A Pristine Landscape by Cristian Iacono

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A Pristine Landscape by Cristian Iacono

Cristian Iacono‘s (2002) photographic project, A Pristine Landscape, is an inner journey reflecting on the deep and complex bond between human beings and nature. For the photographer, it is not just about exploring the aesthetics of landscapes, but delving into their inner essence so as to lead to deeper reflection. In this sense, the shots become a pretext for Iacono to read himself and, likewise, an invitation for the viewer to “look inside.” A kind of photographic introspection that starts from the individual and widens to a collective gaze.

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The shots in this series in particular are imbued with a strong melancholy that comes into sharp contrast with the romanticism they conceal. The human figure becomes ethereal, extemporaneous, almost taking a back seat to the surrounding nature. It does not want to be the protagonist but wants to mold itself with it. In spite of this reflective approach, Cristian Iacono shows a certain conscious look toward contemporary taste, winking at typical magazine editorials.

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cristian iaconocristian iacono

The places Cristian Iacono researches become places of the soul and psyche, ideal spaces in which the figures depicted are nothing but projections of himself. Through A Pristine Landscape, Iacono creates a continuous dialogue between inner worlds and ideal realities. Each image is an attempt to communicate wonder and admiration for nature, prompting deep reflection on our relationship with the planet.

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Courtesy Cristian Iacono

This book explores queer art and its connection to clubbing

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This book explores queer art and its connection to clubbing

Queer Art: From Canvas to Club is an expansive anthology bringing together underground artists and legends of the queer canon to present a diverse vision of the queer experience

20June 2024

“No single artwork or a single artist can speak to the whole queer experience,” says curator and writer Gemma Rolls-Bentley. “The queer experience is multifaceted. There are so many versions of what that looks like.” Accordingly, her new book, Queer Art: From Canvas to Club and the Spaces Between, is a brilliant polyphonic cacophany of voices and visions. Alongside emerging and underground artists, Queer Art features work by legends of the queer canon – from Nan Goldin to Catherine Opie, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Derek Jarman,  Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol and David Wojnarowicz.

In her own words, the book “covers a lot of ground”, bringing together a diverse and expansive range of queer art from the late-1960s to the present moment and spanning “different mediums, artwork that you might find in galleries, museums, on Instagram, in a club, in the street, or at a protest”. She explains, “Putting those pieces together and making those connections is part of how you think about what the common ground is with the various marginalised identities that exist within queerness.”

This anthology (published by Frances Lincoln) was borne from Rolls-Bentley’s desire to curate a group of artworks which collectively paint a picture of the queer and trans experience so members of that community might see themselves reflected in art and culture. “It’s a really meaningful and validating experience for anyone to feel represented,” Rolls-Bentley tells us during a recent conversation over Zoom. “But also, I wanted to share it with people outside of the community so that they can get some insight and experience some of the joy that comes from our community. There’s room for anyone who’s engaging with the book to make connections with their own experience, whether they’re queer or not. And that felt really important because, ultimately, it all comes down to human rights.”

As the title suggests, one of the themes explored in the book is the important role queer clubs play in LGBTQIA+ culture at large, and the reciprocal relationship between queer club spaces and queer art practices which, though existing for many as a kind of sequestered creative ecosystem, has also undoubtedly had profound implications on the mainstream. 

“Throughout history, for a lot of people, the club was literally the only place where they were able to be their full, authentic selves,” says Rolls-Bentley. “And so it’s a really powerful and heightened place and space. And there’s a lot of creativity and magic that happens on the dance floor. Queer art has existed within clubs because that’s where it’s had to exist, because queer artists have been excluded from from museums and galleries. But that is definitely shifting. And as it’s shifted, we see queer nightlife very much influencing other areas of queer culture and also mainstream culture, whether it’s thinking about how we express our individuality – through clothes, fashion, makeup, hair – or the long history of queer visual coding that plays out through appearance. A lot of that can be found in the club and I would describe a lot of that as queer art.”

Rolls-Bentley points out that many artists – such as Wolfgang Tillmans – have begun by photographing queer club culture. For many others, documenting and celebrating these spaces continues to be a fundamental part of their practice. The curator draws our attention to Rene Matić. “Their work feels timeless in many ways and it totally connects to the club and party. You can feel the line that traces through and, because Rene usually exhibits their work in groups, it sort of recreates a sense of being hugged or loved by your community.”

