Joshua Callaghan

by Josh Rubin

L.A.-based artist Joshua Callaghan uses his education in cultural anthropology and fine arts to create clever installations that serve as both art and a way to disguise undesirable city objects such as utility boxes. Using adhesive vinyl graphics, Callaghan's images reflect the nature that could be hidden behind or in place of the object actually there.

via today and tomorrow

The Artwork of Vanessa Prager

by Karen Day

At just 24-years-old, artist Vanessa Prager has already accomplished a great deal of success with her drawings and paintings. Not surprisingly though, as it seems that what the young L.A. resident lacks in formal education she makes up for with hard work and ambition.

Her work includes canvases splashed with rich colors and drawings executed on music sheets with ball point pen. Subjects often involve a cast of friends in offbeat situations, lending a youthful feel not unlike that found in Elizabeth Peyton's work.

With five years of exhibitions under this upstart's vintage belt, as well as notable magazine collaborations and a long list of eminent collectors, it seems safe to say her luck will not be running out.

Check out her work at the upcoming group show at Ghettogloss Gallery or watch a video of her painting a young man named Taylor.

All That We Have Left

Opening reception: 6 November 2008, 7pm-12am
6-9 November 2008

Ghettogloss Gallery

2380 Glendale Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 90039 map

tel +1 323 912 0008

Kate Cusack: Zipper Jewelry, Costume Design and Window Dressing

by CH Contributor

by Ezra Natalia

For Kate Cusack, the New York-based jewelery designer, costumer and wig-maker, her iPod's shuffle setting is an apt metaphor for the ups and downs of her hectic lifestyle, “The shuffle bounces all over the place and reminds me of music I like, but don't always remember to choose. Sometimes the song transition nicely from one to the next for a while, but other times there is a streak of things I am not in the mood for.“

Kate is one of those lucky NYC creative types, cobbling a living from various related pursuits, for whom every day is different. You can often find her at home steadily working in her studio or rushing all over Manhattan shopping for a show. But the young designer says her favorite days are those that combine everything, “when I can pick up supplies I may need for my zipper Jewelry while I am out looking for fabric for costumes.”

Her first Zipper Pin came about in 2002. Having recently finished designing and creating costumes for a children's dance theater company, she got her hands on bags and bags of zippers. Picking up on the current trends in fashion, the iconic Chanel Camellia and the sartorial thrift from the 1940s (designers used extra fabric from dressmaking as decorative elements), she started experimenting.

The resulting accessories reference the elegance of depression-era resourcefulness while simultaneously deconstructing fashion and costuming—not to mention their readymade aesthetic appeal. The curving, layered forms that Kate comes up with celebrate the sparkle of the metal teeth and the endless possibilities that the linear construction affords. A zipper is, after all, little more than a line, perhaps the simplest of design building blocks.

Her costume design career and zipper jewelry have grown on parallel, sometimes intersecting, tracks over the past few years. After spending four years studying at the Maryland Institute College of Art, creating costumes made of unlikely materials and collaborating with the community on parades and festivals, she moved back to New York. There, she found work designing costumes for a number of small off-off-Broadway shows, as well as at top NYC costume shop Parsons-Meares where she made costumes for Broadway and Disney.

Squeezing in stints as a window dresser, it was when creating five Marie-Antoinette-style wigs made entirely from plastic wrap for Tiffany & Co.'s 5th Avenue store, that her zipper jewelry first got noticed. The woman in the visual merchandising department who hired Kate admired the zipper pin she'd affixed to her jacket so Kate made the second zipper pin as a thank you.

Since graduated from a rigorous three-year MFA program at the Yale School of Drama, Kate continues to produce her line of zipper jewelry and recently finished designing costumes for a series of short plays based on the life of Barack Obama called "Obama Drama." And, of course, the one-woman wonder also finds time to maintain a blog called “Kate Update" for her most current work and magazine features, etc.

Inazuma Festival: Japan Celebrates Americana

by CH Contributor

by Kiya Babzani

Japan's love affair with Americana is no secret. Hot rods, hamburgers and Harleys hold a special place in Japanese culture and their market for classic denim and workwear is thriving. So it's no surprise that the global leader in dressing up like the Fonz celebrated the fourth annual Inazuma Festival this Sunday on Odaiba, an island just off the mainland near Tokyo. Organized by Lightning Magazine, Inazuma (which is actually Japanese for "lightning") is a seven-hour marketplace hawking clothes by Japan's finest denim brands, with booths dedicated to everything from hot dogs and beer to Radio Flyers and motorcycles.

This year's festival welcomed 40,000 fans—some of who had camped out over night to get priority entrance—all intent on snatching up the most limited-quantity items, which were produced in batches as small as 20. Dry Bones attracted an acutely rockabilly crowd, while the motorcycle outlaws gravitated towards Iron Heart (who also held the distinction as the only booth with an on-site Union Special sewing machine to chain stitch jeans while customers waited). Female visitors tended toward Pure Blue Japan's indigo-dyed tees, tanks and shorts, and purveyors of WWII-era military gear turned the Real McCoy booth into an Air Force meeting circa 1952, straight down to the leather helmets and goggles.

The most popular brands, however, were perennial favorites Flat Head and Samurai , who were thronged for the whole event despite booths a full three times the normal size. In addition to their own gear, Flat Head sold selections from Wild Child and CH favorites Self Edge. This marks the beginning of a partnership where Flat Head will continue to represent the two brands in the Japanese market.

While firmly focused on the fashions of yesteryear, the 2008 Inazuma Festival is a testament to Japan's ability to improve on the classics. The festival featured flight jackets so painstakingly tailored that the manufacturer made less than five percent profit on its sale and leather accessories constructed by hand from start to finish without ever touching a machine. It's this care and dedication to textiles that ensures the endurance of Japanese brands, not to mention many future Inazuma Festivals to come.

Ghostshrimp

by Lost At E Minor

Though you may know him as the driving force behind the amazing Ghostshrimp, his name is actually Dan James. Dan recently took a break from his busy schedule to answer some questions for us.

What is your artistic background?
Artistic background. Well. Let me take off my shoes and think about that. I have to relax and pretend I'm on an airplane for interviews to work. Okay, artistic background. Yeah my shirt is coming off too, I have to take my shirt off when I fly on airplanes or I break out in song. It's a rare condition; only I know I have it. I collect rare infections. My brain is pretty badly damaged. Also my bladder is dangerously small. I have to sleep in the bathroom when I stay in motels. So. What was the question? Mm. Right. My background.

Well I began masturbating when I was 13. That's just a reference point. I had been drawing at least a decade by then. You got to just do it everyday. Which one? Well both I guess. Sometimes at the same time. To save time. My older brother drew a lot. When I went to college I had some great teachers. Mostly though, the way I understand drawing is like a large wheel turning slowly in deep space. And drawing is the only thing I understand about life. The rest is all heavy breathing underwater.

I have to constantly set myself on secret missions. Also I must be wrapped in specific disguises. And the wheel works like this: m.c. Escher, for example, makes a bunch of drawings a thousand years ago. He dies of stage four fetal albatross syndrome. I am born in 1980. I smoke Newport cigarettes for three months in high school. I see the m.c. Escher drawings. Now this is where it gets magical: all the focus and creative energy he poured into that drawing is transferred to me. Inspiration travels through osmosis. Ask a doctor.

Then my brain is severely infected with inspiration. Visions flood my tiny towns. My wiring is running hot. Full capacity. Now I have no choice but to put that down on paper. I draw a bunch of drawings. And the wheel rotates silently forever in deep space.