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Artists are always pushing the boundaries of what they can create with and the work of Ian Strange is no exception; in fact it’s a shining example of the idea. Strange uses houses as a medium, through which he explores and alters the idea of home. Working in addition, subtraction, construction, and destruction, Strange breaks down spaces and presents his projects in a variety of means. While archival photography and film are the primary means of displaying his site specific work, Strange has a distinguished artistic touch and regularly mixes things link drawing, painting, and sculpture into his exhibits. These exhibitions are the culmination of his projects and he is a master at displaying the experience of what he and the teams behind his projects have done. There is more to Strange’s work than just painting a house or cutting a whole, there’s an exploration of architecture, space, and an idea that exists in everyone’s head, “home.” One of Strange’s breakout bodies of work was his series Suburban, which was created across six U.S. states and seeks to destroy and re-present the icon of the suburban home. The project is created by either painting homes or burning them to the ground. When the homes were painted, Strange and his team used bold colors and shapes to flatten out the homes, make them stand out, and destroy the common understanding of the icon while still allowing it to exist in a new manner. When they were burned it was both literally and figuratively a total destruction. However, the documenting and presenting of the acts is what makes these experiments so fascinating. The work was presented as a collection of photographs and videos with accents of a few sculptural pieces, but this is where that alteration of “home” becomes so strong. The painted homes were displayed in clear suburban settings which amplified the alterations and made them stand out in a rather unsettling manner. While the display of the burned homes was more focused on the home itself, that feeling of unrest reigns across these as Strange selects photos that still clearly illustrate a house fighting to stand through the flames. The idea of home and the quiet, easy suburbs is one that exists in most people and the destruction of that understanding is what makes these photos and videos so striking and fascinating. Following the success of Suburban, Strange looked to push his work even further as he took another ambitious step in altering the idea of home with his series Final Act. In the wake of a brutal earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, Strange and filmmaker Alun ‘Albol’ Bollinger went into the areas “Red Zone,” where nearly 16,000 homes were abandoned and scheduled for demolition, and manipulated four homes to create a new series of photos and videos. While similar in nature, Suburban and Final Act are very different in their outlooks. Final Act shows houses that have had large portions cut away and then had light flushed through the holes. The series has a calming feel to it, a sense of positivity reigns through every photo because although the houses feel broken, light prevails. The sentiment of this series and the positivity that’s shown through the images was necessary for the local community as many of them had lost their homes, their understanding of home had been destroyed, but Strange presented the idea that there may be light in that destruction. In the 7 years since these two series were created, Strange has pushed his work in so many different and fascinating directions. There’s so much to digest with this artist and the bodies of work that he creates. The alteration of an object is an interesting concept, but when the alteration can be documented and displayed in a way that evokes an individual experience for every viewer, then it becomes something more. This is where the work of Ian Strange stands out because the concepts of what he’s doing alone are interesting, but the beautiful and immersive exhibitions that he creates with the documentations of his experiments is masterful.

The ability to represent life through painting is obviously impressive, but what is arguably more impressive is representing life in a way that can manipulate human perception. Ability like this is what drew me towards the work of Vincent Giarrano. The first things I saw from him were incredibly realistic depictions of people interacting with the city of New York but as I worked through his portfolio and enlarged the thumbnails, I started to notice an intriguing looseness within some of the work. Giarrano has a very deliberate stroke, exquisite control, and an ability to present information clearly at different levels of refinement. What I mean by this is that he can block in color and lay out the key details of a scene so that when you see it from across the room or in a thumbnail, it appears to be a 1:1 hyperrealist painting, but as you approach or enlarge it some of that detail can fall away. Yet sometimes it doesn’t as Giarrano can cleanly refine details with the best of them, so as you approach or enlarge one of his works there’s a variety of results you can get. One of my favorite things to do as I look at the collection of Giarrano’s work, now that I’ve studied his style and subtle differences, is see if I can find any little moments where he’s let the brush stroke exist. Sometimes these moments are obvious, sometimes they’re very subtle, and sometimes they’re non-existent. All of the fascinating technique quips aside, the subject of Giarrano’s work is wildly interesting as well. As I mentioned, his work usually features people interacting with the city but the way that he captures life and creates an interaction between the space/scene and the primary character is what often ends up being the most fascinating element. There’s levels of interaction with the primary character: sometimes they’re set up much more like a portrait with the feel of a set pose, sometimes the character feels as if they’re not aware they’re being depicted but are still a focal point of the piece, and sometimes it feels as though they’ve been captured totally by accident. Regardless of the variation, however, these characters always have very intimate relationships with the space they’re in. In Giarrano’s work, the space or scene is just as important as the character and this adds to each piece; it creates a narrative between character and place no matter how the character is depicted. Paintings that feature both scenes and prominent figures tend to lean towards depicting one or the other more deliberately, but with this work both are important and the interaction between the two tells some brilliant stories. I’m obviously a huge fan of Giarrano’s work, so I was thrilled to get to chat with him about all that goes into his painting. It’s thought provoking to see all that goes into these paintings and the range of refinement. There’s a lot of terrific insight. Enjoy! 1. I always like to begin by asking about background, so what got you into art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist that you are today? I drew from an early age, and was hooked right away on the feeling you get from creating. My family was supportive and could see that this was my thing. Figure drawing is something I started early, which was a great experience, and then I went to college for art. It was a more modern and conceptual focus rather than traditional methods. I also majored in sculpture for undergrad and grad school. It was great fun but I didn’t see it as a career at that point. 2. Your work is heavily driven by figure, and the space those figures are interacting with. What got you into depicting this human, environment relationship? What drew you towards this more? The people, the place, or the interaction between the two? The figure has always been important to me. I’ve also had a long fascination with film, and also the clothing industry. My first career after college was working as a comic book artist. For me it was like being able to make your own film. The work allowed me to develop my skills for visual storytelling and narrative. I’d moved to New York City after college, and the experiences I had there really influenced me for painting, even though it wouldn’t show up till years later. There’s an energy and edge to the city that really stuck with me. 3. Further, do you work with models to create your paintings? What is the process of finding the right model, getting them into the right part of the space, the right pose? Do you find it to be a collaborative experience? And how many poses or iterations would you say you go through before you reach a final? Yes, I’m always working with the people in my paintings. You have to be in control of that element. It takes quite a bit of work to create something that feels real and natural. It’s an interesting experience working with someone, and very much a collaboration. I love the inspiration and ideas that come from my subjects. 4. What comes first for you, the space or the person? How do you go about navigating what aspects of the space are going to be the most interesting once you've decided the space? Is this an organic process or do you really plan out every little bit of picking the space? My starting point is to write about the person and any ideas I have about our collaboration. That’s sort of a base but then I let myself be open to what occurs while we’re working together. I’ll have location ideas but my subject will often take me to places that they relate too. My process is; some planning, then unpredictable experiences and trying ideas, then more writing and planning, then testing out ideas with drawings or small oil studies, and then finally a fully developed large painting. 5. You're very open about the build up process of your paintings, showing how you lay out and develop your paintings. But what is this process like for you? Are you building up every aspect of the space, working across the whole canvas? Or do you find one focal element and work out from there? (Painting nerd question here) How many brushes are you going through as you build up these paintings? Are you a 1 brush artist, a thousand brush artist, or somewhere in between? I love having several methods of working a painting. It really keeps things interesting to vary my approach and process. I also enjoy experimenting now and then. I feel it’s important to challenge yourself regularly. Some paintings start with little or no drawing, sometimes just big simple shapes of color. Other times I’ll do a drawing with thinned paint, getting enough information down to really know where I want everything. I can then work the painting as a whole, or window-shade where I’m finishing as I go. Overall I’m a direct painter. I like my process to be decisive, and also retain a fresh, painterly feeling. I go between using one brush and many, but it’s more about the size and shape that gives me what I need. I haven’t gotten into using brushes for different values/colors, but that could be fun to try sometime. 