Artists such as James Bartolacci and duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings really memorialise these “hallowed spaces” in their work, artists like Prem Sahib evoke the club through their work in a much more abstract, minimalist fashion. “His work is not explicit, but it is visceral,” says Rolls-Bentley of Sahib’s hyper-realistic recreations of aluminium panels which appear to be dripping with beads of sweat, suggesting the febrile, humid interior of a nightclub. “They take you right back to the club.”

Alongside Isaac Julian (who contributed a foreword and whose 1989 film Looking for Langston she describes as “seminal”),  another artist Rolls-Bentley felt had to be included in the book was Catherine Opie. “‘Self Portrait/Cutting’ [1993] is so important and successful  in terms of articulating a very specific experience about longing and pain, but also hope.” She could list countless other beloved artists from the book’s pages, but the final artist we discuss is Bahamian artist April Bey. Rolls-Bentley concludes, “Through her work, Bey imagines better futures and better worlds for us, which I think is the power of art. And that’s what the last chapter is,… queertopia; letting artists be the ones to show us what we could be doing better and what that world could look like for everybody, not just for queer people.”

Queer Art: From Canvas to Club and the Spaces Between by Gemma Rolls-Bentley is published by Frances Lincoln and available now from your local independent bookshop. 

How the photography trade is lifting as the medium’s stigma fades

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How the photography trade is lifting as the medium’s stigma fades

Photography’s main season of sales has just wrapped, with fairs stretching from April’s Photofairs Shanghai and the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (Aipad) expo in New York, to May’s Photo London. The top auction houses were also in on the act: Phillips’s dedicated photography sale in London coincided with Photo London, while the photographers in Christie’s high-octane 20th- and 21st-century evening sales in New York included Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, André Kertész and Edward Weston.

Although recent data from ArtTactic shows that global photography sales fell in value by 16% between 2022 and 2023, to $62.4m, the analysis firm notes these results were skewed by weaker performance at the high end. Below the big-number auctions, at which photographs have sold for more than $1m, all is much more exciting. In terms of sales volume, 2023 marked a record high for the medium since ArtTactic began tracking the photography market in 2015. Its focus on the three main Western auction houses—Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips—also means there is likely much more going on beyond the trade’s most visible resale venues.

A rising tide

Like limited-edition prints, photographs are benefitting from the macro market trend of people buying more art at lower price levels. The liveliest bracket is for photographs sold for less than $5,000, for which ArtTactic found a 36% year-on-year increase in sales value since 2022. Compared to the pre-Covid year of 2019, sales at this level are up nearly 200%, suggesting a happy coincidence with collectors’ growing confidence in buying art in general online, mostly at more affordable prices.

Other dynamics favour photography, as well. Concerns over its multiple nature have subsided, and small edition runs simultaneously bestow a whiff of rarity and naturally cap prices. It seems likely too that, in a crowded field, some buyers take comfort in seeing a work proliferate (within limits); certain long-running series of technically unique but minimally distinctive works, such as Damien Hirst’s Spot paintings and Jeff Koons’s Celebrations sculptures, have been boosted by a similar trend.

Photography’s stigma as a lesser form of art has also disappeared as artists increasingly incorporate multiple media into their practices and museums increasingly champion camera-based work. Notable current institutional shows range from Julia Margaret Cameron and Francesca Woodman at London’s National Portrait Gallery (until 16 June) to Carmen Winant’s acclaimed installation The Last Safe Abortion (2023) at the Whitney Biennial in New York (until 11 August). The former example also underlines that photography has a long history with a relatively healthy number of female practitioners.

Detail of Carmen Winant, The Last Safe Abortion (2023) at the Whitney Biennial 2024. The installation features a collection of 2,700 photographs capturing the essential care provided day after day for half a century at clinics, hospitals and other abortion providers in the US’s Midwest

Benjamin Sutton

There are still causes for concern, ranging from digital touch-ups to the use of artificial intelligence. But if artists are open about their practices, such dynamics can enhance, not detract from, debates relevant to all creative industries today.

