As I pull my car in car in front of the Keystone Art Studio space in Silverlake I don’t arrive as a journalist.  True, sitting co-pilot is my friend and Assistant Editor Ariel, and yes, in a few short moments we will be joined by our talented photographer Louis, but those are just formalities.  The true intention behind my visit is informational.  The moment Sacha Baumann meets the three of us in the parking lot and my recorder goes on I am a student.  

     I began experimenting with mixed media art during a feverish state of existential limbo that came over me between college graduation and becoming a bona-fide clock-puncher.  With a surplus of time and unwanted magazines from a prior video store job, I had all the raw materials necessary to unbind my creativity.  I quickly found that inspiration could come from anywhere, whether a fashion catalog or travel journal, and lived for that moment when right-brain mathematics would yield a sublime composition of images.  I appreciated the delicacy involved in extracting, appropriating, and rearranging materials by hand, the unforgiving nature of scissors and glue.  With enough ingenuity, a collage could become an x-ray, an exclamation point, a mirror.

Photo by Louis C. Oberlander.

     So it was with great curiosity that I approached Baumann after stumbling across her work online.  The southern California native had captured my attention through her meticulously-arranged collage pieces that marry found-objects with matboard, cardboard, plywood, paper-based trash, inks, and acrylics.  Whether spare or surgical in their construction, her striking use of vintage materials to explore conceptions of femininity left a deep impression on me.  I was compelled to trade notes.  

     Baumann never received any formal training.  Forget about art history classes, either.  In 2008, after a long break from college, she collected a degree in Industrial Design with an emphasis on Graphic Design from San Francisco State University.  Before that, she performed paste-ups at her local paper and was the editor of her high school newspaper.  Creativity has been a part of her for as long as she can remember.  “When I look back at works that I’ve done over the years or think about stuff that I did as a kid not a lot has changed, frankly,” she says.  “I’m still in the process of finding an image and cutting it up or ripping it and putting it back together.”  Later inspirations would include the cut-outs of Matisse and Rauschenberg.

     The shelves that line her studio walls are densely stacked with a veritable archive of old books, newspapers, and magazines.  Ws from the last two decades.  House and Garden issues from the ‘50s and ‘60s.  Soft-core porn from the ‘40s through the‘60s.  Dozens of French magazines from the ‘40s.  They were amassed over the years from eBay auctions, as gifts, or through simple luck and discovery.  Her collection has grown so large that she no longer allows herself to accumulate more material and rejects any donations.  Recalling the boxfuls of unused scraps that insult me from the back of my closet, it’s easy to see why.  But never say never.  “Being a collage artist is about appropriating someone’s work, so everything has already been used before and that’s what I try to interpret.  I’m not interested in buying something new, but I’ll use something that I find on the street or use something that someone threw away.  That kind of thing.”

     Exercising discipline has formed the spine of Baumann’s artistic approach.  The foremost lesson I take away from my studio visit is that simplicity can be the mother of invention.  If there is a clarity to her vision, it’s because  every one of her pieces was began with a set of self-imposed rules she calls “obstructions.”  “I feel like I need to give myself parameters or otherwise the universe is too big.  There’s too many tricks.  I want to challenge myself, but also it helps me to concentrate.”

     A valuable resource in lifting the burden of choice has been her copy of The Collage Workbook by Randel Plowman.  The fifty-two prompts contained in the guide offer many useful ideas for Baumann to play around with.  “‘The source material can only be from a particular issue of a magazine and that’s it.  No other material.’ Or, ‘It has to be a juxtaposition between two materials that are much different from each other.’”  She may also stick with a single color scheme or adhere to a specific theme, such as her “Frolic Coronet” series, in which she juxtaposes imagery from ‘40s pinup mags with those from Coronet, a wholesome healthy living publication.

Photo by Louis C. Oberlander.

     Coming from a household in which she was raised by a feminist single mother has informed Baumann with a strong social consciousness of the way women are portrayed in the media.  It’s a subject she continues to flesh out in new ways.  “Almost always if there’s a person in my piece it’s a woman, so my stuff definitely deals with issues of women and sexuality.  Sexual liberation, innocence.   One of the things that cracks me up about some of the older vintage magazines is how innocent so many of the women look.  The men may be using is for something less innocent but the women look so happy and playful and funny to me.”  This sense of playfulness is how she would like people to observe her work.  At heart, she views her pieces as celebrations of womanhood.

     In her Artist Statement Baumann writes:  “I want to manipulate the tone and intention, creating a new reality. This is how each artwork begins.”  Since her youth, she has seen art where others may not, improvising new worlds that existed solely on the page.  As she experiments further, she expresses a desire to try her hand at more 3D collage work.  Two dimensions cannot contain her.

Photo by Louis C. Oberlander

Photo by Louis C. Oberlander.

Photo by Louis C. Oberlander.

Photo by Louis C. Oberlander.

Photo by Louis C. Oberlander.

View more collages by Sacha Baumann on her website.

Purchase some of her works here.

Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @Sacha_Baumann

For more photography by Louis C. Oberlander head over to his website TriggerChrome.

Follow Louis on Twitter at @louisoberlander or Instagram at @triggerchrome

The post Sacha Baumann- Cut and Dry appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

“Two men set out on a mysterious expedition into the great American outdoors with almost all the supplies they’ll need and most of the skills required to use them.”

