Sarah Courville

Photographs by Pedro Damasceno

Interview by Uma Halsted

Introduce yourself.

I'm Sarah. I grew up in South Carolina. I study urban studies and public health as a senior at Barnard. I have a big family. I have a pet python -- not here, unfortunately. I love to bake, and I like mid-twentieth century country music, like anything from Hank Williams to Patsy Cline to Kitty Wells. I do a 30s and 40s country music show for WKCR. And I make collages.

What are you a part of on campus and in New York?

I'm really not a part of many things on campus per se. I've been programming for WKCR since my first year, and that’s been consistent, but I like to get away from the bubble of Morningside Heights. I'm a bit separated from campus, I left for my whole junior year to study at Freie Universität Berlin and came back this year.

Outside of campus, I'm involved in the harm reduction community of New York. I work at the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, which is a needle exchange downtown in the Lower East Side/Chinatown. Same with Berlin, I was working in a needle exchange van there, with this group Fixpunkt, so I would say that larger sphere of harm reduction is what I'm a part of.

How did your time in Berlin shape your art?

I really didn't start collaging until I got to Germany. I guess the winter came, and I had to figure out a coping mechanism or a way to kind of track my mental, physical, and emotional health, channel it into something. And in Germany in the winter, the sun sets at like 3:45 pm, so everyone lives mostly in darkness, indoors.

 My collaging was totally shaped by being in Berlin. There are lots of these secondhand bookstores in the city that sell old magazines, books, newspapers, and the like. I picked up a couple things at one of these shops, just because I like images and old things. Then I began thinking about the images and texts through a different lens and found that it was a good channel to develop my creative thoughts.

Berlin for me was extremely conducive to creating. The cost of living there is relatively low, compared to New York, so the quality of life is has the potential to be higher. And the stress culture is different. There’s no living on campus; everyone commutes. University is not your entire life. So I had a lot of time to work on my art. Outside my windows was a Friedhof, a little forest-y park/ graveyard. Just having windows not blocked by other buildings and actual nature sounds, it's very conducive to understanding oneself and one’s creative process. So I think it entirely shaped the way I create.

I was also surrounded by other artists and creative people constantly. There’s this amazing queer haircutting project called Butch Cut, run by Hank Bobbitt, who does donation-based haircuts for queers in Berlin. I was baking for their events while living in Germany and participating in the larger community of queer artists and performers who flocked to Butch Cut. And I worked at a record store/ cafe/ performance space called Rita Records, where I was also a baker, and constantly meeting exceptional people who inspired my work.

Describe an early moment of creating when you were young. What did you produce?

The earliest one that I can remember is from my house in Florida. I was born in Florida, but I always say I grew up in South Carolina because I moved there when I was six. I don't necessarily remember Florida all that much. But one of my first memories of creating is from there.

My parents' house was this small, one-story house. It was basically just a big square, and the rooms were reflected in that as well. And one side of the house had all of these sliding glass doors, because the house used to be an indoor pool. And so we would paint on the sliding glass doors and wash them off when we were done. Thinking about it now, it's very interesting because I love transparent things and negative space and light.

Have any specific life experiences shaped your personal view of or the way you want to create your work?

I try to channel my disability and queerness through my art, and I guess it's been interesting to think about because it was never my initial intention to focus on the body. But it subconsciously becomes nearly every single piece of art that I create.

As someone who's chronically ill, it feels like my body is violating me constantly. I've had chronic intractable migraine for a decade now, and that's the way I know how to function. I realize that it's this constant process of feeling like I'm not in control of my body, but there's a way to sort of channel that through ascribing these futures to the body and projecting myself onto the work that I'm doing. This violation has forced me to think about flesh in other ways and investigate the body as a site of potentiality.

And also with queerness. Growing up in the South as a queer person was not the most comfortable, so that also created a feeling for a long time of another violation of the self. And so I sort of subconsciously try to channel those things. I think it's just that the images that I end of creating are focused on the body. But being chronically ill and queer have shaped sort of how I create, definitely.

Do you think that exploring the body in your work is an act of giving yourself back control of the body?

Totally. It’s the same reason I like having tattoos on my body. When you exist in a body that you can't control -- and me it's like ninety percent of the time I can't control it -- you are forced to seek agency in other ways. And I'm attracted to images of the body. So a lot of the magazines and things that I've collected over years have to do with the body in some way. I have old Playboy magazines, and I have amazing German magazines on Freikörperkultur [free body culture], books on body language, anatomy.

Are you drawn to other subjects?

Besides bodies I'm drawn to shapes and architecture. The other thing I have a lot of is old German architecture magazines from the 60s. There's this sort of order and disorder playing with each other in my work, and it's a way of being able to give myself calculated control and calculated loss of control in some way.

When I'm doing a piece, it's not really planned out. I'm like a collector of images. I have these clippings all over, hundreds of hundreds of things. I have an entire miniature bookshelf of magazines I use. There's just images everywhere. And if I see something that I like, whether it's the texture of it or the color of it or the image itself or a shape or angle, then I'll kind of put it on my desk. And I go through this process of reacquainting myself with all of the images that I have. So it's kind of this puzzle. And as my week or my month goes on, and I think more about the images subconsciously.

With this work of mine, I had these two images, these two eyes, for a really long time. And they were sitting on my desk, and I had no idea what to do with them. And I had this other large piece from Life Magazine 1940 with these people building a house that I wanted to do something with. I hadn't looked at the Life Magazine one for a really long time, and I kept looking at those eyes. I had a piece of cardboard, and then it just kind of came together.

I was actually really sick when I was doing the piece of work. When I'm really sick, because my body is not functional, I feel like maybe my vision will be functional, or I can do something that can translate like my bodily feeling onto a piece of art. And that actually is a big part of the process, being able to dissociate from the images that I've been looking at for a long time. So it's disconnecting myself from the image and then being able to reconstruct it in some way.

 Why collage? What is the power of repurposing text and image in the work you create?

That's a good question. We consume images constantly; that's what human beings do. I have a lot of anxiety around over-stimulation, especially in this city, and I think that translates into my work. I want to be stimulated in a way that's somewhat controlled but still allows me to give myself up to a something. I can construct something that is supported by the existence of another image, shape, or color. I do other things; I do a little bit of sculpture and stonework. But I think collaging, it's an expression either an emotion or bodily feeling. But it kind of seems like the easiest way for me to control what I'm seeing and have it make sense to me.

Your also taking from and reusing images that originally had different intentions attached to them. Do you think that gives you more agency?

Yes. The ability to pair images with other images to reconstruct meaning or reconstruct how something looks is powerful--being able to look at something and pair it with all of these other shapes and angles and texts and different geometry and things that can come together to mean something totally different.

Can you elaborate on your use of negative space in your artwork, as you discussed in your artist's statement?

In a lot of collaging, you use negative space to play on existing forms. It's a way to layer images and be able to have space between them. One of my pieces, it's this piece that's sewn together with bookbinding wax thread, and it's a bunch of these little pieces of paper, and it's sort of collapsable in your hand.

The interplay of spaces is really thrilling, and also something that I was doing a lot of in Germany. Because they have have amazing print shops there that are very cheap, and there're tons of artists, I was printing a lot of my collages on transparent paper. I gave them all away, because it was mostly just an experiment to start. But that added another element of negative space, as being able to look at something with the background of whatever's in front of you - and also how it plays with light and movement. I like to make hanging things and things that move, like this piece used to be up on my wall near my window in my bedroom in Germany. And it would just sort of sway constantly.

What space do words hold in your collages?

Less now, but when I was living in Germany, words played a huge role in my work because my life was in this constant state of translation and moving between languages. I was studying at the university solely in German, working solely in German. But then I would come home to my partner, who I was speaking English with, and with some of my German friends or friends who spoke German, we would speak what they call “Denglisch,” this mixture of English and German.

In German the nouns are really amazing, and in English, you have better adjectives. Certain German words would stick out to me when I was there. You ascribe meaning to words when you're learning a language or getting better at communicating in a language. I went to Germany already speaking a good amount of German, but never having lived in a German-speaking country for more than a month. So I didn't know how to function in German yet.

Also a lot of the collaging materials I was getting were in German. One of the first pieces that I did there- it was this really small little piece with a woman in two planes, and it said "isoliert" (isolated), and it had an exclamation point, and it was from some advertisement. But I really liked the text.

Language occurs in this weird kind of liminal space, when you're living somewhere that people aren't speaking your native language, and you're communicating sort of half of your life in German and half in English. It kind of lends itself to language being important. I probably used about half and half English words and German words in my art. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I wanted to incorporate words or if I felt that need to at all. But there were so many interesting words in German that I had some attachment to, or that I or people around me would use frequently. So it kind of lent itself to this interesting combination. The pieces I produce now tend to have less words.

Which artists are you most inspired by?

One of my favorite artists is an Austrian artist whose name is Valie Export. She's in her seventies now, but she was big in this movement called Viennese Actionism. She makes these amazing films where it's like constant image manipulation. She has this one, and I think the English title of it is "Invisible Adversaries." It's similar to Sci-Fi; it's very experimental. But I just love consuming her images.

There's this collective in Berlin that I'm very inspired by called the Objects of Desire Collective. It's a sex worker-led collective, and I became really close with the curators of this big project, when I was baking for Butch Cut. They're putting on a really big show at the Schwules Museum in Berlin, which is the first gay museum in the world . They collect objects from sex workers and stories from sex workers themselves, so it's like archival work and narrative work, and it's really powerful.

Some of my other favorite artists are David Henry Nobody Jr., Emma Kohlmann, Milf City (formerly Lance Romance), and dollargenderstore.

What's the last song you listened to?

I actually listened to a great song this morning. It's called "Marry the State" by this Berlin band called Gesture. And it's a really amazing synth-punk song. Super good.

Do you have a favorite movie or book?

That changes all the time. I do have a favorite book; it's Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector. She's maybe my favorite author. My favorite film changes constantly. But one that's stayed pretty consistent is by this artist Valie Export. Invisible Adversaries is the film.

Describe yourself in three words. Describe your work in three words.

Empathetic, deliberate, unstructured.  Bodily, communicative, reflective.

Myles Zhang

Photographed by Eliza Jouin

Written by Elizabeth Meyer

There is movement in cities that creates a spontaneity, a grittiness, and an identity that many artists have attempted to capture. In his project, Ten Days Walking in Manhattan, Myles Zhang, a senior at Columbia college majoring in the History and Theory of Architecture, creates a collage of representations through watercolors, photography, and large-scale maps.

His artwork reflects the movement of the inhabitants of Manhattan as well as the flow of the city from one unique neighborhood to the next. Myles walked from Chinatown to Harlem and captured what he saw in spontaneous watercolors while painting on the sidewalk or sitting on benches, as well as vast, intricately detailed maps created in his studio. The project, though titled Ten Days Walking in Manhattan, took Myles three years on and off.