Photography is proving a successful entry-level market, with the potential to grow the number of collectors in all fields at an otherwise tricky time. As such, its traders must accept that $5,000 is still a lot of money for buyers graduating from art posters. This burgeoning market wants to avoid the trap that has seen contemporary painters all but price themselves out of introductory acquisitions. Photography might not make the numbers add up in the global scheme of things, but where there is life, there is much hope.

The photography trade is buoyant as medium‘ stigma fades

By in Photography

The photography trade is buoyant as medium‘ stigma fades

Photography’s main season of sales has just wrapped, with fairs stretching from April’s Photofairs Shanghai and the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (Aipad) expo in New York, to May’s Photo London. The top auction houses were also in on the act: Phillips’s dedicated photography sale in London coincided with Photo London, while the photographers in Christie’s high-octane 20th- and 21st-century evening sales in New York included Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, André Kertész and Edward Weston.

Although recent data from ArtTactic shows that global photography sales fell in value by 16% between 2022 and 2023, to $62.4m, the analysis firm notes these results were skewed by weaker performance at the high end. Below the big-number auctions, at which photographs have sold for more than $1m, all is much more exciting. In terms of sales volume, 2023 marked a record high for the medium since ArtTactic began tracking the photography market in 2015. Its focus on the three main Western auction houses—Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips—also means there is likely much more going on beyond the trade’s most visible resale venues.

A rising tide

Like limited-edition prints, photographs are benefitting from the macro market trend of people buying more art at lower price levels. The liveliest bracket is for photographs sold for less than $5,000, for which ArtTactic found a 36% year-on-year increase in sales value since 2022. Compared to the pre-Covid year of 2019, sales at this level are up nearly 200%, suggesting a happy coincidence with collectors’ growing confidence in buying art in general online, mostly at more affordable prices.

Other dynamics favour photography, as well. Concerns over its multiple nature have subsided, and small edition runs simultaneously bestow a whiff of rarity and naturally cap prices. It seems likely too that, in a crowded field, some buyers take comfort in seeing a work proliferate (within limits); certain long-running series of technically unique but minimally distinctive works, such as Damien Hirst’s Spot paintings and Jeff Koons’s Celebrations sculptures, have been boosted by a similar trend.

Photography’s stigma as a lesser form of art has also disappeared as artists increasingly incorporate multiple media into their practices and museums increasingly champion camera-based work. Notable current institutional shows range from Julia Margaret Cameron and Francesca Woodman at London’s National Portrait Gallery (until 16 June) to Carmen Winant’s acclaimed installation The Last Safe Abortion (2023) at the Whitney Biennial in New York (until 11 August). The former example also underlines that photography has a long history with a relatively healthy number of female practitioners.

Detail of Carmen Winant, The Last Safe Abortion (2023) at the Whitney Biennial 2024. The installation features a collection of 2,700 photographs capturing the essential care provided day after day for half a century at clinics, hospitals and other abortion providers in the US’s Midwest

Benjamin Sutton

There are still causes for concern, ranging from digital touch-ups to the use of artificial intelligence. But if artists are open about their practices, such dynamics can enhance, not detract from, debates relevant to all creative industries today.

Photography is proving a successful entry-level market, with the potential to grow the number of collectors in all fields at an otherwise tricky time. As such, its traders must accept that $5,000 is still a lot of money for buyers graduating from art posters. This burgeoning market wants to avoid the trap that has seen contemporary painters all but price themselves out of introductory acquisitions. Photography might not make the numbers add up in the global scheme of things, but where there is life, there is much hope.

All Calendar Events, The Sonoma County Gazette

By in Photography

All Calendar Events, The Sonoma County Gazette

Submitting your event to the Gazette’s community calendar is easy. Simply click the “Create an event” button below. You will need to register with Evvnt, our calendar partner, if you have not submitted an event in the past. Event submissions are accepted 24/7 on the website.

Events submitted online can also be printed in our monthly Community Calendar. To be placed in the print edition, online event submissions must be posted on the Gazette website by the 20th of the month.

