Louie Gong, one my favorite artists who blends a mixture of NW coast native and asian art influences into a rolling dynamo of style, has been doing his art on traditional Northern Native mukluks of late. I shot some portraits of Louie Gong for Manitobah a while back and here’s a tearsheet.
The snow’s been piling up the last few days and I’ve been feeling a bit antsy as all the neighborhood kids are sledding away down the hills. So what’s a man to do but go kayaking with some friends? Went around Seward Park in the evening, the sky glow felt gorgeous and it was a beautiful. And yes, I’ve been hitting up the Instagram look for some fun. Photos after the jump.
I can’t really describe northern Arctic throat singing except to say that it sounds nothing like throat singing from Mongolia/Tuva. It has a beautiful distinctive grungy sound that blows away Kurt Cobain and goes deep the old walrus heart of rough living in the North. Tanya Tagaq also blends it with an electronic/hip hop sensibility that completely elevates the sound to a new place. You simply MUST hear it. I REALLY want to photograph her.
One of our students from Canada, Alex Schiebel sent me some images of her Seawolf Stellar Sea Kayak, painted by a friend of hers, a NW Coast native artist named Beau!
The painting is of a supernatural serpent vessel who carried a young boy around the world 4 times after he was resurrected from near-death.
Alex says the boat was exhibited at a show and then paddled in a race, which is exactly what I think of our kayaks– beautiful works of art that are for real serious paddling. Another picture if you read on.
Happy New Year folks! The final shoot of last year took a lot of work but felt fantastic. I had the opportunity to shoot with artist Dion Vox (formerly Ramona the Band), an amazingly talented duo who won SPIN magazine’s 2011 upcoming band of the year.
The original concept behind the shoot that my team came up with was to give the band a black widow spider treatment, but stop short of glossy blacks and hourglass reds. So between wardrobe designer/stylist Liise Wyatt and hair/makeup stylist Lindsey Watkins we crafted a visual look that would also help Dion Vox brand itself in the future. In the process I hit upon the crazy idea to build a giant spiderweb for a set…
I’m very excited to show you the process of building our extensive spiderweb set. It involved one long 12 hour day, 50 lbs of tape, and anywhere from 4-20 pairs of hands to build this installation. I drew inspiration from Numen Design, who had done similar tape installations in Europe but on a larger scale. Fortunately the band had a photo studio space where we could leave the set intact until shoot completion, thanks to Chris Snell from FRED studio.
I’ve been dreaming a lot about fire and the sea since the new year began. I’m on Raven’s land, and I have a new live version of Raven’s Lament for your ears. Let’s see what you think.
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Folks, I am thinking about putting on a workshop where we all build a new true hide kayak skin-on-frame. Just wanted to inquire about people’s interest.
1. The whole class would build one kayak.
2. The class would take about 5-8 days.
3. I would allow (but not prefer) drop-ins.
4. It would cost about $250-300 for five participants.
Not sure about scheduling yet, or where we’d do it, but if you’re interested, let me know!
For the upcoming shoot with Ramona the Band, I’ve been developing a pretty complex set which involves creating a ‘spiderweb’ of tape, at a massive scale. To ensure that the effort is designed well, I’ve both created a real life model of the web, seen in a previous post, as well as worked with the program Poser 8 to prototype the shots.
Just shot a bunch of new self-portraits… Dark and mysterious and oh so serious… a bit unlike me but these days I don’t mind some accidental cool factor.