Typical John Henry, that ain’t the half of it.  Shot last year in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, the 15-minute short continues the filmmaker’s affinity for genre kitsch and awkward anti-comedy.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Take a look:

Cast and Crew

The Younger Man: Justin Harder

The Older Man: Andrew Leman

Writer, Director, Producer: John Henry Haseltine

Co-producer: Joshua Banta

Assistant Director, Script Supervisor: Kim Carney

Sound Design: Emma Weston

Wardrobe: April Dunlap

Contact John Henry Haseltine at hank.haseltine@gmail.com.

The post Short- “The Land of Cain” appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

So there I stood.

Alone at first

then suddenly joined by my friends.

Be as it should

As the day grew good

In the privacy of my own happy head.

—

They came with smiles

And bags of dust

And paper sacks of booze.

I strummed my Strat with blissful angst

And sat on the white-padded floor.

Pleasure & pain & instant fame

& going insane in this shameless game

Of nothing to lose.

Spoil the core, there’s always more…

Insomnia-fed until the soul runs sore.

—

And when I declare us finally dumb

The mirror mocks, it only me.

[Alas! Poor boy! No matter! No tears!]

All happy thoughts

And forget-me-nots

As long as I am numb.

And so I shatter the mirror and yell,

“Away with fear!”

As we laugh and

Gleefully

Flee.

Featured image by Lindsay Vacek.

Follow Brent L. Smith on Twitter and Instagram at @brentellesmith.

Photo by Lindsay Vacek.

The post “Freak Boy & His Own Happy Head,” by Brent L. Smith appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

It was only supposed to be a one-time thing.  Still a student at Boston’s Northeastern University, illustrator Shayna Yasuhara personally organized and curated her first gallery exhibition in 2008.  The show, “Paint Pens in Purses,” was designed as a way to bring together the finest female artists in the city.  In the five years since, Pen Pens in Purses has evolved into a wide network of women artists rooted in the urban and lowbrow movement.  Its influence has pollinated to New York and San Francisco and is ever growing, attracting such high profile sponsors as Scion, Adidas, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.  The collective’s latest exhibition, “Night Visions,” opens Friday June 14th at the Big Umbrella Studios in San Francisco.  The boys-allowed show will feature the work of fifteen artists including: Chelsea Brown, Crystal Gonzalez, Kellen Breen, Harrison Love, Lauren YS, Lizzy Layne, Marina Loeb, Mary Syring, Michael Kerbow, Rick Kitagawa, Sara Jennison, Shayna Why, Spencer Mann, Tofusquirrel, and Yasuhara, herself.

SHAYNA YASUHARA

Paint Pens in Purses founder Shayna Yasuhara. Photo by Sam Arroyo.

Can you talk a little about your background in the arts?

I am a self-trained artist and have been curating art shows for about five years. I did not go to art school; instead I learn things through other people, the internet, and good old trial-and-error. I have done collections of stencil projects, paintings on wood, and currently I am revisiting my love of collage and adding in characters and themes from my paintings.

You founded Paint Pens in Purses in 2008.  What led to its creation?

Paint Pens in Purses was started as a one-off show back in 2008. I had started the collective in Boston, where there was a great need for more art shows. When I moved to San Francisco I was able to continue to expand the collective to where it is now on a national level. Everything sort of naturally grew and expanded. One of the most rewarding aspects of the collective is that I can give deserving artists some recognition and create an art community that excites people and that is not driven by money.

About how many artists have become part of the collective or featured in your shows?

Through art shows, events, and our online Featured Artist series I have worked with over a hundred artists; both male and female. While the collective had started as a “female art collective” I have included a lot of male artists in the shows we host. I try to look far and wide for our artists. One of my favorite things is to find someone relatively unknown that  has amazing talent. For our Featured Artist series I have included artists from a large number of major city in the US, Lithuania, Canada, and parts of Europe. 

Voted Best Artists of Boston!

What criteria goes into accepting members?  Is there a special quality or tone that marks a Paint Pens member?

There really aren’t any set members, per say. I try to find artists of all mediums and have an impartial eye. However, I think if you look at the website, it becomes sort of clear there is a sort dark and whimsical styles that I particularly enjoy.

 As a curator, I am so thankful for reliable artists. I am always looking for others that want to get involved in the collective. There are certain artists that have sort of become “go-to girls”, including; Tofusquirrel (Boston), Alison Bamcat (Boston), Ali Jersey (Brooklyn), MyKim Dang (Boston), Chelsea Brown (SF), and Crystal Gonzalez (SF).

How can others get involved with Paint Pens in Purses?

We want everyone to be involved!

If you are an artist and would like to participate you can send an email via our Facebook page. If you are an art supporter and would like to support you can give a donation here. (We do not believe in the “pay to play” system and never charge for memberships or artists to participate in shows. We really rely on bartering and donations.)

We will also have a limited edition Paint Pens in Purses totes, designed by Tofusquirrel, which will be on sale at the opening and online.

What was the intention or theme, if any, for Night Visions?  I notice this show has a few male artists.

“Night Visions” is a show that covers the spectrum of dreams, nocturnal animals, monsters, and people of the night. And yes, we did include some amazing male artists!

Where would you like to show next?  How would you like to expand Paint Pens?

I have plenty of ideas for upcoming shows but I don’t want to give away too much yet! To hear more about upcoming project follow on the PaintPens in Purses Facebook page.

A few words from artists featured in “Night Visions”….

