Any lovely witchy friends out there have advice for reaching out to a deity?

“On a New Track” Reentry Mentoring Program

Hand in hand with our supporters, this year we look forward to continuing to promote music, opportunity, and equity for all those impacted by the prison system.

One especially exciting project in 2022 will be the continuation and expansion of our On a New Track Reentry Mentoring Program. For those who have been incarcerated, returning to life outside of prison can be challenging. In fact, approximately 67% of those formerly incarcerated are rearrested within 3 years of their initial release. On a New Track was created in order to help ease this transition for folks. Our goals include helping participants develop entrepreneurial and life skills, reduce recidivism, and build creative career pathways. Guided by our instructors, our participants develop concrete skills in DJing, music production, and musical entrepreneurship that they can build upon for personal or professional growth. Exploring music in our group settings also provides space for social, emotional, and personal healing.

In 2020, Give a Beat partnered with Defy Ventures and California Mentoring Partnership to kickstart the program, and February 2021 finally saw the start of our very first program session. Over the course of 12 weeks, our 7 pioneering trainees displayed commitment, creativity, and passion as they learned and practiced various music skills. For their final project, they each performed a solo DJ set, played original music, or presented their professional artist development plan. On May 15, 2021, all 7 members of the cohort were honored at our first graduation ceremony! (Watch our grads speak more about their experiences).

We are immensely proud of each and every graduate and the growth they have demonstrated both creatively and personally. It was incredible to witness their confidence blossom as they developed relationships with instructors and fellow participants. Most of our participants have already performed various DJ gigs in the area. One of our participants, Geri, was previously a fitness instructor, and used lessons from the program to successfully create her own high-tempo workout beats! As she said, “Give a Beat let me know I can accomplish anything I set my mind to as long as I’m focused and determined, whether I know how to do it or not.”

The beat doesn’t stop there. We are continuing to support graduates by collaborating with them on individualized Artist Development Plans, supporting their interests in creating music, and pairing them with professional mentors in the music business.

Impressed and excited by our first cohort, we’ve expanded On a New Track into a year-long program. As another participant, Alejandra, said, “I felt like this is exactly what people should be doing as far as wanting to give back in this way. It’s not just to give back but actually to build capacity in people and go on to become your best self.”

We hope to be joined this year by even more participants, to share the power of music in healing those wronged by the flawed prison and justice system. As always, we also hope to be bolstered by further support from our committed donors and volunteers.

Keep your eyes peeled for our new and upcoming DJs at On a New Track!

Update from Kenna

Instead of a professionally-written update like I should be doing, this is just going to be sort of a stream of consciousness, stuff that’s been on my mind kinda deal (don’t worry, there’s a tl;dr).

1. I will not be participating in IFComp this year

I’m kinda bummed about this, to be honest, but I made an executive decision that forcing myself to bang something half-baked out on a time limit is not what I want my IFComp participation to be like.

I did small-ish Twine projects for IFComp the last two years and they were super fun, but I only gave myself a few months to work on last year’s, and it really showed. I’ve been writing even less this year, and even when i try to make myself sit down and work on a project I barely get anywhere.

I have a concept and a rough outline for the Twine project I intended to submit this year, and it deals with some of my favorite topics (nonbinary genders, and ghosts) so I really don’t want it to be slapped together last minute. With any luck, I’ll be able to deal with my mental blocks (and real life distractions) in order to commit the time for this project to submit to IFComp 2020.

2. I want to start blogging about tabletop RPGs

I’ve talked about this a bit on my personal blog, but I have a growing fascination for tabletop RPGs, specifically non-D&D games. (Don’t get me wrong, D&D is super fun, but many people treat it as the only tabletop RPG, and then try to fix things about that game they don’t enjoy; there are many other games out there that would fit different players’ needs better, if they’d give them a chance.)

My main issue, when it comes to tabletop RPGs, is having friends who are willing to try new games out with me (just getting a D&D group together was exhausting). For that reason, I’m starting to look more seriously at the idea of Solo Gaming - that is taking a game meant for a multiplayer group, and running the player/GM roles yourself.

In my mind, this is essentially a guided storytelling prompt, and storytelling is what I love most about gaming anyways. You definitely miss out on a lot without the collaborative nature of these storytelling games, but perhaps running these solo games will help me get my creative juices flowing some more? At the very least, they’ll let me practice with some new games until I can get more players.

That all being said, sitting alone in my room and taking notes while I play a game by myself, with characters no one else will ever know, sounds a little lonely. So... I figured I should share my games.

My current plan is this: whenever I play a solo session, I’ll take notes on what mechanically happened, and how the story progressed during the session. Then, I’ll come here and write out the fictional story of the session; fleshing out the characters, exploring their motivations, the whole works. Those fictional posts will also be accompanied by reviews of the games and my thoughts on the mechanics, where applicable. That way, I’m managing to play these new games, write more fiction, and use this blog for something other than just reblogging Zelda fanart.

Which leads me to my third point...

3. I’m planning on starting a portfolio site

This is something I’ve been thinking about for years, but I haven’t gotten around to, because what I want to show off on a portfolio site changes every few years. I’ll admit, I’m finicky and go through phases of creative outlets. I’ve known storytelling through gaming was something I wanted to seriously explore for a while, but I wasn’t sure how best to approach it.

While thinking about these solo game fiction+review pieces I wanted to write, it became clear to me that the best way to publish these online would be through a personal blog run on my own website (not a tumblr cluttered with other things, or a myblog.weebly or whatever).

I’m not going to make this site immediately, because I still need some time to build it, and I’d like to have some blog content to post there immediately. That’s why I’m planning to start my tabletop blogging on this tumblr; once my portfolio site and blog are up, I’ll transition my polished stuff over there (and this tumblr can remain it’s usual cluttered mess).

TL;DR - I’m not participating in IFComp this year due to how little I’ve been writing. I am planning to start writing fiction pieces based on tabletop RPGs I solo play in my free time, which will be posted here along with reviews of the game systems, until I transition into my own portfolio website and blog.

Ripples: Written Statements

Contextual Statement

Possible Future World Scenario

By 2050, earth’s citizens are spending most their time in artificial environments, affecting their quality of life and enhancing stress levels. A new generation of youth called ‘the star children’ are frustrated by the lack of entertainment and face-to-face interaction between their peers. In need of a cultural shift, the ‘star children’ have created an annual ocean music festival held in an underwater infrastructure. It aims to promote social interaction and interaction with underwater life. The event's purpose is to provide the ideal festival experience based on three core values: change is inevitable, joy is ephemeral, and we should always live in the moment. (Everfest, 2017)

Introduction

With a theme of ‘future worlds’ this semester, this project is based on the research of ‘Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth 2050’ by Buckminster Fuller (1968). The manual can be seen as a metaphor and compares planet earth to a machine. The University of Southern California imagines Spaceship Earth 2050 as “a future world where the earth is a spaceship made of 70% water, roughly the size of the moon, a shared vehicle with finite and regenerative resources” (University of Southern California, 2017). The University of Southern California (USC) invited COLAB students to participate and collaborate on a future story-world comprised of interconnected systems. Using their category of culture and festivals, I chose to design a concept for an underwater art installation.

The world’s population has more than doubled in the last forty-five years to seven billion (Bongaarts, 2009). Despite this, younger generations feel more alone, uncertain and disconnected than ever before. ‘Ripples’ uses a speculative design approach based on the values of societal change, sustainability, and shared experience. Dunne and Raby (2013) explain that “design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality” (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 8). Exploring themes around liminal spaces within the physical and metaphysical realm, the project hopes to enhance mindfulness aspects of the festival experience. Furthermore, the authors state people work where work is available, travel to study and live away from their families. As we channel energy into making friends around the world we no longer need to care about our immediate neighbors (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 8). As we have become a society of individuals, the project hopes to bring people together to inspire and aid positive social outcomes.  

Music Festival Culture

 Music festivals are a mega-trend in today’s society due to growing urban density population rates and the growing market for the ‘experience economy’ (Robertson et al., 2015, p. 579). A driving force behind this is the need for individuals to create their own identities and increasing freedom to shape personality. Such experiences become a source of personal information for stories people tell about their lives (Mehmetoglu & Engen, 2011). Engagement with new and virtual landscapes and with the enhanced sensory feelings and imaginations that technologies can offer may enhance the overall experience by adding relevance and meaning to the attendee (Robertson et al., 2015, p. 567). Throughout history, technology has bridged the gap between reality and science fiction. Technologies within festival environments have the potential to facilitate liminal space, allowing for new cultural identities to emerge (Robertson et al., 2015, p. 581). Author and theologian Richard Rohr describes liminal space as the places “where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown” (Threelevers, 2017).

Synergy & sustainability

 Based on the principle of Synergy - "Synergy is the only word in our language meaning behavior of wholes unpredicted by the behaviour of their parts". Fuller (1968) explains that the “Universe is synergetic. Life is synergetic” (Fuller, 1968, p. 23), everything is connected and one action can create a ripple effect. Here, he is referring to a need for humans to be in symbiosis with nature in order for human race’s survival on earth. This directly correlates with our impact on global warming as a collective whole, reflecting society’s perspectives in failing to realize the implications that actions, no matter how small can have on the entire world. Fuller's (1968) observations of society conclude that people do “not think there are behaviors of whole systems unpredicted by their separate parts” (Fuller, 1968, p. 22).

 Social engagement & shared experience

Within the consumer mindset, the trend of time sensitivity encourages us to eliminate “dead” time and use all moments of the day for constructive or rewarding activity (Yeoman, 2008). What results is the consumer’s desire for greater efficiency and convenience —something that has been coined the culture of immediacy (Kleijnen, Ruytor, & Wetzels, 2007). The success of future festivals will depend on the intellectual and emotional depth of the participant along with their type of involvement. Everfest Magazine (2017) reports that “Humans have been converging for shared, communal experiences for as long as we have been humans. This social nature is a defining trait of our psychology, hardwired into our instincts and the driving force behind much of human societal development (Everfest, 2017). Themes of interest include the juxtaposition of living in a connected world within a disconnected era and the implications this may have for a future society.

Conceptual Statement

Goals before the semester

The purpose of this assignment was to imagine future worlds for a better future. An important aspect of this semester was to successfully complete all personal goals as I wanted to focus on my development of skills and learning experience.

 Personal goals at the beginning of this semester included: 

Successfully complete my first solo project to a professional standard within the scope  of a potential future career. The main goal was to complete a sculpture or installation that could be pitched to event or festival organizers in the industry.

Develop tactile knowledge, learn more practical skills related to sculptural installation design and textile manipulation processes. This is the area I would like to specialize in after completing my degree. Use of elective     papers to guide my studio project. I have always been a tactile, hands-on     learner so I wanted the techniques displayed within my project to reflect     my identity as a creative technologist.    

Creative experimentation and complete freedom as the central element of my finished outcome. Most of the time I am too focused on achieving perfection which tends to hinder progress. Embracing mistakes and allowing the process to dictate the final outcome held importance and relevance for my personal development.

Aim of project

The aim of my project was to employ explorative methods, techniques and approaches to create an immersive installation. Through research and from personal experience at festivals, ‘chill zones’ are places designed for festival-goers to wind down and relax. As my previous studio project was projection-related, I wanted to expand on the initial concept to communicate levels of deeper engagement.

 Meaning behind physical concept

 The concept behind the design of the installation investigates ideas around permeance in a physical and metaphysical space. Fuller argues that each experience begins and ends, therefore, is finite (Fuller, 1968). Therefore, the “universe as experientially defined, including both the physical and metaphysical, is finite” (Fuller, 1968, pp. 19, 20). Through asking questions such as what kind of immersive experience might the future offer? and brainstorming potential future worlds, I moved on to immersive environments within the physical domain, as opposed to virtual. In an interview with Hyun Jean Lee, the artist gives insights into “the screen, as a boundary object, is a conceptual realm. It simultaneously contains diverse times and spaces in it. Therefore, the screen becomes a psychological and philosophical domain” (Generactive, 2017). Virtual reality will play an important role in the future world of emerging technologies. Through the construction of my sculpture, I wanted to place importance on staying grounded and having a ‘synergetic’ balance between both physical and metaphysical realities.

