A to B or how you make a book or make a decision about a typeface. Every chapter deals with a different aspect of living a life in the arts.

I lived by the little commandments at the front of the book, in the chapter on Michel Lambeth. Put your best foot forward. Never give your art away. Do something every day.

For 50 years, I didn’t distract myself by doing commercial photography or doing projects as a gun for hire. I just concentrated on what I felt was important in my life.

What’s the plan now?

I don’t want to end up with anything in the house. I want everything that I’ve created to be placed as intelligently as possible. Lumiere Press books are in over 200 public collections around the world. If I can ensure that every book I’ve created is in the hands of an appreciative collector and an important institution, then I will have checked off all the boxes.

If you make a movie and only a million people go to see it, you’re talking to yourself. But when you make a book, the whole model is completely different. In trade publishing, if a book doesn’t sell in its first blast, it’s yesterday’s news because there’s 1,000 new books coming out that month. With the kind of book I make, it’s treasured. If it goes into a library, it’s going to be there to be studied and researched for generations. So, the impact of each book I make is curiously much greater than books that are published in bigger numbers.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Michael Torosian will speak at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto on July 20.

Is Auto Mode holding your photography back?

By in Photography

Is Auto Mode holding your photography back?

With advanced camera technologies and smartphones, anyone can be a photographer with the click of a button. While this convenience is undoubtedly a positive aspect, it raises an important question: is relying on auto mode holding your photography back? So, if you rely on Auto Mode, even on a smartphone, maybe it’s time to regain some control.

Lack of creative control

Auto mode is designed to make photography effortless by automatically adjusting settings such as exposure, focus and white balance. However, it often comes at the expense of creative control. By relinquishing decision-making to the camera, you limit your ability to manipulate and shape the final image according to your artistic vision.

Manual control allows you to experiment with different settings, adjust the depth of field, play with shutter speeds, and create unique compositions that truly express your creativity. Even if you take the first steps and use Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority you have far more control than on Auto.

Bracketing in challenging conditions
Bracketing in challenging conditions

Difficulty in challenging lighting conditions

While auto mode does its best to produce well-exposed images, it can struggle in challenging lighting situations. Lowlight environments, backlit subjects or high-contrast scenes often confuse the camera’s metering system, leading to incorrect exposures and loss of detail. In such scenarios, taking control of your camera’s settings becomes crucial.

Manual mode empowers you to adjust exposure compensation, use bracketing techniques, and employ off-camera lighting to overcome these challenges and capture stunning images.

Missed opportunities for learning

One of the joys of photography lies in the continuous learning process. By relying solely on auto mode, you miss out on the chance to understand the fundamental principles of photography. Manual control forces you to grasp concepts like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and their interplay, allowing you to make informed decisions that result in better photographs.

By experimenting and learning from your mistakes, you grow as a photographer and develop a deeper understanding of your equipment.

Photo by Hector Falcon on Unsplash
Photo by Hector Falcon on Unsplash

Personalization and artistic expression

Photography is an art form, and artists seek to express their unique perspectives and emotions through their work. Auto mode often produces images that are technically correct but lack the personal touch that defines your photographic style.

Manual control enables you to infuse your images with your own interpretation of the scene, emphasizing certain elements, controlling the background blur, or deliberately introducing intentional camera movement. By embracing manual mode, you unlock the potential to create photographs that truly reflect your vision.

Breaking the Auto Mode comfort zone

The familiarity and convenience of auto mode can create a comfort zone that inhibits growth and creative exploration. Stepping out of that comfort zone and embracing manual control can be intimidating initially, but it opens up a world of possibilities.

Embracing manual mode forces you to be more engaged with the photographic process. Be mindful of your surroundings, and develop a deeper connection with your subject. It encourages you to think critically about the technical and artistic aspects of photography. And it can empower you to push the boundaries of your own abilities.

Auto mode has its place

Auto mode certainly has its place, especially for quick snapshots and beginners starting their photographic journey. However, if you aspire to elevate your photography skills and develop a distinct visual voice, embracing manual control is essential.

Manual mode provides the freedom to experiment, learn and express your creativity. It may take time and practice to master. But the rewards in terms of personal growth and artistic fulfillment are immeasurable. So, step away from auto mode and unlock the true potential of your photography!