6. Further into your process, what goes into the control or looseness of your stroke? You certainly seem to lay on the paint, but some of your work seems to be far more refined, while others seem to be more loose. What goes into deciding how loose or refined a painting is? Does the size of the work play any factor in this? In a painting I’ll often have some areas loose and some more resolved. I like that for how it influence the movement of an eye through the composition. However I also enjoy doing a painting all loosely because it’s what I feel is best for the subject. Size of the painting also plays into this. It’s great to do a small or tiny painting that you have to work loose because of that scale. I often create small studies for a piece. It’s great for figuring things out; do I like the subject, is it working, what should I do to improve it, what scale do I feel best for this scene? I'm big on planning, and I’ve found the more preparatory work I do, the stronger my work is in the end. 7. Perception seems to be a key in your work as from a distance or at a small scale your work could pass for a photo, but as you move closer or enlarge it, that painterly quality becomes more clear. Is this something that you deliberately try to play with in your work? I’m glad you felt that. It’s one of the qualities I want for my work; a strong feeling of reality at a distance, but up close a painterly impression. 8. What does color mean to your work? The color palettes always seem to be very deliberate in how they show the mood of the model and space. So how does color play into choosing a scene or composition? Do you ever play up colors to add to your narrative goal or do you stay pretty true to what you see? I think a lot about the color of the light in my scene. Usually there’s one light source, and it’s affecting everything. If I can capture that harmony of color, then I feel that’s what makes my painting feel real. I also favor cool, even light. I like the mood of it, and how it enhances the feeling in my scenes. As for what I see; when I’m painting on location or in the studio, I focus on changing whatever is required to make the painting work. I edit, and change shapes and colors; anything to get what I want. The painting has to work, because in the end that’s all there is. 9. There seems to be two different types of interaction between you and the model, one that seems very much like a set pose/scene and one that seems to be more of a single captured moment. Is there a narrative difference or meaning between these two aspects of your work? Or does that just boil down to the model, scene relationship? It’s two very different things for me. I have concepts that run through all my work, but I also love to work in series where I have separate concepts that come into play. One series I paint are scenes that are about a slice of life in the city environment. Another series is about a contemporary portrait of someone living in the city. I also have a series with no figures and just architecture, which is about the influence of people on city structures. 10. Finally PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything and everything you'd like to share, fire away! Thank you. I share quite a bit on Instagram @vgiarrano My website is www.giarrano.com I have a solo show at the Scope art fair in NYC March 5-8, 2020 My next big solo show is set for September 2020 at Dacia Gallery in NYC

I’m a huge fan of linework and, while I loathe the idea of doing it, stippling. So when I came across the heavily punk and metal inspired work of Fred Grabosky aka FTG Illustrations at the Darksome Craft Market, I just had to talk to the guy. The conversation was almost more interesting than the work as he regaled me with the background of his illustrations and his fascination with spores. We started talking about science in the arts, death metal, podcasts and all while I flipped through this big book of marvelous prints of his. His illustrations are built on contrast, sometimes strong white lines and dots over black grounds, and sometimes the same qualities in black over white. Accents of gold or other heavily contrasting colors push the main subjects forward as their natural depth adds dimension to the entire page. The imagery in his work pushes and pulls between life and death. Skulls, bones, horns, insects, and fungi weave in and out of one another and present a whole heap of information in every illustration. There’s so much more than meets the eye in an FTG Illustration. Once you get past the initial pop and boldness of the image, you can really take in the detail and the subtle narrative created by the interacting elements. There’s a whole lot to interest everyone in this work and there’s just as much to be said about the artist himself. As soon as we got talking, I knew I had to hear more and to share it with all of you, so enjoy! 1. I always open with the background, so what got you started in art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist that you are today? I have been making art in some shape or form ever since I can remember. I drew pictures of weird Ninja turtle inspired creatures at an early age and then kind of stopped in middle school/high school. I gradually shifted my interests toward video production, as I went to a video vocational program junior and senior year of high school. The real spark of my inspiration toward illustration came from punk and metal album covers. I would just admire pen and ink work, sometimes with watercolor, sometimes without. I mostly scoffed at digital looking pieces feeling as though they looked too processed and had less real raw human emotion and grit. I decided to truly take illustration seriously when I went to University of the Arts in Philadelphia the second time around after shelving my video editing aspirations, working HVAC and ditching that career path as well! Looking back, I see just how much I tried pursuing before pressing into art as a career. My Senior Year at UArts was the hardest I'd worked toward my illustration progress, having made art for several friends' bands including my own. 2. Your work features detailed line work and vivid imagery in a dark style, so what inspires your imagery? How did you begin working in this illustrative style? How has it developed? As I mentioned before, A lot of Punk and Metal artwork was peaking my interests when I started to push the same kinds of pens. Santos, Richey Beckett, Jon Baizley, Jeremy Hush, Paul Romano, Mike Wohlberg, Angry Blue, Mark Riddick and some older artists like Pushead, Mucha, Harry Clarke, Virgil Finlay and Albrecht Durer were all big inspirations. I also knew that with these artists in mind, I wanted to try my best not to copy their style, but all art starts with copying at least certain techniques if not subject matter, and even composition. I just hate to see so many artists doing the exact same thing. 3. We had quite an interesting conversation about your fascination with fungus and the representation of such in your work, so how did this fascination develop into illustration? (woah, that's a cool ass rhyme) Further, your work seems to be quite thoughtful, so how much research or development of concept goes into your work? I honestly feel like I have been fascinated with nature my entire life, yet it started with reptiles and bugs. I only just recently started letting fungi truly influence my work. Something about my depression keeps me fantasizing about a fungus eating me. However, I truly find fungi to be strange, beautiful, so cool, and so alien. However, they are the rightful pioneers of the planet. Humans and life outside of fungi are the real aliens. I've allowed the obsession with fungus to affect most of my life, as I started a death metal band with the theme of it viciously attacking every living thing. I think that's just my sci-fi loving side of my brain going to dark corners and reaching into ominous holes, haha! In all seriousness though, there are so many different kinds and so many to marvel at. The drawing potential is insurmountable. I have several books on fungi and I spend hours reading about it online/ watching documentaries wherever I can find them. A simple google image search is enough to get an idea for a piece, but sometimes it develops into my own suggestions of fungi through rendering and style. 4. Your work features a very limited color palette, a lot of white on black or single colors on black. So what brought about this limited color palette and high contrast illustration? How do you decide what color(s) go with what piece? It definitely stems from Punk and Metal album covers and shirt designs. I've always appreciated the aesthetic. It's the simplicity and raw energy it gives off. It's the feeling of less to fight with your eyes and a darkness that's all too real behind it. I don't hate color. I mostly prefer to use an earth tone color palette. Sometimes I'll use vibrant colors. But even so, black is the absence of color and I relate to it the most. It represents night, and the cosmos, the void and what I see inside of my head. Picture an old school view master, where you hold up the binocular-like contraption and click to change the picture. That's kind of how it is in my head. Black all around the image itself. I try multiple colors in my pieces through digital process, but ultimately, I find one that speaks to the piece loudest and choose that. 5. How does your illustrative process differ when working for a client? Do people know what they're getting when they come to you for work, or do you have to lay that out for them? Or does it vary? It depends on what the client wants or how I'm feeling on how to attack a personal piece. It's usually the same process, however. I start with a thumbnail, which is usually very rough but shows where shapes will be laid down. Based on what I feel works best or the client's pick of the 5 or 6, I go into a preliminary sketch phase. I show it's progression/get the go ahead to make a final sketch, where all the detail starts to take form. From this approval, I transfer my lines and complete a piece on a clean surface. Sometimes for personal pieces, I'll just caveman into a scratchboard with a rough outline and work into it until if feels done. Other times, the same will apply for a pen and ink piece, skipping the final sketch and transfer stages and just inking on rough blue or graphite sketches. I prefer using the full step method mostly. It gives me the best results. Clients can view and pick from pieces on my website. This gives me a better idea of what they are looking for. Mostly, people know what they are getting from me. 6. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything you'd like to share and anywhere people can find you, fire away! So I've just recently put up a new website where you will find all of my work from pen and ink fine art to design for businesses, to scratchboard fine art and band artwork. Visit FTG-Art.com and see what I mean. You can also visit my online shop for any prints of my work. Just click SHOP on my site, or search FTGILLUS on Etsy and follow me on Instagram @FTG.ILLUS, or FB at Facebook.com/FTGIllus. Currently, I am between plans for any events, but I am open to invites/ suggestions. Email me at FTGIllustrations@Gmail.com!