The final outcome is an immersive video installation projected onto transparent screen-printed fabrics with matching audio (Video edited using Premiere Pro and After Effects). A play on light, shadows, repetition and layers for a ‘3D surreal dream trip’ quality. The organic wave pattern displayed as the main feature is an important motif about the healing properties of nature.  The film also re-iterates these values - a tribute to the important role nature has to play in our daily lives.

Meaning behind video content

Utilizing technology and experimental textiles, I wanted to enhance the immersive nature of these spaces for a heightened experience. After speculating upon multiple possible futures, I chose to focus on re-creating a narrative centered on earth’s creation that unfolds in phases. The interpretation of this dialogue will vary depending on the viewer’s personal experience. Each person will have their own memories associated with nature. Through the scale of the work, I wanted the viewer to feel insignificant in comparison and create a sense of awe. De Botton (2005) adds that landscapes reduce anxiety as they represent infinite space and time to make individuals feel small in comparison (De Botton, 2005).

 Liminal Spaces

 Victor Turner defines liminality as a transitional stage of ‘inbetween’ normal conditions present in many cultural or sacred traditions and rituals throughout human history (Andrews & Roberts, 2012). It is the place where all transformation takes place, as liminality has an ambiguous nature and could represent a period or space. Liminal Spaces represents thresholds of a place that enters or begins (Andrews & Roberts, 2012). Audio has been selected and carefully arranged to portray such transitional periods. The final effect is a mixture of physical processes to create a liminal, metaphysical realm. The multiple layers are not only physical filters but reflects how a change in one aspect of life will always intersect and intertwine with all other areas one way or another. Belonging, according to Maslow (1954) is a primal need, so natural instincts will lead you to create another life for yourself. If our liminal spaces are approached boldly with intentionality and with community, there is a better and more confident future to come.

Fig 1: Martin, D and Joomis, K. Building Teachers: A Constructivist Approach to Introducing Education, (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2007), pp. 72–75.

 Developments to concept

Initial inspirations stemmed from research on sensory deprivation tanks and anxious millennials. The original idea was to create an ‘escape pod’ or private place for festival goers to relax. However, I struggled with understanding the concept of ‘future worlds’ – millennials will not even exist 50 years from now. After a few collaborative Skype sessions with Joe from the University of Southern California and feedback discussions with Pete, I was challenged to think more critically. After some deliberation, I redirected my research and envisioned possible future world scenarios. After researching the effects of global warming, I chose to create a public installation space based on liminal space and shared experience.

Process & techniques used

In terms of construction, I wanted to question current methods of conceptual design within the context of projection mapping. Each week I completed a workshop in the printmaking facility to push my personal boundaries as a creative technologist and enhance my skill set. Fabric finishing was surprisingly the most difficult element of this project due to the precision needed and the unstable nature of fabrics. Instead of utilizing traditional digital methods, I wanted to challenge myself to incorporate unusual or organic forms such as textiles and surface manipulation techniques to physically distort perspectives, scale, and alter the image in a tangible way. I wanted to create a relationship between the digital image and physical screen to embrace social inclusion which corresponds with Spaceship Fuller 2050’s ideas on connected systems.

 Personal Reflection

Sculptural installation is the field I enjoy working in most and is the truest reflection of myself as a creative technologist. Due to the solo nature of my project, limiting the technical scope was crucial in defining time constraints. If I were to collaborate in the future, I would assign the technical functionality role to another person whilst personally taking responsibility for construction design and the project management role. However, attempting a solo project challenged me to take complete responsibility for time management and complete creative direction. I am confident to have successfully achieved all three personal goals this semester. These include designing and constructing a completed sculpture, mastering six different practical skills related to experimental surfaces and textile manipulation (Mono-print, Collagraph, Screen-printing, Clay and Procast, Latex, Foiling, Marbling, Transfer inks and combinations of processes). This explorative approach helped me embrace mistakes and incorporate this process into the final outcome. Prototyping and researching for the first half of the project were useful as it allowed time to retain information and skills learned.

 References:

 Andrews, H., & Roberts, L. (2012). Liminal landscapes: travel, experience and spaces

in-between. Routledge. Retrieved from: https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Liminal_Landscapes.html?id=Su44F1hWMSoC&redir_esc=y

 Bongaarts, J. (2009). Human population growth and the demographic transition. Philosophical

Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 364(1532), 2985–90. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0137

 De Botton, A. (2005). Status anxiety. Vintage International.

 Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything : design, fiction, and social dreaming.

Retrieved from https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/speculative-everything

 Everfest. (2017). A (Brief) 1,000 Year History of Music Festivals. Retrieved October 28, 2017,

from https://www.everfest.com/magazine/a-brief-1000-year-history-of-music-festivals

 Fuller, R. B. (1968). Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth Operating Manual For Spaceship

Earth Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth. Retrieved from http://designsciencelab.com/resources/OperatingManual_BF.pdf

 Generactive. (2017). Interview with Hyun Jean Lee. Retrieved October 28, 2017, from

http://generactive.net/interview-hyun-jean-lee/

 Kleijnen, M., De Ruyter, K., & Wetzels, M. (2007). An assessment of value creation in mobile          

service delivery and the moderating role of time consciousness. Journal of Retailing, 83(1), 33–46.Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2006.10.004

 Mehmetoglu, M. & Engen, M. (2011). Pine and Gilmore’s concept of experience economy and

Its dimensions: An empirical examination in tourism. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 12(4), 237-255. Retrieved from: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1528008X.2011.541847

 Robertson, M., Yeoman, I., Smith, K. A., & Beattie-McMahon, U. (2015). Technology, Society,

And Visioning The Future of Music Festivals. Event Management, 19, 567–587. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599515X14465748774001

 Rohr, R. (2003). Everything belongs : the gift of contemplative prayer. Crossroad Pub.

 University of Southern California. (2017). Spaceship Earth 2050. Retrieved October 28, 2017,

from http://worldbuilding.usc.edu/projects/spaceship-earth-2050/

 Yeoman, I. (2008). Tomorrow’s tourist: Scenarios & Trends. Elsevier. Retrieved from

https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Tomorrow_s_Tourist.html?id=rBoODHyzTZQC&redir_esc=y

 What Is A Liminal Space? |. (2017). Inaliminalspace.org. Retrieved 29 October 2017, from https://inaliminalspace.org/about-us/what-is-a-liminal-space/

Your Weekly Love Horoscope: Beauty-Loving Sensuality

Your Sensual Side: The New Moon in Taurus on Wednesday can get you in touch with your beauty-loving, sensual side during the next two weeks. A sexy romp with your sweetie, dining at your favorite restaurant or spending time out in nature will bring satisfaction. Practical matters will be on your mind too. Expect some fiery encounters after Venus transits into Aries on Friday (through June 5). You may need more autonomy in your relationship or you may initiate a date with someone new. Best days for socializing: any day this week. Here is your love horoscope! Aries Love Horoscope: Venus traveling through your sign is sure to make you irresistible. You’ll be needing more love from your sweetie (or someone new!) and you’re willing to ask for what you want. Connecting with people who match your high energy would be ideal. Talk with your partner about money around the time of New Moon in Taurus. Be on the lookout for a moneymaking opportunity too. Taurus Love Horoscope: Your Venus ruler transiting through Aries will awaken memories of people you have loved and lost. This can be a time of closure if a former relationship is keeping you from moving on to a new love. Also, your heightened intuition will guide your love life. The New Moon in your sign is launching a new personal cycle, so get clear about what you want and go for it! Gemini Love Horoscope: Connecting with your friends will bring out the best in you during Venus in Aries. Romance can be found through a group gathering, collaborative effort or a pal playing matchmaker. A friendship may also turn romantic. The New Moon in Taurus will be a time of completion to make way for a fresh start next month. This is certainly an ideal time to heal, forgive and release the past. Cancer Love Horoscope; Venus transiting through Aries will highlight your professional relationships. This is an ideal time to do some networking, which can point you toward a career opportunity and perhaps a potential paramour! The New Moon in Taurus in your social zone will inspire you to connect with your friends. Also, participating in group activities will bring people into your life who share your interests and ideals. Leo Love Horoscope: You’ll be craving a spiritual connection with someone you love during Venus in Aries. Now is the time to envision your ideal relationship to set the stage for meeting a soulmate. Romance may come from afar or during a spiritual activity. However, if you’re in a relationship, think “adventurous” to fire up passion! Getting clear about your professional goals will be the focus of the New Moon in Taurus. Virgo Love Horoscope: Love can be deep and stormy as Venus transits through Aries. The power of your desires will lead you to a person or experience that affects you profoundly. You’ll also become aware of emotions that need healing. The New Moon in Taurus will broaden your perspective about your life and energize your spirituality. Therefore, paying attention to your inner guidance will shed light on your future. Libra Love Horoscope: Your Venus ruler traveling through Aries is about to bless your partnership zone. You’ll be inspired to connect in meaningful ways with your mate and initiate shared activities. However, if you’re solo, your readiness for a commitment will help you meet someone compatible. The New Moon in Taurus will either stir up your desire for intimacy or prompt you to spend time alone to heal and revitalize your inner life. Scorpio Love Horoscope: Venus moving through Aries will help your work relationships run smoothly. Romance can be found through a person or activity connected to your job or fitness program. A volunteer activity can also bring in someone special. The New Moon in Taurus will bring fresh energy to your closest relationship. However, if you’re solo, a committed relationship may be right around the corner if the time is right. Sagittarius Love Horoscope: Venus traveling through Aries will awaken your inner romantic. You’ll be craving a passionate connection that brings out your playful side. Love can be found while socializing or during an entertainment event. Your creativity will be on fire too. The New Moon in Taurus will bring opportunities to broaden your work. You’ll be motivated to focus on your health regimen too. Capricorn Love Horoscope: Entertaining your friends and family will bring out the best in you during Venus in Aries. This is an ideal time to beautify your home and host a party. Setting the stage for romance and getting cozy with your sweetie will make love bloom. What’s more, the New Moon in Taurus will bring opportunities for romance by launching a new cycle in your love life. Aquarius Love Horoscope: How you express yourself will influence love during Venus in Aries. Your charm certainly draws admirers who appreciate your intellect. But you’ll need to listen mindfully and share your feelings to get your heart on board. Romance may come through a class or online source. The New Moon in Taurus is bringing a new cycle of activities involving your family or home. Pisces Love Horoscope: Love will have an earthy vibe as Venus travels through Aries. How genuine you are will influence the course of love, so be sure to stay grounded when encountering someone you’re attracted to. If you’re paired, you’ll be motivated to talk about money with your partner. The New Moon in Taurus will awaken your self-expression. Your heightened curiosity will put you into contact with interesting people.

WantedDesign 2019 Launch Pad Furniture Winner: Seonhee Sunny Kim

We were proud to again be a sponsor and lead the jury for WantedDesign’s 2019 Launch Pad alongside EQ3, which was another year filled with incredible designs from designers from around the globe. The 2019 Launch Pad jury included Karen Hong, Buyer for Design Within Reach, Giulio Cappellini, Art Director, Marva Griffin Wilshire, Curator and International Press Director of Salone Satellite, Enri Tielmann, VP of Product Development of EQ3, and Shant Madjarian, Founder & Creative Director of Juniper.

Furniture design winner Seonhee Sunny Kim talks to Design Milk about her work, winning this year’s Launch Pad and what’s next:

How did you get started stretching fabric over forms? How do you come up with what the forms will look like underneath?