CHELSEA BROWN

Where did the fascination with Native American and indigenous peoples originate?  It’s such a central theme to your art.

RICK KITAGAWA

There’s a real sinister quality to your art.  Where do you like to draw inspiration from?

Regarding the sinister/dark/creeptastic quality to my work, I really pull my inspiration from a lot of different sources.  I’m obviously a big fan of horror films, and I’m greatly inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and Mike Mignola.  I also pull in a lot from science (I actually have a biology degree) and there is no shortage of weird animals out there to inspire creature designs.  Additionally, when I’m working on my short stories, I often turns to folktales and fables to see where I can take them, or I scan the HuffPo Crime section.

LAUREN YS

TOFUSQUIRREL

MARY SYRING

 Your work seems very much inspired by the classical children’s book illustrators such as Arthur Rackham and Joh Tenniel.  What are some of the biggest influences on your style?

Arthur Rackham is a huge inspiration of mine, his work is what convinced me to try out my hand in ink/watercolor back in college, before that I thought I wanted to do digital illustration. He changed my complete outlook on art, I’d probably be on a completely different career path if it weren’t for him. Another huge inspiration is Alphonse Mucha, art nouveau in general is one of my favorite styles, it has such a warm, inviting flow to it.

 Your work embraces nature, but it also seems very concerned with the grotesque.  Can you elaborate on that a little?

I love to incorporate nature, animals, and symbolism in my work, and yes, everything I do has some sort of creepy/dark undertone hidden throughout it. I love studying life cycles, and ever since I was a child I much more preferred the ghoulish fairy tales to the generic bubbly ones. Which is why I feel I love to integrate both subjects in my work now. If it’s not slightly eerie, it’s just no fun for me.

KELLEN BREEN

Fortunately, Shayna reached out to me with the intent of using this particular painting (The Beer Pong Painting, oil on canvas, 56x72in – see above) for the show.  Otherwise, I most likely wouldn’t have been able to participate (my paintings usually take 4-6 months to complete).  I think the painting fits well with the “Night Visions” theme, though.  It’s most obviously a night scene, but with all the psychedelic, saturated and electric colors that can come out of the dark. There are also human behavioral changes that take place at night that can add a lot of character to a story, especially when drugs and alcohol are present (as were many of my experiences were like in college, which the painting is based on).

RSVP for the event here.

View more artwork and learn about Featured Artists on the Paint Pens in Purses website.

Follow Shayna Yasuhara on Instagram at @shaynaface and search #PaintPensinPurses.

Big Umbrella Studios

906 Divisadero St.

San Francisco, CA 94115

The post The “Night Visions” of Paint Pens in Purses appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

As defined in such go-for-broke performances in Spring Breakers and Pineapple Express, James Franco shows little interest in soft-pedaling.  Not simply content with the screen, the actor has become as well known for his seemingly omnivorous appetite for extracurricular projects, among them painting, writing a book of short stories, teaching a college course, a stint guesting on General Hospital, and directing (His film adaptation of As I Lay Dying recently screened at Cannes).

Franco flexed his creative muscles, once again, when it became time to promote the release of his latest film, the apocalyptic comedy This Is The End (opening 6/10).  On May 16th, he hit the street art hotspot of Melrose & Fairfax in Los Angeles to collaborate on a mural with Anna Kooris and Jose Colocho.  The team reproduced the mural two days later on Bedford & Grand in Brooklyn.  The mural was produced from his original design, along with other works created specially for the film, as detailed in the video below.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Video courtesy of Sony Pictures.

The post James Franco Paints Mural for “This Is The End” appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

     Since its invention, Hollywood film has been a universal remote into the imaginations of men and women across the globe.  So it was true of young Carlos Gonzalez, whose impressions of US life had been woven by the irresistible spell of the silver screen.  He emigrated with his family from Mexico at the age of nine: “My idea of the US at that time may have been more of a result of what I saw in TV or movies, an ideal image far removed from reality,” he says.

      Of course, “reality” can be a rather elastic phrase when referring to Los Angeles, a city dedicated to the cultivation of the artificial.  Gonzalez would spend his youth moving across LA county, from Glendale to Burbank to his current home of Northridge.  All the while, his status as a stranger in a stranger land gave him a certain sense of remove from the varnished portrait he had been sold.  “I love [Los Angeles] but I can’t say that I grew up on it.  I love the concept of what a city is, or how it can be more than reality.”

     This fascination with modern myth has served him well as the photographer The OnePointEight.  Informed by a lifetime love of the cinema, his still-lifes of LA are uncanny in their ability to evoke a sense of character, place, and time.  The narrative that emerges from his lens is one of a restless dreamscape, thick with neon jungles, creased faces, sun-bleached rooftops, and endless possibilities receding into bottomless shadows.   Being in such a possession of a storyteller’s eye has made him an in-demand talent, with contributions to Juxatpoz, The Huffington Post, Complex, and Rolling Stone.

     “I like giving it a sense that maybe [my photographs] could be a part of a film or a narrative more than just capturing everyday life.”

     Gonzalez got his start in early 2011, “eager to try something new” after years out of college.  His skill with the camera is largely self-taught, his education limited to a mandatory black-and-white photograph course taken while he was a film theory student at the California State University of Northridge.  Gonzalez’s greatest asset was an encyclopediac knowledge of the movies , citing a special affinity for pioneering visualists David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky.   With the post-Exit Through the Gift Shop street art craze at its zenith, he found an early niche as a visual historian of the scene.  His list of subjects soon included heavy hitters such as JR, Shepard Fairey, and Dabs Mayla, among many others. 