When I first saw Dan Witz’s mosh pit paintings I was immediately struck with nostalgia as I remembered all of the hardcore shows I grew up going to. Witz’s ability to capture every quality of that crowd is so incredible. The action, the movement, the expression of every single character as they spastically move to gain their space in the crowd, it’s all there and it’s masterfully captured. His work was a perfect combination of two of my favorite things, wild shows and painting, so he instantly became one of my favorite painters. But when I dove deeper into his work, I quickly found out that there was a whole lot more than mosh pit paintings that would bring me to follow his work for years to come. Witz has an amazing touch and his ability to display action and emotion in his painting is so impressive, but some of the first works I noticed past his mosh pit paintings were devoid of this action and it was just as striking. Witz has painted a variety of crowds and they all come with their own feel. His 2016 painting, I Feel, always jumps out as a shift because unlike the mosh pit paintings where every figure seems to lead right into the next, these characters seem completely individual. There’s an inherent rhythm to the mosh pit paintings because every character is moving to the same beat, in the same direction, only stopping if they bounce off one another, but in this painting every character seems to be experiencing the space differently. Witz captures so many different emotions, movements, and reactions to the space in this piece and it’s a refreshing difference. Now his crowd paintings are incredible, in all of their varieties, but he does far more than that. Another thing that caught my attention when going through his body of work was his ability to capture the soft glow of light in a dark space. He at one point did a beautiful series of lamp paintings, but what really drew me to this aspect of his work was a series of portraits that he did where the figure was lit only by their cell phone. The technical ability that goes into managing lights, darks, and all of the subtle in betweens in something like this is jaw dropping. The way that he captures the soft glow that gently reveals the character is so brilliant. Even further, while I’m usually not a big concept guy, the idea of young people existing in a dark space being lit only by their phone, the universal information and sometimes misinformation feeder, is a really thoughtful and fascinating display.. But while all of his canvas work is great, I’d kick myself if I talked about Dan Witz and didn’t talk about his amazing take on street art. When I think street art, I usually think graffiti or quick, graphic imagery, but not with Witz. A hyper-realist in the gallery and on the streets, he applies small paintings to surfaces, transforming them from walls to windows into some pretty haunting places. Whether it’s hands reaching through a grate, a prisoner behind a cage, or the windows into animal abuse that Witz made for PETA UK, he takes ordinary flat surfaces and transforms them into a deep space. While these paintings are really striking, and have the ability to jump right at you, they’re unlike most street art in that they’re very subtle. You could walk past a Witz every day without meeting the gaze of the eyes looking through the door of the electrical box. They don’t demand to be seen, but once you see them they demand your attention. I could ramble on and on about how amazing the work of Dan Witz is and while it feels like I’ve talked about a lot, I’m really only scratching the surface of his vast body of work. I’ve always been someone who respects a diverse portfolio, especially in representational work, which is why Witz has been one of my favorites for years.

Clean, simple, and bold imagery with strong references to traditional tattoo styles and the city of Philadelphia is what first drew me to Charlie Dunkel’s work. Whether they’re drawn by hand or digitally, Dunkel’s illustrations are so clean and interestingly composed that they never fail to pop right off of the page or screen. While his images can and do stand alone, one of the most enticing aspects of his work is his ability to structure and compose a page with a collection of images. Some set a clear scene, some just gently apply an atmosphere (i.e. a floor), and others are completely void but the images that inhabit these spaces always manage to link together and construct a narrative. It’s really interesting the power and storytelling ability that these rather simple illustrations possess, it really speaks to their boldness and deliberate application of color. The beauty of Dunkel’s work doesn’t just lie in the imagery either, but also the diverse application. His illustrations can be seen on apparel, skate decks, his ceramic collaborations, and obviously a variety of print/page applications. We tend to see diversity like this in strictly digital, design type artists, so it’s rare but extremely refreshing to see an artist who works primarily by hand to have such diverse applications. I was extremely fortunate to get to chat with Dunkel a little while back about the development of his style, his process, and all of the little nuances of his work. It’s a quick interview that’s definitely worth the read. Enjoy! 1. To start off, tell us a little bit about your background in art. What got you started? Any Schooling? All of the things that helped shape you into the artist that you are. When I was probably 5 my parents hooked me up with a little art room in our basement where I would just scribble with markers and crayons. I always like to make things and I was lucky to have an awesome art program in high school. My teachers encouraged me to sign up for art camps at Tyler School of Art. That experience gave me a glimpse into life as an art student, and after getting accepted to Tyler’s BFA program that’s what I chose to do. I spent 2 years in the BFA program before switching to Temple’s communication school where I got my degree in Advertising along with a Studio Art minor. During my time at Temple I started interning at an animation studio called Deux Wave where I met 2 mentors of mine, Tammy Hahn and Raymo Ventura. They really showed me the ropes of working as a freelance illustrator/designer/animator and they still school me to this day. 2. Your work is very unique in that at some times it’s an arrangement of images and at other times a detailed composition that all fits together. So how do you decide what images are being used and how those images are related both spatially and in imagery? I guess it’s a matter of how I feel a thought or moment should be documented. Sometimes the idea is best understood when the images live in their natural setting, and everything just is what it is. Other times I think the importance lies within the chaos. 3. You've got a few clear inspirations in your work, could you tell us in some more detail the character inspirations, cultural inspirations, etc. that helped form your style? Children’s books were probably the first thing I looked to for inspiration. Sometimes I draw this character that’s like my take on a wild thing from the Maurice Sendak book “Where The Wild Things Are”. But for the most part, I like to travel and take in the natural geography as well as the architecture and design that surrounds me. Distinct style was never something I really tried to achieve. It was a product of my surroundings, the way I naturally draw, and the amount of time I’ve spent making different kinds of images. 4. You've got a very subtle but deliberate use of color, how do you decide which pieces are going to be a little more colorful, or what deserves color and what doesn't? Or is it a bit of a random process? I’m still spending a lot of time experimenting and practicing new things, so sometimes the way I apply color is random, but the color pallet and the pieces that require color are always a deliberate choice. Deciding whether a piece will be black and white or colored usually happens in the earliest stages of planning out the artwork. 5. Your website features some pretty cool design work and work with clients. How does client work differ from your personal work? Do you find that people or companies that come to you tend to let you work in your style more? Or is it sort of open imagery/collaboration? I’m usually hired to create work that looks like the stuff I make in my own time, but it definitely feels like client work when the idea isn’t my own. 6. You've got a little bit of animation sprinkled into your body of work, is this something you're well versed in and looking to explore more? Or is it something you don't really do much, but have in your bag of tricks? I consider myself an illustrator with some 2D animation skills. It’s definitely not my strongest suit, but it’s something I’ve been practicing and working on with some really amazing animators over the last 3 years. 7. Any new avenues or experiments you're looking to pursue in your personal or client based work? I’d love to do more murals. I’m also really excited about the ongoing collaboration I’m working on with ceramicist Dominic Frunzi. He makes really beautiful clay forms on the wheel, then passes them off to me to paint and etch. I’m looking forward to doing more of that. 8. Finally, plug yourself! Where can people find you? Any shows, new works, big events coming up? Anything and everything YOU that the people can find! I’m very spontaneous so it’s hard to say exactly where to find me and my work, but I always post my show flyers and events on my Instagram. Check me out at @Chunkel to see where I’ll be.