Anti-gravity yoga is one of my favorite hobbies. It is always impressive to me that how one sheet of the thin fabric holds a human’s body like hugging gesture. It makes me feel comfortable but also nervous at the same time. At first, I just wanted to share the novel experiences with the daily object. I started with covering various types of chairs with the hammock fabric. It was interesting to see that some part was revealed and the other part was hidden depending on the tension of the fabric. Later, I found the forms through the process of covering small mock-ups with fabric and adjusting the structure continuously.

What influences the forms you’re using in your work?

The forms I am using in my works are usually found by hands. Even before I have clear ideas about a new project, I start 3D sketches first with various materials. The process was close to the experiment and observation of uncovering the depth hidden beneath the surface. The forms of my work are about sharing those moments of discovery, rather than creating something new.

Photo: Ray Im

Photo: Ray Im

Who is your ideal customer?

I designed the depth of surface collection for people who need to take a breath with some jokes in serious situations. I imagine this piece as an ice breaker in office setting between coworkers or standing in a hotel lobby with many strangers. During the show, I met some children who enjoyed the pieces a lot, so I am thinking about a children’s version too.

Why did you include hidden experiences, like squeakers and wireless charging?

I tend to question what I know. I believe there is another side of things that I cannot see from my point of view. A surface is the outermost layer, the first layer we perceive. Even though it is only part of the whole, it is easy to perceive an object only through its surface, since that is all we see at a glance. However, when people start to question what they see, they want to know what is real or what they have missed. To invite these types of transitional experiences, I designed my objects with a simple but curious surface and hidden experiences. I believe that the real relationship starts with curiosity… beyond the perception of surface. I hope that my pieces can offer users an experience about this transitional moment.

What were some of the challenges in creating your products and how did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge of my work would be finding proper amount of tension for each piece. Depending on the function and size, the tensional depth became different. When I design a chair, it should have strong tension to support a human’s body while for a cell phone charger, it should be easy enough to touch the charging device under the surface. Originally, my idea started from the yoga hammock but I had to I seek different types of stretchable fabric for each concept. After I changed the materials, I need to come up with the ideas of how to cover them with. Through the test based on advices from fabric experts, I found a way to realize my ideas.

Now that you’ve won WantedDesign Launch Pad, what do you plan on doing next?

WantedDesign Launch Pad was full of surprises in terms of meeting amazing people and getting promising opportunities. During the show, I magically met Christopher Harrison who invented Anti-Gravity Yoga in the 1990s. He recognized the material from my chair at a glance and suggested collaborating on a custom piece of furniture with his own brand yoga hammock fabric. Also, I got a great opportunity of residency program presented by Cooper Union at this platform. Thankfully, I will have my first solo show with mainly with my lighting project around the end of July following the residency program at House 6b, Nolan Park, Governors Island, New York.

Honestly, I did not have any special plans before I participate this show. I was just hoping that I could keep my studio practice after graduation. Still I cannot make a clear plan, but now I believe that one chance will bring the another one… like the WantedDesign Launch Pad brought to me. I will continue capturing more transitional moments and share the experiences through my works. Thank you so much to the WantedDesign team that planning this platform for emerging designers and I really appreciate offering me the chance again to show next year.

Photo: Ray Im

Photo: Ray Im

See more of her work at studiosunnykim.com.

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/04/wanteddesign-2019-launch-pad-furniture-winner-seonhee-sunny-kim/

LOADING INFORMATION ON POIZN’S MAIN RAP, LEAD VOCAL JEON DOYOON...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: j.dean CURRENT AGE: 29 DEBUT AGE: 21 TRAINEE SINCE AGE:15 COMPANY: 99 SECONDARY SKILL: Lyric writing

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): 

korean homer: this embarrassing nickname was thrusted onto him in the early days of POIZN since 99 media played him as this rising, prodigal songwriter. ( the nickname is, obviously, used as a joke )

yoonie bear: mostly used by female fans when they saw the stark contrast between his stage persona as a looming and intimidating figure, and his real self who is soft like a teddy bear.

INSPIRATION: doyoon had dreamed to become an artist who could tell his own story and was heavily influenced by korean hip-hop artists such as yoon mirae, tiger jk, and epik high, and he thought being an idol would be the best way to get his name out there. SPECIAL TALENTS:

playing the piano with his feet

nail art

NOTABLE FACTS:

lived in montana, usa for seven years and returned to korea with his grandparents at 12 to become a k-pop idol

was a pianist in his church band

his mother gave him the english name james-dean because she is a big fan of the actor

had numerous part time jobs while he was a trainee to financially support himself

started writing songs and lyrics since he was eight. his first song was about his pet rabbit

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

doyoon hopes to regain the trust he had lost with 99, so he can regain the possibility of the solo opportunity they had given him years ago. to do that, he is trying to soften the public perception of him as one of the “scandal-clad screw ups of 99,” and finally reclaim his debut as a solo artist.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

doyoon has realized time and time again that being an idol is hard, and he is somewhat sick of the lifestyle. so he wants to quickly transition out of that idol title he holds and become an artist that he desperately wants to be by being recognized as someone who writes and produces songs — either for himself, his group, or other artist both in and out of 99.

IDOL IMAGE

as if by fate, 99 knew exactly what they wanted doyoon to be ever since they laid their eyes on him. from a visual standpoint, doyoon seemed to have been born just so he could be a part of POIZN with his sharp eyes, intimidating glare, and baritone voice. 99 sets him out to be a bad boy – not exactly a wild, partying bad boy, but as the classic “hollywood” bad boy ( most likely due to his american upbringing. ) while he initially played the role of a rambunctious young blood, doyoon gradually brings it down and became reserved the more he played his role into what 99 wanted him to be.

he is neither loud nor boisterous – loudness is not what doyoon excels at. he is the old school, quiet but strong candidate, a quiet flame in the background that flickers steadily, refusing to burn out. silent, resilient and intense — these are what 99 wanted to convey, and doyoon became the perfect representative of that image.

now doyoon, left alone and away from 99’s packaging, is unrecognizable. his POIZN persona is on one spectrum, and doyoon stands on the exact opposite end of that spectrum. POIZN’s doyoon is boiling lava while jeon doyoon the person is one of the many kindling on the hearth warming your home – gentle, patient, and meek. so the people have always been surprised to hear about the great divide between the mask and the person that lies beneath it, because doyoon was a breath of fresh air; one of the few POIZN boys who had lived his idol life scandal-free due to his hard work behind the scenes, locked up behind studio doors collaborating with producers to help POIZN rise in the ranks.

it played out in their favor, at first.

but who’s to say that this surprising revelation wasn’t media play itself?

IDOL HISTORY

tw: implied alcoholism, dubious consent.

life is full of choices and doyoon seems to be always picking the wrong ones.

v.

the first choice that changed his life wasn’t necessary his choice to make, nor was he given a voice in the matter. he was only five, after all, and the opinions of a five year-old do not really matter, right? he’s given a new life in a new city that belonged to a new country with a new name and a new sibling.

james-dean jeon is his new name – not just ‘james’ and not ‘dean.’ it’s a mouthful, especially because he’s only five and can barely speak the language.

“i promise you’ll have a better life here, doyoon. you can make your dreams come true here!”

that’s what his parents tell him the night before he starts his first day of american kindergarten. but the thing is: he’s had a great life back in korea. he even had a pet rabbit named pony. oh how he missed pony. but he doesn’t question them further. he smiles and nods to let his parents go to bed because, like him, they too have a busy day of work the next day.

vii.

it’s not that he doesn’t like going to church – it’s just that he doesn’t like waking up at 7 o’clock on sundays to go to a church about 40 minutes away from his home when there are plenty of churches in the neighborhood.

“you know grandpa and grandma aren’t very good at english, and you have to immerse yourself in your culture.”

and his parents are right…to a certain degree.

he should be more understanding of his grandparents needs, since he actually goes out into society – all grandpa and grandma have are each other and the rest of the koreans in their city in montana ( which just happens to be the rest of the family. ) so he shouldn’t get so frustrated when they want to be with the people they have in common.

but did doyoon have to leave korea ( and pony and his other friends ) just to immerse himself into his culture?

he doesn’t say anymore, but he does think about it on his way to church.

x.

rap – it’s what his grandparents and the majority of the grown-ups in his church refer to it as ‘the devil’s music.’ it’s what the older kids at his school and church thought was the best thing in the world. and doyoon thought it was one of the best things – next to drawing stick figures and his two new sisters.

at school, he listens to what he and others know – american rappers and hip-hop artists. while at church, he was introduced to korean hip-hop. doyoon has always been fond of music – that’s why he deliberately stays late after church: to get piano lessons and participate in the church band – and he’s found something that he could love ( even more than pony. boy, he still missed her. )

xii.

call him a silly child all you want, but nothing is stopping him from becoming who he wants to be.

unfortunately for his parents, america is not a place where his dream will come true.

he’s figured out a few years ago that this place isn’t as great as people claim it to be – there are countless iron walls blocking his way, and no matter how high he jumps, he can never go over it like a simple hurdle.

so he decides to be a little selfish.

he goes back to korea with his grandparents, leaving his family and friends behind.

despite his nationality and his blood all originating from korea, the country feels foreign to him – and so does the language, unfortunately. but he’s still growing and he regains the vocabulary as he reincorporates himself into his birthplace.

xv.

there’s an unexplainable distance between his classmates and doyoon – possibly because he spends most of his time at a music academy than at socializing with his peers. he needs to build his skills, because what was the point of coming back to korea if he wasn’t going to work hard?

apparently he’s pretty good at singing ( all those years in the church choir must have paid off ), and he’s come so far in his rapping and dancing skills. the teachers at his academy suggest agencies he should audition in because he might have the potential to become famous.

“just mention us when you hit big, kiddo.”

there is only one agency that takes him in, though ( though he didn’t show it on his face, he was shocked that he passed only one out of six auditions. )

xix.

he manages to finish high school, but he doesn’t get that sweet taste of freedom like the other students do: he practices all day and works all night, partaking in late night shifts at convenience stores.

he will admit that initially, he was ignorant about idols. he didn’t know they had to endure years of training, years of criticism and years of rivalry to debut.

they say his singing is decent, lyrics original and well-crafted, and that he has the right tone and look to be a rapper, but his overall dancing ability is utter garbage. they tell him to either: get better or leave.

no matter how much he practices, they want more – more improvement, more soul, and more blood.

it is a savage world, but it is the world that he chose to belong in.

…

does he belong in it?

xxiii.

doyoon works hard – anyone can see that, and he’s present.

he tries to make POIZN become better and stronger; make it rise to the top like their opponents. so he sits in on the meetings, engages with the producers, and offers his two-cents on certain affairs.

maybe it isn’t his place to say such things, and maybe he’s being too selfish but POIZN and his members are like family to him.

xv.

he is clean – cleaner than bleach, and maybe that’s why 99 is so taken with him.

a solo opportunity is given to him. though it wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter like he had hoped, he takes it without a second thought. even though he wants to dedicate his all to POIZN, POIZN is…well…poison. and doyoon wants to separate himself from that image as soon as possible.

99 offers him some creative control over his content, because they know he won’t screw up.

because doyoon never screws up.

xxvi.

doyoon spends his nights in the studio – a yellow legal notepad on his right and a bottle of whisky. art isn’t something that is created overnight. it is a struggle that takes months – even years to complete.

but doyoon is tired, so tired.

from other work to this, he doesn’t know if he can keep up the burning desire anymore.

is this fine? does this sound good? no. none of this sound good.

not even acceptable.

he doesn’t want to be selfish but he wants something better, something more.

xvii.