Meet four queer artists helping to shake up country music

By in Native

Meet four queer artists helping to shake up country music

NEW ORLEANS — For queer artists, country music has been something of a final frontier. Out musicians are ubiquitous in dance and pop music, but the country genre has been slower to embrace LGBTQ artists and queer themes. Recently, however, there’s been a grassroots movement — aided by social media — to carve a path for queer country artists and expand the themes found in the genre.

Ever More Nest

Ever More Nest.
Greg Miles

When Kelcy Mae Wilburn, 40, who performs under the name Ever More Nest, was growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, country music seemed omnipresent, she said. 

“In Shreveport, which is very Bible Belt, the musical influences in that region are largely country and blues and gospel,” she said. “I grew up in the church, and so I grew up singing songs out of the Baptist hymnal, and that’s where I learned harmony and really developed an appreciation for distinctly Southern songs. A country station was always on the radio.”

She tried making indie rock when she moved to New Orleans at 18, but it didn’t stick. 

“The older I’ve gotten, the more I feel like I’ve developed myself and gone back to these kinds of roots,” Wilburn said of Southern country music. 

Unlike mainstream country, which has its roots in Nashville, queer country lacks a geographical home base. Despite this, artists in this musical subgenre have nonetheless created a community — one that has been facilitated by social media, according to Wilburn.

“We really started connecting and creating a scene,” she said. “Artists all across the country are now able to put on events together in different cities.” 

One such event, Wilburn said, is the Queer Roots Showcase at the annual AmericanaFest in Nashville. While the event wasn’t an official part of the festival, it ensured that queer musicians had a chance to come together, she said. 

“Particularly in the South, it is more important than ever that young people see people who are out making music and writing things and being in life — not just surviving and not having to hide,” Wilburn said. “The priority is visibility for all these people who are being told they have to shut down parts of who they are.”

Lilli Lewis

Lilli Lewis.
David Villalta

For Georgia native Lilli Lewis, expanding the country genre means focusing on making music that also makes change. 

“As long as I can remember, I have felt kind of responsible for healing whatever ailment in the world I’m able to heal,” said Lewis, who’s now based in Bush, Louisiana, just west of the Mississippi border. 

Lewis, 47, said one of the healing elements of music, specifically country music, is storytelling. Some of her songs — including “A Healing Inside” on her “Americana” album — serve as a recorded history of her own journey overcoming trauma, she said.

“I wrote it as something of a mantra a few years into my trauma work,” she explained. “I thought its simple melody could serve as bread crumbs as I attempted to reassemble a sense of self that wasn’t based on toxic memory.”

Lewis said writing about her own queer experience is a generous act of bravery that also feels necessary. 

“The only way we’ve carved out any space for ourselves is to put it all on the table,” she said. “Queer stories have been sublimated in music for so long that it feels edgy and interesting to have them finally see the light of day.”

But Lewis, who describes herself as “fat, Black and left-handed,” said she doesn’t feel entitled to anyone’s attention because she’s marginalized. “I want to be associated with innovation and excellence,” she said.

She said the queer country movement is part of a long history. But while queer people have long been making country music, she added, they’ve largely tailored it to suit heterosexual norms.

“We’ve been showing straight people how to have and express their feelings so long,” she said. “It’s time we enjoy allowing our music to tell our own stories.”

Lewis cites Ma Rainey and Little Richard as some of the queer musicians who blazed the trail for this generation of artists. Just like those artists, contemporary queer artists are still balancing the work of being seen and telling their own stories with making their music relatable to everyone — without erasing their queerness. 

“I’m writing to the people who want to listen to music, and that’s everybody,” she said. “I’m not necessarily talking about queer or trans things. I’m just writing songs that are wholesome and righteous. I’m writing for humans. Because I’m writing from my perspective, every story I tell is a trans story, and every story I tell is a queer story, because I’m telling it.” 

Paisley Fields

Paisley Fields.
Gabriel Barreto

The stories that have been told by country music — and whom they’ve been told by — have historically been limited to straight white artists. Expanding those narratives can be rewarding for artists and fans alike, according to queer country artist Paisley Fields.

“When I play shows, there will be people who come out and say, ‘I never thought I would hear music that I can actually relate to,’” said Fields, who’s based in Nashville.

However, he is quick to note that it’s not just queer fans who can relate to the themes found in his unique disco-country beats. 

“There is that whole human experience of feeling like maybe you don’t fit in somewhere or the experience of love or loneliness,” the 36-year-old said of the themes found in his music. “We all experienced the same feelings in our own ways.”