     It’s a distinction that he admittedly stumbled into.  “The real inspiration behind [the street art shots] was street photography and architecture.  It just happened that art was pasted or painted all over it.  Nothing says more about public art than the place, street, neighborhood where it stands.” 

Datsik

     From street art photography, he expanded his scope to include concert shots and musician portraits, such as Thom Yorke, Kavinsky, and Moby.  But art is everywhere, and his true passion lies in tapping into the nervous system of day-to-day life.  “I take the same joy in taking a photo of an artist doing a mural, or an old man crossing a street, or documenting a musician walking thru the city with his entourage. It’s all the same to me. Each one is as valuable as the next.”  Despite a feel for the cinematic, Gonzalez estimates that “90%” of his shots are off-script.

     Success in photography has allowed him to cross over into documentary filmmaking, among them shorts for MOCAtv.  Music videos and feature films are also part of the plan.  In a profession that depends on crystalizing the unexpected, the last thing Gonzalez is interested in is the familiar.  “I wanna run away as far as possible, explore other places, fall in love with other streets and alleys.  And people.  And experiences.  As a photographer, it’s almost forced upon you to look at your world around you and move on.  If you’re stuck doing or shooting the same stuff, you’re wasting your time.”

Cyrcle

How & Nosm

Kavinsky

Iggy Azalea

Gary Baseman

Anthony Lister

Hush

Futura 2000

From Juxtapoz Magazine

self-portrait

Follow The OnePointEight on Twitter at @the1point8 or Instagram at @theonepointeight

View more of The OnePointEight‘s photographs and videos or commission him on his website.

The Wrinkles of Los Angeles by Jr- Art in the Streets

produced for MOCAtv

The post The OnePointEight- Electric City appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

That’s because these subjects are more than just a gallery of pretty faces.  “There’s a lot of fine artists who are successful that go off of magazines and Google and that’s fine, but it’s better if you actually know the person, if [the reference material] is one-of-a-kind,” says Arghandiwall.

His sassy, sexy illustrations are the product of an ongoing dialogue with a collection of muses that come from around the world.  One lives in Boston, another as far as Australia.  For an artist who has expressed a preference for old-fashioned analog techniques, his craft evolved through means that are pure 21st century.  As admirers of his work, these women reached out to Arghandiwall through social networks such as Facebook and Instagram and cultivated an ongoing dialogue via e-mail.  Feeling inspired by their beauty, he offered to use them as his models if they would pose for reference pictures.  In some cases, this courtship between figure and canvas has endured for over seven years, dating back to the heydays of MySpace.

The shared intimacy he has with his sirens allows a higher level of access to their emotions, which supplies useful clay when molding their performance.  “I love directing.  I would rather sit there with the person and the camera, have the staging, have the lighting…”  At times, the suggestions can be as simple as naming objects or props to use.  For a recent show two of his girls, Paris and Tessa, were particularly game.  “I gave them a few ideas to go off of.  ‘You might want to pose with a cat,’ or ‘Take it a step further and dress like a cat.’”  Another girl, Rachel, received instructions that were more internal: “I told her a mood to go off of.  ‘Imagine that you lost someone close to you like your job or your boyfriend.’”

If Arghandiwall has his way, these relationships are in it for the long haul: “Hopefully I can keep using them for, maybe, another five years or ten years.  I want my style to evolve with them.”

Born in Afghanistan, civil unrest forced his parents to relocate the family to France, where Arghandiwall was raised until he was nine-years-old.  From there he moved to Virginia, then Maryland, until finally reaching his current home of California.  He graduated from CalArts with a degree in Character Animation/Film Video and has utilized his talents in a variety of industries, including animation, videogames, graphic design, and apparel, where he currently receives most of his income.  Yet he admits the fatigue from the constant grind of commercial work distracts from his real passions.  “The stuff that I’m doing now, the graphic design, I’ve learned a lot of techniques but it doesn’t challenge me.  It’s not thrilling, it’s really repetitive.  When you’ve found that niche that your clientele wants you don’t really do anything new.”

Last March marked a much-needed palate-cleanser with the successful opening of his first solo show, “Portrayals,” at the Petra Gallerie in Beverly Hills.  Arghandiwall cites an exhibit featuring 16-century French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze as a chief inspiration.  “He was such a draftsman and he would make really dramatic and sensuous drawings of that time.  So I try and do what he did for this time.  Hopefully I can tell a story and a little bit about today’s society just like he did back then.”

His next show, which opens June 22nd, will feature his artwork alongside fellow CalArts alumni, now employed with the likes of Dreamworks Animation, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network.  If “Portrayals” further explored the dynamic between Arghandiwall and his muses he expects his latest series to be a culmination.  “I don’t want to reveal too much about the show or the theme, but there’s going to be far more direction going on in terms of the people that are going to be my subject matter.  I’m going to dive into the costumes, maybe even give them a script to read of off so that they can really get into the mood.”

Even as he takes his fine art to a new level he hasn’t left behind his roots on the streets.  In the world of graffiti, Arghandiwall is living history, having been immersed in many of the most well-known East and West Coast crews over the course of nearly two decades.  He isn’t shy about sharing his credentials: “All of the old-school guys know me…I was in so many different crews in Los Angeles…look me up in all the graffiti documentaries and I’m most likely in them.”  Among them is the world-renowned group The Seventh Letter, whose kinsman includes such vaunted talents as Saber and REVOK.  His schedule may not permit him to paint as many murals as he would like, but once a member, always a member.  “There’s no one in the world that outdoes The Seventh Letter.  It’s an honor to be apart of them.”