Myles prefers the experience of walking through a city because, according to him, “We usually look at cities from an aerial perspective of maps, but the way we experience architecture and cities is from a human level of around five or six feet. Walking around New York City on the street gives a different perspective than looking at maps.”

Myles brought me back to each area of Manhattan that he explored in his project. In each neighborhood we visited, Myles relived how his perception of it has shifted as he has grown up living in proximity and now within the city: from as a child in Newark, NJ to a student at Columbia University. Myles detailed how the art created for Ten Days Walking in Manhattan has become a part of his personal archive. For each of his “days” in the city, Myles explained what he saw and the art that the neighborhood inspired.

Photograph by Eliza Jouin

Day One: Chinatown

I feel I have a close affinity to Chinatown. I have a Chinese last name and a Chinese father. As a child I would do grocery shopping in Chinatown with my parents. It is an intimate neighborhood, and though I cannot speak the language, I feel deeply associated to it.

I wanted to communicate a sense of separation between the foreground and background in this image because the short buildings of Chinatown are surrounded by large skyscrapers that physically tower over the small neighborhood of structures.

As I child, I would walk down the streets and look at the individual signs on the stores, so I copied these sign fronts onto the map. The map is an exact representation from above, and I could get from one location to another by looking at it.

Day Two: SoHo

SoHo is a neighborhood that I associate with my childhood experiences on scooter and bike, touring NYC with my parents. I think SoHo, more than any other neighborhood, has a beautiful chiaroscuro - play of light and darkness - when you walk down the street. Lower Manhattan has all of these big skyscrapers -- they’re flat, like boxes -- but SoHo has extruded forms of arches and columns. A lot of classical architecture in SoHo is inspired from buildings in Rome and Renaissance Italy as well as ancient Greece. There is a visual language that references Greek and Roman architecture in the arches, Palladian windows, and Corinthian columns. When I walk around, I try to play a guessing game - identifying specific buildings with their ancient sources of inspiration. The old architecture has a kind of permanence for me.

Day Three: The East & West Villages

I pick the spots I paint in based on whatever interests me on that day, the size of the paper I’m going to work with, how fast I can complete the painting, and the weather. I prefer to paint in watercolors because they convey a sense of spontaneity that I am trying to capture in the city. You have five or ten minutes to complete the painting, so the process is more dynamic than if you were sitting in a studio.

This image of Washington Square Park arch might be the same dimension of the image of SoHo or Chinatown, but they each took different lengths of time to paint and the process of creating them was different. Doing a painting on the sidewalk like the image of Washington Square Park is very different from painting it in the studio like I did for the map of Chinatown.

Day Four: The High Line

I think the High Line is a distinctly New York phenomenon. It’s called a park, but it’s a strip of concrete elevated above the ground. I think the High Line is a victim of its own success. Due to gentrification, a lot of what makes the High Line unique and interesting is being lost. The industrial edge, the grittiness, the taxi cab rental services and car garages are being taken over by fashion stores and multinational organizations. I don’t think I succeed in representing this dichotomy of grittiness and gentrification in my art. I think a lot of the spontaneity of New York City is difficult to capture in art - particularly two-dimensional art that is static on the page. I think the quality of my work done in the studio is lower; I am more intrigued with my work that is done spontaneously on the sidewalk.

Day Five: Madison Square

The Flatiron building is at the intersection of Broadway and 23rd street. It almost looks like a cartoon of a building because it takes all of the qualities that we associate with a skyscraper like narrowness, thinness, and height, and exaggerates them. For me, the Flatiron building is like the prow of a ship that plows down the street. I don’t know if I succeeded in representing this idea in my painting. As I painted the Flatiron building I thought about how the two streets on the side of the building, Broadway and Fifth avenue, diverge like parting waves.

Day Six: Midtown

Midtown is one one of my least favorite neighborhoods in Manhattan because it embodies the worst qualities that we associate with Manhattan: it’s busy, dense, crowded, overwhelming. It is not as comfortable of a place to draw or paint as Chinatown or the Village because it’s busier; it’s hard to find a place to sit or stand. The kinds of people you are going to meet are very different from those neighborhoods as well. There are a lot of religious missionaries in Midtown. I took a photo of a Korean lady closing her eyes and handing out flyers about the salvation of Jesus and of a Muslim man reading from the Quar’an. I don’t associate Midtown with a neighborhood people live in, more a neighborhood people pass through.

Day Seven: Central Park

Central Park is beautiful; there are nice people there; it is pleasant, but it doesn’t have that sense of grittiness or fast paced-ness that I associate with many other New York City neighborhoods. I personally prefer the small pocket parks like Washington Square Park because the city is always there.

Day Eight: Riverside Drive

That watercolor was done around 69th street on Riverside Drive. There is an old industrial area adjacent to Midtown with rusted derricks that were used for ships. In this image of the Hudson River, there is an old derrick [industrial crane] in the foreground. Before there were tunnels for trains beneath the river, ships carrying freight cars would unload onto the derricks. The train cars would roll onto the tracks, and the tracks would deliver the trains into Manhattan. The derrick that I painted is not in use anymore, but it’s preserved there as a monument.

Day Nine: Morningside Heights

At each stage of my life and at each place that I’ve visited, I want to have some kind of souvenir. I made architectural models of every school that I’ve attended, my high school, my university, the university I studied abroad at. My hope is that twenty or thirty years from now, I’ll look back and have a model or a drawing of the place to remind me of it. This detailed drawing that I’ve made of Columbia University is a very personal thing. The drawing is so scrupulously detailed, it is like a map that I can look at in twenty years and remember: where my dorm was, where I went to class, where I met trouble.

Day Ten: Harlem

This is an image of the 125th street viaduct [bridge-like structure that carries a road or railroad across a valley]. The composition is based on the spiraling arc of the Golden Rectangle, a rectangle whose side lengths are in the golden ratio of 1:phi. On the top of the image, I have painted the viaduct itself. I painted the viaduct from two different perspectives in this piece, from beneath the viaduct and from above it. I’ve always been interested in engineering projects. When we look at a bridge like the 125th street viaduct, we see something structurally pure, something that is not cloaked by plaster, cardboard, and concrete the way a building is. When we look at the viaduct, we see all of the lines of tension in the structure - the engineering of it.

As Myles took me through his ten days in Manhattan, I gained insight on how the city has influenced both his creative process and his artistic growth. Myles makes the vastness and remoteness of the city intimate through his art and memories. The beauty of Ten Days in Manhattan is that the project tells the story of Manhattan through the individuality of Myles’ experience, allowing the viewer to feel as if they are on close terms with the impersonal city.

Aside from Ten Days Walking in Manhattan, Myles uses his art to become involved with community activism. He is currently designing an exhibit about a vacant former jail in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey. Another project Myles is working on involves using data to visualize distribution of lead in water pipelines in Newark.

Myles has also utilized data to create a visual representation of the New York City subway ridership over the course of 24 hours. The project combines the sound of a human heartbeat with the pulsing of human activity on MTA train lines over the course of a week and can be watched here.

Kosta Karakashyan

Photographed by Natalie Tischler

Interviewed by Zoe Sottile

Hi! Can you introduce yourself?

I’m Kosta Karakashyan. I am a senior in CC majoring in Dance, and I’m from Bulgaria. I’m half-Bulgarian, half-Armenian. I’ve been dancing since I was five.

What made you want to pursue dance?

When I was five, I had a girlfriend in kindergarten, and she was going to start dance lessons. My parents signed me up because of her, and then she never made it to the first class. But I went, and I liked it, so I stayed.

When I was in high school, I got an offer to join Dancing with the Stars in Vietnam as one of the pro dancers. I was 18 and had no clue what I was doing. I was the youngest ever pro on the show there. We had to work with a team to pick the music and choreograph and work with the lighting designer and that’s when I started liking this whole production side of [dance]. And now I’m not done with performing, but I’m more interested in creating something on stage that other people with more virtuosic bodies can express.

What was the first piece of art that really inspired you?

The thing that I respond most to is books and reading and storytelling. A lot of the dance work I do now is more narrative-based. Of course, I loved Harry Potter like everyone. I think I was the same age as Harry Potter when the books were coming out. There was this contest -- I made a clay dementor, and I sent it in, and I won a free book. That’s one of the first things I made. I was maybe 13.

What are some artists or creators that inspire you?

In terms of film, I love Baz Luhrmann. He has a reputation that he meddles in every department of his productions, and it produces a very clear visual style in his work.

Is that similar to how you work?

Yeah, I like to give my collaborators a lot of freedom but then at the end I want to shape the edges of everything so it fits the story we’re going for. There’s an Israeli choreographer that I’m super obsessed with right now. Her name is Sharon Eyal and she makes these really alien, weird, sensual, sexy, tortured movements. I just did a review of one of her pieces. I like a lot of disparate elements from different people. I think nothing is original. So I like to draw inspiration from a lot of old things and a lot of new things. Music is always a big inspiration. I like a lot of classical composers like Erik Satie.

Can you speak about the senior thesis you’re working on?

It’s a solo, but I ended up involving a lot of people. Allison Costa and I are the inaugural student artists-in-residence at the Movement Lab at Barnard. I’m using the space to develop the thesis. I want to make a piece that’s about the anxiety and the stress that we collectively face on campus, because I think dance is a good medium for sticking it into the audience’s heart a little more than just reading about it. You can feel it more when you see something visceral on stage. Movement-wise, it’s a contemporary flamenco fusion. I’m working with the flamenco professor at Barnard, Melinda Marquez. Guy DeLancey, the technical director of the Movement Lab and LaJuné, the current artist-in-residence are working with me on creating lighting that responds to my heartbeat in real time on stage. I am working with Antoine Assayas, a composer from France who I met on Instagram, and I’m trying to get another costume person -- it has all these moving parts.

Why does stress culture figure so prominently in your work?

Last semester I was reflecting and thinking about my art practice, and I realized that everything I’ve made or everything I’m planning to make revolves around anxiety. I realized this is clearly getting to me and I need to externalize it in some way. So I choreographed a piece for the Columbia Ballet Collaborative about four friends who are there for each other, but then get whisked away in their own problems. One of them has a breakdown. It jolts the others out of their own things to come together and lift her up. I think there’s a power to acknowledging [anxiety] and reclaiming it and being okay with knowing how that feels instead of trying to convince yourself that everything is fine. Of course Columbia as an institution needs to do a lot more, but the things we can control are our reactions; I’m interested in making things that give back some agency to people.

How is dance different from other media, like film and writing, that you work in?

The most important thing about a dance is a title, because that’s the one place where you can guide the audience. It’s always overlooked. I think context is really important. When I approach making art, I don’t necessarily like to be vague or confusing just for the sake of it. I like art that will take you with it so that it doesn’t exclude the audience. Dance is already a little bit underappreciated, and I think it’s because people feel scared that they don’t “get” it. You can do service to your audience and present it in a way that’s understandable.