To be included in the Sonoma County Gazette Community Calendar print edition, events must adhere to the following standards:

• Ticket price of $30 or less (unless the event is a community benefit event)
• Sonoma County location
• Void of promotion of hate speech/hate rhetoric

To promote your event with display advertising in print or online, please contact our account executive at advertise@sonomacountygazette.com.

Small Business Spotlight: Mechanicsburg teen started real estate photography business during COVID

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Small Business Spotlight: Mechanicsburg teen started real estate photography business during COVID
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Rachel Andreoli
For The Sentinel

Cumberland County has no shortage of residents with unique talents and independent spirits.

From artists to mechanics, office workers to outdoor professionals, these entrepreneurs showcase the best of what businesses in the county have to offer.

Every week, The Sentinel’s Small Business Spotlight will feature these people and share their stories.

Discover your local connection through this series that focuses on small business owners in your own backyard and highlights the services they provide for their community.

Justin Boswell

Business Name: Bos Photography LLC

Years in Business: 3.5 years

Location: Based in Mechanicsburg

People are also reading…

Contact: bosphotoz.com or 717-831-6073

Q: Why did you want to start this kind of business?

A: I’ve always had a really good eye for photography, but I never really thought I could make a career out of it. When I learned about real estate photography and architectural photography, I just dove right in.

Q: How did you get your start?

A: When I was 16 years old in high school, I was working on my neighbor’s farm when I saw something about a real estate photographer online telling his story and explaining his business. I was already very eager to start a business at the time; COVID had just hit so I had a lot of extra time on my hands, and I felt like I was wasting it away and squandering potential by sitting in the house doing nothing and not building something. I also knew that was the last time in my life where I’d have no bills and essentially nothing to lose. I knew when I got a car I’d have to get a job to pay for it, and then between gas and various other bills, I would never leave the security of a job because I had something to put on the line.

So at that moment I decided to use my off-time during COVID to build a business. I used the last of my money I’d saved from working on the farm and bought a camera and some basic gear. I didn’t know much about photography, especially real estate photography, which is one of the most challenging fields, but I was determined.

I started at a car dealership taking inventory photos; it was a busywork gig but it paid the bills while I learned and grew the real estate portion of the business. Once school started back up in-person, I woke up early every morning before I left to send cold emails and reach out to agents or builders. During school I was texting clients or brainstorming creative ways to get my name out. During off-campus lunch I was calling agents. And after school, as long as I didn’t have wrestling practice, I would either go to any shoots I had scheduled that day or continue to reach out and get my name out.

I spent nearly every penny I made buying new equipment to provide new services or to increase the quality of existing services (drones, 3-D cameras, better cameras, taking drone courses, etc.). I did that while balancing being a student and an athlete for about two years straight before I began to gain any traction at all, but now we’re one of the leading names in real estate photography and continuing to grow every second.

Q: What does your business sell or provide?

A: Bos Photography is a full-service real estate photography company that services all of South Central PA. We specialize in taking photos for listings going onto market, along with whatever else that client might need, including drone, video, Matterport 3-D tours, twilights, floorplans, virtual staging, virtual decluttering, and so much more.

Q: What is the biggest challenge you are facing right now?

A: I’ve begun hiring new photographers and training them to produce quality content, but I’m extremely picky about who I hire and the work I deliver, so finding photographers with open schedules who can exceed expectations is my No. 1 challenge at the moment.

Q: What is your favorite thing to do or place in Cumberland County?

A: I’m big into lifting and rock climbing, so if I’m not working on the business, doing shoots or hiking the AT, you can almost always find me at Climbnasium in Mechanicsburg on the Carlisle Pike. They’re an amazing rock climbing gym with top roping and bouldering, and the people are incredibly nice. It’s just an all-around fantastic time.

CNN reports that the United States economy expanded again in the fourth quarter, showing solid growth to end 2022.


Rachel Andreoli is the owner of Interior Intuition. She specializes in helping clients design spaces to help them love the way they live.



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Interview: NJ’s Joe P Talks Memory, Photography, & “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile)”

By in Photography

Interview: NJ’s Joe P Talks Memory, Photography, & “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile)”
New Jersey singer/songwriter Joe P talks memory, photography, emotional baggage, and his achingly impassioned new anthem “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile),” a song of raw humanity, self-preservation, and intimate connection taken off his forthcoming sophomore album, ‘Garden State Vampire’!
Stream: “Birthday Baby” – Joe P
[embedded content]

I‘ve become the family photographer, like my mother before me and her mother before her.