The medium and locations may change, but the same sense of stylized hyper-reality found in his fine art remains.  “I apply a lot of the stuff that I learned in school, my fine art  experience, into graffiti and vice versa.”

This proficiency with the spray can has at times found some unexpected fans.  “I did a 50 Cent production in South Central and three cops parked their car and just watched me work.  The whole time I’m thinking they had a problem with it and surely enough they went, ‘We want you to come into our division and we want you to paint our gym.’  So I went into their station and did that for them.  And they paid me.’”

As an artist who constantly strives to flex his muscles, Arghandiwall makes no small plans for the future: “I want to get back into character design and maybe come up with some nice stories with cool characters that I can pitch to networks…it would be nice to publish a book of that.”  He also expresses a desire to experiment with oil paints and plans to have a presence at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con.  It’s sure to be a busy year for the well-traveled talent.

Meanwhile, Venus takes a selfie.

Reference model

Reference model

Reference models.

View more Samir Arghandiwall artwork on his website.

Follow Samir on Instagram at @Samir_Evol.

photo by Kelly Reyes

photo by Kelly Reyes

photo by Kelly Reyes

photo by Kelly Reyes

photo by Kelly Reyes

photo by Kelly Reyes

photo by Kelly Reyes

Arghandiwall and Sand One. Photo by Kelly Reyes.

The post Samir Arghandiwall- Muses appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

     Allison Goertz’s teachers had lied to her. 

     She had always been introverted, even a little offbeat.  As a Harry Potter-obsessed sixth grader entering a new school, she fashioned a cloak, dyed her hair blonde, and committed to a faux British accent for an entire semester.  In her mind, everyone fell for it.  Years later, as a self-admitted hippie, she could often be seen floating around her high school campus with a guitar slung over her back, its surface mistakenly scribbled with a Mercedes-Benz logo that had been intended as peace sign.  She never had a large group of friends, the list of classmates who could wax rhapsodic about the Marx Brothers or reenact old Saturday Night Live sketches being short.  She had little interest in school assignments and less in navigating the food chain of the public school system.

     Her teachers assured her that apathy was just a natural gas guzzler of the teenage experience.  But release was on the way.  College was where the impenetrables of youth would suddenly begin to make sense, where she could uncuff herself from everything that was holding her back and find her place among an enriching forum for art and individuality and ideas.  Surely, they thought, this bright young woman was destined for a promising future at a distinguished university.  Surely she wouldn’t settle for a state school, surrounded by bronzed beach bums.

     Yet Goertz remained tethered to her hometown of Long Beach.  The first day of college was less-than-auspicious: “My dorm mate she said to me, ‘You need more makeup,’ and I said, ‘You need to read more.’  We did not get along.”  She would move out two months later.  After a couple years of so-called higher learning, it became clear that the build-up to college had been all pomp with no circumstance.  The homework didn’t seem seem less optional nor the desire to widen her net more urgent.  Not when she was receiving a much more essential education as an employee at her local Blockbuster.

     As it had been since her teenage years, Goertz was most at peace when passing the time writing and performing her own songs.  Raised in a “musical” family but self-taught, she began developing her own material at age five and was frequenting open mics by her junior year of high school.  The subject matter of her songs was less concerned with the expected topics, such as matters of the heart, than it was with the obscure pockets of pop culture that captured her interests.  For example, a tribute to the OxiClean spokesman Billy Mayes.  One song she had posted online about Flight of the Concords had even received a positive message from the group.  “I got so excited.  It made me realize, ‘I wanna do this always,’” says Goertz.

     But her most significant audience member would not be the Conchords.  Nor would they arrive in a bar or coffee shop.  One evening, she logged into ChatRoulette, an online chat website that pairs strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations.  Through the unforgiving window of her computer screen, Goertz performed private concerts for one curious web surfer after another.  That night she was trying out “Comedians,” her cheeky ode to the many men who made her laugh.  “It is not my fault that I like Patton Oswalt/It is not a crime that I’ve got Rob Huebel on my mind,” she sang.  The screen would reload and a new person would turn up.  “All of my friends call me “Smeagol”/‘cause I’m looking for a ring from Jason Segel.” 

     This continued for a few hours until she was presented with one user whom she sensed was tuned to her frequency of pop savvy.  Following a well-received performance of “Comedians,” the man suggested Goertz upload a video of the song on YouTube.  She was hesitant.  It just wasn’t something she had planned to do.  He dared her to post it for just one day to test the results.  What was the worst that could happen?

     Two days later, she received a cryptic text message from a friend: “Were you on ChatRoulette last night?”  As it was not the type of message one expects or desires to receive, Goertz nervously inquired how she knew this.  “Because you’re on the front page of Reddit,” her friend responded.  Goertz’s anonymous admirer had posted her YouTube video on the popular meme-generating site, and in a matter of hours “Comedians” had gone viral.  Soon, a gallery of famous faces name-checked in the song began publicly expressing their love of it, including one Patton Oswalt.

     “This is the most validated I’ve felt in my entire career,” he wrote.