99 is ruthless, but he’s sure other companies are just as ruthless.

a picture – not a harmless before an after of a false accusation of cosmetic surgery—

[ +400, -31 ] ㅋㅋㅋ what are they saying? it’s totally him. bye bye loser~ > [ +25, -299 ] how are you so sure it’s him? > [ +450, -19 ] his tattoos, you delulu ㅋㅋㅋ

—but a scandalous picture.

he can’t remember the night well, only fragments of it – all hazy. but he does know that he needed comfort and a night to release his inhibitions.

that night, he remembers two choices:

1)      a long night with a bottle with a flavor that he recognizes all too well, or

2)     spending time with the person sitting across from him.

xxix.

the big opportunity is stripped from him as soon as the pictures leak, and he’s back to square one – a trainee, trying to prove his worth to the ones high in the clouds. but they still feed on him – feed on his words, his work, his mind, his melodies, his art. that’s the real poison here, but doyoon still craves that attention that small acknowledgement that says, ‘at least you’re doing this right.’

and that is better than nothing.

Is SPI Better Than Business School? 9 Lessons One Reader Used to Grow His Business

Welcome to our first of (hopefully) many SPI community member features! On our SPI Facebook Group, we have over 30,000 amazing entrepreneurs across all stages of business, and I wanted to start highlighting some of the amazing work the community members are doing with their businesses here on the blog.

Brendan Hufford, our Facebook Community manager, wrote this post to highlight Salo Mizrachi and his business, EzPacking.

You can also check out Brendan and his work at Photo MBA.

And if you haven’t done so already, click here to join the Facebook Group and be a part of the community!

In 2015, Salo Mizrachi took over his family business, grew it to six-figures in 2016, and doubled that in 2017.

Additionally, Salo saw NPR’s popular “How I Built This” podcast feature his business in a 2017 “How You Built That” story.

Sounds impressive, right?

But what if I also told you that in 2014, Salo was still in college for business, and his only “practical experience” came from reading the SPI blog and listening to the SPI podcast?

I had been following the SPI blog for almost two years by the time I started my business and a lot of the tactical, day to day ideas I was experimenting with I learned from Pat (not my college professors).

Like you, Salo realized you can learn almost everything you need to know on Google / YouTube.

But also like Salo, to see results you have to take action on what you learn.

Wanting to start “doing” the things he was learning about in business school, Salo graduated in three years instead of four.

Little did he know, his mom was brewing up a business of her own.

Frustrated with the packing process and wanting a way to easily organize her suitcase, Salo’s mom started a small company called EzPacking. She created a clear system of packing cubes to help other moms, like her, be organized.

She invited Salo on a trip with her to China to source materials and while he intended to go just to keep his mom company, the trip to China opened his eyes to the possibilities available for ecommerce businesses.

And yet, Salo’s real reason for joining his mom has nothing to do with business:

I joined my mom because she needed help. She needed a partner to accompany her on the roller coaster of entrepreneurship and someone to share the work/stress/euphoria. My mom had helped me out so many times in life that I wanted to at least get her set. If things went well, I could continue helping her. If other opportunities presented themselves, I could pursue those. It was so fun and exciting to run the business that I never looked back!

Their first customers were other women that his mom knew from his local community in San Diego. Salo can still recall the day he received his first batch of inventory:

We had worked all day unloading a container, got home at around 5 p.m. and already had three people that were desperate to have our product before leaving on vacation the next day!

While word of mouth was great to get initial feedback and support, it wasn’t a long-term strategy. This led Salo to split-test selling at a farmer’s market and selling online, but other than reading SPI and listening to the podcast, Salo had no experience with selling online so he wasn’t sure how successful it would be.

By the third week, they made more online daily than in a full day at the farmer’s market.

Since then, Salo Mizrachi has bought out his mom, runs his family business, and is having his most successful year ever.

How’d he do it?

Here’s nine business lessons Salo Mizrachi learned from SPI that he didn’t learn in business school:

1. Take your Email Marketing Strategy Seriously

Salo didn’t have a strong email strategy before reading Email the Smart Way. He was collecting email addresses on his website but he didn’t have a clear strategy for monetizing his email list. Pat’s guide helped him come up with ideas for our autoresponders that have dramatically improved his funnels. Yes, even physical product companies should use funnels! Recently, he’s noticed a large increase in conversion rates from implementing them.

2. How to Grow Your Business With No Budget

One of the big ways Salo grew EzPacking in the beginning (especially when they had no budget), was to collaborate with bloggers. He got this idea by reverse engineering Pat’s success as an affiliate. Salo chose to follow the lead of companies that Pat works with which have great affiliate programs (like Bluehost [Affiliate link: Pat will earn a commission if you purchase through this link]). Salo now has dozens of bloggers collaborations under his belt and many affiliates.

Salo even tells all of his new affiliates to sign up to Pat’s list to receive Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way so that they have the right mindset when working with him! Salo credits building EzPacking to over six figures to working with affiliates and reverse engineering Pat’s affiliate marketing methods.

Even if you don’t see yourself as being in the affiliate marketing business, you can use your knowledge to build an incredible affiliate program for your own products.

3. You Can Produce Engaging Content In a “Boring” Niche

Salo remembers listening to Hotseat #7 from Pat and Chris Ducker’s 1 Day Business Breakthrough Podcast. This podcast was extremely helpful for Salo because Pat and Chris talked about a bird feed company that didn’t know how to produce content around it’s niche. Salo was feeling the same thing at the time, not sure how to make his products interesting to prospects even though there were so many different topics to tackle.

Listening to this podcast stirred his creative juices and helped him realize he could write about all sorts of topics, ranging from smart packing tips to behind-the-scenes of EzPacking. Most of the content in their post-purchase and opt-in email sequences came from Salo’s brainstorming sessions after listening to this podcast.

4. Build Community Around Your Physical Products

In episode 269 of the SPI Podcast, Pat interviewed Tom from Chubbies shorts.

Chubbies is in a crowded market but they were able to stand out, making this podcast huge for Salo. He had thought about these kinds of companies before but had never broken down their formula for creating a strong brand in a crowded market. EzPacking has many competitors in their space and Salo learned so much in this episode about using content and social media to build a tribe in a crowded market. It definitely helped shape his strategic plans for the rest of the year.

As a result of listening to this episode, Salo totally changes his thinking around who they sell a product, but they could also create a community around organizing. Salo is creating an active facebook group for his customers to interact, meet and share. Above all else, this episode helped Salo clarify his brand’s tone to really focus on his target audience and create a culture based on participation in the community.

5. You Can Start Without Any “Experience”

Despite having gone to business school, Salo still credits Smart Passive Income with teaching him most of his “applicable” knowledge.

Salo remembers the exact moment when he listened to episode 122 of the SPI Podcast—a now famous episode where Pat interviewed Shane and Jocelyn Sams about their transition from teaching to rocking it in online business:

I was riding a bus in Rio de Janeiro in November 2014. I had graduated college and was solo traveling in South America. I didn’t have any business ideas yet but I knew I wanted to do something when I returned home. Shane and Jocelyn’s story was so inspiring to me. It made me feel like I could reach their levels of success. It was even more relatable to me than Pat’s story because they had started so recently and had no previous experience. My bus ride ended halfway through the episode but I stayed at the bus stop until the episode ended because I had to listen all the way through!

With the inspiration gleaned from this episode, Salo started his first niche website while on his trip and while he’s since shut the site down, he honed all of the basics (site design, research, etc.) with that first project.

6. Business Ideas Don’t Fall in Your Lap

In another immensely popular podcast episode, SPI #46, Pat interviewed Dane Maxwell. This episode was a huge value bomb for Salo. He was in college at the time and thinking about entrepreneurship but didn’t know how to get started.

The episode made him realize that you have to be proactive about finding a pain point by conducting interviews. He uses Dane’s idea extraction process all the time in his business, interviewing a few customers each month to find new pain points for new products that he can make and new sources of information he can provide to make their website and content even more helpful to his customers.

For example, Salo learned that a subset of his customers have difficulty organizing their purses and handbags. He’s currently developing new products to solve those pain points, keeping those customers in the loop to make sure he’s solving their specific need.

Additionally, Salo discovered that a segment of his customers, new moms, had a lot of questions around traveling and organizing for their newborn babies. Creating content for that part of his audience has been a big focus for 2018.

7. Don’t Be Afraid of New Mediums

For Pat’s Let Go Challenge, Salo submitted a video and was selected as one of the winners!

Salo didn’t get to meet Pat in San Diego, but did get on a call with Pat where they spoke about creative ways to expand Salo’s content strategy and use non-traditional mediums like co-marketing and conferences to spread the word.

Salo had a bit of resistance to these ideas but quickly realized he was nervous about them because he was inexperienced. Based on Pat’s advice that his “nervous” feeling meant it was a prime area for personal (and business) growth, Salo did a full evaluation of all the areas in his business that made him nervous (growing his team, expanding overseas, co-branding deals) and made a plan for addressing those opportunities.

For example, Pat recommended that Salo seek out blogs that had reviewed specific organizing books because that would mean they’re already a great fit to work with Salo. Pat also recommended co-branding deals with influencers or brands, and while Salo is still nervous about pursuing that, he’s stepping into discomfort and taking action toward it.

8. Learn to See (and Conquer) “Superhero Syndrome”

For some reason, Salo didn’t hear Pat’s chat with Chris Ducker in episode 103 of the SPI Podcast until he had already started running his business. He was drowning in his to do list and this podcast opened the possibility of hiring out extra help.

Salo remembers hearing about outsourcing before but it was something he was nervous about: mostly because he didn’t understand how it worked and he didn’t believe it would work for him. It seemed like the moment Salo started down the path of conquering his “superhero syndrome,” he encountered yet another dreaded monster of entrepreneurship: “analysis paralysis.” With so many pieces of advice and options when it came to hiring, Salo relied on people like Pat and Chris Ducker, especially their advice to “just do it.”

After those massive mindset shifts, he has made a few key hires, including a virtual assistant (VA), writer, and designer, to help increase EzPacking’s impact on their customers. Here’s how:

One year ago, their website had almost no content on it. Customers would come to the site, buy, or leave.

With the additional team members, Salo now has the ability to add content to the site, educate his customers, and build loyal fans. His writer is doing most of the writing work, while the graphic designer is creating infographics, packing lists, and checklists. Then, his VA is putting everything together by interfacing between the other team members and adding the posts to Shopify.

There are so many tasks that you can outsource to talented people and Salo recommends starting off with social media management, customer service, graphic design, and going from there.

9. 1-to-1 Marketing Matters More Than Ever

In his July 2017 Income Report, Pat mentioned that he was using Bonjoro to send personal video messages to his customers.

Salo was extremely camera shy but after recording that video, he was more open to the possibility.

When I heard about Bonjoro, I was in the right mindset to give it a try. I’ve been using it for a month. I send a video to each new customer and it has made such a big difference. We used to do email follow up but these videos are so much more personal. My customers LOVE them and we are getting so many more reviews on our website and customer referrals because of this new follow up we are doing. It’s made a big impact in our business and it doesn’t take that much time.

Note: The only other time in his life that Salo had recorded a video of himself was for the Let Go challenge, above!

So, What’s Next for Salo and EzPacking?

He’s working on doubling his business again next year by growing his team and network of freelancers to improve efficiency.

This team will help him by allowing more time and freedom for Salo to spend time creating new products to sell online, focusing on content marketing, building their email list, and improving their SEO.

Long-term, Salo’s goal is to build another brand and replicate his success, like Pat has again and again with niche sites.

So that begs the question, what’s next for YOU? What’ve you learned from SPI in 2017 that you’re going to put into action in 2018? Let me know in the comments below.

Helpful Resources:

The Smart Passive Income Facebook Group

Pat’s YouTube Channel

The Smart Passive Income Podcast (iTunes)

Email the Smart Way

Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way

Bluehost – Website hosting [Full disclosure: Pat is an affiliate of Bluehost and will earn a commission if you purchase through this link.]

