Cool Hunting

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Okamoto Studio
Takeo Okamoto, an established sushi chef in his native Japan discovered his calling for ice sculpture and moved to the iciest place he could think of, Alaska. Winner of several international awards, including a Silver Medal in the 1998 Olympics, Takeo now runs Okamoto Studio with his son Shintaro in New York City. We were introduced to them through Jeremy Mangan, an artist whose coffee paintings we admired. When we spoke with Jeremy he mentioned that he also sculpts ice—he's in fact Okamoto's principal carver—the result of Jeremy and Shintaro having met in an art class at Hunter College. We decided right away to make a video of the studio and, after some deliberation, we realized CH mascots Otis and Logan would make the perfect subjects for a video and a great feature at our 50th Episode party. Guests were treated to the breathtaking sculptures of the Sealyham Terriers themselves and to raw footage from the video of them being made.

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Brian Dewan
In this, our 50th episode, we visit the Catskill, NY studio of artist Brian Dewan. His sculptures are pre-digital, unpredictable electronic musical instruments. Dewanatron, as he calls the genre, is a family of instruments which hazard unpredictable behaviors and self playing tendencies. They make all previous and future instruments obsolete. We also bring you to Pierogi Gallery where we first learned about Dewan.