“Comedians”

     Under the moniker of Cossbysweater, the ethereal-voiced Goertz has since transitioned from an avid hobbyist into a bona-fide online sensation, with a YouTube channel that has racked up nearly 6,000 subscribers and over 500,000 views since its launch less than two years ago.  Her videos have garnered enthusiastic attention from a number of popular blogs including The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Laugh Spin, and Badass Digest, as well as actors such as Elijah Wood and Ian McKellan.  Through generous donations from fans she was able to upgrade her camera and microphone equipment from her low-grade beginnings.  And that was after only posting three videos.

     The name Cossbysweater is a reference to a line spoken by Jack Black’s Barry in her favorite film High Fidelity.  Appropriately enough, her tendencies would seem influenced by protagonist Rob Gordon’s guiding philosophy: “What really matters is what you like, not what you are like.”  For Goertz, this is an eclectic mix of the nerdy and the niche, from fantasy novels to cult TV programs to classic comedies.  The Hobbit, The Simpsons, Dungeons & Dragons, Freaks & Geeks, and the Steve Martin film The Jerk are just a few of the subjects that have proven to be fertile material for her lyrical pen.  

     What it’s not is a calculation.  “It’s definitely not about, ‘What would be popular?’” she says, “Because if I was doing that I wouldn’t be writing a song about Rob Bottin, the special effects artist.”  She simply writes what she knows, which in her case means spending a considerable amount of time ingesting TV and books.

 “The Hobbit Song”

    Don’t call it a novelty act.  Were her songs simply an exercise in Did-You-Get-the-Reference, Cossbysweater might have already joined the Rebecca Black and the “Leave Britney Alone” guy in the crypt of forgotten online celebrities.  The key to her longevity lies in her ability to locate personal truths within what is ostensibly impersonal.  Goertz admits to a certain difficulty expressing her emotions honestly, yet within her pop celebrations exist coded expressions of deep desires and wistful longing.  They can have the qualities of any other love letter- passionate, vulnerable, and raw. 

     To the uninitiated, the concept of a song about Dungeons & Dragons might conjure up images of socially-inept virgins stuffing their faces with Doritos.  But from the silken tones of Goertz, a topic some might dismiss as tragically dorky becomes a poignant ode to the shelter of creativity.  (“He’s strong, charismatic/and he doesn’t look like you/being brave’s not problematic/when your AC’s 22”)  Elsewhere, an Arrested Development song about young George-Michael Bluth’s romantic yearning for his cousin attains a sensitivity the show could never contain.  The deluge of references make you want to laugh, but the context defies it.

     “The way that I kind of talk about my music is that it’s not really comedy music, it’s music about comedy.  It’s very sincere and earnest songs about things that maybe aren’t supposed to be sung about earnestly,” she says.  The nebulous position her work occupies in the genre Venn diagram is something she believes makes her material somewhat of a tough sell.  “I’m trying to bridge the gap between comedy music and sad bastard music like Aimee Mann or Elliot Smith and really marrying the two.”

     The internet, home to no shortage of sad bastards, has at times responded to her music on a level that has shocked and humbled her.  “I got a very sweet message from someone who said that he’s losing a family member and that he just wanted to be listening to something very comforting and that he had been watching my YouTube videos.  It was really sweet that someone could turn to songs that most people see as nerdy, silly songs.”

     It also moved Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor and Common Rotation singer Adam Busch, who stumbled upon Cossbysweater after a suggestion from YouTube.  “I was immediately struck,” he says, “A point of view I’d always believed existed, but had never found expressed so clearly before.  That familiar sound of something you’ve never heard?  I respond to things that are both sad and funny.  I root for the confident underdog.  Cossbysweater puts voice to a world that has not been speaking up, let alone singing.”

     Busch proselytized the gospel of Cossbysweater when he guested on a July 2012 episode of Gallery 1988 owner Jensen Karp’s podcast, “Get Up On This.”  News of his endorsement found its way back to Goertz and after a bit of online back-and-forth the two became friends.  To her astonishment, he offered to produce her first album.  The project was paid for as a campaign through the crowd funding platform Indiegogo.  The target sum, which was set at $10,000 was reached in only four days.  The final number of donations tallied over $14,000.

     Cossbysweater’s self-titled debut finally drops on May 26^th.  The thirteen-track album will feature a number of YouTube-approved hits such as “Tonight,” “The Hobbit Song,” and “Song For Ulvaak,” alongside a handful of brand new material, some of which abandon the referential confines that have defined her work.  She describes one particularly intimate track, titled “Stagnant’s Fine”:  “The song is essentially about being in a relationship and realizing that it’s not particularly great but it’s not bad either.  That moment where you think, ‘Should I just stay in this forever?  Is it okay to be stagnant?  I guess it’s fine so I should just stay here.’  Even though you know you shouldn’t.”

     While such frank material might seem like an artistic maturation, Goertz sees no distinction from her songs about pop culture.  Every one is essentially about her. “When I wrote about a serious emotion, without pop culture involved, I wouldn’t even say it’s a departure, it’s just another thing that I know.” 

     Busch is in full agreement: “Something special was captured in Allison’s YouTube videos.  That unique experience of getting to watch a private moment in public.  You feel like you’re spying and I didn’t want her record to lose that.”