One of your interdisciplinary projects is the music video for “Drips” by Acrilics, in which you worked both as a choreographer, director, and editor. How did that project come to be?

The way that video came to be was quite random. A friend of mine -- who I haven’t talked to in years -- randomly reached out to me and said, ‘I saw you’re directing things; do you want to make a music video for me and my friend?’ And I said, ‘yeah, sure.’ It was the Sunday before finals. I grabbed all of my class’s dance majors. It was very last minute. I found the director of photography, Xuelong Mu. I’d never worked with him, but he was down. We rented a camera, we found a makeup artist, I went to H&M at Times Square. I always style people from there because it’s open till 1 am. So I went at midnight the night before, got a bunch of clothes, and then we just made everything happen on the set. We had six hours in Diana. It was something out of nothing. The girls were so good. I had prompts or ideas for them but they improvised everything on set and they looked great.

How do you navigate between dance films like that project and live performances?

For me, if I use film for a project, it’s usually because I want it to be more shareable with people. I think film is good for sending a message or making something that serves a specific purpose.

For stage I work really collaboratively. I want to make sure that everyone who’s going to be performing it feels really comfortable with the material and that they feel invested in it. If it’s film I control a little bit more. I have a clear vision in my head; it’s more detail-oriented in a way.

You also created a film about the LGBTQ+ persecution in Chechnya, “Waiting for Color”. What inspired that piece?

I remember when news first started coming out about the situation in Chechnya, it was so horrible and I wanted to do something about it. So I joined the activist group here in NY, Voices for Chechnya, but I also wanted to make something that confronts people with the situation. It’s based on these 33 anonymous stories of people who were tortured and then released. It’s from a report published by the Russian LGBT Network. [The film has] gotten a pretty amazing reach. In the U.S. it was featured by GLAAD and by Conde Nast. Now I’m presenting it at Short Waves, a festival in Poland, in March. I did a presentation in my home country [Bulgaria], which is still pretty homophobic, but surprisingly the media was really into it. I ended up doing seven interviews in five days. Sadly, it’s still relevant: now, there’s a new wave of violence. I think now my next projects are going to be in that social realm as well.

How does it feel to speak to such a large platform?

It feels like the more and more I talk about it the more energized I get. It’s a really tough topic. Now when I watch the film I feel so distant from it. I can’t believe I actually made that. I edited it and have watched it so many times that I can’t objectively look at it anymore. I just know it’s out there. It’s not necessarily easy to talk about, but I know that publicity brings awareness to the situation. I’m thankful to be able to bring more light to what’s going on there and hopefully it helps in some way.

What is your experience like as a “working artist”?

My plans now after graduation are to move back to Europe, where there’s a lot more state funding [for art]. In New York it’s really disheartening to see successful people who already have a career still barely scraping together budgets and things. It’s a really sad reality. I don’t like that the expectation that you should love your art so much that you should have a shitty lifestyle to do it. Of course, it’s not easy everywhere. But there are places that are more accepting and more supportive.

Gisela Levy

Photography by Margaret Maguire

Interviewed by Louise Sandback

Introduce yourself.

I’m Gisela Levy, I’m a sophomore at CC. I’m studying East Asian languages and cultures, and I paper cut. Paper cuts are drawings cut out of a single sheet of paper and are a common folk art around the world. Personally, I use a variety of small knives to cut my own drawings out of white rice paper or colored light drawing paper.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the Washington D.C. area, in Maryland, but also in Brazil when I was little, until I was 7 years old. So that was a big move for me—when I was seven I moved to the U.S and learned English, and that’s definitely influenced me as a person, though I’m not sure where it is in my art.

What is your favorite word right now?

I don’t know if it’s my favorite word, but the word that’s on my mind is brilliant. And also the phrase in sweeping motions. I don’t know, that’s been stuck in my head.

Any particular reason?

For brilliant, it was a part of a conversation I was having with someone and their choice of words really struck me, so I’ve been trying to think about why they said it and what it meant in that context. In sweeping motions is one of those things … sometimes you hear something and it feels like the first time you’ve heard it. I wrote it on my board and put it up in my room to try to incorporate it into something, but I haven’t yet. So it’s just like, there.

What is your approach to incorporating words and text into your art?

Usually my motivation for making a piece of art is that something is stuck in my head. Something about my life or about the world … it’s in there and it’s not coming out. I’m constantly thinking about it, and I have to say everything that I want to say otherwise it will be stuck in this rotation in my head. When I get it on the paper, or cut out of the paper, I feel like my head gets emptier, and I’ve processed what it is that I’m thinking.

Where do these words come from?

So a lot of the words that are physically in my pieces, they are often things people have said to me or written to me in messages, sometimes they’re captions from my instagram posts, and I just cut them out of paper. They’re how I think about the world. It’s a very particular type of language -- it’s not something that I’d be able to say to someone, and it’s not something I would be able to write into a poem. It’s so disjointed that it actually feels more visual than verbal.

When did you first start making art?

I started paper-cutting when I moved to China for a year as a study abroad [student] in high school. I had never paper-cut before then, so I think that that was probably the biggest influence on [my] artwork. But I’ve been drawing and making art my whole life, casually, not professionally. I’ve just always been in art classes and enjoyed that kind of space [and] trying on different mediums.

A lot of people didn’t like that about art class, having these constraints about what kind of materials to use or what kind of subject to draw, but I always felt that it enriched whatever I was doing. Because one way or another I always brought my style to it. So it just helped me discover what it was I was trying to do by pushing it in a different direction.

How did you come about developing your unique style?

When I was in China learning to paper cut, I was working with very traditional designs and methods. The only thing I had done with cut paper before then were snowflakes, which I still really enjoy doing. It’s a fun thing to do, to cut out really intricate snowflakes. But that was something that was completely devoid of all emotion or personality. It was more like: how complicated can I make this?

Then, when I was learning to cut with a knife and build compositions, I started thinking about space. A lot of traditional paper cuts, I think, need to have lots of different images that are separate—either because they tell a story or because there is an in-built symbolism—and they have to come together in different scales. You have to manipulate how everything comes together to fill up the space completely in an aesthetically pleasant way. That was something I was already doing in my doodles. I really enjoy filling up a whole page with a drawing, and in order to do that you have to manipulate the space so that there’s a good balance of black and white, of positive and negative [space], etc.

How has your time learning to papercut in China influenced your practice today?

I consider traditional Chinese paper-cuts and patterns to be an influence on my art, but they work mainly aesthetically and compositionally. I am not trying to lay claim on any of the cultural meaning of these designs beyond my personal experience with them as an artist and as a student in China. I hope that this comes across when I incorporate personal elements like words and faces which are totally separate from that tradition.

What was the first papercut in which you incorporated these personal elements?

The first more personal paper cut I ever made — I feel like it might have been one called Rose. That was the first time [my personal style and traditional training] came together: I added the face, and that made it personal, but I kept this kind of boundary of the themes and motifs that I had been working with before. Then it just exploded from there.

What are some projects you’re looking towards in the future?

One of the things I want to try making is mobiles which sounds really hard. I have one mobile in the submission, but that one was more of an accident, actually. I had written this sort of rambling poem. It was a disjointed piece of prose, and it wouldn’t have made sense as a poem so I was like: “I’ll cut it out of paper and then it will make sense.” I was working on that in a high school art classroom, and this girl spilled a bottle of turpentine on the piece. I was about halfway done cutting it; it had taken me weeks, and she spilled a bottle of turpentine on it which ruined the paper.

So I got really upset and frustrated, and I just took my knife and I started kind of sheering these things and trying to get the pieces of turpentine off. It got very weird and I was like “well, the piece is ruined.” But then I picked it up to throw it away and the way it folded — all the strips fell behind the words and I loved the way it looked. And I was like, “this is better than what I was going to do.” I really enjoyed manipulating it so that it fell exactly how I wanted it to fall, and then I spent a long time photographing it and figuring out what I was doing with the light and the closeups, and how the organic words were mixing with the turpentine strips. It’s called Ruins because my friend said it was too rude to call it Rebecca Ruined It, which is what I wanted to call it, because, well, Rebecca did ruin it.

What kinds of intentional mobiles do you foresee yourself making?

I’m moving towards making portraits into mobiles. A lot of the portraits that I do are single line drawings, and when you pick those up the paper is very fragile and it will bend. Sometimes the hook of a nose will catch on a cheekbone or lip and that’s kind of what I want to play with. I want to figure out how to make those cuts so that they purposefully form a shape in 3D. It sounds impossible but, that’s kind of what I’m moving towards.

Is there anything else you want to add?

One of the things that I was really thinking about since being selected to be a Featured Artist is, like: am I a fraud? Am I really an artist? I haven’t been as prolific as I was in the past; I have a lot of other stuff going on here at school. [I’ve been having] these feelings of “my art isn’t done yet, it’s not ready to be shown, and is anything I’m doing even worth it for other people?” So many of my friends who are artists themselves, have been reassuring me, saying it’s okay to present your art and to be proud of it. But they’re not doing it with their own art.

So I just want people who read this interview, and who see Ratrock as a space for like only “artist” people, and who think “I’m just me, doing my own stuff over here, and that’s not the same:” it is the same. Just put your stuff out there and be proud of it, and be confident in the fact that you’re doing something at all. That’s all it takes. If you view your art as important and value the act of making it… that’s it, that’s what makes you an artist.

Anton Zhou

Photographs by Lola Lafia

Interviewed by Isabella Rafky

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your work.

I’m a sophomore [at CC] studying visual arts, and I plan on minoring in business management as well. I'm primarily an oil painter: I started oil painting when I was seven, which is a bit early for oil painting; but at the same time, I had a drawing foundation I have been working on since age four.

I’d say I come from a very artsy family, my father enjoys to paint as well and that has definitely passed on to me. My early work was representational, but slowly I feel like my style and focus have evolved. A lot of my recent pieces revolve around the human condition and the concept of ephemerality.

How do you like the visual arts major?

Quite frankly, it's very different from what I expected, it’s very theoretical: they definitely push you to organize and articulate your thoughts. Which is something I really appreciate because, before college, a lot of my classes made me feel like a machine, churning out art for the sake of a grade. Here at Columbia, professors really push you to think carefully about your work and really explore different opportunities. It doesn't matter if you fail or you don't like your work. These experiences add up, and you learn from them. That’s something I’m really enjoying so far.

How does it feel to be an artist at Columbia? What are your creative outlets on campus?

I appreciate all the student-led groups devoted to the arts on campus. Being an artist at Columbia, I’m not so focused on learning how to paint or draw, but rather learning from other individuals around me who are interested in related disciplines. I often myself collaborating with filmers or photographers. I think the collaboration between creatives is the best part of being a student artist at Columbia.