Fields, who grew up in Hudson, Iowa, mentioned his song “Iowa” on his album “Limp Wrist,” where he sings: “Sometimes your hometown isn’t home.”

“I think anyone who has left home can relate,” he said of the song. 

And his song “Canyon,” which is on the same album, “speaks about the universal feelings of love and longing,” Fields added. 

“My hands are tremblin’ / there’s something I should mention / but there’s a canyon between you and me,” he sings in the song.

Mya Byrne

Mya Byrne.
Tui Jordan

Themes of belonging and home are central to country music, according to Mya Byrne, a 45-year-old New York City-based country artist who grew up in New Jersey. 

“Country music in itself is a very diasporadic thing, because we’re all searching for a sense of home,” she said. 

A common theme in modern country music is pride in one’s home, while queer country tends to be about the quest to belong, Byrne explained. 

“There’s a lot of searching for home or how we make home within ourselves,” she said of queer country music.

In Byrne’s song “Where the Lavender Grows,” she sings about her longing to create or to discover a sense of home: “We’ve come together this far / different paces on the same road / if we stray too much apart / meet me where the lavender grows.”

The idea of queer country music fostering a community for artists and fans can be traced back to the pioneering  country musician and activist Patrick Haggerty, according to both Byrne and Wilburn. 

Haggerty, who died last year, was part of a band called Lavender Country, which he started in the early 1970s. The band’s first album, also called “Lavender Country,” was one of the first country albums with outwardly gay themes, according to Billboard. The album, originally released in 1973, includes songs with lyrics about queer desire and homophobia. 

Byrne said she has been inspired by the concept of “lavender country,” which she described as a sort of queer utopia —  “a place where we can all be saved.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if we all had a place we could be together?” she mused. 

Dress up as art and join this lively Laguna Beach parade

By in Art World News

Dress up as art and join this lively Laguna Beach parade

What to Know

  • Pageant Parade & Party in honor of the Pageant of the Masters
  • A parade through downtown Laguna Beach will pay tribute to the event’s 90th anniversary; prizes will be awarded in a costume contest
  • Saturday, July 22 at 12:30 p.m.; meet at noon at Heisler Park Gazebo

Fashion inspirations can come from all corners, but some of the most sartorially splendid among us draw their divine looks from centuries-old paintings, those sumptuous works of art full of fabulous gowns, beautiful bonnets, and frocks festooned with frills.

Where, though, can a person try out these styles without committing to them on a daily basis?

Look to Laguna Beach and the Pageant Parade & Party, a celebration in honor of the Pageant of the Masters and one major milestone.

It’s the “tableaux vivant” spectacular’s 90th anniversary in 2023, and rather than standing still, which is what the volunteers so winningly do during the summertime stage show, the July 22 parade is, well, very much about parading (hence the name).

Anyone is invited to take part in the playful yet pompful procession, which will wend through downtown Laguna Beach just after noon.

What to wear to such an over-the-top event, where “colorful” and “quirky” will most definitely trump “casual”?

Dress like a figure from your favorite painting, an artist you admire, or a bowl of fruit, if you’re feeling it. But go big, if you decide to take part, for there is a costume contest afoot, with a top prize of $250 for first place.

“We hope everyone will march with us in the parade to commemorate this milestone anniversary,” said Marketing/PR Director, Sharbie Higuchi.

“This event captures the essence of our humble beginnings, honoring the origins of the Pageant of the Masters when local volunteers paraded through town as famous works of art.”

“Come dressed up, bring your family and friends, and let’s have a great time together, creating memories that will go down in history.”

Even if you don’t plan on prancing as a Degas ballerina or Renaissance-era lady, you are invited to visit Laguna Beach to witness the whimsy and joy the Pageant Parade & Party will summon.

Everything begins at Heisler Park Gazebo, with the on-stage contest, back at the Festival’s longtime stomping grounds, serving as the concluding event.

Or rather, “standing still grounds” is more accurate.

This is, after all, one of the most unusual cultural events around, and the chance to join a costumed cadre of fans, all to honor its 90th, is something that should inspire movement for those who’d like to participate.

So don’t stand still: Find out more about the costume contest, location, and important details now.

One additional highlight among many? A recognition of longtime volunteers will play a central role, adding to the gratitude-sweet spirit of the event.

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