I’m not very well versed in watercolor painting but something about Jen Tracy’s work really jumped out at me when I first saw it. Yet another find from the Philadelphia craft market scene, I came across Tracy’s work and I was immediately enamore. Her color application certainly had that classic watercolor feel but it was applied with a cleanliness that I hadn’t seen before in the medium. When I think of watercolor, I think loose and gestural and while Tracy’s work has hints of this, it’s surprisingly clean and graphic. In her work color is applied extremely deliberately and it works in two phases, the bottom layers add tone and gentle detail to the image while the top layers add shadow and depth. This all lends to her imagery which is largely comprised of single images, almost sticker-like, and this is what gives her work that graphic feel. Her bold outlines give her work that rigid feel synonymous with graphic styles but her use of watercolor allows the image to also be loose and gentle at the same time. There’s a really interesting contrast between medium and style in Tracy’s work and she plays it up marvelously. I was thrilled to get to have a chat with Tracy to hear about what led her to watercolor, how her style developed, and the processes behind each work. She gave a really insightful interview and a look into a medium that isn’t overly popular in today’s art but has a lot of merit. Enjoy! 1. I always start with background, so what got you into art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What helped to shape you into the artist that you are today? Many things from my childhood got me into art. I am a fan of classical animation. Hand drawn masterpieces like Sleeping Beauty and The Last Unicorn pushed me to want to be an animator when I was young. I also found inspiration in Super Nintendo RPG instruction booklets. Yoshitaka Amano's work for Final Fantasy was pivotal. I believe his work is what first drew me to the free flowing pigments of watercolor and ink. Yes, I went to art school. I have a BFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a minor in Art History and a focus in Non Western Art. 2. I feel like we're not seeing many watercolor artists around anymore, so what drew you towards this medium initially? How has your use of the medium developed and progressed through your art career? You are absolutely right. Most galleries won't consider representing water based artists. This has been a hurdle. I was initially drawn to watercolor out of necessity. I have a degree in painting, but all of my classes were in oil based media except one mandatory elective. Like many graduates, I lived in a small apartment with low ventilation and little storage. Despite my love for large scale oil paintings, I had no where to store them. It is also dangerous to paint with oils without proper ventilation. So, I began to shift to less toxic water based materials. Discovering plein air painting was a game changer. The mobility of watercolor painting loosened my style. Working on the go opened me up to the potential of watercolor as my primary medium, not just out of necessity, but out of passion. 3. You've got a bold, hardlined and whimsical style so how did your imagery and illustration style develop? Were there any specific imagery inspirations? Thank you. This is a tough question to answer as I am not sure anyone means to have their style. It naturally developed over time. I fear claiming a deliberate intention could push young artists to force a style. That's not how it works. I didn't realize I had a style until others started mentioning it. As for specific imagery, artists that have influenced me over the years include Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Eyvind Earle, Kentaro Miura, Mary Blair, Yoshitaka Amano, and so many others. 4. How do you feel the contrast between hard lines and soft colors adds to your work? Are you limited at all by your medium? I like the contrast ink brings to my work. The hard, black lines of my painting define the sometimes too messy color puddles I create with watercolor. At the moment, my clients are primarily online buyers. My imagery needs to be striking on screen and off. The majority of illustrators working today use computers to create their work. It is my hope that the crisp, clear lines of my paintings communicate on screen as competently as digital art. Am I limited by my medium? Probably? Galleries seem to want oil paintings or more experimental studio art. Most illustration clients want the flexibility of digital artists. But, luckily, I find my people. I am sure if I was still an oil painter I would find canvas has its limits as well. For example, a chunky oil painting is not easy to scan and show online. Watercolor and ink suit my voice at the moment. Maybe one day I will become a digital painter. Who knows? I am happy doing this for now. 5. How do you approach your illustrations differently when you're doing a graphic vs. a full scene (singular image vs. full bleed images)? Are your illustrations fully planned or do they come organically? I make thumbnails for full scene illustrations. I fill sketchbooks with doodles until a composition feels right before I start on my final piece. A graphic usually comes a little easier. One or two sketches are all it takes for me to be confident about a singular image's look. With watercolor, everything is planned. There are no mistakes, once it is on the paper it is there. There is no room for winging it. I work in many layers which helps build the vibrant colors I desire. 6. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find you? Any shows/events coming up? Anywhere people can find you and anything you'd like to share, fire away! I am best known for my cover work for The No Sleep Podcast. I have been a part of their team since season 7. It's been a spooky, spooky joy. I am also on Etsy: jenthetracy.etsy.com. You can find me on instagram, twitter, tumblr, patreon, and ko-fi as @jenthetracy. I will be at Monster Mania in Cherry Hill, NJ March 13-15. I have a series of hand painted iMessage stickers available in the AppStore, just search "Jen Tracy." I am always open to new artistic opportunities, so if my style speaks to your vision, please reach out.