Photograph by Lola Lafia

What’s an art piece you wish you made?

Several really. But I think one, in particular, is Monet’s Impression Sunrise. It's not the most technically amazing or astounding piece, but what he’s able to achieve with such simple yet powerful strokes is incredible. I’ve been on a mission to simplify information in references for my work and create more with less. I often find myself studying Monet’s work if I feel like my work is lacking dynamicism, or if it feels “overdone”.

If you could have coffee with anyone living or dead who would it be?

I look up to a lot of classical oil painters, my favorite being Rembrandt. I would love to talk to him about how he approaches portraits. Because I absolutely love his self-portraits and the texture he is able to achieve with paint; it’s just so tangible.

If I'm thinking of people who are alive now who I really want to meet, I’d choose J. Cole (the rapper). He is always on repeat when I paint in the studio, and I love his deep and insightful lyricism. I think I’m drawn to his music because it feels genuine. He keeps it real and always has a nice balance between pure musicality and meaning. He's not just focused on delivering a message but also [on] making it very appealing to the ears.

Where is a place you go to be alone?

Of course, my studio is a very secluded place - if you want to call my dorm a studio. But a lot of the times I will go into the city, with or without friends. I’ll have my camera with me and go around documenting city life. So I guess you could say I’m not alone if I’m out there. But mentally I'm in a zone where I can just think freely, thinking about what really appeals to me when I observe things like the colors, the contrast in the lights, and some of the often overlooked details of city life. These are observations that inspire a lot of the environments you see in my paintings. Sometimes just going out late at night is a good way to feed your artistic inspiration.

Are you into photography or do you take photos to paint?

Actually, I just recently got into photography. I am excited to experiment with my new camera. In the past, I never really relied on reference images, but now I’m starting to realize how quality photos can influence my thought process. I’m not saying you have to have the perfect image to make a painting, but your sources definitely have a huge impact on the end result. I want to gain more meaningful content and stories through photography and use this towards a larger blueprint for various projects.

What is your favorite material? Why?

I would say oil paint is my favorite medium. In terms of mixed media, charcoal and oil have always been a very fascinating combination to me because I like to sketch in charcoal first and then layer on top with the oil paint. These two mediums are very compatible, and you achieve a lot of depth and volume.

I have also been trying to experiment more with technical tools, which is where the camera comes in. I have been getting more into cinematography as well. I think learning about the technical aspects of photography and cinematography creates a better understanding of light, which is crucial to my artistic practice because I like to render form - especially for humans - in a natural way.

Three words to describe your work.

Spontaneous, juxtaposing, and layered. When I think of juxtaposing, I think about infusing classical painting approaches with contemporary elements based on color, texture, things like that. I like to say my work is layered, both in terms of meaning and the actual application of paint; I think these characteristics combined make a painting very profound. In most of my paintings, you will never see the white of the canvas showing too much. The pigment always makes its presence known.

Three words to describe yourself.

Disciplined. As an artist who has a very active lifestyle, discipline helps me get up for the day and get ideas flowing. I think it’s important that I have the drive to get up every day and paint. And I’m not too concerned about whether I like something I make immediately. I would rather make ten bad paintings and have those learning experiences help me in making one masterpiece.

I’d also say I’m extremely self-critical. Looking back at a lot of pieces I wish I’d done something different. It’s hard for me to call something finished. I wouldn’t say I’m a perfectionist in the sense that I don’t strive to render every minute detail. I feel like most of the time I find myself brooding over the composition of a piece. I might tell myself I’ll spend an hour the next day doing final touches, but then I end up spending a whole week rethinking the composition.

The third way I would describe myself [is] as a student: a student of art, a student at Columbia University, a student of many activities. I think it’s easy to become good at something, but to reach the next level requires a lot of devotion. I study masterpieces at museums a lot and read a lot of books on fundamentals as well. I never was a fan of learning how to paint or draw from videos.

How do you relax? Is making art an extension of that?

Not really. I think the process of making art amplifies whatever energy I start with. I never sit down in my studio. I am very engaged with the piece, and it lets you interact with the material much more. Sitting down gives you tunnel vision as well. When I was young, I was taught to step back and evaluate the big picture. The thing is - and I still struggle with this -  I sometimes get too caught up in one part of the piece, then realize something in the opposite corner feels off. It can be a nonstop train of thought.

Music also makes a big difference. It creates a mood for you -- different types of music push me to paint at different paces. Sometimes I’ll start [painting] a piece very rigorously because of an upbeat tempo. But when I get to the final stages of a painting, I'll slow down [and] listen to very tranquil and peaceful music to make sure every mark I put down is what I want to be on there. Sometimes, I just forget the music at this stage.

Would you say painting is more of a mental or physical activity? Is it both? How do they interact?

I think it’s definitely both. I think one aspect of painting that deserves attention, is the performance aspect of it. Not saying that I intentionally make a performance when I’m painting, but you know if I get into the music, and I move along with the rhythm; my brush is an extension of that rhythm onto the canvas. Everything is so intertwined - all these art forms - music, dance, performance art, studio art, I think it all comes together when you’re a studio artist. That’s something I really appreciate about being an artist, just being able to indulge in all these art forms and let it steer you in different directions where you never know what the end result will be, but that’s what makes art so exciting.

We already talked about this a little bit, but what is your history with art? How did you get into painting specifically?

My father worked a lot with Chinese ink and calligraphy. His passion for that passed on to me, but I found myself more interested in paint, mainly because of all the color combinations. I was learning painting and drawing at the same time. Some people would say to focus on a drawing foundation first and then move onto [working with] color. But for me I thought no, why not take an unconventional way of learning art because there is no right way to learn art. I was drawn to Monet and other impressionist artists when I was young. I think I was just fascinated by color and texture. I think my practice has matured and taken some detours towards academic training; but still, I feel like a lot of my current work is reminiscent of early inspiration.

How has your work and your perspective towards art changed over time?

My early work was impressionistic: lots of bold colors and texture on canvas. I wouldn’t say I’ve completely departed from this. I guess I’d describe my work now as impressionistic, narrative realism. People have become my primary subject matter, and I am always trying to position my subjects in an environment - sometimes it’s real and sometimes it’s ambiguous. It’s just this idea of ephemerality that I am so interested in. Painting the human condition in an immersive environment speaks to me. It’s intrinsic and conveys something natural. I’d say my work feels realistic, not through a photographic lens, but rather a tangible reality. I’m not focusing on pure realism, but rather something that you can feel in front of you.

What does style mean to you? How do drawing and painting differ? Does the genre dictate the form that you are working in?

Style is something that can’t be artificially created, you can’t force it upon yourself. That’s why there is debate about whether or not it’s helpful to actually copy old masters. You can build technical skill but not style. I think style is a reflection of experiences and observations; it’s something that doesn’t require much planning, something crude that needs to be laid out on the canvas or drawing pad; I think that’s how you preserve [your] authenticity.

How do you want your work to be seen? What do you notice? What do you want others to notice?

I want people to get up close and personal with the artwork and really see every stroke and layer of paint that went into that piece. It’s not just the overall image that’s important [or] that is what captures a viewer’s eye, but what makes you really appreciate a piece is the work that the artist puts in and the intimacy you have with the piece.

In making a piece, what’s the hardest part of the process for you?

Honestly, it’s very taxing on the body. When you devote literally three months to one painting or one drawing, your mind just becomes so clouded with just this work of art. You think, “could I pull this off?” “can I finish it?” That’s honestly the hardest part: just knowing do you have what it takes to finish a piece. I remember I did this one drawing last semester where I would stay in Dodge every night until two AM right before finals week. I wanted to make the drawing as real and tangible as possible. There have definitely been moments when I wanted to give up on a piece, but having devotion led to an end product that I really enjoyed.

When is a work finished?

For me, there are definitely moments when I feel I can close the curtains on a piece. But deciding this point can be difficult. I think different levels of finish tell different stories. I can paint a decent hand in ten strokes, or I can go on for maybe a hundred, or two hundred. When do I draw the line? It’s a decision you have to make. I think about what aesthetic and feeling I am trying to go for. I’m always cautious of overdoing something.

What are you trying to capture in a portrait? How would you describe your type of portraiture?

With every portrait, I try to leave something to be desired. I never paint a full-on portrait. I don’t think it’s the best way to capture someone’s face. Sometimes I’ll omit an ear or leave out a nose, or really develop the eyes and forget everything else. I want viewers to engage with the face and search for missing pieces.

Ellen Alt

Ellen Alt is a sophomore at Barnard College, majoring in biology and minoring in sociology. She is a visual artist and dancer.

Ellen started painting at an early age, notably from the influence and encouragement of her father. She then progressively developed her own unique style and technique: “I use impressionist themes of french culture from my childhood, sometimes using childlike colors, but always capturing my influence.“

On campus, Ellen dedicates herself to her dance practice, taking classes and performing through Barnard’s showcase at New York Live Arts. Ellen also paints for herself in her free time.

Ellen sees her artistic practices, dancing and painting, as therapeutic. She feels they allow her to connect with herself and her identity.

Ellen describes her artwork overall as “political.” In her paintings, Ellen is particularly interested in “lift[ing] women of all identities up by promoting their image and making them known.”

In the future, Ellen would like to focus on depicting other subjects and identities. She would also like to experiment with new techniques and mediums. She is currently working on a new series exploring sexuality.

Interviewed by Noa Levy-Baron

Video by Ruby Guralnik Dawes

Bernadette Bridges

Photographed by Morgana Van Peebles

Interviewed by Courtney DeVita

Introduce yourself.

I’m Bernadette Bridges. I’m a senior in CC, and I’m studying creative writing.

Can you talk a little bit about your introduction to directing?

I used to be a double major in film. I transferred to Columbia from the University of Georgia, and my freshman year there I directed two short films and also had written a play that I directed in a New Works Festival. It was supposed to be a Samuel Beckett emulation, and I’m very embarrassed about the play now. Then I came to Columbia and directed a short film with the Society for the Advancement of Unrepresented Filmmakers. It was called “What She Created” and set to a score that my brother wrote actually. It’s poetry and dance based.

I have always acted, so I knew what theatre was like, but I always wanted to direct theatre. Acting is fun, but you don’t have that much agency and it’s interpretative more than creative. I was excited about the design elements of theatre because it’s performative and whimsical and there’s more room for experimentation.

My first directing experience in theatre was “Middletown.” I worked on that last year through Columbia University Players. The play has a lot to do with mental health, which is something that I think is really important to address and talk about. I wanted to take a show that’s a comedy, and create some sort of community among audience members and the people onstage and also the process of it. That in itself is the art. Then I directed some sketches with CU Sketch Show. I’m also directing the Varsity Show.

What is the process of directing the Varsity Show like?

The Varsity Show is a very different process because it’s being written as I’m directing it. So I’m directing scenes out of context without knowing what the show is really going to look like in its final terms. I know what the plot is, but I’m missing a lot of the details that come with the revision process.