Bonjoro – Send personalized video messages to customers and fans

Is SPI Better Than Business School? 9 Lessons One Reader Used to Grow His Business originally posted at Homer’s Blog

Is SPI Better Than Business School? 9 Lessons One Reader Used to Grow His Business

Welcome to our first of (hopefully) many SPI community member features! On our SPI Facebook Group, we have over 30,000 amazing entrepreneurs across all stages of business, and I wanted to start highlighting some of the amazing work the community members are doing with their businesses here on the blog.

Brendan Hufford, our Facebook Community manager, wrote this post to highlight Salo Mizrachi and his business, EzPacking.

You can also check out Brendan and his work at Photo MBA.

And if you haven’t done so already, click here to join the Facebook Group and be a part of the community!

In 2015, Salo Mizrachi took over his family business, grew it to six-figures in 2016, and doubled that in 2017.

Additionally, Salo saw NPR’s popular “How I Built This” podcast feature his business in a 2017 “How You Built That” story.

Sounds impressive, right?

But what if I also told you that in 2014, Salo was still in college for business, and his only “practical experience” came from reading the SPI blog and listening to the SPI podcast?

I had been following the SPI blog for almost two years by the time I started my business and a lot of the tactical, day to day ideas I was experimenting with I learned from Pat (not my college professors).

Like you, Salo realized you can learn almost everything you need to know on Google / YouTube.

But also like Salo, to see results you have to take action on what you learn.

Wanting to start “doing” the things he was learning about in business school, Salo graduated in three years instead of four.

Little did he know, his mom was brewing up a business of her own.

Frustrated with the packing process and wanting a way to easily organize her suitcase, Salo’s mom started a small company called EzPacking. She created a clear system of packing cubes to help other moms, like her, be organized.

She invited Salo on a trip with her to China to source materials and while he intended to go just to keep his mom company, the trip to China opened his eyes to the possibilities available for ecommerce businesses.

And yet, Salo’s real reason for joining his mom has nothing to do with business:

I joined my mom because she needed help. She needed a partner to accompany her on the roller coaster of entrepreneurship and someone to share the work/stress/euphoria. My mom had helped me out so many times in life that I wanted to at least get her set. If things went well, I could continue helping her. If other opportunities presented themselves, I could pursue those. It was so fun and exciting to run the business that I never looked back!

Their first customers were other women that his mom knew from his local community in San Diego. Salo can still recall the day he received his first batch of inventory:

We had worked all day unloading a container, got home at around 5 p.m. and already had three people that were desperate to have our product before leaving on vacation the next day!

While word of mouth was great to get initial feedback and support, it wasn’t a long-term strategy. This led Salo to split-test selling at a farmer’s market and selling online, but other than reading SPI and listening to the podcast, Salo had no experience with selling online so he wasn’t sure how successful it would be.

By the third week, they made more online daily than in a full day at the farmer’s market.

Since then, Salo Mizrachi has bought out his mom, runs his family business, and is having his most successful year ever.

How’d he do it?

Here’s nine business lessons Salo Mizrachi learned from SPI that he didn’t learn in business school:

1. Take your Email Marketing Strategy Seriously

Salo didn’t have a strong email strategy before reading Email the Smart Way. He was collecting email addresses on his website but he didn’t have a clear strategy for monetizing his email list. Pat’s guide helped him come up with ideas for our autoresponders that have dramatically improved his funnels. Yes, even physical product companies should use funnels! Recently, he’s noticed a large increase in conversion rates from implementing them.

2. How to Grow Your Business With No Budget

One of the big ways Salo grew EzPacking in the beginning (especially when they had no budget), was to collaborate with bloggers. He got this idea by reverse engineering Pat’s success as an affiliate. Salo chose to follow the lead of companies that Pat works with which have great affiliate programs (like Bluehost [Affiliate link: Pat will earn a commission if you purchase through this link]). Salo now has dozens of bloggers collaborations under his belt and many affiliates.

Salo even tells all of his new affiliates to sign up to Pat’s list to receive Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way so that they have the right mindset when working with him! Salo credits building EzPacking to over six figures to working with affiliates and reverse engineering Pat’s affiliate marketing methods.

Even if you don’t see yourself as being in the affiliate marketing business, you can use your knowledge to build an incredible affiliate program for your own products.

3. You Can Produce Engaging Content In a “Boring” Niche

Salo remembers listening to Hotseat #7 from Pat and Chris Ducker’s 1 Day Business Breakthrough Podcast. This podcast was extremely helpful for Salo because Pat and Chris talked about a bird feed company that didn’t know how to produce content around it’s niche. Salo was feeling the same thing at the time, not sure how to make his products interesting to prospects even though there were so many different topics to tackle.

Listening to this podcast stirred his creative juices and helped him realize he could write about all sorts of topics, ranging from smart packing tips to behind-the-scenes of EzPacking. Most of the content in their post-purchase and opt-in email sequences came from Salo’s brainstorming sessions after listening to this podcast.

4. Build Community Around Your Physical Products

In episode 269 of the SPI Podcast, Pat interviewed Tom from Chubbies shorts.

Chubbies is in a crowded market but they were able to stand out, making this podcast huge for Salo. He had thought about these kinds of companies before but had never broken down their formula for creating a strong brand in a crowded market. EzPacking has many competitors in their space and Salo learned so much in this episode about using content and social media to build a tribe in a crowded market. It definitely helped shape his strategic plans for the rest of the year.

As a result of listening to this episode, Salo totally changes his thinking around who they sell a product, but they could also create a community around organizing. Salo is creating an active facebook group for his customers to interact, meet and share. Above all else, this episode helped Salo clarify his brand’s tone to really focus on his target audience and create a culture based on participation in the community.

5. You Can Start Without Any “Experience”

Despite having gone to business school, Salo still credits Smart Passive Income with teaching him most of his “applicable” knowledge.

Salo remembers the exact moment when he listened to episode 122 of the SPI Podcast—a now famous episode where Pat interviewed Shane and Jocelyn Sams about their transition from teaching to rocking it in online business:

I was riding a bus in Rio de Janeiro in November 2014. I had graduated college and was solo traveling in South America. I didn’t have any business ideas yet but I knew I wanted to do something when I returned home. Shane and Jocelyn’s story was so inspiring to me. It made me feel like I could reach their levels of success. It was even more relatable to me than Pat’s story because they had started so recently and had no previous experience. My bus ride ended halfway through the episode but I stayed at the bus stop until the episode ended because I had to listen all the way through!

With the inspiration gleaned from this episode, Salo started his first niche website while on his trip and while he’s since shut the site down, he honed all of the basics (site design, research, etc.) with that first project.

6. Business Ideas Don’t Fall in Your Lap

In another immensely popular podcast episode, SPI #46, Pat interviewed Dane Maxwell. This episode was a huge value bomb for Salo. He was in college at the time and thinking about entrepreneurship but didn’t know how to get started.

The episode made him realize that you have to be proactive about finding a pain point by conducting interviews. He uses Dane’s idea extraction process all the time in his business, interviewing a few customers each month to find new pain points for new products that he can make and new sources of information he can provide to make their website and content even more helpful to his customers.

For example, Salo learned that a subset of his customers have difficulty organizing their purses and handbags. He’s currently developing new products to solve those pain points, keeping those customers in the loop to make sure he’s solving their specific need.

Additionally, Salo discovered that a segment of his customers, new moms, had a lot of questions around traveling and organizing for their newborn babies. Creating content for that part of his audience has been a big focus for 2018.

7. Don’t Be Afraid of New Mediums

For Pat’s Let Go Challenge, Salo submitted a video and was selected as one of the winners!

Salo didn’t get to meet Pat in San Diego, but did get on a call with Pat where they spoke about creative ways to expand Salo’s content strategy and use non-traditional mediums like co-marketing and conferences to spread the word.

Salo had a bit of resistance to these ideas but quickly realized he was nervous about them because he was inexperienced. Based on Pat’s advice that his “nervous” feeling meant it was a prime area for personal (and business) growth, Salo did a full evaluation of all the areas in his business that made him nervous (growing his team, expanding overseas, co-branding deals) and made a plan for addressing those opportunities.

For example, Pat recommended that Salo seek out blogs that had reviewed specific organizing books because that would mean they’re already a great fit to work with Salo. Pat also recommended co-branding deals with influencers or brands, and while Salo is still nervous about pursuing that, he’s stepping into discomfort and taking action toward it.

8. Learn to See (and Conquer) “Superhero Syndrome”

For some reason, Salo didn’t hear Pat’s chat with Chris Ducker in episode 103 of the SPI Podcast until he had already started running his business. He was drowning in his to do list and this podcast opened the possibility of hiring out extra help.

Salo remembers hearing about outsourcing before but it was something he was nervous about: mostly because he didn’t understand how it worked and he didn’t believe it would work for him. It seemed like the moment Salo started down the path of conquering his “superhero syndrome,” he encountered yet another dreaded monster of entrepreneurship: “analysis paralysis.” With so many pieces of advice and options when it came to hiring, Salo relied on people like Pat and Chris Ducker, especially their advice to “just do it.”

After those massive mindset shifts, he has made a few key hires, including a virtual assistant (VA), writer, and designer, to help increase EzPacking’s impact on their customers. Here’s how:

One year ago, their website had almost no content on it. Customers would come to the site, buy, or leave.

With the additional team members, Salo now has the ability to add content to the site, educate his customers, and build loyal fans. His writer is doing most of the writing work, while the graphic designer is creating infographics, packing lists, and checklists. Then, his VA is putting everything together by interfacing between the other team members and adding the posts to Shopify.

There are so many tasks that you can outsource to talented people and Salo recommends starting off with social media management, customer service, graphic design, and going from there.

9. 1-to-1 Marketing Matters More Than Ever

In his July 2017 Income Report, Pat mentioned that he was using Bonjoro to send personal video messages to his customers.

Salo was extremely camera shy but after recording that video, he was more open to the possibility.

When I heard about Bonjoro, I was in the right mindset to give it a try. I’ve been using it for a month. I send a video to each new customer and it has made such a big difference. We used to do email follow up but these videos are so much more personal. My customers LOVE them and we are getting so many more reviews on our website and customer referrals because of this new follow up we are doing. It’s made a big impact in our business and it doesn’t take that much time.

Note: The only other time in his life that Salo had recorded a video of himself was for the Let Go challenge, above!

So, What’s Next for Salo and EzPacking?

He’s working on doubling his business again next year by growing his team and network of freelancers to improve efficiency.

This team will help him by allowing more time and freedom for Salo to spend time creating new products to sell online, focusing on content marketing, building their email list, and improving their SEO.

Long-term, Salo’s goal is to build another brand and replicate his success, like Pat has again and again with niche sites.

So that begs the question, what’s next for YOU? What’ve you learned from SPI in 2017 that you’re going to put into action in 2018? Let me know in the comments below.

Helpful Resources:

The Smart Passive Income Facebook Group

Pat’s YouTube Channel

The Smart Passive Income Podcast (iTunes)

Email the Smart Way

Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way

Bluehost – Website hosting [Full disclosure: Pat is an affiliate of Bluehost and will earn a commission if you purchase through this link.]