It’s not just because I like taking pictures, which I do; whenever there’s a special event, I make sure to document it – capturing it for posterity, so that it lives on not only in our minds, but also in a physical freeze-frame. Life is long and filled with special moments big and small, and I’ve found that we (I) tend to forget most of them; that they all sort of bleed into one another when I’m not looking, especially when they lack a reference.

So I take pictures to remember who I am and who I’ve been. We take pictures to remember who we are.

Joe P’s latest single hits especially hard, bringing with it a trail of happy tears and heartfelt memories. An impassioned, anthemic song of raw humanity and intimate connection, “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile)” aches with the weight of love and loss, time and change. It’s a candid, cathartic reflection on life cycles: The things we pass down from generation to generation, how we hold onto those who came before us, and all the ways we remember those who have gone from our lives.

Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile) - Joe P
Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile) – Joe P
Well happy birthday baby
Everybody’s here for you
Happy birthday baby
Six candles lighting up the whole room
Outdated kitchen full of smiles
Everyone’s standing around
We take pictures so we remember who we are
25 years from now
And I remember towers coming down
First grade September
I remember wondering
“why am I going home now?”
Daddy’s crying, I ask “why”
as apples turn to ash
We take pictures so we remember who we are

Released May 31, 2024 via Neon Gold / Atlantic Records, “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile)” aches from the inside out with raw emotion and radiant energy. The latest single off Joe P’s forthcoming debut album Garden State Vampire (out August 23) finds the New Jersey-based multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter deep in a state of reverie, remembrance, and reckoning as he unpacks bits of his own history, family heritage, and the thin veil between life and death.

He swaps back and forth between his past and present, reliving life (and reviving loved ones) through old family photos – ultimately spilling the heavy contents of his heart and soul in an impassioned, emotionally charged chorus:

But you curse like your mother
And you act like your father
Your sister called back,
but your brother doesn’t have your number
So you drove by his house
Now he’s got a daughter
and they named her after you
The girl with no smile,
the girl with no smile
Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine
Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine

“I wrote this song as a result of coming across a lot of old photos in an attic one day,” Joe P (full name Joe Parella) tells Atwood Magazine. “They were photos from the ’90s that my parents took when I was a baby… or in some of them, I wasn’t even born yet. I got a bittersweet feeling while having this realization that, at the time, I wasn’t old enough to be present and really realize who my parents, or who the people that were adults in my life, were.”

“Now that I’m an adult, I can look back and see them for the people they were and for their humanity, and it was just this bittersweet feeling of wishing I could have realized that in the moment… but that’s why we take photos.”

That’s why we take photos. Remembering our past can bring us pain, but it can also haunt us in the sweetest ways. Parella allows himself to dive deep into nostalgia’s wombs as he gets lost in thoughts about what is and what came before, who we are and who came before us; what is yet to come and who he is yet to be.

He never explicitly says what happened (or happens) to the “girl with no smile” or who she is, nor does he have to; this song is an ode to her memory, keeping her spirit alive:

You hide your heartbeat
In a box under the bed
But it makes too much noise down there
So you swallow it up instead
Now a pounding headache keeps you awake
As you daydream through the night
We take pictures so we remember who we are
But you curse like your mother
And you act like your father
Your sister called back,
but your brother doesn’t have your number
So you drove by his house
Now he’s got a daughter
and they named her after you
The girl with no smile, the girl with no smile

As Joe P explains, we’ve all got a little bit of “the girl with no smile” within us. She is our purest, most blameless self.

“The girl with no smile just represents the innocent versions of people that are immediately affected by the past of the people that came before them,” he says. “Usually this is our family, considering we grow up with them from day one, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. It represents all the shit you didn’t choose or cause, yet are now expected to navigate.”

Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine
Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine

I lost my mother in 2017, when I was 25 and she was 57. She was the family photographer, always ready to snap a photo with her Canon point-and-shoot camera and, later on, her iPhone. When she died, I assumed that responsibility, taking over that role instinctively and unconsciously – because like her, I want my loved ones to have an archive through which they can return to, remember, and relive the past.