It’s a lot of fun because I really like collaborating with people. I get to work a lot with the writers, the composers, the choreographer and everyone is really involved from our creative team. It is hard, because you’re juggling edits, but also treating everything as if it’s the final draft: giving the actors direction without confusing them. But also keeping in mind that the dialogue, characters, music, choreo - it all might change.

At the end of the day, it’s very freeing to know that it’s just student theatre. It’s supposed to be fun. No one’s ever gonna look back on a Varsity Show and be like, what a masterpiece. It’s a place where we can flop if we need to, and it will still have been a worthwhile artistic process.

Photographed by Morgana Van Peebles

How do you feel like you’re going to put your own stamp on the Varsity Show, since it’s a yearly tradition at Columbia?

Traditions can sometimes feel exclusive, so I wanted the show to be as inclusive as possible. I wanted to open it up instead of closing people out. We’re really trying to get as many people involved and let the Columbia and Barnard community in on the buzz rather than letting it seem closed off.

In terms of the creative side of Varsity -- not that that’s not creative -- my biggest focus coming from a film background to theatre, is lighting and design. I think you can say a lot with the design, and it’s a cool dialogue to have with the script and actors. That’s my favorite part of directing -- creating a space you couldn’t get anywhere else. You get to create a spectacle.

Where does your creative process start when you’re developing a show?

It’s been different each time. With “Middletown” I started with a lot of visual research. From there I began to mine the script for literal images in the text that would recur and try to think about those in the context of what they mean for the characters and how they may strike the audience - visually or emotionally. I also thought about traditions in theatre - which ones I wanted to talk about. I think as a beginning director it’s helpful to use past theatre traditions as a source for discourse.

What I was trying to do with “Middletown” was push against Brechtian theatre. I don’t like the Brechtian style - Epic Theatre. It’s a call to action but it’s impersonal. With Brecht, the characters aren’t important they’re just these archetypes. “Middletown” uses this same idea in the script, because the characters are all named after their jobs, like Cop or Mechanic. It’s set up like a Brechtian show but then it disassembles because the characters all have these beautiful monologues and are granted individuality. Within the realm of mental health and then also being an American, a citizen, it’s important that people aren’t just objects. People are individuals and that in itself can be a call to action.

How do you feel like your work engages with the Columbia community?

My biggest goal is to just be someone who people want to work with. So that the other collaborators feel happy and comfortable. Feeling like you can create something together in a place that makes you happy and excited is more important than productivity.

Through transferring I’ve learned that Columbia is a very specific community, focused on goal orientation and productivity. But something that I appreciate in the projects that my friends and I’ve been doing in the arts community on campus is that we’re allowed to just be trying things and creating a community where people feel happy - where we can strip away from the idea of adding another bullet point to the resume.

Photographed by Morgana Van Peebles

What are things that have been inspiring you lately?

I really like Edgar Wright, who’s a comedic director. My brother and I watched a lot of his work over winter break. He directed “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” and also “Hot Fuzz.” “Hot Fuzz” is a comedy about these cops in England and it’s just really such a great movie. It’s funny because I don’t write a lot of comedic poetry – if you write comedic poetry I bow down to you. I guess comedy is inspiring because it points out the absurdity of...most everything.

In general, I find a lot of inspiration from country music. I’m from Atlanta so I’ve inherited an Atlanta-n appreciation for both country and hip hop. There’s something cool and lonely about country music. There’s so many different sub-genres of country, and it’s all stems from the blues, which I guess is the saddest musical genre. But then country is somehow subverted, so people think it’s inherently sunny and happy. At the end of the day, you can’t extract that sadness from country music. It addresses sadness - either explicitly or implicitly - because it’s about monotony. That’s something I really like. Thinking about the smallness of everyday life and how that can be sad but also absurd. Nothing’s ever just sad; it’s sad but it’s also funny.

Is your approach to writing poetry different than your approach to playwriting?

It is a little different. With my poetry I have this weird journal of words and phrases and randomly collected definitions. I think the way we define the world is really interesting, the words we use to define another word; it’s all just words. That’s something I like to record, the definitions people give me or that I find somewhere. From there I’ll go through and skim the page and look at it and then I’ll flip the page and write down what I thought I saw rather than what’s on the page. For poetry, I also read a lot. My poetry is mostly inspired by other writing. All the other genres I work in are usually inspired by visual mediums. Art or movies.

You talked a little bit about growing up in the clash of cultures in Atlanta. How do you think your identity and where you grew up comes through in your work?

It’s nice to be in a city that has different demographics. There’s a lot of diversity, not just racially, but socioeconomically. Also diversity of identity: people have lived so many different types of lives which is something I’m grateful for. I often think about the individual and what it means to be inside a body. I think you can’t really know what it’s like to be an individual if you haven’t experienced or met a lot of people. A lot of people that aren’t like you. That’s something that Atlanta does. There’s also so many cultures coming together there. Atlanta’s a nice hub for creativity.

Photographed by Morgana Van Peebles

How do you think your work and writing changed when you came to the Columbia community?

At UGA I wasn’t writing as much, and just wasn’t as committed to it. All my life I’ve been trying to mimic other writers which is I think a common practice that helps you find who you are. But I think the writers that I am influenced by have changed a lot because my values have changed. A lot of young people when they are working in the arts really value intellectualism. As I said earlier, I was really into Samuel Beckett -- things that are straight up boring. I think I’ve opened myself up to enjoy life and its expressions more. Art can be entertaining and still be art.

What are you working on now, short term and long term?

I’m doing the Varsity Show right now. I’m applying to jobs and fellowships. I’m going to take a year off between undergrad and grad school - so if I don’t get a fellowship I’ll just be trying to save up some money. I’ll most likely apply to grad school for poetry. My brother is in film school so during the summer we’ll hopefully be together to work on a creative project.

Last question. What was your favorite book as a child?

Tuck Everlasting.

Mamadou Yattassaye

Photographed by Natalie Tischler

In conversation with Nigel Telman II

Mamadou Yattassaye has been a solo artist for a number of years but has recently set out to make a name for himself in New York along with our band soul for youth, a hip-hop/jazz band based out of Columbia. Through soul for youth I had the good fortune of meeting Mamadou and was recently able to sit down with him and talk about his evolution as an artist and his integration into the world of live music.

NT - Alright, sitting down here with Mamadou, this is Nigel with Ratrock. Go ahead and introduce yourself for us!

MY - What’s good, my name is Mamadou Yattassaye. I’m 19 years old. I’m a sophomore at Columbia College studying creative writing with a pre-nursing track (that’s TBD though). I’m from Harlem, NY - but my family is from Mali in West Africa.

NT - Alright cool, cool. So what three words would you use to describe yourself? I’m curious. Now that you’re introducing yourself to us.

MY - Well I think for sure number one — humble. I’m not the biggest person to brag about what I be doing; I just keep my stuff on the low. I’d say spontaneous. I feel like I can be quiet but in the right setting I have fun, get a little lit. And the last word: just grateful. I’ve seen a lot, you know, and I think through it all just being able to know that I'm still breathing and that I’m still alive for a reason, I still wake up the next day for a reason.

NT - You’re grateful for the life that you’ve gotten to live, here in New York, here in Harlem.

MY - Absolutely.

NT - But also at Deerfield, right? The boarding school you went to for high school -- how did you get out there from Harlem?

MY - Basically, I was part of a program called KIPP when I was in middle school. That program was helping a lot of inner-city youth be better academically and socially. Y’know we were surrounded by a lot of paranoia, a lot of gang violence and all that stuff in Harlem. Basically, the mission of the program is to bring a lot of inner-city youth together and give them, like, a structured, scheduled system to prepare them for high school. There were a couple counselors over there that saw the potential in me and they wanted me to get out of New York and see, experience some new things. So they helped me apply for boarding school. I only applied to Deerfield [Academy], though, because I didn’t really know where else to apply to. So I only applied to Deerfield and by Allah I was able to get into the school.

NT - So you’re from this predominantly black, predominantly African area in Harlem and suddenly you’re taken out of that and put in the cornfields in Massachusetts. How did that affect your worldview?

MY - Whenever I be reflecting on my journey, those four years were definitely a big culture shock. I was in the middle of nowhere, seeing cows, trees and all that stuff. And just being an inner city youth I was like, “What the hell am I getting into?” I was mad young, too. 13. I think all of that took me by surprise: Like do I even fit in, am I even ready for this environment? But if it wasn’t for that environment, I wouldn’t be as open-minded as I am today, with all of the different cultures, sexual orientations, people from all over the world …

I didn’t know how to interact with them, because I was marginalized by my environment. [In Harlem] I only knew certain types of people and I only knew how to approach things in certain types of ways. I always had to be two steps ahead because of my paranoia. So coming from that environment of Harlem to going to an environment where all the people are free-flowing and from all these different places, it made me realize what life is. The world is so big, so large, and so complex -- and it’s not only defined by the environment that you grew up in. But I was blessed enough -- that’s why I say I’m grateful, cuz I was blessed enough to have the opportunity to get out. Not a lot of people have the opportunity to get out of their environment. They don’t have the resources.

NT - And so ... just a quick background question, how long have you been writing poetry for?

MY-  Seventh grade is when I started writing poetry. I had a teacher named Mr. Raysor who was in KIPP. He was my English teacher. Throughout that time he just had all these exercises bro where people could write creatively cuz he was a creative himself. So he was just pushing everybody. He pushed me, too. He was like, “Hey Mamadou, you should try writing; just write out some thoughts or whatever, and see what’s good.” So I just tried it, making it my own. Since then I’ve been writing poetry. Poetry is my first love. At first it was just, like, putting my thoughts on paper and then I started crafting it and they just became poems.

NT - So from 7th grade, when you first started writing poetry, did you ever notice a distinct change in your writing alongside your scenery change?

MY - I think what happened was the lens in which I was looking at the world was just sharpened and defined more, through being able to go to a school like Deerfield. Before I went to highschool I wasn’t really speaking. I had good ideas, but I just wasn’t able to articulate them the way I wanted to. So I was struggling with that - but I think that just going [to Deerfield] and being in that academic environment helped my learn to articulate my thoughts. [My writing] was still the same -  there was some new imageries and experiences that I was writing about, but I was able to go back and write about old things. [My words] just got sharper. The strategies that I would use to convey my thoughts and experiences became more defined.

NT - So now, from the cornfields and cows of Massachusetts … Re-transplanting yourself into New York City but in a different space than you were before: Columbia University. I imagine a very similar student body to Deerfield in terms of the level of white people here.

MY - There’s mad boarding school kids here.

NT - Boarding school kids definitely come here. But basically, your old neighborhood Harlem - did you see any change in your writing from your move back to Harlem?