Bonjoro – Send personalized video messages to customers and fans

Feature: In Memoriam: Matt Shoemaker

Matthew Thomas Shoemaker, the Seattle-based experimental musician, died in August of this year. Unfortunately, Shoemaker’s time on this earth was cut short, but he leaves behind an impressive body of work by which he will be survived by friends and fans. Shoemaker split his artistic time between music and painting, where over the course of nearly 20 years he created hundreds of visual pieces and released eleven albums and two EPs. Shoemaker’s Instagram page is something to behold, showcasing an array of grotesque and beautiful artworks; the most exquisite of corpses at the mercy of a singular surrealist vision. And he was only getting better! A personal favourite of mine is not even a painting but an experiment in macro photography. Using only olive oil, water, food coloring, and salt on glass, Shoemaker captured a remarkable image that looks like a scene from some deep recess of the universe (It’s untitled, but I’ve come to think of it as “the fish head nebula”). Untitled macro photography experiment From an email interview I did with him back in March of 2010, and from online statements his friends have made about him since his passing, it’s become clear just how diverse and deep seeded Shoemaker’s passions were. Film was one of his main interests, and for a while he worked at Video Isle, a humble video store in Fremont, Seattle. In multiple statements, friends reminisced over hanging out with him there, and of “Matt’s Picks” being the ones to really watch for. One of my interview questions was about his love for avant-garde cinema, to which he was proud to say he had both a low and high brow, following up with a list of “a few favorites” that must have been something like 50 titles. I imagine him picking these off the top of his head, but years later here I am still referencing that list when movie night rolls around. Beyond film, Shoemaker was a seasoned traveler, spending significant time in Indonesia. It was here that his love of Gamelan and traditional Southeast Asian music blossomed. He had a knack for curation, investing his time in documenting selections of music from places like Java, Bali, and Thailand on his blog, Brain Goreng. As a contributing member of Gamelan Pacifica — an American ensemble that have been active since 1980 — Shoemaker continued to keep his love for music alive wherever he went. Shoemaker had a lot of passions, but they all informed one another. This is perhaps most evident in the music he produced, which was greatly shaped by his time abroad, his love of cinema, and his visual mind. Describing Shoemaker’s music has always been difficult, as anyone who is familiar with it will attest to its deep complexity and mystifying provenance — review any of his albums and you’ll quickly be at a loss for qualifiers. One thing that can be said for certain is that his work perhaps best exemplifies the no-pussyfooting tactic. His uncompromising vision left no wiggle room for casual tourism. Approach a Shoemaker work half-heartedly and you will be subsumed by it; its shear mass will swallow you whole. --- Initially, Shoemaker was interested in releasing music on Anomalous Records after befriending label head Eric Lanzillotta, but he ended up finding a home for his first two albums, Groundless (2000) and Warung Elusion (2002), on Trente Oiseaux. This early work still sounds like Shoemaker in his element, both providing a microcosmic window into what would later become his bread and butter: a minimalist’s fusing of analogue synthesis with field recording. On these initial albums, however, silence played just as important a role. Progressively his music became more to the point, but in terms of what best typified Shoemaker’s understanding of balance and patience, one needn’t look past this early era. 2005 saw the release of the Cd-r, Forking Path Navigator (Oblast), and the very limited cassette, Mambang Kuning (Stentorian). This was an integral time for Shoemaker’s career, a transitional period that bridged his early era to his most productive years. On Forking Path … one can hear Shoemaker feeling his way through, as though we’re meant to conclude that navigator and artist are one in the same. In retrospect the album was not a huge diversion from the Trente Oiseaux material, but the inclusion of bowed string drones, and an overall grimier fidelity, certainly added a grace note to his song. Pulling back the frame over Matt Shoemaker’s canon one quickly gathers a deeper appreciation for his grasp of the bigger picture, his preternatural inclination for continuity. However, zoom in again and you might find that no Shoemaker work is ever quite complete without the listener. Mambang Kuning was the closest Shoemaker dipped into his Gamelan influence. It’s still basically a noise album, but his usual festering dronescape is mixed around other bizarre ephemera, like children’s voices and the occasional pang of a heavy bell. It was rare to hear something this short from the man — the whole thing is under 15 minutes — but even in small doses his music can snake its way into the strata of human consciousness and linger there for hours. Though he was most prolific as a solo artist, Shoemaker was no stranger to collaboration. His most notable band was Omake & Johnson, teaming up with fellow musical malefactor David Knott (the two were actually roommates for a time). The duo played their first show in 2002, but their first official release, the Cd- r Headiferous Unctibulum, didn’t surface until 2008. The group would produce only one more album, Every Room Has a Grotto (2010). Both were released through Shoemaker’s own Human Faculties imprint. If anything, Omake & Johnson allowed for Shoemaker to loosen the stringency in his music, working alongside Knott in sonic territory that ranged from guttural electroacoustic to deconstructed folk. In the aforementioned interview, Shoemaker revealed that Omake & Johnson had hours and hours of recorded material stashed away. Here’s to hoping those will see the light of day sometime in the future. --- Shoemaker worked with the California label The Helen Scarsdale Agency (managed by the musical alchemist Jim Haynes, a prolific artist in his own right), who published the albums Spots in the Sun (2007) and Erosion of the Analogous Eye (2009). Timm Mason, who knew Shoemaker, shared a statement on his friend’s passing that included an interesting peek into his process: “It was not unusual for him to combine 30-40+ layers of audio — keeping all that sound from turning into formless nonsense is a feat and one of his unique talents.” Spots in the Sun is one of the supreme examples of this talent. Throughout the album, no matter how dense the audio, Shoemaker always maintained buoyancy, often toeing a fine line between form and chaos before elegantly steering a track into a quieter valley. Erosion of the Analogous Eye took things even further, as David Knott has pointed to Shoemaker’s use of “inscrutable signal paths that fragmented and recombined through electronics and quasi-stable homemade spring reverbs.” To the average person, that might sound like a whole lot of nonsense — even I only get half of it — but I do know that the album utilized stretched out slinkies as natural conduits for reverb. So, you have to admit, the man was not lacking in creativity. spots in the sun by matt shoemaker erosion of the analogous eye by matt shoemaker From here came the albums The Sunken Plethora Consumes All (Mystery Sea, 2009), Tropical Amnesia One (Ferns, 2010), and the EP Mutable Depths (Ferns, 2008). All were more focused on the field recording aspects of Shoemaker’s practice. His dronescapes were never without a psychedelic air, and it’s the recordings he incorporated from the tropical rain forest and Pacific Northwest mountains that helped elevate his music to that realm. In 2007 Shoemaker participated in a residency lead by Francisco López that took him to the heart of Amazonia. He spent morning, day and night recording the vast array of wildlife there, predominantly birds, dolphins, insects and frogs. Tropical Amnesia One is composed entirely of these recordings. Tropical Amnesia One by Matt Shoemaker From this point until the time of his death, Shoemaker came to release four more albums, The Late Day Spectrum (Master Chemical Society, 2013), and three for Dallas, Texas, based Elevator Bath. Colin Andrew Sheffield — the man behind Elevator Bath — was a friend of Shoemaker’s and holds a very high opinion of his art, describing it as “some of the most singular, dense, carefully arranged, and hauntingly beautiful work one is likely to find in this realm […] Matt was a born artist if I’ve ever met one.” A closer examination of Shoemaker’s Elevator Bath releases provides clout to Sheffield’s claim. The Isolated Agent / Stranding Behaviour (2010) LP saw a back-to-basics approach, stripping away all but cold tonality and an ever-present churn from home-assembled signal patches. Soundtrack for Dislocation (2010) was perhaps the most stoic of his works that utilized his full range of sound, while Flight | Chromatic Splitting Injunction (2015) broke new ground with experiments in tape splicing and a form of techno residing somewhere in the vein of retrocosmic. isolated agent | stranding behavior by matt shoemaker soundtrack for dislocation by matt shoemaker Pulling back the frame over Shoemaker’s canon one quickly gathers a deeper appreciation for his grasp of the bigger picture, his preternatural inclination for continuity. However, zoom in again and you might find that no Shoemaker work is ever quite complete without the listener. He once wrote, “I fully intend there to be an aspect to each release that’s really open to the listeners so that they can kind of complete the picture or give it their own meaning. It’s important to me that my music doesn’t say anything definite.” The music’s meaning was never the focus, but the music itself can be traced back to a man whose level of creative veracity was matched only by the lasting power of that which he created. At the very least, the talents, contributions, and spirit of Shoemaker won’t soon be forgotten. In honor of his life and art, Elevator Bath and The Helen Scarsdale Agency are offering all of Shoemaker’s releases free to download on Bandcamp. http://j.mp/2xkTVH8

Modern music’s UK arrival and the shift to Post Modernism

I have been examining the career of Elizabeth Lutyens who is credited as the first composer using a 12 tone approach in the UK. These days commentators tend to agree that she suffered for being a pioneer especially from the UK’s cultural insularity. I have just got a CD of her music mostly from the early 60s performed by Exaudi and Endymion Ensemble to commemorate the centenary of her both. Both the performances and the original conceptions come across extremely well

Brian Ferneyhough was born in 1943, over thirty years later, but it has been argued that he too has suffered from this cultural quirk of UK musical insularity. This is said to be part of the reason why for many years he has held a professorship in California at Stamford University rather than in the UK. I am intrigued that one of his pieces that has achieved quite widespread performance was written in 1970 when BF was struggling to get recognition, only about ten years after the majority of the Lutyens CD. This is Cassandra’s Dream Song for solo flute and for obvious reasons I have recently got hold of both the score and a CD with it on. The CD notes describe it as a blend of fixed and open form. Six sections are performed in a definite order but they are intersected by a further five where the order is chosen by the performer. The score is very detailed. To my ears it sounds as if he is developing some of the innovations which most people associate with Jethro Tull  by I have yet to read any commentary which makes this point. JT was of course building on Roland Kirk’s innovations.

The piece, Cassandra’s Dream Song,  seems currently to have become a landmark demonstration of capability on the flute these days. Despite its advanced vocabulary, it seems tobe quite easy for audiences to relate to. Lois Fitch has recently published a detailed study of BF and she suggested that CDS represents the start of his interest in borders and border-states, limits and the energy involving in crossing borders. As such it may reflect themes that are of concern to modern audiences. She adds that in his first years in Europe the flute was the site of BF’s exploration of the performer-instrument-notation relationship.

Looking at the gap between Lutyens and Ferneyhough, about fifteen years before CDS appeared a group of musicians emerged from the Royal Northern College of Music who made major inroads into the UK’s musical insularity. Philip Rupprecht has not long published British Musical Modernism, the Manchester Group and their Contemporaries. Besides the obvious figures like Davies , Goehr and Birtwhistle he includes David Bedford and Tim Souster both of who are now dead, sadly. His chapter on these two dubs them as pop musicians. I am not going to debate this term, but I was interested to see that DB collaborated with various members what is sometimes called the Canterbury Group including Ken Ayres and Mike Oldfield.

Tim Souster was composer in residence at Kings when I was at Cambridge and he got to know Andrew Powell and Fred Frith I believe. I think he was probably responsible for my first encounter with what we now call minimalism. He probably organised an exploratory of In C by Terry Riley in 1970. I was certainly told about the piece with the curious assemblage rules around then although I didn't participate. Souster was very interested in early synths like the VCS3.

Within the same time period I would like to bring in Paul Buckmaster who was RAM trained and introduced Miles Davis to the music of Stockhausen. The result was Miles album, On the Corner, which these days is with Bitches Brew, judged to be the best of the 68-75 heavy electric period of Miles work.This album took some while to get this recognition. The development of hiphop in the 90s is said to have when On the Corner started started to be sampled by MCs.

There is also the signing of the Beatles Apple label of John Taverner. Clearly there were a group of academically trained UK musicians who within the freedom of the late 60s and early 70s crossed the boundaries that are implicit in musical insularity in a way which to my knowledge didn't happen earlier with the Manchester lot ten years earlier.

More generally there is a certain irony in the timing of this UK development of the breakdown in insularity. As the history of post war European music is assembled commentators to think that the dominating paradigm began to break up around 1970, a point which some suggest there is a transition from modernism to post modernism in music. The irony is that no sooner does post war European music gain some visibility in the UK, the movement begins to fragment.  (In these terms it is worth noting another transition point in the early 1990s associated with the fall of communism and the popularity of Holy Minimalism.)