Some of the most fundamental aspects of the human experience come in the form of relation. Whether that is our relation to others, objects, or even the world around us. When attempting to be cognizant of how we interact with that which surrounds us, there is one aspect that goes overlooked. The negative space. I know for me I force myself to notice the little things; the placement of a light switch on a wall, or the feel of corduroy pants. Others may pay attention to the aesthetics of an organized shelf, but I think we all know the thigh pain of a long flight of stairs. We miss the spaces between. What am I reaching through to turn that light on, grab the book, or breaking through as I climb stairs. We pay little attention to space that we thing with which we interact the most. This is why I love the work of sculpture artist Rachel Whiteread. Famous for large castings, Whiteread's work is visually striking. Sometimes from repetition/arrangement; times sheer size. There is a poetic aspect in her work that can actually alter the way that we relate and witness or surroundings. At first you think wow that is a monochrome house. It's huge! You confident and think I know what a house looks like. You start to notice all the details. The edges that become flat and linear framing the organized planes that make up a house. But then, somethings off. Maybe the color is playing with my eyes. Maybe Rachel has pulled a fast one and warped the perspective, playing with the angles. Your confidence wains. I'm missing something. This isn't right. Then it hits you. This is not a house. The "house" has been removed. Instead I am am standing in front of a physical inversion of the entire inside of a house. That is interesting. But why? I've come to love this piece. House has gone from a sculpture that I liked as a scrolled passed to a work of art that has truly altered my relation to the world and has left a lasting impression on me. Whiteread is confronting the viewer. Smacking us in the face with the space we ignore as we go through our daily lives. We have become so accustomed to the places that we put ourselves in that we that we forget the the affect they have on us. When you are in your home do you ever think about the open floors above your head? We get into a small car and subliminally adapt. We forget that the space we enter is now limited. Walls and windows break up the world and section or day off into rectangular pods, or isle sized slices. I will never again enter a space without recognizing how I exist within it.

Spread across the top step of the Philadelphia Museum of Art was an installation that further perpetuated my fascination with the work of Antony Gormley. What from a distance seemed like just a collection of cubes became surprisingly figurative as i began to interact with them. Each collection of shapes slowly revealed a different pose, features that individualized the sculptures and gave them all their own character. The individualism of the sculptures served the installation as a whole because it allowed new things to be revealed by every character. Standing on one end of the installation, the closest figure can really reveal itself but since each piece has new things to offer the viewer will work their way down, scanning figure after figure from a distance until they understand what each figure is doing or saying in hopes of understanding the collection. Gormley gives the viewer just enough information that they’ll want to get up close and personal with each and every 8-10 ft. character. He pulls them in and out, back and forth through his installation as they try to piece together what isn’t actually there. Gormley’s figurative sculpture is a collection of masterful plays and depictions of the human form. Sometimes mind numbingly subtle, sometimes anything but, he plays with the forms that make up his sculptures and alters the level of information that they give you. In some cases when you see his work from across the room or in a small photo you can see a human figure clear as day, but as you approach it or enlarge the photo the form we thought we understood fades away into a collection of lines or shapes. Other times he does the exact opposite and, like in the PMA install, he gives you a collection of shapes that from a distance seem like nothing but as you approach them a subtle form starts to reveal itself. Gormley’s work, in my opinion, is deeply rooted in understanding how line and shape interact in space, what the human brain wants to understand of information, and how those two entities can interact and combat with one another. What I mean by this is that Gormley understands how the objects or forms that he’s working with play off of one another, how things like cubes of varying sizes will interact and come together to create an overall form. But, in making that overall form, he knows that there will never be one perception and instead the human brain will adjust and alter its understanding of the form depending on factors like viewing angle and distance. This allows Gormley to phrase information more clearly by doing things like using more lines or smaller shapes to more definitively create an image, but he can also phrase information more subtly by doing the opposite and using less lines or larger shapes to structure an image that may only be clear at one specific angle or distance. Taking the nuances of his work one step further, he often displays his sculptures in groups so just when you figure out one form, you realize there’s another and by the time you figure out that one, there’s another or, even more frustrating, the form that you thought you understood has fallen apart because of your new viewing angle. Antony Gormley’s ability to play with our perceptions and force us to work back and forth through an installation just to understand what we’re looking at is truly amazing. The idea of constructing an image with a collection of lines or shapes has always fascinated me and Gormley is one of the best at messing with our perceptions. It’s really crazy what the human brain will see based off of the information it’s given, it yearns to see something that it understands.

I've always been fascinated by comic book style art, especially the old anime classics like DragonBall Z and Naruto. I like to see how artists can push the boundaries of this style and in looking for that I found Warrick Wong. Wong is a brilliant artist whose works in recreating classic characters and producing his own originals is really striking. His work in digital mediums is so clean and technically proficient and when he works by hand he adds a similar level of detail with the allowance of more expression. Wong's character's are so mobile and strong, you can feel the motion in them, you can feel exactly what they're doing. Wong has become quite an accomplished character designer, to the point where he's had two comic book series of his own. Another fascinating element that Wong has been implementing into his work is animation. They're not full scale cartoons, but just simple and subtle animation features that add to the illustration. It's almost as if his animations can stand alone as a series of stills, it's really cool. I was very excited to get to have a short chat with Wong about his work and its development. It's super easy to read and ingest while still being pretty darn informative! Enjoy! 1. To begin, I always start by asking about the artist's background. So what got you started in art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What made you the artist that you are today? I’ve always been drawing since I was a kid but my year 10 art teacher helped motivate me to want to pursue art in my future. When I got to uni I realised the course (Industrial Design) wasn’t for me and that I wanted to figure out how to make art a viable career from it. That’s when I started to teach myself how to improve my art and I also started to attend Conventions and building my online presence. Some of my favourite artists that inspire me today are Terada Katsuya, Yoji Shinkawa, Miura and Inoue Takehiko. 2. Your illustration work is incredibly elaborate, whether it's totally original or an expansion of a universe of recognizable imagery. But how does the drawing and detail process differ from when you're starting totally from scratch vs. when you're using a character from a show like DBZ or Naruto? Having an established character usually makes it easier because designing a fresh character is often difficult to make appealing. With that said creating original character can be very liberating during the brainstorming period because you can go wild with creativity. 3. Speaking more to a broad process, how does your work begin? Are they rigorously planned out or do you start with an idea and let it expand organically as you go? It’s a 50 50 process. Depending on the complexity or topic I can either start by free styling or I start off with some prep work before diving into the final piece. 4. Your work has two avenues, the hand done and the digital. Starting with your hand done illustrations, they're primarily black and gray with much more expressive (loose) strokes. Do you enter these pieces with a bit of a looser touch or less pressure to refine? How does creating the depth in this work with shades of black differ from working with color? The ink drawings are definitely more expressive and the digital is more technical for me which helps me to broaden my creativity. 5. Moving to your more digitally refined and colorful work, how do these pieces begin? do they start similarly to your hand done illustrations or do you not have to go as in depth in the base drawings? I try and keep the work flow the same as my ink drawings. Working with digital allows me to have the flexibly of easily adjusting mistakes and experiment with lots of options without the painstaking process of using a rubber to erase and redo my traditional work. 6. Your digital work is also much more atmospheric, usually featuring a scene or some sort of surrounding elements. So, how does setting a character in a scene alter your illustration process? Working in digital makes it a lot faster to add in those elements which is why I prefer to draw characters with ink which I can then scan in and Redner further digitally. 7. Recently I've seen you take some of your illustrations and turn them into simple animations, what inspired this? Is this a process you'd like to dive deeper into? These animations we for fun and I didn’t realise how it can push my art even further. I will definitely be doing more of them in the future! 8. You've got your own graphic novel(s) that you illustrate and write yourself. How does the writing process emerge and alter you work? Are you making this on your own from start to finish? Yes I made both comic ZODIAC and storybook Princess Nyissa: The Legend of the Lost Light on my own. It all started with the main character and I built a world around them then came the story. The story was revised many, many times before the illustrations were drawn. 9. Are there any new avenues that you're looking to pursue as far as your work is concerned? Or any new outlets that you'd like to use to push your current work? I would like to write and illustrate more stories as well as push my animations further. I’ve also been looking at ways to jump onto the YouTube band wagon. 10. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows or events coming up? Anything and everything that you'd like to share with our readers, let them know! www.warrickwong.com IG and Twitter @warrickwong