MY - I feel like my writing is always evolving, just every day. I feel like it be little things too that just, like, spark a change in the way I see things y’know? A conversation, a song lyric… So I don’t think my change to Columbia has been a big difference, y’know what I’m saying? In terms of my experiences, though, it is different, like, going to a school like Columbia but being from Harlem. My image of Harlem is totally different from what this is.

NT - Right, like this is definitely not the traditional Harlem area.

MY - No absolutely not. It’s a totally different bubble. The people here are just so… it’s like they’re within their [own] bubble. It’s weird when I go back home to be like “Bruh I just escaped, got out of a little alternate universe,” type shit, y’know? [But] I got my family, bruh. So above everybody else, above all the people, the core curriculum, I got my little sister, I got my mom, I have my dad, and I got my day one homies so it’s like ... no matter what bruh so I’m not really fazed by whatever this school be throwing at me.

NT - And so would you say your writing is sort of, like, a stream of consciousness from what you observe and what you perceive in the world and that kinda flows out when you’re writing or when you’re rapping?

MY - I mean yeah because I’m always inspired by, like, my environment. That’s what continues to make me write in different ways, write about different subject matter and the way in which I go about it, different perspectives. So I think that’s true. The environment and people I talk to influence the way I go about the specific pieces of writing I’m doing and in terms of style and language.

NT - Speaking of, what is your writing process? How do you sit down and decide what you’re going to pen on the page?

MY - I don’t know, my style is very spontaneous bro, because I can’t be forced to sit down and try to mash out a poem. I mean I probably could, but I wouldn’t be proud of it, y’know? It just happens where I experience something, or I hear something - either through a song or a lyric - or I’ll talk to somebody, or I’ll see something while I’m walking; and right there in that moment I’m sparked; and in the next 20 or 30 minutes, I’m just writing down everything, and it’s kinda like word vomit, just writing anything. And then once I got all my ideas and creative things out, now I try to format it and revise, revise, revise; make sure the way in which I wanna say things is precise. That’s how I be writing my poems. And it's similar with how I write my lyrics too, with rap. I have the same spark, have a certain subject matter in mind, just word vomit and then try to match that with the way I wanna say things, cut off words, revise. So I mean they go hand in hand in terms of my approach in lyrics for rapping and my poetry.

NT - When did you first get into rapping, actually? Because I know it wasn’t when you stepped foot on this campus.

MY - High school. I was just doin’ it for fun. I had my bro, Tarek [Deida, CC ‘19], he go to Columbia now too. Cuz I met him over there and I started rapping with him - he be rapping - so I just started rapping with him and trying it. It was whatever, it was just for fun bruh, and I wasn’t really good.

NT - Do you see the connection between hip hop and poetry? I know a lot of people do but there are also plenty of people who would say they’re two different things.

MY - I do. I mean I’m starting to get annoyed a little bit, bruh, people categorizing me as only a rapper. Cuz, like, I just started trying to rap, y’know? I was always a poet first. So I mean it’s cool, like it's whatever. Rap is an art form too, of course, but there’s a certain stigma with what rap is today. It kinda marginalizes people. It’s like “Oh if you’re a rapper you sound like this,” or whatever. I don’t know, I always like to tell people first that although I do rap I’m still trying to figure out how to be better because I’m a poet bro, you feel me?

NT - Where do you see yourself in terms of other rappers, other artists? How would you put your work in comparison to people like Kendrick Lamar, Drake, y’know, Lil Pump, Kanye West?

MY - I think in terms of style the person I’m very inspired by is Noname. Cuz she’s a poet first too, and you can literally see it in her songs or whatever. So I think right now, like a Noname. A little bit of Saba - that whole Chicago collective I think I really resonate with.

NT - I feel a lot of Chicago from you.

MY - I’ve been telling people, I’m a Harlem kid but I’ve never been the stereotypical type of New York dude, you know? I’ve always been the quiet, reserved, observant type of kid so I didn’t really catch on to all the gritty. I mean I can get gritty with my verses if I really wanted to but the trend which I do is very reflective, very calm, laid back. I feel like whatever I write has to be a representation of who I am. I’m a laid back, observant, like to have fun type of dude.

NT - Authenticity is very important to you, yeah?

MY - Absolute- that’s first. That’s major, to be authentic. Cuz that’s all you got bruh, to be yourself.

NT - What would you say your top five hip hop albums are?

[after much deliberation]

MY - I gotta put “All Eyez on Me” by Tupac first … I gotta put “To Pimp a Butterfly” up there … probably, like, “Beats, Rhymes and Life” by A Tribe Called Quest. I just love that album. That’s three so far. Yeah this is definitely not top 5; these are just albums that I listen to. “Telefone” by Noname bruh. Yeah that’s an album I bump.

NT - That is a potent album. The replayability of that album is ridiculous. You can listen to it 10 different times and hear something different each time.

MY - She’s probably one of my biggest inspirations right now in terms of, like, the way in which she attacks her music. Saba too.

NY - You’re like a student of them too -- you study them, right?

MY - I study that shit bro, I be studying Noname lyrics. I be reading on Genius, y’know, seeing how she’s doing her flow, her subject matter, crazy … I’m tryna think … I mean “Care For Me” too … Alright so all in all bro those are the five albums I’m listening to right now but that is not [my top 5 of all time] - that’s my disclaimer. “All Eyez On Me,” “Beats, Rhymes and Life,” “To Pimp a Butterfly,” “Telefone,” “Care For Me.” That’s all the albums I’m listening to right now, that don’t mean they top five of all time. I listen to too much music bruh.

NT - Alright, so let’s pivot a little bit and talk about performance. Is it accurate to say you’re more of a spoken word artist rather than purely written?

MY - Yeah! I’m trying to be more spoken word because before I had a big problem with trying to share my work. Just being able to be comfortable. But I think now I’m starting to evolve into  more of a spoken word artist.

NT - Oh so when you were writing you weren’t thinking about how you were gonna say it.

MY - Right because it’s a big thing to be able to write and perform because, like, some people are just great writers and aren’t able to perform. For me I thought that was me. And that’s something I’m still working on. I’m still tryna be better and evolve.

NT - So as, like, a spoken word artist, how do you approach performance? How would you prepare for a show somewhere?

MY - I don’t even know. I remember Robert [Lotreck, drummer and fellow soul for youth member] asked me that the other day: He be like “oh how do you prepare to perform?” I was just like I don’t know bro. I just kinda mentally run through it, and then just like [perform]. I like to gesture too and look at people.

NT - Do you see some growth as an artist and as a writer based on your time in the band [soul for youth]?

MY - Yeah I think being more confident in my lyrics and how I express myself through them, and really holding a connection with my lyrics even more. I always held a connection, obviously through writing; but when I perform it too, I’m saying those words, I’m reciting those words, and it feels even closer. So I think I’ve evolved in that, and just being able to perform for big crowds and stuff because I was not used to that.

NT - Right and it seems like you’re getting into the flow of it a little more. At the Rockwood Music Hall [http://rockwoodmusichall.com] concert you were doing a very good job of audience interaction and just being with the band in general. I feel like last year all the way to now you have grown, in performance, to become more a part of the band as opposed to just a frontman. Now you have Robert stopping on certain things for emphasis. You queue us: you queued me to start the bassline a few times. I feel like now the connection between you and the band is like, less separated. It’s coming together.

NT - So, not counting soul for youth performances, where have you performed?

MY - I’ve performed at a little event at my school called Koch Friday Night and I performed at this writers conference, my poem. That conference was the first time I read my whole poem out. The writers conference was in Vermont at Middlebury College, so I was over there.

NT - How’d you get involved with that writers conference?

MY - Oh my english teacher helped me apply. There were a lot of writers from the New England area and we was just looking. That was a different experience too, bruh. It was like three days but that shit was crazy.

NT - How was that by the way? Do you think that affected your writing as well?

MY -  A little bit because it made me more confident.

NT - So confidence is a big key to how you write?

MY - Yeah. That conference was a little thing that motivated me. Because I was sharing with people outside of my high school at the time and I was still in the process of being comfortable with that. I remember after I read my poem they were taking pictures of the page. They were passing it out for selected regions to read. And there are still some people I talk to from that program that be asking me about my writing.

NT - So now that you’re in college, I’m curious, you talk about being a poet, talk about being a rapper…  how would you squarely define yourself?

MY - I would say poet but also just an artist. I don’t know I’m just always trying to continue to evolve as an artist.

NT - You’re a product of your environment and your environment is so varied you can’t be defined by one thing.

MY - Right, so I feel like I consider myself just an artist now.

NT - Speaking of your environment, you’ve made a few comments about your childhood environment informing a lot of the content of your writing. You talked a little bit earlier about the paranoia you felt growing up, do you think that was a product of the Harlem environment?

MY - Yeah I think, yeah… you know a lot of kids, bruh, they don’t have outlets to express things. There’s a lot of mental health problems in these environments, you know what I’m saying? There’s a lot of concerns of PTSD; somebody’s seen somebody that they loved, loved ones getting killed shit like that. So I think that PTSD and paranoia and all of that stuff -- and other things like schizophrenia and just health disorders bruh there’s not a lot of outlets for people like that in these environments and there’s not a lot of awareness in these environments too.

That’s why I say I’m grateful because I had a teacher and I had a program like KIPP to at least give me some of the resources to help me on my track in terms of finding myself and what I want to become outside of my pre-existing environment. So I think whenever I write, I try to stress in some way that paranoia, but also that growth too. I’m tryna evolve, I’m tryna be better. It’s not perfect because sometimes I can revert to that, that paranoia and those moments. But it’s all in the growth, y’know, it’s all in the evolution, who I wanna become as a person.

Writing has definitely been that way of allowing me to narrow it down to what I should be becoming. I mean it’s cliché, but I consider everything I do to be poetry in motion so the grotesque and the beautiful has a certain cohesion. The way I believe in things, bruh, God, Allah, wouldn’t put bad stuff or good stuff for no reason. There’s no reason why there’s a bad or there’s a good thing without a purpose. Everything has its intention. There’s a beauty with that y’know? So I don’t regret anything that has happened to me. I mean obviously there’s been times, but when I reflect and been more mature - I’m blessed to be able to experience the bad and the good. It’s shaped who I am as a person, you know? I wouldn’t be who I am without all of those experiences.

NT - What do you hope audience members get from seeing you rap, seeing you perform your poetry etc.? Is there something you wish to impart on them?

MY - I mean I just hope they hear my perspective and, if anything, it sparks a new perspective. That with the words and stuff that I’m saying - I mean obviously you can’t fully get into somebody’s world but you can have a preview or a sneak peek into my mind or the things I’ve gone through. And if I can at least have sparked a change in somebody’s mind then I’ll know that I’ve done something with my writing, you know? To make people think  a little bit differently, that’ll have been an accomplishment for me. I think that’d be my intention: for people to really listen, hear the words and just think about things a little different and consider their own perspectives in comparison to my perspective and just in general. And just grow. I’m growing, I want people to grow with me too.