“Maeby One Day”

     The 26^th of May will mark another milestone for Goertz, as it is the premiere date of the long-awaited fourth season of Arrested Development, in which she has a brief role.  After submitting her song “Maeby One Day,” Goertz was one of six chosen to appear on the cult program as part of the “You’re Gonna Get Some Walk-ons” contest, which tasked fans to show their devotion by crafting an original work of art.  Other winning entries included a chess set and a full-scale recreation of the show’s frozen banana stand.  “[Creator] Mitch Hurwitz was very, very considerate of all the extras.  We all expected a very small role and got something bigger so each person’s entry was incorporated into the show.”  Hurwitz could be heard softly singing her song around the set, much to Goertz’s delight.

     Goertz recently left Long Beach for Los Angeles and has all but dropped out of school to focus on her music.  Like a character from the pages of so many fantasy novels she has embraced her calling and ventured from her comforts into the unexpected and unknown.  She has made the perilous journey from consumer to artist to becoming a part of pop culture, herself.  And the cycle continues: “I’ve had a few people say, ‘Your songwriting is making me want to write songs,’ and I just tell them, ‘Do it!  Just go for it!’”

“Open Letter to Myself”

Purchase Cossbysweater’s self titled debut when it releases on May 26th.

Featured image by Michael Ramstead.

Learn more about Cossbysweater by visiting her official website.

Listen to more of her music on Soundcloud or head over to her YouTube channel.

Follow Cossbysweater on Twitter and Instagram at @cossbysweater.

The post Cossbysweater- A Righteous Coss appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

Editor: Announcing our new feature, “DNA Showcase.”  We have partnered up with the Santa Barbara-based art gallery and graphic/web design firm DNA Imagery to shed a spotlight on some of their featured artists.  The following interview with artist Sean Blake is excerpted from their blog The DNA Life and preceded an exhibition of his work at their space DNA Studios. The exhibit was for First Thursday, a monthly Santa Barbara event where tourists and locals go from gallery to gallery to see view art.

DNA: When did you first start your careers in art?

Sean: I sold my first drawing my first year in high school, to an art classmate. But I’ve just lately begun selling paintings, and more significant pieces, after years of strictly contract design work.

DNA: Do you have a role model, or role models, in the arts?

Sean: Shepard Fairey, Alex Trochut, David Flores, and Maurizio Cattelan.

DNA: What inspires you to create?

Sean: Bring Alive. Being Conscious.

DNA: Tell me about your creative process, take me from inspiration to completion.

Sean: As of now it’s usually a mixed bag. Sketching, photo compositing, digital illustration, and enlarging, in different orders, depending how the concept flows.

DNA: Why art and not something else?

Sean: Art is everything. At least it’s everything that’s done well. Nature, business, yoga, whatever it is… as long as it’s done with purpose.  I just happen to enjoy making things to look at. And it’s one way to communicate.

DNA: Well said. What are the top three things you enjoy about being an artist?

Sean: There are no boundaries. It’s empowering. The more crazy the idea, the better it probably is.

DNA: What have been your largest challenges as an artist?

Sean: Narrowing a focus to explore an idea more fully. The commute to LA.

DNA: I agree with that. A personal philosophy of mine is to do something that scares you, everyday. Anyways, if you could have anything to fulfill yourself as an artist, what would that be?

Sean: I’ve already got it. Brain, eyes, hands, spoken language.

DNA: What advice can you provide to aspiring artists?

Sean: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

DNA: In one sentence, what is your inspiration for what we are to see at your show, Green Streets, this Thursday?

Sean: For me, it’s mostly an homage to cultural influencers that are interesting to me. As well as a few pieces that are reflective of the human connection with environment. And a little ridiculousness.

DNA: Well, thank you for your time for this interview. Is there anything else you would like to say?

Sean: Run naked in the field of all possibilities. Preferably in the rain while it’s sunny.

DNA Gallery
529 E. Gutierrez St.

Santa Barbara, CA 93103

Check out The DNA Life for interviews, profiles, and showcases with photographers and local artists.

Hire DNA Imagery for graphic design, web design, photography, and screen printing needs.

Purchase their clothing at The DNA Store.

Follow DNA Imagery on Twitter at @dnaimagery.

The post DNA Showcase: Sean Blake appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.

Get ahold of yourself! It’s only a dead body−for fucks sake−stop taking it all so seriously.  But if you know me, all apologies etc. etc.  And hopefully you’re not male−A Man.  Our unraveling quickens, wouldn’t you say? I am-was–26.  Old to some and young to most.  21st Century Quarter Life Crisis: collegiate programming−not yet professional−not yet domesticated−vilified until further notice.

Childhood ends in a ceremonial flash- cap ‘n’ gown masonic summer rituals-and we beg for our definitions.

I float restless in the Angeleno ghetto of the fairy, the faggot, the transgender queen.  A place of sun worship and retail beauty where the floating acropolis of the Hollywood Hills−capital H, capital H−offer perpetuated promises of a better life.  It makes you think always think even doing something mundane like getting coffee−and the disembodied voices begin speaking for you.  Voices of politically-correct snickering. Liberal-minded bigotry.

It’s okay to be gay but YOU’RE not gay are you are you gay man what movies you watchin’ what clothes you wearin’ what’s your preference what’s wrong with you aren’t you a MAN and what’s a MAN’s man doing in Fag Town anyway?

Boy just fuck a nice little hard body college Greek goddess.