The US story is a bit different. The core minimalists - Reich, Riley, Glass and Adams - reacted strongly against the post war European paradigm starting in the mid sixties and actively began developing alternatives. Michael Nyman is credited with being the first to use the term Minimalism in a musical context in a 1968 article about Cornelius Cardew. He only started to get recognition as a composer about ten years later via his film scores.

At about this time my impression is the punk in the UK adopted its own version of insularity. In contrast the subsequent emergence of No Wave in NYC which had some similarities with UK punk has been identified as a moment when music barriers came down and jazz, rock, serious music and art shared the same social space.

In Northern Europe, especially in Germany, the 1970s saw a new cultural label appear - the New Simplicity. Walter Zimmerman is the composer I have heard most of under this banner. In the UK BF and some associates have been labelled the New Complexity, presumably as a counter move to the New Simplicity. In France there arose a group dubbed Spectralists who use analysis of sound spectra as a compositional tool. To my ears there are links between their approach and Ambient within EDM. 

Those three labels plus Minimalism are rejected by most of the composers  to whom critics apply them. But the emergence of these locationally specific ‘schools’ - Complexity, Simplicity and Spectral - can be seen as post modern fragmentation whereas the post war European modernism aspired to universality. This was only an aspiration of course and some historians think that 12 tone was always a fairly broad church.

Returning to the theme of modern music’s arrival in the UK, an important development was the appointment of Glock  to Radio 3 He deliberately brought in producers who were sympathetic to post war European music and commissioned work fromLutyens. It is also relevant that Kubrik used some Ligeti in the soundtrack of 2001 at this time which must have brought modern European music to the biggest UK audience.

The discussion so far has been about ‘serious music’ in the UK. In an earlier article I suggested that in jazz the 1960s culminated with two UK musicians, Holland and Maclaughlin joining the Miles Davis band making major contributions to new jazz forms. It is possible to go more deeply into the background to this development via John Wickes’ excellent book, Innovations In British Jazz, 1960-1980, which I will undertake later. But I am not the only person who finds that BFs solo guitar compositions of the 70s seem to follow rather  than lead free jazz in its UK variant.

Staying with ‘serious music’ and BF, the CDS flute piece reveals unusual ideas about performance. The score is very detailed which is probably  how the complexity description emerged. The complexity contains a conundrum. BF has written a set of instructions that he believes the performer cannot execute as specified. Part of the reason is, apparently, that BF wants to influence performer psychology in terms of the decisions which the score allows the performer to take independently, the open elements about interrupting the specified linearity of the main score. This is a rather sophisticated ploy and one which many listeners will not be aware of I suspect.

It brings to my mind a recent��interview with Italian pianist, Pina Neapolitana, who I heard playing Schoenberg at Cadogan Hall this year. PN has studied poetry texts at an advanced level as an academic. She told the Guardian she had deployed this sophisticated approach to interpretation on the Schoenberg scores she was going to perform. At its simplest we see increasing sophistication in the performer-composer relationship mediated by the score.

I think this interpretive sophistication can be linked to post moderns. Innovations in scoring are characteristic of post war modernism both in Europe and the UK. Some commentators believe that the breakdown in the European modernist paradigm was assisted the increasing impracticality of scores.

BF writes of his approach to scoring CDS:

‘ the boundary between playable and unplayable has not been defined by pitches ourtside the range of the flute or other equally obvious subterfuges. It has been left underfined and depends on the specific abilities of the individual; performer.’

On the one hand this style of thinking seems to me to be getting  into the zone of the private languages and therefore losing practicality or feasibility or consistency and communicability. But an important feature of CDS is the evident willingness of young performers to try such material with all its problems.

The 1975 flute piece Unity Capsule is said to be most virtuosic of the solo flute pieces. According to the CD notes, the aim is the unification of form, material and idiomatic articulative qualities, where the unique sonic world of the flute is defined by its outer extremes. This line of exploration leads back to free improvisation I suggest.

Art F City: This Week’s Must See Events: Elevator GIFs and Dystopias

We’re looking at a pretty light week for events coming out of Memorial Day weekend. The good news here, is that while there maybe fewer openings and talks to attend, there’s no shortage of quality. Start your week today by visiting the SVA Computer Art thesis show and leave time on Wednesday for a performance by M6 of Meredeth Monk compositions. Thursday we’ll be heading out to the Museum of Moving Image to check out their new GIF commissions and panel discussion and Friday we’re heading to 470 Vanderbilt for an all woman art show. Saturday Cary Hulbert will take a stab at predicting the future at Ortega y Gasset Projects and Sunday we’ve got a day of music by John Zorn at the Jewish Museum.

Long story short, for a light week, we’ve got plenty to do. We expect to see you around!

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W

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F

S

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Tue

SVA Chelsea

601 West 26th Street 6:00 PM Website

SVA MFA Computer Art Thesis Exhibition, "Fluid Horizons"

An opportunity to see computer art by some of the city’s freshest talent. Don’t expect the art to be fully resolved—they are students after all—but this is a good way to see what’s coming down the pipe. Recommended.

Curated by India Lombardi-Bello, administrative assistant, and Milos Paripovic, systems administrator,

Wed

Roulette

509 Atlantic Ave 8:00 PM, Tickets 20 in advance, $25 at the door.Website

[GENERATE] The M6: Meredith Monk’s Third Generation

A group of six vocalists dedicating to performing more rarely heard compositions by Meredith Monk will perform a collection of solo and group works. Those include selections from Monk’s “Our Lady of Late” (1973) for solo voice and wine glass, “New York Requiem” (1993) written for Tom Bogdan during the AIDS crisis, and Monk’s seminal “Dolmen Music”.

This seems like a performance to attend. The six vocalists were chosen from hundreds of applicants around the world in 2006 to participate in a professional training workshop by Monk at Carnegie Hall. In 2007 the group officially formed and decided to continue studying and performing her work. In short, these guys are no slouches. 10 years of performance and study is bound to make them worth seeing.

Sasha Bogdanowitsch – Voice Sidney Chen – Voice Emily Eagen – Voice Holly Nadal – Voice, Piano Toby Newman – Voice Peter Sciscioli – Voice TBA – Cello

Thu

Museum of the Moving Image

The GIF Elevator discussion and opening reception 7:00 PMWebsite

Museum of the Moving Image

Elevators have long been a favorite place for museums and non-profits to park their art. From Art in General’s audio art in the elevator to 21c’s art in hotel elevators, these transitional spaces benefit from time-based art that does not require long contemplation.

And so, it makes perfect sense for the Museum of Moving Image to commission a series of animated GIFs for their elevator. To mark the opening of The GIF Elevator,  the Museum and GIPHY Arts present a panel discussion with participating artists Matt DiVito, Lorna Mills, and Rafia Santana, who will discuss their practices. Also up for discussion—the history of the GIF with the Museum’s Curator of Digital Media Jason Eppink and GIPHY Community Curator Ari Spool.

Fri

470 Vanderbilt

470 Vanderbilt Ave 6-8 pm Website

"Bigger, Bolder, Better"

Another show inspired by the Women’s March last January. Curators Jaynie Crimmins, Christina Massey, Etty Yaniv bring together work by fifteen women artists whose work uses “fragmentation, repetition, distinct use of daily materials, and labor intensive processes.” Each is creating site specific installations, in a kind of transitional space between the street and the interior of the 470 Vanderbilt building. We’re not exactly sure what this means, but we’re looking forward to finding out, particularly due to the artist list. It includes some incredibly active artists on facebook and the gallery. In our experience that tends to signal smarter than average art making.

Participating Artists: Lorrie Fredette, Dana Kane, Niki Ledrer, Susan Luss, Ellie Murphy, Mia Pearlman, Jaanika Peerna, Elizabeth Riley, Alyse Rosner, Carol Salmanson, Suzan Shutan, Jen Wrobalewski, Jaynie Crimmins, Christina Massey, Etty Yani

  SOHO20

56 Bogart Street 6 PM - 9 PMWebsite

Otherwise, you don't see me

Marxist philosophy will always have a special place in the art world. For this show, artists attempt to push back against the beliefs they believe are imposed by the cultural elite to establish accepted cultural norms. From the sounds of it, the participating artists are largely reacting to identity and how data can be used to oppress. Worthy subjects for exploration, particularly given that the Trump administration is totally racist and corrupt.

Featuring works by: Andrea Arrubla, Debora Castillo, Scherezade Garcia, Mona Saeed Kamal, Baseera Khan, Sarah Maple, and Hồng-Ân Trương + Hương Ngô.

Text contributions: Christen Clifford, Nicole Goodwin, and Rindon Johnson.

Curated by Rachel Steinberg

Sat

Knockdown Center

52-19 Flushing Ave 1:00 PM to 7:00 PMWebsite

Blonde Art Books Presents: The Fifth Annual BABZ Fair

Honestly, we can’t keep up with all the artist book fairs. It feels like there’s one every weekend. And yet, we remain interested in them!

BABZ Fair (formerly known at the Bushwick Art Book & Zine Fair) takes place this weekend and will feature small press art and poetry publishers, individual artist projects and a program of performance, readings, and workshops. We approve.

Ortega y Gasset Projects

363 Third Ave 6-9 pmWebsite

Cary Hulbert: The Prophet in The Skirt

There’s probably nobody in our lefty art circles who thinks the world is heading in the right direction, but few of us have gone to any length to imagine a future world. That’s where Cary Hulbert’s The Prophet comes in. The installation asks visitors to wear a set of headphones and then gives them what appears to be a personalized fortune gone wrong. There are actually 25 generic scenarios a visitor could listen to, randomly selected by Hulbert’s software.

Sun

The Jewish Museum

1109 5th Ave at 92nd Street 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Paris Capital of the 19th Century / New York Capital of the 20th Century

Tickets to see John Zorn perform typically start in the $50-$60 range and head north from there. So, it’s nice to see the museums keeping it real—you can him play at the Jewish Museum for the price of admission.

John Zorn and poet Kenneth Goldsmith will offer afternoon of musical collaborations inspired by Walter Benjamin’s masterpiece, The Arcades Project.   The piece accompanies the exhibition The Arcades: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin. 

Compositions will be performed by:  JACK Quartet, Peter Evans, Mark Feldman, Erik Friedlander, Ches Smith, Michael Nicolas, David Fulmer and John Zorn himself.

from Art F City http://ift.tt/2qD0U6M via IFTTT

Hyperallergic: Beer with a Painter: Craig Stockwell

Craig Stockwell, “untitled” (2006), oil on canvas, 74 x 68 (all images courtesy the artist unless stated otherwise)

I’ve gotten to know Craig Stockwell because he lives in Keene, New Hampshire, which is close to where I spend time every summer. When he visits New York City, it feels as if he’s bringing that air and sense of place with him. There is an earthy clarity to his intelligence and manner. Stockwell’s abstract painting — with its playful rhythms and linear structures — acknowledges the co-existence of mathematical order with the bodily, geometry tempered by blood and decay.  It is a combination we are forced to confront in nature, but perhaps can more easily avoid in urban life.

Stockwell and I met recently in his Keene studio, which is a sequence of rooms in a converted office space. The smaller rooms are where Stockwell keeps drawings, older work, and piles of reproductions and books. Painters who lived and exhibited in New England, like Jake Berthot and Porforio DiDonna, are highly represented. They, like Stockwell, have straddled the line between tough material abstraction, nature, and the figure. These smaller, darker rooms open up into his working space, where several different series of paintings happily co-exist.

Craig Stockwell (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Stockwell’s work explores sensual and intuitive possibilities within self-prescribed systems. He establishes rules for sets of paintings, such as making nine panels based on one recurring rhythm or shape. In much of his work there is a vertebrae-like form that often morphs into a more voluptuous, feminine body. It suggests a kind of adventurous interchange between people, forces, and sexualities.