Veronica Suchodolski

Photographed by Margaret Maguire

Interviewed by Elizabeth Meyer

Introduce yourself.

My name is Veronica Suchodolski. I am a senior at Barnard majoring in English, concentrating in creative writing, and double minoring in French and philosophy. I grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. I am a writer, and I write a mix of long form prose and poetry. On campus I’m one of the managing editors of the Barnard Bulletin.

How do you see yourself? Do you define yourself as a writer?

I do define myself as a writer. I didn’t for a long time in part because I didn’t think I was very good, and I thought I had to get a “real job.” As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that this is what I want to do, so it’s silly to define myself as anything else. I also think because I’ve been writing for so long, it’s hard to tell whether I am a writer because I have certain personality traits or if I have certain personality traits because I’ve defined myself as a writer for so long. Things like being a listener and more quiet and observant.

Have you published your work in any on or off campus publications? If so, which ones?

On campus, I’ve been published in Echoes, Four by Four, Surgham, and also the Barnard Bulletin. Off campus, I’ve been published in Z Publishing’s New York’s Best Emerging Poets Anthology for 2017 and 2018.

How did you begin creating?

It’s not a very interesting origin story. I’ve kind of always been creating. I found this Lisa Frank notebook in my closet at home. I must have been four years old because the spelling was so bad, but I wrote this little story in the notebook about this princess with a pet Newfoundland, which is the type of dog that I grew up with. Writing has always been something that I’ve been interested in, and I don’t necessarily understand why. I was lucky enough to have teachers and a family who encouraged me to pursue it more seriously.

What is your writing process?

It depends on what else is going on in my life. Because as a student I’m really busy. Normally I try to write down fragments of things that I think would be really interesting and wait for something to build out of them. If I have more time, like during the summer, I’ll start writing from those fragments and see what ends up sticking into a longer piece. For example, at one point this summer, I started eight different things at once, and I was working on them in tandem until one of them started picking up speed. That was what I focused on. My process is a lot of free writing until something happens.

What are three words that describe you and then three words describing your work.

Post post-modern urban anxiety. Right now, I’m really into this idea of post post-modernism, it’s what I wrote my thesis on. Post post-modernism is about pushing back on post-modern irony, absolutism, meta-narratives, and this idea that there is no meaning. I’m tired of that mode of thinking; I don’t want to hear about it anymore. I’m interested in creating new systems of meaning and looking at old systems and acknowledging that those don’t work. But just because those don’t work doesn’t mean that we have to be hopeless and that there’s no meaning now. The urban anxiety refers to a sort of distrust of urbanism and capitalism. I’m from rural Massachusetts, so living in the city is an interesting experience.

Photograph by Margaret Maguire

Do you have a favorite writer?

As I child, I was into all of the cliché books. I read a lot of Harry Potter, and I read the Warrior series. I was into John Greene and the Hunger Games. Right now, I really like Ruth Ozeki who wrote All Over Creation. She also wrote My Year of Meats, which is one of my favorite books. I read it in high school and then re-read it this summer. Her writing is really accessible. It’s not prosaic and long and literary, but the way she writes a story is really impeccable, and the way she presents a character is so masterful. I was reading it this summer, and it was a million times better than I remember it being in high school. It’s so good.  

Do you believe that accessibility in writing is important?

I’m really pro-accessibility in writing, and I think that’s partly just because I don’t see myself as someone with a huge vocabulary. Accessible writing is writing that is as clear as possible. A pet peeve of mine is when a writer uses a really complicated word, and they could have used a simpler one. I’ll be reading something for class, and I’ll come across a word and not know what it means. Even though I read a lot, I forget what things mean. I tend to write in more a simplistic style, and I appreciate when a sentence flows really well, and I don’t have to read it several times to understand what it means. I think it can be interesting to read a poem that doesn’t make sense on the first pass and work out its meaning. But in my own writing, I like to make it as clear as possible what I’m trying to do.  

Are there writers and creators that whose work would be classified as ‘post post-modern urban anxiety’?

The conception that I’m working with regarding post post-modernism is called “new sincerity;” but if you look up new-sincerity, it’s all about David Foster Wallace and John Franzen who I do not like. Right now, the book that inspires me the most is Edenborough by Alexander Chee. His style is so interesting. It’s really evocative and metaphorical in a way that I haven’t seen before. He writes about really horrible things that happened to him, but he does it in such a beautiful way that you can’t look away; you have to keep reading even though it’s devastating. That’s sort of the model I’m working with right now.

What other artists and teachers have inspired you?

Alexander Chee is the big one right now. I am in Mary Gordon’s thesis seminar this semester on Virginia Woolf and something that she said in office hours was that she actually was going to be a poet, and then she read Virginia Woolf and was like, “oh I didn’t realize that you could do this with prose,” and that’s why she became a very famous short story writer. I’m really interested in how to make prose not dead, how to make prose poetic and lyrical - which is very hard I’m finding out.

Photograph by Margaret Maguire

How do you try to make prose lyrical? What is your preferred form when you write?

My preferred form is prose, but the reason that I write poetry is that I think it’s a useful pursuit on learning how to tighten up your writing because poetry has to be so tight to be at all good. I like writing poems: not because I want to be a poet, but because I think it’s going to be useful in getting at the kind of prose I want to write. Normally, when I write a poem, I’m trying to use as few words as possible to say what I want to say. When I go to writing prose, I try to keep that mindset of not just writing these long prose-y sentences with a lot in them that you don’t need.

What does your writing and revision process entail?

The writing process entails a lot of writing fragments until something happens. In terms of revision, my process is about trying to cut down words while keeping the same meaning. I also do this when writing poetry. Something I like to print out the draft of the poem I’m working on and cut out all of the words and play around with all of them. With prose, it’s a lot of reading and re-reading and when something doesn’t work, being ok with letting it go and completely starting over. I also read out loud a lot.

Pas de deux, 1957 engages with dance imagery. Why did you choose this title? How do you engage with dance? Do you dance?

The title is a really deep cut to this pas de deux that was performed by Arthur Mitchell at the New York City Ballet in 1957. I had the bizarre fortune to interview Arthur Mitchell the semester that I wrote for Spec. He was the first African American principal dancer in the New York City Ballet. I was thinking about that interview at the same time as I was thinking about this relationship that I was in. A pas de deux is a partner dance. There is a lot of tension but also a lot of working together, and so the two just went together in my mind.

In terms of dance, I don’t dance or really know anything about it. I wrote this title down and the first four lines of the poem which I think are the same in the final draft. And then I wrote this completely different poem that has almost nothing to do with dance, and I showed it to a friend who was like, “this isn’t bad, but you should really tighten up the dance imagery because that’s what’s working and nothing else really makes sense.” I watched a lot of dance videos and read a lot dance reviews to try to find the words to write about this thing that I don’t really know about.

Your piece 90-10 has vivid descriptions of places. Are there specific places that you are inspired by that manifest themselves in your work?

Yes. Anyplace that I’ve lived in for a long time ends up in my work. That poem was written the last summer I spent in my hometown. All of that humidity and farm imagery is very Amherst. I write about New York a lot because I live here. I spent a semester in Paris and wrote about Paris very often. Both of my parents are from Gdańk, Poland, and so I spent a few summers there with my grandparents and have written a lot about that.

Is writing a form of catharsis for you? If so, how?

Yes, definitely. A lot of times one of the first parts of my process, if I haven’t written something substantial in a while, is to do this creative journaling where I’ll write about things that have happened to me but in second or third person to create a narrative distance between what happened to me and what I’m writing. Ideally a good line or two will come out of that. I’ll take those lines and make something else out of them. It doesn’t always end up having something to do with what happens to me;, but since it was borne out of that emotion, it feels good to finish something.

What are your plans post college?

Post-college, my ideal goal is to spend some time doing arts and culture reporting for either a print newspaper or an online media company. You can view some of my work on my website.

Amber Lewis

Photography by India Halsted

Interview by Karen Yoon

Can you introduce yourself?

My name’s Amber Lewis. I am a senior in CC. Yeah, that’s me.

Can you describe your creative process?

As far as music goes, it was different when I was at NYU before I transferred, because I had private songwriting lessons. For that, it felt kind of weird if I wasn’t working on something consistently. But these days sometimes I’ll just write a song in the night; it just happens. Happened the other night. Sometimes I’ll go months and months without writing a song. And for poetry, that’s really changed this semester, because I’m in a writing workshop and we’ve had to keep a consistent writer’s journal and have at least a poem to show per week, and that’s been really helpful. I just write a lot about things I see and use that to write, which is also very therapeutic for me.

As both a poet and musician, how do the two mediums intertwine?

I mean lyrics are really just poetry. There are plenty of songs that are corny and not necessarily poetic, and that’s fine too. For me, I try to look at my lyrics the same way I look at poetry, sometimes I write a poem and it becomes a song.

How do you choose the instrumentals for that particular piece of writing?

Sometimes, I’ll write a poem, and it doesn’t need to be sung, but this feeling or landscape or space I’ve created could be instrumental. And when that happens, I write piano things. Over the past year, I’ve written a small piece for string quartet with a piano in it. And I feel like I’ve created a very specific feeling in space that could be music.

Where would you say that your passion for creating art began?

It’s how I’ve always been. I’ve always had to make things. Even before I was constantly making music, I was always singing, even before writing lyrics. And my dad went to Pratt, he’s an art guy, always been very artistic. My grandma is a painter, a fine artist, that’s how she makes her money. I grew up spending a lot of time in her studio, looking at her paintings. It was always understood that I would create.

You highlight your bilingual childhood in your music video for Puddles. How has being part of an intercultural household shaped your work?

A lot of my work has to do with identity, which is usually defined in terms of relationships with others and myself. And I think that being biracial and having two pretty distinct cultures in either of my parents- my mom is from France, grew up there. My dad is Jamaican, born in Brooklyn, raised in Yonkers. I’ve always been trying to find out where I fit in between those two. And I think a lot of my poems have to do with that; although more recently I’ve tried to branch out from only speaking about race.

I noticed a lot of your work explores relationships, particularly with queer undertones. Can you expand on that?

The first song I thought was pretty good was Lampshades, and that was about a girl. And it’s pretty obvious because I use “she” pronouns. It’s a choice to use those pronouns in a love song because people assume so much about who you are. And it’s intimidating to know that the second you sing that, people already have this idea of who you are that might not necessarily be who you are.

How do you navigate the arts scene in New York City as a queer Black woman?

I write mostly folkish-indie music with some bedroom pop flares, and there aren’t a lot of mainstream Black women who do that. It’s a recapitulation of growing up in my neighborhood, where I was the only Black girl in my entire grade. I’ve found myself in another white-dominated space, and sometimes I feel out of place. With poetry, everyone is writing what I’m writing. I don’t feel so out of place, and I haven’t had any uncomfortable experiences with that.