When I first saw the work of Kristen Grundy I was really interested in the work itself, but also the process behind making it. The art of set piece photography is one that’s largely lost, there’s photographers who stage a scene but not to the degree of Grundy. The sets and sceneries in Grundy’s work are so detailed, macabre, and out of this world that you’re stoked to take in every little element. Perhaps the most enticing element is that even with all the pageantry of the staging, these photos still feel like an unexpected snapshot of an event. The characters are so deeply into their actions that it feels like they don’t even know a photographer’s there. Even in the photos where the character is looking at or near the camera, their positioning and gaze is placed in a way that they’re looking through the camera, past that plane and either right through us or right at us. As a viewer you feel like you’ve stumbled upon something that you weren’t supposed to and that feeling is often amplified by the dark nature of the photos. Grundy’s work is a truly incredible example of set design, costume design/selection, and excellent model direction coming together to create thrilling and engaging photography. As I said in the beginning, when I saw this work I just had to hear more about it. So, I was excited to get to talk to Grundy about all that goes into this wild body of work. Grundy gave great insight into how her work came about, how it’s developed, and all that goes into it. She’s also the second member of the DAWN 1111 collective, alongside Dave Glass, so it was cool to hear about that project from the other side as well. Hearing more about this group got me more excited to see what is to come from them and I’m sure you’ll understand why when reading. Enjoy! 1. I always begin with background, so what got you started in art? Any schooling? What helped shape you into the artist that you are today? I grew up in Orlando, FL, amongst the character culture of Disney, so the concept of environment and character creation has been instilled in me since childhood. My background is very music oriented, so when I started shooting with an old film camera in the 90’s, I was mainly shooting live bands with black and white film, along with a lot of street photography. I just loved it as an escape into my mind, following the light and shadows of my surroundings. I went to photography school in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the end of the 20st century, and then ended up moving to Philadelphia and taking a hiatus from photography to play music. A decade later, I got tired of playing and touring all the time, and felt my wrist deteriorating, so I decided to go back to school to learn the ins and outs of digital photography. I moved to San Francisco and enrolled in the Academy of Art University. However, that is not what shaped me into the artist I am today. Without sounding cliché, it was and always has been my life experience. It was crazy, rebellious, and on the other hand very dark and oppressed. I was confined in an abusive relationship for 15 years, and still trapped in it when I made a lot of the work you see – which also kept getting darker and darker as my entrapment grew. A few years ago, while running from that situation with a restraining order which was constantly violated, I was also preoccupied in my mother’s losing battle with cancer. I had already been unable to create new work for awhile at this point, and this brought on another hiatus to my art. The past couple of years have been a whirlwind, but I am now in a new life and living back in Philadelphia, and although it took some time, I have finally been creating again. 2. You've got an incredibly bold style of photography and video, what inspired your photo work? How did your style develop into what it is today? When I got to San Francisco and started studying other photographers, as well as looking around at what my peers were doing, I decided to do something completely different – ignoring any naysayers that would tell me it wouldn’t sell. My only focus was to purge the visions from within, something that was completely mine. Also stemming from my history of watching old horror flicks growing up, I developed a very cinematic still frame sort of look to my photography. I also learned I needed to pay attention to every detail, to make sure the vision that I wanted to create was coming through. As influenced by Cartier-Bresson’s, “the decisive moment”, my images lie on the brink of something about to happen. I leave the viewer to decide what’s next. For the longest time I was living with a walking on eggshells, waiting for the shoe to drop kind of feeling. It just so happened the work kept getting darker and more obscure, with underlying themes from my life – entrapment, oppression, and control. Like an impending nosebleed about to burst out of my face, the truth behind the imagery remained unaddressed other than perhaps it comes from a dark place. I was never before able to answer where it really comes from. I’m expressing something real that comes from within, and I am not afraid to make images that most people will not want to look at. 3. What goes into these wild set pieces? A lot of prop borrowing, renting, and finding. In the case of my gold prospector character shoot, that set was a hole in a sub basement where you could see Mission Creek, and then brought in props and set pieces (even dropped gold spray-painted pebbles into the water). And for the conspiracy theorist shoot, I spent an entire day placing every scrap of paper on the wall (which are all strange things) and bringing in the props and putting together the set before shooting the photo and the film the following day. The girl with the treasure chest was also a case that took the entire prior day to bring in furniture and props to set up the girl’s bedroom. My work has a good mix of sets created, locations I’ve scouted, and composite images of the characters shot in studio with photos I’ve taken of places. For instance, Stand Your Ground is mainly composited of the Christian Science building in Berkeley, with webs I shot on a back patio wall and the witchy woman in the studio. 3 (cont’d). How do you design/create these macabre characters? Once your set pieces and characters are ready to go, what is the shooting process like? Is the shoot a collaborative experience with the models you use or do you remain primarily in control? A lot of them came from dreams or visions that I had, so I often have a very specific look in mind. I pick out a wardrobe and cast who I can find that fit closest to what I envisioned. I’ve also worked with some great MUA’s that could take my crazy ideas and get it, and do an amazing job bringing them out. I give the models the entire rundown of the idea and suggest a pose and a look to base the shot after. I am always free to suggestions and at times have let models/actors run with something if I see something happening there. Once everything is set and I can see the dynamics with the character and model, there may be slight adjustments, which sometimes comes from collaboration. 4. There's quite a strong contrast between your characters and backdrops, how much are you manipulating lighting in these scenes? Does it vary depending on the effect you're trying to achieve? The lighting could be manipulated more or less, depending on the effect. When I have a certain vision in mind I just run with what it needs to look like, and make sure that the lighting reflects that. I control the lighting in every shot, except for the outdoor exposures I take to use for composite elements. For characters shot on a set, I light the set and my characters separately, and on location I pretty much just light the character. 5. Going a little further into that, there's a lot of pretty crazy effects in your photos, so how much does your photography rely on post production? Does it vary piece to piece? I am not a lifestyle photographer, but rather an image creator with a vision in mind for my art which often isn’t capable of being created without some effects used. I shoot with that in mind, so it isn’t that my imagery relies on it, but it is part of the production. I also have a post process that I have been using for awhile now, so I add my own little special touch at the end. The amount of post production varies a great deal depending if it is a composite or set/location shot. I have made composites with hundreds of layers, and I have single shot images that have been manipulated some more than others. But all are processed to finalize my vision. 6. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? I know you're a part of the DAWN1111 collective, could you tell us a little bit about that? Anywhere people can find your work and anything you'd like to share, fire away! DAWN 1111 is a fairly new collective comprised of myself and Dave Glass (painter/illustrator). We share an unusual connection and have the same views when it comes to promoting our art, so we decided to work as a collective to get our work out there and collaborate on projects. We had some shows on both coasts towards the end of last year, and have decided to focus this year on making new art. We always have stuff for sale on our website, dawn1111.com, and I will sell prints of any image if contacted through that or directly though my site or IG. This winter I will mainly be staying warm in my studio working on a couple new projects that involve things instead of people, so once anything is finished I will be putting that out there on my website and through DAWN 1111, and eventually IG. The social media will most likely be last to get updated, as I am new to that game and really despise it. DAWN 1111 is hoping for and anticipating its demise, as we don’t see how a narcissistic popularity contest defines talent. I’m expressing something real that I have lived from past abuse. I am not afraid to make images that most people will not want to look at, and certainly not want to buy to put on their wall. I am an artist and not so great business person, but the website will remain updated. Thanks for the inquiries!