Myself included. I take pictures to remember who I am; after all, every photograph is another precious moment of our lives – a memory forever enshrined.

And now, my mother lives on in pictures and memories.

“Someday, when this life’s done, I’ll come back as something you love,” Joe P sings, his dynamic voice hot on the mic in a spirited, climactic bridge. “I’ll come back as something you can love.” Life isn’t always as long as we expect it to be – and even when it is, it goes by so fast… “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile)” is, for me, a reminder to cherish those in your present, recognizing that one day, we’ll all be in the past.

I don’t want to know what it feels like
To be the rain in Seattle
I don’t want to know what it feels like
To be the wind in Chicago
And I don’t want to know what it feels like
To be the sunshine in LA
Someday, when this life’s done
I’ll come back as something you love
I’ll come back as something you can love

Atwood Magazine recently caught up with Joe P for an in-depth conversation about “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile),” photography, self-preservation, and living in the past, present, and future. Dive into his stunning new single in our interview below, and stay tuned for the release of Garden State Vampire, out August 23!

“I hope people listen to it and just feel some sense of peace in knowing they have no control over what came before them, and barely any over what’s coming in the future,” the singer/songwriter concludes. “Or maybe that’s terrifying? I don’t know. Maybe that’s it. Terrifyingly peaceful.”

Whatever the case may be, there’s no denying this song’s beauty, weight, and depth. As we near 2024’s halfway mark, I feel confident in labeling “Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile)” one of the best songs of the year.

Well happy birthday baby
Everybody’s here for you
Happy birthday baby,
One candle lighting up the whole room
Outdated kitchen full of smiles
Everyone’s standing around
We take pictures so we remember who we are

— —

:: stream/purchase Birthday Baby here ::
:: connect with Joe P here ::
Stream: “Birthday Baby” – Joe P
[embedded content]

A CONVERSATION WITH JOE P

Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile) - Joe P

Atwood Magazine: Great to chat, Joe! “Birthday Baby (Girl With No Smile)” is clearly a very special song, and I want to dive right in. You’ve talked about being inspired by old photos in an attic. Can you share a bit more about who you saw there, and how seeing them affected you?

Joe P: I can’t remember if it was a certain person that I saw in the photos that sparked the inspiration and I don’t even think I came up with the concept until days after honestly. That’s usually how my brain operates. Something happens and I don’t realize it until days, weeks, months or years later.

Tell me about the idea of taking pictures “so we remember who we are.” Are you a big picture taker yourself? What role do photos (family or otherwise) play in your life?

Joe P: I think the realization of how important photos are is another element that sparked this song in the first place. As a little kid I used to flip through the physical photos my family kept in a box in the upstairs closet so when I came across them in the attic years later it was the first time since childhood that I was doing it again. Once we all got smartphones, the reason we take photos started to change a bit.

I lived in Westchester, just outside the city, like you, and I also have my own intimate relationship with 9/11; I was in 4th grade at the time, and being sent home that day, and I remember worrying if I would ever seeing my dad again… I’m curious what inspired you to put that verse in, if you don’t mind talking about it or sharing your story?

Joe P: I really have no clue what made me write that verse about 9/11. I think for us it will forever be the first day of our lives where we had to grow up faster than scheduled. It was just such a weird day to be that age. Too young to understand what was happening but old enough to know something was wrong. That makes for a very blurry memory that slowly comes into focus as you get older and can understand more.

What can you tell me about the “girl with no smile”? Is she real; who was she, to you?

Joe P: The girl with no smile just represents the innocent versions of people that are immediately affected by the past of the people that came before them. Usually this is our family, considering we grow up with them from day one, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. It represents all the shit you didn’t choose or cause, yet are now expected to navigate.

I really love the breakdown, when you sing, “I don’t want to know what it feels like to be the rain in Seattle…. someday when this life’s done I’ll come back as something you love.” What inspired those three lines about the cities, and can you also talk about that last phrase, “I’ll come back as something you can love”?