Stockwell was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1952 and studied at Dartmouth College and Rhode Island School of Design. For several years, while living in Minneapolis, Boulder, Boston, and New York, Stockwell made sculptural installations with glass. Stockwell gradually transitioned into a painting practice while living with his young family in New Hampshire, and received his MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2000. Stockwell was awarded a Fellowship from the Sharpe-Walentas Space Program in Brooklyn for the years 2013-14. He has been the subject of several recent solo exhibitions at Gallery Benoit and Genovese/Sullivan, both in Boston. Stockwell is currently the Director of the Visual Arts Program at the low-residency MFA at New Hampshire Institute for Arts. His work is now on view as part of the 2016 deCordova New England Biennial, at the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts.

*   *   *

Jennifer Samet: You grew up outside of Boston.  Was art or art-making part of your childhood?

Craig Stockwell: My oldest sister could draw beautifully from life. She would copy the covers of pop music magazines and draw the stars. But, other than that, there was no art in my family. By the time I was in high school, cultural information was really intriguing to me, and I had this feeling of being shut out.  I didn’t want that.

My graduation gift from high school was a huge Andrew Wyeth book. I had been interested in Wyeth since I first saw his work. We spent a lot of time in Maine, and I knew there was something about Maine — the farmers and the poverty — that was really sad. There were still many farmers, and lot of poverty.  So when I first saw “Christina’s World” (1948), it resonated because it had that beauty, but real pain and sorrow too.

I think that during my senior year in high school the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston had a big Wyeth show. And I think I did go and see it and that’s around the time that the big book came out. So I put the two together and said, “I want that.”

Craig Stockwell, excerpt from “After seeing everything” (2014), oil on panel, 15 x 9 inches

JS: When did you begin making art?

CS: It was not until I was at Dartmouth College, when I signed up for an art class on a whim. Then, after a year and a half, I transferred to the Rhode Island School of Design. I went there to study painting, but because it was 1972, the painting department was in complete confusion.

One day I walked by the glass shop, and there was Dale Chihuly. It turned out to be the most vital place on campus. Dale was attuned to the New York art world and conceptual art. He would bring wonderful visiting artists to the program, essentially introducing an element of play and experimentation. He was good at bringing a lot of people together to try things. That idea of collaboration challenged my youthful idea of the romantic artist, and the solitary studio practice.

After school I lived in Minneapolis, Boulder, and then Boston. I was doing process-based conceptual sculpture. In 1980, Alanna Heiss invited me to  do a large installation at PS1, in a show of eight sculptors including Richard Nonas, Mark di Suvero, and Louise Bourgeois. Because of that show, I moved to New York, and, quite accidentally, to Williamsburg.

I became involved with artists who were part of the Whitney Program. The issues of identity politics, which were on everyone’s mind, made me really question my voice. I had been working along intuitive lines, and I pulled back from that.

Craig Stockwell, “9 anomalies #3” (2014-16), oil on panel, 20 x 16 inches

At the same time, since it was 1980, the work of people like Julian Schnabel and David Salle led to a reinvention of painting. Of course it was problematic, but it was also thrilling to see paint alive again. So I began to intermix sculpture and painting. I would put big masonite panels on my wall, paint on the wall, paint on the panels, paint on glass. I participated in an exhibition in the East Village in an abandoned school, and covered an entire hallway — painting on the walls, spray paint, sheets of glass. I moved more and more into painting, and the work became more expressionistic. The culture of New York and the East Village — places like the Mudd Club — was monolithic.

But I left New York in 1986, and stopped making work. I lived in Spain for two years, then moved to New Hampshire, and got a degree in elementary education. I completely assumed that my life was headed in another direction. But in my early 40s, after a terrible year of teaching middle school, I set up a table in the garage and started drawing. I was coming back to things out of a clear emotional need. Eventually, I went to Vermont College, for an MFA. Again, it turned out to be a very difficult time to study painting – the faculty was very resistant. So I had two years to find out why painting was right for me.

Craig Stockwell, “9 anomalies #1” (2014-16), oil on panel, 20 x 16 inches

I realized that what I needed at that point in my life was a container. The flat painting surface represented that container. I thought about the playing field it represents — what can happen in there, how it is loaded by tradition and clichés.  I thought about how it is actually a place to develop language.

I worked in series, on rule-based projects – like twelve paintings of the same size. I would create situations, like nine elements to start with. There would be a limited vocabulary, but there was always an element of the unknown. I was also working with charcoal and cold wax.

JS: You have also written extensively on art.  How has that influenced your work and career?

CS: In 2000, I saw an exhibition at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, called Glee: Painting Now. A number of things resonated with me, and I sat down to start writing about it. I had seen an ad in Art New England that they were looking for writers. So I wrote a review of the show and sent it to Carl Belz, who was the editor, and former director of the Rose Art Museum. We had a wonderful dialogue for a while, and I began writing for the magazine. He introduced me to the people who became my gallery in Boston. It opened a lot of possibilities.

I was living in New Hampshire, and it can be painful to be out of the conversation. Writing was a way to be part of the conversation. I began to realize that the work I do in the studio is also part of this. Studio work is what we offer to be invited into the conversation.

Craig Stockwell, “untitled” (2016), oil on canvas, 34 x 34 inches

JS: In a recent interview you mentioned that most of the painters you admire are women. Why do you think that is?

CS: That first came up in relation to Katherine Bradford. I have realized, that, especially in the last few years, many of the painters I’m enthralled with are either women over 60, or artists of color. I realize that the common thread is they are people who were shut out of the conversation in their 20s and 30s. So, they actually had time to develop a serious practice, with depth. Stanley Whitney’s exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem last summer was just amazing to me. The paintings were so playful, and they also had that deep, inherent intelligence that comes from having worked with something for a long time.

JS: Doug Ashford is an artist who seems especially important to you. What interests you about his work?

CS: Ashford was a teacher of mine at Vermont College and is a close friend. I find his work fundamental to much of what is going on right now. For Documenta13, he built a Danish modernist-looking cabin on the grounds, with a glass-walled cabana. It included small paintings with pure color and line, and photographs of a dance performance that he commissioned. The performance was a re-enactment of a New York Times photograph of a tragic event. A couple was arriving at the scene where their children were discovered dead in the trunk of the car. The man is catching his wife just as she drops and falls and breaks down.

The conversation between photography, the dance performance, and the painting is a contemplation of the relationship between formalism and empathy. I thought Ashford made a wonderful connection between the two — by using the expressionism of this deeply painful moment juxtaposed with formalist painting — to address how they inform each other.

JS: I notice reproductions in your studio of artists like Jake Berthot, who balanced modernist formalism, the grid, and nature-based expressionism. Can you talk about any other painters who were important to you in terms of this conversation?

CS: There’s Porforio DiDonna and Gregory Amenoff, who exhibited, along with Berthot, at the Nielsen Gallery in Boston. The gallery, along with Boston University, sustained a lineage of painting. Chris Martin was important to me as well. In the 1960s and 1970s we lived our lives thinking that we could move into the ecstatic. But we can’t. Half the people burnt out; half the people died. I said to Chris, “Ecstasy isn’t possible, and yet you have decided to pursue the ecstatic nonetheless. ”

Peter Acheson was also really intriguing to me. He would say, “I’m going to make 30 bad paintings. Any time they begin to become aesthetic, or beautiful, or interesting, I move on to the next one.” His goal was to constantly beat down the Apollonian.

JS: In recent work you are addressing the theme of Civil War battlefields, represented by a kind of abstract map or grid structure. How did you begin this work?

CS: I did a residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in the fall of 2015. It is seventeen miles from Appomattox, the site of one of the last battles of the Civil War. I became curious. When I left the residency and was driving back home, I spent seven days visiting the battlefields and taking long walks. I was thinking about how the place carries history, and also how the soldiers were able to keep moving forward.

Craig Stockwell, “Petersburg” from “12 Battles” (2016), oil on canvas, 34 x 34 inches

On the battlefield, the essential battle is between the controlled forces and the uncontrolled forces. The different armies and troops have moments of being brilliantly in control, but most of the time they are working in the dark. There is confusion, and things are falling apart. This was especially true in the Civil War, when communication was so difficult.

In our contemporary political moment, there is a conversation about control and freedom happening — on both sides. The conversation between expressionist and formalist painting is a metaphor for this. It is a way to re-enact that conversation between control and loss of control on the painting surface.

JS: Your paintings tend to layer and create networks of forms, which can be both geometric and biomorphic. You have also written about the idea of “network painting.” Can you talk about this?

CS: I’m interested in David Joselit’s idea of network painting. “Social Networks” was a component of the major painting exhibition, Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age, last year at the Brandhorst Museum in Germany. As a viewer, these are the kinds of painting exhibitions that are interesting to me. There is a lot of continuity but also contradiction between the elements. It is about conversation, rather than everything supporting each other and adding up to a whole.

The first essay Joselit wrote on the subject was “Painting Beside Itself” (2009). Jutta Koether was a main exemplar — in terms of how she brought art history and performance into painting and installation. Other artists working in this mode include R.H. Quaytman and Richard Aldrich. It is about our contemporary mode of receiving and digesting information through a network, as opposed to the modernist idea of moving towards a culminated object. It is expanding out. It is installation-based.

Craig Stockwell, “After seeing Agnes Martin’s paintings at the Guggenheim on the rainy day after the Election: 11/9/16” (2016), 84 x 70 (x4), oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas

JS: You also have an extensive history of working with the figure and the bodily.  Can you talk about the bodily presence in your work, the spine-forms in earlier paintings, and your use of images of George Mallory, the English mountaineer?

CS: George Mallory was an officer in World War I. He survived. Seven years later, he was again in a terrifying situation — attempting to climb Mount Everest. But he was there on his own agency. It is about a magnificent death instead of an awful death, in a way. That has been a recurrent psychological subject for me over a long time. Freud’s concept of the Death Drive has always been a deep metaphor for me.

In graduate school, I did body-based, earthy, physical painting. I made the spine series around the time my mother was dying of cancer. I think that, at its best, Western Christian thought acknowledges disgust, mortality, and empathy for the fallen body. It is a beautiful line in Western thought. To engage your own disgust, and live with your own disgust, is a realm of empathy and love.

Craig Stockwell, detail of “After seeing Agnes Martin’s paintings at the Guggenheim on the rainy day after the Election: 11/9/16” (2016)

Of course, in our current political moment, that is exactly what Trump is so solidly against. He’s basically saying, “That’s disgusting. Don’t you hate that stuff? I hate that stuff. Let’s get it out of here.”

I have thought about my own relationship to my mother, and to women. As the four-year-old boy moves into the eight-year-old, you begin to realize that your mother — this person who represents total love — has a body that is different from yours. That body is all kinds of things; it stinks, at times. Then, at age 15, I discover total fascination with the female body — discovering girlfriends.  Beyond that, in adulthood, when you live with and care for somebody, there also can be an element of disgust. If you can’t live with that, relationships don’t survive very well. This is true of the intimate world, but also the larger world of how we live with each other.

I think about this in terms of working with rigorous geometric abstraction. When you create any pristine world, it fails to acknowledge the dark underside.

JS: This reminds me that you did a group of works in the early 2000s called The Monogamy Project. Why did you give it that title?

CS: I knew it was a word in such disfavor, and it was related to the insight, in my 40s, that painting could represent a container. I had survived the first ten years of marriage. I had feared that container. I believed the idea that relationships start with passion, and then go into long decline, where all erotic interest is lost. I thought it was the container of monogamy that makes this happen.

But, in fact, that wasn’t the experience I was having. My experience was getting richer. I began to consider whether monogamy was perhaps more radical than ecstatic experimentation. The same could be true of art. I thought about how, if Eros represents life force, working within the limitations of the container was an invitation to all the erotic possibilities of painting.

The post Beer with a Painter: Craig Stockwell appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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