(Procession of expensive dinners.  Voodoo ritual wedding rings.  Do the money thing.  Make little carbon copies.  Make an honest woman out of the poor little slut.)
Go along with it all look around you everyone you know your friends your siblings marriage children scheduled date nights it’s just time it’s time it’s just what people do it’s time we’re all adults here grow up boy it’s time it’s time don’t you get it grow a pair be a fucking man boy it’s time.

They never get their ponies so they’re stuck with us, breaking us, with pussy whips.

It takes considerable scholarship to bone up on the Man creature−−its incarnations are manifold and its contradictions are vast:
Men at work/Men of their Word/Manly Man/Girly Man/Family Man/Man of the Heart/Rich Man/Hu-Man/Man-kind/Man-nerism/Man-ic/Shirt Man/Hat Man/Pants Man/Shoes Man/Ass Man/Tit Man/Leg Man/Creeper Man/Good Man/Poor Man/Damn the Man/Girls seeking a Man/Women seeking a Man/Girly fags seeking a Man/Man-ly fags seeking a Man/Strong Man/Sweet Man/Bad man/Mad Man−−

No one ever told you−Man, you’re a man, dude.  Straight man.  White man.  Looks striking, full head of raven hair, college degrees, and it’s all silver platters, and the world in your fucking hand, man.  You fool, boy, you haven’t a clue. It’s yours for the taking.

Money for the cars for the commuting for the jobs for the money for the girls for the bars.  Like veins of the synapses of Man−creep along concrete networks in the Great Urban Labyrinth.  Toughen the lungs− smog in a bottle−the price is rising−$5 a jar−and your dreams are collateral.

It’s all a black hole, sure, but surely there’s life after the singularity.  Man is a habit creature−see: creature comforts−−and we’re caught in a feedback loop.  The right Man can tune in, turn synaptic dials, jump frequencies, catch the old signals−Ancient Initiations−Rites of Passage−the Solar Masculine Principle.
It’s all being subconsciously evoked and resurrected−or at least I had hoped.

Mystic roots and timeless exploration−Father Husband Brother Son−we’re wearing eroded masks and their rotting stinks up our forgotten faces.

The Masculine has served its purpose−its undying and automaton-esque devotion to the Patriarchy in this black hole era of the expansion of the western mind.  We’re tired we’re beaten down and we’re hated.  We’re the sons of domineering women−−raised by creatures nail-tough and beautiful.  A generation of men raised by women, loved by women, cared for by women.  “I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need,” so says Mr. Durden. What do we do now? Foster careers? Raise families? Date much much younger?  Black hole, of course. Men were never free in the first place−−HA!  Sucker.  Rube.  Pack it up.  Reintegration with the Big Void in T-Minus−

We are in the Age of the Ascending Divine Feminine and we’re too pussy to admit it.
But what are we to do; men who’ve embraced their feminine?  Men who long for search and discovery more so than the limp redundancy of sexual conquest.  We have no more enemies.  We wish for no more debates no more arguing no more blaming.  We no longer want this world−Don’t you get it?
I can’t imagine who would.

But plenty do.  So let ‘em have it!  Equality is inherently good, but like all things becomes warped through a petty economic lens.  In God We Trust−the eye in the sky after all.  There is no equality not in this world and there never will be.  A shit pond in the woods of Massachusetts is always more glamorous than a golden west coast and never forget it.  Take your bid for power and equality elsewhere−the two were never synonymous in the first place. Fool’s errand leads to fool’s gold.

And tell them to dig my grave shallow, won’t you?  Let me rest.  For now I identify with nothing.
Man-ness is measured by justifiable phallic sin.  If you do not fuck enough pussies you thereby BECOME a pussy.

I played football with the good ‘ol boys.  I hit people, I hurt people.  I took advantage of girls; throbbed inside of prom court queens.  I courted college girls, possessed the feminine, exorcised jealousy, cheated, been cruel.  I went to class, bussed tables, paid bills, and watched football games in blitzed sports bars.  I rotted away before the dancing flat screen of video game dreamscapes.  I drank scanty beer until it demanded violent rebirth.  I prayed devoutly to the porcelain pantheon−−from dive bars to mansions on stilts.

Societal Man is meant to be a being of habit−to be broken-in domesticated and happily bored.
But what of the restlessness variable−?

I let limp-wristed rich boys go down on me in the pill-induced darkness of art school dorm rooms.  I succumbed to the long legs of underage corruption.  I seduced both mother and daughter.  I pissed in the faces of wife-beaters.  I sodomized gold-diggers.  I broke homes.  I abandoned love-starved girls with shattered uteri.
It’s true, I have phallic sin yet to be redeemed.  But ugly transgression and the White Boy complexion has given me the luxury to never ask What-If−? or Why−?
I deep throat the hard, cold barrel of a black-matte .45 not because of regret but because I can no longer see the Man’s World mirage.

No room for you boy you’re either gay or pussy-whipped and the strays end up in prison or worse would you like the Blue Kool-Aid or the Red never mind the active ingredient cyanide.

So fuck you whoever you are.  And forget whoever that is.  Don’t fret if you find yourself to be the finder of these words.  Quit your lip-quivering−never mind the mess.  Go find that wild boy lost MADMAN representative of the all-embracing Source.  Go on, no longer being an overgrown problem child of successful mothers and wives.

May you find a better place than I under the stars.

Bye-

Elle

Follow Brent L. Smith on Twitter at @brentellesmith.

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The post “Suicide Note From a Boy Named Elle” by Brent L. Smith appeared first on YAY! LA | Arts & Culture Magazine.