Joe P: These are my favorite set of lines I’ve ever written. I think I just was obsessing over the idea of reincarnation one night and arrived at this concept of how nice it would be to have the chance to come back without any of the baggage you were born with and get a second chance to be in the lives of people you know. I also just thought it was a devastating concept to have the chance to come back as something totally removed from human emotion, like rain / sunshine / wind, yet still choosing to go through all the pain of being in love.

Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine
Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine

I thought it was a devastating concept to have the chance to come back as something totally removed from human emotion, like rain / sunshine / wind, yet still choosing to go through all the pain of being in love.

So much of this song is wrapped up in memory and remembrance, for me. Where, for you, do those emotions stem from? Are they constant feelings you carry with you?

Joe P: It’s funny you say it is wrapped up in remembering when because while it definitely is partially that, I feel it as a song about the future and being aware I have now lived some life and picked up some baggage of my own that eventually someone else will either have to carry, or at least learn to leave behind.

Sonically, what were you going for with this song? What was your vision for it, if any?

Joe P: This song started with the acoustic three chord progression and the first verse vocal so I was immediately in that basic atmosphere. It took me so long to finish it because everything I tried adding to it just scared away that sincerity that it had initially. Once I had the chorus, I knew it had the ability to have a little power to it and not be a full on sad acoustic guitar ballad. I already know this one will be one of the songs that grows some muscle for the live show and hits hard.

Do you have any favorite lyrics or lines from this track?

Joe P: The entire bridge is my favorite set of lyrics, I would say.

I don’t want to know what it feels like
To be the rain in Seattle
I don’t want to know what it feels like
To be the wind in Chicago
And I don’t want to know what it feels like
To be the sunshine in LA
Someday, when this life’s done
I’ll come back as something you love
I’ll come back as something you can love
Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine
Joe P © Jimmy Fontaine

It took me so long to finish it because everything I tried adding to it just scared away that sincerity that it had initially.

You’ve been releasing songs off Garden State Vampire for quite a few months now. How do you feel this album introduces you and captures your artistry, especially compared to your EPs?

Joe P: I didn’t really think I was doing anything that different from the EPs honestly when I was making these songs because the process was the same as it always has been for the most part, but after a few weeks of having it just done and sitting there, I can feel that I got a huge chunk of me out onto these recordings. Sometimes you finish a song and you hope people will like it, and other times you finish a song and hope other people will like it, but it doesn’t matter if they do or not because you know you couldn’t have produced anything other than what’s there.

That’s how I feel about this body of work. It was exactly what I was meant to create, and I can’t feel bad if someone doesn’t like it, because it would be like someone not liking the way I walk or something.

Why the title Garden State Vampire?

Joe P: Garden State = New Jersey. Vampire = I spent most of my time making it in a dark basement in the middle of the night when I probably should be asleep.

Garden State Vampire - Joe P
Garden State Vampire – Joe P

Wrapping up, what do you love most about “Birthday Baby (Girl With No Smile),” and what do you hope listeners take away from it?

Joe P: I love how the song doesn’t feel too formulated and instead just asks the listener to follow wherever it decides to go. I hope people listen to it and just feel some sense of peace in knowing they have no control over what came before them and barely any over what’s coming in the future. Or maybe that’s terrifying? I don’t know. Maybe that’s it. Terrifyingly peaceful.

In the spirit of teasing listeners, what else can fans look forward to off the new album? Anything we can share to start getting folks excited?

Joe P: I am really excited to get the rest of these songs out now that I’ve released “Birthday Baby.” I usually don’t know what a song is even about or how much of myself was put into it until it is released and a few days go by, which is exactly what happened here, so I’m just stoked to keep putting more and more of myself out there for people to hopefully connect with.

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:: connect with Joe P here ::
Stream: “Birthday Baby” – Joe P
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Birthday Baby (The Girl with No Smile) - Joe P

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Gallery spotlights two photographers

By in Photography

Gallery spotlights two photographers

The Yaquina Art Association Gallery is spotlighting the work of two photographers — Michael Carr and Ilene Samowitz — in a show that runs from June 22 through July 5. The YAA Gallery is located at 789 NW Beach Drive in Newport.

Carr has been a photographer since 1980, and his work is centered around the western states. He has been published hundreds of times in various newspapers and magazines and has won numerous awards from the national level on down.

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