I always enjoy meeting an artist as I’m introduced to their work, it gives a little bit more context to the work and it’s just nice to see the personality behind the art. I bring this up because that’s exactly how I met today’s interview, Darla Jackson. It was at a recent event at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, shout out to that awesome space, when I was drawn to a table of these brilliant animal sculptures. A soft black color that gently reflected the light to reveal the intricacy of the sculpture, her pieces were mesmerizing and certain qualities made the medium a bit of a mystery. This was yet another advantage of meeting the artist on the spot, as I immediately had answers to all of my questions. I found out that the originals were solid ceramic, I emphasize solid because that’s atypical for ceramic, and that the pieces were coated in graphite. These two factors that added an uncommon weight, texture, and feel to the sculptures allowed them to exist as an ambiguous material which, to me, highlighted the work itself. Sometimes in art, especially sculpture, I find that a lot of people’s judgements are based on how the artist manipulated a certain material but when that material is unclear, it adds mystery to the piece and highlights the details in a different way. Needless to say, once I got that introduction to Jackson’s work I was hooked. I did a deep dive into her body of work and it only added to my fascination. There’s so many facets that make her work exciting: the process of her small sculptures, her relief panels, the coating process of certain works, the mold making/casting of others, there’s just so much that she does! But I’d kick myself if I didn’t mention the massive, SOLID ceramic animal sculptures that she’s done. It is absolutely mind blowing the detail and care that is put into these massive pieces that are sculpted way outside of the traditional fashion. Jackson’s sculpting interests me not only because it’s rad, but also because she knowingly ignores “the rules” of the mediums she uses, so I was thrilled to get to chat with her about her process, styles, and so much more! She gave a great interview that tells more about the work than I ever could, enjoy! 1. I always open with background, so what got you into art? Any schooling? Big Inspirations? What shaped you into the artist that you are today? I’ve been interested in art as long as I can remember and pursued it while in high school. I ended up at Moore College of Art because I thought I wanted to be a graphic designer. I realized very quickly that it wasn’t a good fit for me, and moved over to the Fine Arts. Sculpture was exciting to me because of all the possibilities (wood, metal, clay, etc) and I tried it all for a while. I love metal working but it was clay sculpture that won my heart. Working with clay felt like making a direct impression of what I was feeling. I was able to form it in a way that felt like the best fit for what I was trying to say and that feeling carried throughout my career. 2. Diving right into your ceramics, tell me about your beginnings in the medium. What drew you towards ceramics? How did you get into the detailed work that you do in ceramics? (Nerdy question) Are you a fancy ceramic tool user or do you just kind of use your hands and whatever you like to work in those details? Just to clarify, I love clay for its ability to hold an impression, however I do not consider myself a ceramicist. Ceramicists seem, to me, to know the boundless secrets and science of clay and kiln firing. I am a mold maker. What this means is I use the clay as a means to an end. I sculpt my piece in clay, keeping it wet the entire time, until I am finished. Once I’m done I will then make a mold…usually a rubber mold out of silicone or polyurethane rubber with a plaster mother mold (aka the “shell” that keeps the rubber in place). The original clay piece is destroyed and I then use the molds to cast plaster or Hydrocal versions of the piece. This allows me to work in multiples and have small editions of works. But to answer your question about working the clay, I feel like the clay, being so easy to manipulate, is the best way to express my ideas. I can work large or small and I understand how to move the clay in a way that will show things from the smallest details to larger forms. I start with my hands always, getting down the basic shape. Then I begin working with tools. I work primarily with wooden and steel tools but I will use whatever I need to get the texture or forms that I want. And I LOVE process. I am a nut for process, whether it's sculpture process or mold making and casting process. I love experimenting with a variety of materials and techniques. 3. Your work is heavily driven by anatomy, both human and non-human, so what drew you towards this particular imagery? How has your use of these images developed over time? I am someone who is fairly empathetic. I imagine how people and animals feel, so I've always felt connected to representational artwork. The ideas and emotions I’m trying to convey are best shown through recognizable forms. And while in my own work I am more concerned with getting a realistic feel through accurate size and proportion, I don’t live and die by anatomy. I use anatomy as a guide to make the piece feel right. In the beginning I followed anatomy books so closely in some work and it felt stiff and awkward to me. In other work, I wouldn’t follow it at all and it got too round and weird overall. I’ve learned to use it as a guide but to use my eye to find the forms I want to convey. I teach figure and animal sculpture classes at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Stockton University and Fleisher Art Memorial and love teaching anatomy and proportion. 4. Further, what inspires the imagery for each piece? What is your process like from there? Are you a big planner in your sculpting or do you just organically morph and shape everything into what you want it to be? My imagery usually begins one of two ways… I will either see an image of an animal in a certain pose and it will inspire an idea based on the body language they are displaying, or, more frequently, I get an idea for a piece based on an emotion or idea and search out reference images that fit the idea I have for the piece. I sketch the idea and research images. Sometimes I will make a maquette but I generally like to get right to sculpting. If I am working on a larger piece I will draw it to scale to get proportions right before I begin the clay. I tend to work very intuitively, with a lot of staring at the piece and seeing what it needs. Sometimes I’ll change the pose if it doesn’t feel right but usually the work ends up pretty close to the original sketch. 5. You've got two different sides to your ceramic work, the free standing sculpture and the relief carving type of sculpture. What are the big narrative, or conceptual differences and similarities in these two styles of work? How do the processes of creation differ? I work more easily in the realm of three-dimensional or free standing work. I feel like things that exist in our space are more likely to elicit realistic reactions or emotions. That being said, working in relief makes ideas that would be a logistical nightmare as a free standing sculpture possible (i.e. the piece I did that is two skeletons in embrace). I like to move back and forth between the two forms, however most of my work in free standing. I love the physicality it has and I think that adds a depth and a connection with the viewer by existing in their space. 6. When we met, you mentioned that you don't typically fire your ceramic work. What pushed you away from firing? Does this mean all of your work is solid all the way through? Do you find working without firing makes the ceramic process easier or more difficult? Do you think the delicacy of unfired clay adds to your work in any way? Early in my sculpture career I learned mold making and did very little firing work because the few pieces I did fire blew up. I learned later that it was because the person firing the pieces was putting them in the kiln super wet…big mistake. Despite knowing that I am still apprehensive to fire anything. However, I just did a whole series of 31 dead birds where each of the pieces is a one of a kind original that is to be fired. So fingers crossed. 