Thank you to my alma mater Columbia University for featuring me again yesterday, this time in their Instagram stories! From when I was named one of 2023’s Culture Shifters by HuffPost:
Now, on to more sneak peeks at the artwork that will be in LAMINATOR Vol. 1 zine (pre-order the inaugural issue here!):
A dreamy photograph called Through the looking glass 4 by Klinta Kalneja in Riga, Latvia:
An incredible acrylic painting called The Streets Are Ours by Chicago artist Keelan McMorrow:
He says:
“As a painter, I’ve always tended to view my work as a sort of alchemy—from pigment to paint, concept to realization, there’s always some kind of transformation afoot. But the thing about painting a picture is that getting another person to look at it is pretty much the whole point, and that’s where the last bit of magic occurs. Whether or not someone else’s heart gets the message, their brain has gotten a piece of that I’ve been feeling, and if I’m lucky it’ll turn into something else, because it isn’t just mine anymore.”
Bonus: Keelan’s take on AI “artists”:
An opportunity for Chicagoans: DCASE’s 2024 Individual Artists Program Grant application is now open! I’m a past awardee; both times I applied, I was selected to receive the grant!: The first was for my ongoing large-scale interactive public art and mapping project, Dreams of a City*; the second was when I conceived of SLAYSIAN**. More details for IAP here. The deadline is January 16, 2024, 5pm CST.
*(Recent interviews about that passion project!: WGN Morning News (video, recorded live), WBEZ (audio, recorded live), Chicago Reader (article).)
**(The exhibition I created and curated celebrating Asian American artists in Chicago and the Midwest, which finally happened in person in 2021! You can continue to enjoy the original virtual version from 2020 here and read about SLAYSIAN in press coverage (including feature articles, reviews, and interviews with the artists and myself) from 2020 here.)
And some fun stuff as we close out 2023:
- When I was a kid I made these little mint candy snowmen from scratch (following a recipe from American Girl Magazine) and my mom still has them in the fridge and showed ‘em to me for the first time since [maybe] the ‘00s. And now I’m showing them to you.
- A silly little anniversary: This past fall marked 20(!) years of me having the same hair “style” / a middle part. I don’t have any photos of me from autumn 2003 on hand, so here’s a photo from summer 2004, along with some context for the location.
- An art-related anniversary: Throwback to 10(!) years ago when I was invited to curate the exhibition for Sixty Inches from Center x Autotelic’s birthday bash at what was then called Flats Studio, which was a massive old former bank building, and before that it was a former vaudeville theater, in Uptown. (Look up 1050 W. Wilson Ave.—that was the venue! And now it’s about to be the new home for Double Door.)
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, everyone!
