These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

Cavern Moss Flame Candle from Prospector Co.

Downing Glasses from Warby Parker

Classy Bristol Watch from Daniel Wellington

The Home Issue of Kinfolk Magazine

Handmade iPhone Speaker by Evan Stolatis

Sundaze | Kinfolk, Volume 11

http://www.kinfolk.com http://www.kinfolk.com

Spring Staycation

During my much anticipated spring break, a time to spend reflecting and relaxing, I took a few day trips with friends to nearby cities and destinations around Savannah, Georgia. I love traveling to new cities only to be completely disoriented. The adventure of being a rookie to a place is exciting, especially after knowing you've conquered finding places that you can relate to. 

Charleston is a magical city coated in pastel colors from a dream. Everyone casually strolling down King Street were dressed in southern proper attire - clean cut shirts of plaid, khakis, sun dresses and sandals to compliment the comfortable 75º weather.

Charleston can be compared to Savannah as it's little sister. Sharing the same bridge design and ability to draw in interesting people craving the same rustic scenes and styles, Savannah and Charleston are incredibly similar in styles. The personality of the city can be found in the window displays lining the streets designed by the city's inhabitants. Quirky, quaint, and kind.

Spring break is officially over as of 12am. Cheers to a new quarter.

x.

Concrete as a Medium

Last year, I attended the Savannah Symposium where UCLA Professor Dell Upton held a lecture on neglected modernity and modern architecture. He highlighted the many aspects of concrete as a commonly used medium in our architecture and it's cultural impact on us. He read a quote by Adrian Fordy that stated, concrete is the most commonly used material on earth. This being said, it is relative to our architecture, paves the streets and sidewalks we walk on, and runs through the underground systems of our cities.

Similarly, contemporary artists have been using concrete in their works as a way to cut costs and pay homage to this very relative material.

Yesterday afternoon while reading emails, I came across an article from Trendland about a Stockholm based designer names David Taylor who works with a conglomerate of materials, the most common one being concrete, styled along side metals such as steel, and brass. After silver prices rose after his studies ended in 1999, David began to experiment with concrete, steel and brass and manipulated them in a way to make them look more expensive and upscale than one could imagine.

I personally love the look of brass and steel. Theres something about the roughness and grunge aspect of it when mixed with concrete, that can be very modern. David's contemporary pieces can be viewed below and at his website, http://www.superdave.se

je suis en france!

Bonjour from France! I am currently taking a break from the hustle and bustle of American life to relax and study in Lacoste, France. My university, Savannah College of Art and Design, owns an art college in the little village of Lacoste, where students have the option of studying for a quarter at a time. Last quarter I chose to take more than the normal amount of classes in order to use my trip to France as a reward for working so hard. Anyway, now I am here and convinced I will never see the world the same way again.

We bagan our stay in the city of Marseille, which is located right on the french riviera.

The landscape here is beautiful. Opening my window (that was NOT guarded by a screen, which I love) exposed my room to fresh air and a view of the farmlands below the city. Unfortunately, I spent the first few days with a cold which I have been nursing and hopefully will be better by this weekend.

It is a thrill to tell people that I am currently living in a village with architecture dating back to the 9th century. That fact alone amazes me and makes me love this place even more.

Here are some photos from my travels so far:

 Marseille during the day

Marseille at night

Emilio Rojas "Mestizo Series"

On March 3rd, I experienced a new way of communicating a story with a crowd through performance art.

Nonfiction Gallery in Savannah, GA is known for featuring out of the box art and aims to tell stories through their shows. Emilio Rojas' show was nothing short of out of the box and featured two readings from a book given to him as a child. Through the reading of this and his performance, Emilio was able to convey the feeling of being separated by two worlds and two life paths. Torn between the two, these dilemmas separate his body in two causing him to experience chaotic feelings.


"Mestizo is a word used during the Spanish Empire to refer derogatorily to people of mixed European and native ancestry. Later appropriated after the Mexican independence to consolidate a sense of national identity. The government depicted the country's history as mestizo-driven, a term that carried a sense of pride of our native origins. In the murals of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, mestizaje is the leitmotif: The past is portrayed as a clash of civilizations, and the present as an attempt at balance. This exploration of duality is full of contradictions, what Octavio Paz refers as The Labyrinth of Solitude, work that inspired this piece. A nation whose citizenship lives in a constant search for identity outside of themselves, an unbalanced polarity. Thinkers like José Vasconcelos, Samuel Ramos, and Octavio Paz have contributed, each to his own pace, with the ideological purpose of mestizaje at stake and the complexities of the Mexican psyche. The work attempts to investigate these paradoxes as the artist embodies his own mestizo blood, in a physical form." 


This was a collaboration with Adulio Pitaksalok, and curated by Gabrielle Buffong.

Emilio's website can be viewed here: http://www.performancero.com

inni

SIGUR RÓS - INNI from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

I've been reminiscing about school and my friends from Savannah a lot lately. It's a crazy, drastic change coming from an artistic environment that you lived in for a good 9 months to your small town which you have to survive the everyday routine nonsense of for three long months. It's a great break from late nights at the studio slaving away on final projects, but its so easy to miss the constant flow of work and various weekend shenanigans.

Listening to Sigur Ros always flashes me back to second quarter- back from one month of vacation, catching up with friends from the previous quarter.. basically a time when things were so blissful and stress free.

I saw Inni with a few of my close friends at this independent film theater near my dorm back in January and fell in love with Sigur Ros shortly after. I love everything about the way this film was put together. The use of the black and white filter helps focus the viewer's attention on the sound rather than details (although there were a few great shots that focused on the costumes worn by the group that could be extremely inspiring for future projects). It really gives the viewer a good idea on how much emotion could go into a song and, although the lyrics are all Icelandic and extremely foreign to me, its fun to imagine what they could be talking about through the emotion in the instruments and Jonsi's voice (who also has some awesome singles that DEFINITELY deserve more attention).

Mens rowing is on now, aka time to droll at my television screen ;)

xx