7. You also mentioned that you coat your ceramic pieces to give them texture and a different feel, can you give a little more detail on what you coat your works in? And what this adds/how this changes the pieces? I finish all my pieces with a raw graphite powder rub, which takes them from a flat black to something where all the reflected light (off the shine of the graphite) shows off the details really beautifully. The finished look is something like cast iron. The unfortunate side effect is that the graphite can transfer to your hands. This doesn’t hurt the piece, however it can get on your skin and clothes…normally this would not be a big deal but I once had my work as part of a wedding photo shoot and the bride nearly ended up covered in graphite. 8. You also cast and make replicas of your works, what is this process like for you? When a piece is cast, does the ceramic original and multiple casts exist separately? Or is the original just a means of making a few casts? For me the process starts with making that clay original. It’s important to my process that the clay doesn’t dry out because while it's wet, the clay is nonporous. Once the original is finished, I start the mold making process where the piece is prepped to be coated in rubber. I use primarily silicone rubber and paint the layers on one at a time, building up a thickness. Once the rubber is finished, I make a plaster mother mold, which keeps the rubber in place. I then take the whole mold apart, usually destroying the original, and clean up and prep the mold for casting. I usually cast in Hydrocal but have often cast in resins and expanding foams, as well as wax for bronze. Usually I make an edition, meaning I will only cast so many of the sculptures before the mold is retired. 9. You've got some massive pieces, is pushing the scale of ceramic a big part of your work? Does the weight of these pieces become a hindrance to the final product? Are these pieces made to be cast or do you use the clay original? Or does it vary? I love working large. I find that it's often easier for me to work at this scale in terms of how I work with the clay. The funny thing is often, though not always, the large pieces are quite light in terms of their weight. This is because I sculpt the clay original and then make a rubber mold. This allows me to cast the piece in lighter materials, such as polyurethane resin, but still have the option to cast it in something like bronze if a client wanted a more durable material. I also cast large pieces in Hydrocal, an industrial strength gypsum product. My partner Paul Romano and I made a life-size lioness sculpture that we cast in Hydrocal at the end of 2019. It is heavy and takes 6 people to move it comfortably, so yes this can definitely limit how often we can move it or show it. As to the clay originals, they are destroyed in the mold making process, so the clay is always a means to an end. Sometimes I save fragments of the original, but rarely does it go any further than just being another weird thing I have around the studio! 10. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything you'd like to share and anywhere people can find you, fire away! The easiest and most updated place to find me is on Instagram at @darlajacksonsculpture. I also have a website where you can see many years of my work all in one place www.darlajacksonsculpture.com As to shows, I am currently in a show “Assemblage” at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Paul (@workhardened) and I are getting work ready for upcoming shows at Paradigm Gallery in February and Arch Enemy Arts in April. I’ll be releasing some dates soon for sculpting and moldmaking workshops that I’m offering this year, as well as a few other things in the works for the rest of 2020, so stay tuned!

I’m going to kind of bare my soul in this blog, but it’s something that I’ve really been thinking a lot about and I wanted to share my thoughts on, on the off chance that someone would resonate with it. I recently went through a traumatic experience in that my grandmother passed away, and such is life but I spent every day of the last two and a half weeks of her life sitting in the hospital with her. So the trauma lied more in the experience of watching life leave someone I cared so much about’s body more so than the actual death. I spent hours sitting in a hospital room, sometimes by myself in complete silence, sometimes with a family member forcing idle conversation. I don’t want to go too far into the details of it because obviously it’s very morbid but also because I want to share that experience in a different way, one that’s more meaningful to me. What I’d like to talk about today is more so what I did to reflect on my experiences and how that’s been affecting me lately, almost totally separately from the actual events that transpired. Like many creatives, when confronted with this recent trauma in my life I secluded myself a bit and tried to express what I’d seen and what I was feeling through art. I had a lot on my mind, I was processing a lot, I was pushing a lot away because I didn’t want to face it, and it was all cultivating in a series of four paintings. Three paintings were all based on a single event in my many trips to the hospital and the final was an overall reflection of the experiences. It was a brilliant escape and I wasn’t surprised by this because art has always been an escape for me but I was surprised by my drive. I think subconsciously I recognized how much I needed an escape and that these paintings were just that so I became hyper fixated on finishing them, one after another. It was a sad, miserable time and I think that the paintings reflect that, and I thank these paintings because they were a tremendous processing tool for me. Death isn’t an easy thing and it’s something that in 24 years of life I’m fortunate enough to have an extremely limited exposure to. I hadn’t been through many things like this and, perhaps even more challenging, I hadn’t coped with many things like this. So to effortlessly fall into the solace of my own creative process I count myself lucky. Even luckier, I think these are some of the best paintings I’ve done in my life. That’s the trouble I’m facing right now. I’d recently been taking new strides in my work and I was happy with the new direction I was headed, but that all came to a halt with these four works. They’re not mind blowingly different than anything I’ve ever done, in fact they’re quite similar to a series I did about a year ago, but they’re much more raw; they’re much more real. The essence and emotion behind my four newest works is so present that my other work almost feels meaningless. I know it’s not (at least I hope it’s not), but I’m struggling to get back to a casual creative mindset right now. When I was working on these four, I needed to be painting, each painting was the next step in my processing of a monumental loss. While I was extremely fortunate to have this outlet in the moments immediately following these events, now that I’m farther removed I’m questioning my entire creative process. How do I get back to a casual creative mindset? How do I find substance in work that’s less heavy than the works I’ve just created? Questions that I’m finding really challenging to answer, and that I find are bringing up even more challenging questions. Is my art only valuable if it’s a reflection of some massive loss or trauma? Will my work only thrive at the worst moments in my life? I understand the extremes of some of these questions but it’s a true conundrum for me right now. I processed so many things in these paintings, they helped me move on, but now I’m afraid to move on because I feel as though my art won’t be as successful, and that feels so selfish and stupid to me. I guess it’s a problem of deep self reflection in art because we tend to dig the deepest when we’re at our lowest, but if that’s when we’re making our best work then it can be scary to leave that place in a totally different way. I feel like a lot of the time when I write these self reflective blogs I come to a much more clear conclusion that I can share with you but for this one I have nothing and I apologize for that. But, that being said, I felt as though I needed to share this because I’m sure a lot of artists out there are or have been in a similar place. I have no idea what’s to come next from my work or how I’m even going to go about creating it. I know that I just primed a bunch of canvas and I’m going to try to clear my mind and see what happens. But otherwise, I’m still processing a lot. However, this blog has been highly therapeutic, albeit depressing, and there will definitely be more to come. I feel bad that I’ve alluded to these four paintings so much but I haven’t shared them at all aside from a few Instagram stories that like 20 people watched, but I’m just not ready to share the depths of my recent experiences yet. I will be at some point, some point soon, and I hope that I can use this platform to not only share my experiences but maybe bring peace or comfort to someone with similar ones.