How do you feel being part of the Columbia arts community, another white-dominated space?

It’s more of the same, you know. But I’ve felt more part of a music community at Columbia than I ever did at NYU, because it’s really hard to find a space where you can ever be heard since there are so many voices there. But here, I went to two events, and suddenly I know everyone who does music on this campus. I feel like I’m fairly active in this scene on campus, and it’s been a positive experience so far.

How has your process of creating changed after transferring from NYU?

I felt like I had more time to write music at NYU, because it was literally what I was studying. But I’ve had way more time to perform here and actually be heard. So, it’s nice that I’ve been having more time to share with people. And I’ve been writing more poetry which has been really cool. I applied to this Advanced Poetry Workshop on a whim, and I got in. And it’s been nice to gain some confidence in that.

How do you feel when you perform in front of an audience versus when you’re sharing work in your poetry workshop?

I am never as nervous singing a song in front of people, and I’ve sung in front of a decent amount of people. It doesn’t really phase me. But when I read a poem that I wrote to 2 people, I shake. It makes me really nervous. Because it’s a different state from when you’re singing and writing and playing a guitar. Even those two realms of performance have been very different for me.

(For Context: Amber released her first EP in 2017 on Bandcamp.) How would you describe “Back Home”?

It was a proud moment for me, the first time where I put together some amount of songs I actually liked. It’s about my first two years after leaving home, and the things that you think about. It’s nothing new, but it’s about what happened to me.

How did you decide to paint your own album covers?

I like painting, and I had this one that was kind of significant to me. It’s just of a house that I saw from across the lake when I was in a vacation house while in Michigan, and it just needed to be the cover of an album. And from that point on, why pay anyone else to do it when I can do it? I’ve always been a person who makes it all by herself, so it just seemed to be in the same vain.

What are you working on now, short-term and long-term?

For my poetry workshop, I am working on a poetry chapbook with 10-15 poems. I might paint a cover for it, don’t know what of or what it’s titled. I just wrote a song Monday night for a performance next week. I would also love to record with CU Records: a few new songs and a few old ones off of Back Home for a new collection of sorts, maybe an album. I also want to record this one quartet, because all I know about how it sounds is based on Logic. I would love to hear it live.  

RUBA NADAR

Photographed by India Halsted

Interviewed by Morgan Becker

Introduce yourself.

My name is Ruba, and I’m a sophomore at Barnard College. I’m majoring in Art History and hopefully Visual Arts as well. I’m an artist. I collage, and paint, and embroider. I’m also a student athlete, among other things. I’m slightly all over the place.

Describe your evolution as an artist. Have you always been drawn to collage, or did you work your way toward it through other mediums?

When I was very young, my dream was to be a fashion designer. I started sewing when I was about ten. I would make pillow cases and bags and make my mom’s friends buy them, which was extortionate. And then I made it into clothes. From the ages of ten to fifteen, it was sketching and doing design. I think that although it seems different, [fashion design] is very related to what I do now. In high school, I did a lot of painting and drawing, but found that just one medium wasn’t right for me. Though sometimes I think, with rowing and other things, I’ve left that passion behind, it’s definitely led me to where I am; with what materials and crazy things I like to work with.

I was particularly interested in the embroidery you use in your collages — how did the transition happen from functional sewing to what you do now?

I was very particular about hems. Around age twelve, I had a uniform at school and I changed everything in it just a little bit. And then I got bored — there wasn’t enough expression in it, really. I started using more yarn, thicker thread, and I would embroider random stuff on the clothes I was making. Then that led its way into my art class, and onto paper, and into journals. I would take photos and I would stitch into those. The thread was, kind of, thethread, from the start of my creative endeavors to where I am now.

Ruba Nadar - 2018

How does your own identity come across in your art?

So I’m Egyptian-Lebanese, but my parents mainly grew up in the US. I grew up in London. I don’t speak Arabic, but I’m learning currently and I feel this kind of strange identity of being English but not really. Being American, but also not really. Not speaking the language of where I am actually from has made me really passionate about it, and curious. So I practice Arabic calligraphy, and I’ve stitched Arabic letters into some works. I try and incorporate where I’m from because I feel it has something to say about who I am. Even if I fully can’t articulate it, I can articulate it better.

What, or who, has inspired you this week?

This week, one of my favorite artists — his name is Hassan Hajjaj, he’s English-born but I believe he’s Moroccan — is doing a documentary series on this all-women biker gang in Marrakech. He does a lot with mixed-media and taking different brands and logos and fabrics and creating some kind of social commentary with it. It has the most amazing color as well. I’ve been on his Instagram, just enjoying it.

Favorite artists?

My favorite artists are Robert Rauschenberg and Anselm Kiefer. Robert Rauschenberg makes what he calls ‘combines,’ like big collages with mixed media and random things. It’s the kind of art that I really look to for inspiration — not the kind of art that I’d put on my walls. It’s weird and interesting. And Anselm Kiefer does mixed media, as well. He’s just a genius. He’s amazing.

What kind of art do you put on your walls?

I actually have a slightly obsessive personality when it comes to interior decoration. I’ve maybe redesigned my dorm four times this year. It’s ridiculous. I started off the year like, yeah, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, this is what I want to be seeing, and it was just too much color. And I had maybe, twenty posters up? It was ridiculous. I took it all down. Now, I’ve got a Botticelli, and I have some Northern Renaissance, very smooth paintings, and I only have two posters up. That’s what I’m enjoying looking at, which has nothing to do with anything that I make.

Photograph by India Halsted

Where and in what context do you work best?

Usually, on the floor of my room. And the context — it’s slightly strange — I have these ridiculous bursts of needing to get something out. And I’ll sit on my floor and it’ll literally look like a war zone, with paper everywhere and magazine cut-outs, and so many accidents. Paint everywhere. I’m really scared for the end of the year when I have to move out. It’s kind of like a frenzy (which makes it seem so dramatic, it really isn’t) that lasts like, two, three, days, of prolific — I don’t know about impressive — work. When I’m done, I don’t look at any of it. I put it all under my bed and then, when inspiration strikes, it all comes back out and the whole cycle starts again.

To what extent would you say the process is spontaneous? Do you know, generally, what a piece might end up looking like?

Definitely not. I’ll start by getting a massive book of A1 or A2 paper. Paint every single page of them, let them dry, leave them for, like, a month, bring them all back out, then just go from there. One day I’ll finish something: I’m like, ‘Wow. Amazing,’ then look at it the next day and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what was I thinking?’ And so then I’ll add something else. I definitely have a tendency to overdo some of my work.

It seems like a lot of your work involves reconfiguration — of advertisements, novels, other artists’ photographs. At what point in the creative process would you say a piece becomes cohesively yours?

That’s definitely tough, because collaging with found materials involves a lot of other people’s work, which I’m very conscious of. But when it’s done, and I look at it, it’s saying something about me. Some message. With a lot of the things that I do, it’s about what’s not there. I’ll put something down and then paint over it, or rip it off and you’ll just see what’s been left. It’s more about the thought behind it. I cut out other people’s images, but it’s all about the composition. Once it’s something that I identify with myself, once these colors are in line, once this stitch looks good with this, then I can say that this work is my own. Yeah, that’s someone else’s face, but it’s all working together for something bigger.

Tell me about the piece that you’re most proud of.

I framed a work for my dad to put in his office. When I was in Cairo, I brought back all these newspapers — it’s a collage, and essentially the obituaries page is the background. I collected all of these old photos from old Egypt and romanticized Alexandria and put them on there, kind of painted over it, and put a picture of my dad. It’s an interesting look at who he is, in relation to where he’s from, but also where he’s not from. And I think it says a lot more than I’m used to my work saying. I’m quite proud of that.

Tell me about the role color plays in your collages. If you could only create monochromatic works from here on out, which shade would you choose?

Probably red. Color does play a big role; it works in different series. If red works on one piece, I’ll do that for the next ten and get sick of it, move on to blue. But yeah, red is the most striking color in any shade. It also has something to say by way of what it means to both me and to the viewer. Whether it looks like your grandmother’s trademark lipstick or your favorite pair of socks, it relates to the most random of things.

What’s something that everyone should know about you?

Everyone should know that I’ve taken to carpeting my dorm room. I tell people and they’re confused at what that means. I quite like the aesthetic of putting carpet where it shouldn’t be. So I’ve carpeted the wall behind my bed, and I’ve carpeted my dresser.

Is it like, a headboard-type situation?

You could say that. Some people don’t agree, but I would say that there’s definitely a 70s vibe going on, which I’m quite enjoying.

Who do you make art for and why do you continue?

Interesting question. I’d say I make it for myself, but I don’t know. I get very sick of my work very quickly. I think I make it mainly because it’s something that I have to do. Not in a pretentious way or in like, a tortured artist way. I spend so much time doing many different things that don’t relate to my actual passions in life, and this is something that’s very important to me. Whether I’m good at it or not, it’s something that I want to pursue. In thinking about what I want to do, and who I want to be, I want to be someone who creates things.

Anything else you’d like to add? Closing remarks?

I’m a culturally-confused collage artist. Living in New York. Doing my thing. Rowing on the Harlem River, but also going into creative frenzies on the carpet of my dorm room. Yeah.

SONIA KAHN

Photographed by Margaret Maguire

Interviewed by Yosan Alemu

Sonia Kahn is a first year in Columbia College, intending to pursue a joint major in visual arts and art history. You can follow her (and her work!) on instagram, and on her website.

Your first semester is wrapping up. What have you liked so far about the Columbia/NYC art scene? How is it different to that of England?

The creative people that I was surrounded by in England were mainly musicians, due to the the group of people I fell into. A lot of the work and the projects I was involved with were focused on music, where visual art was assisting the music, not necessarily the main focus. Coming here, I really wanted to focus on the visual art itself. My first semester has been really awesome. I got into a basic drawing class, and my professor is great, gives wonderful advice, and is a practicing artist herself. Also, the art scene on campus is extremely diverse — in a good way — and there’s always loads of things, events, exhibits to see and to be a part of, like Postcrypt and Ratrock!

With your work, I know that you express yourself through various different mediums: image manipulation, film, animation, projection, etc. How did you find these avenues?

In terms of avenues, or how I decide to use these mediums, I usually start off with a concept, an image, or literally any kind of thought. And from that I'll brainstorm; I was always taught that brainstorming is really good for when you’re in the beginning stages of creating a piece, especially when dealing with abstract ideas. With the brainstorming, I then begin working through massive ideas that lead me to begin working on themes, or the bigger picture of my work (what do I want to convey, how can I convey it).

When looking at themes, I think again very conceptually, and from that I pick a medium to work in. I also go through a bit of experimentation along the process, notably in how I decide to use certain mediums. Most of the time, I begin with collage as the first entry because it gives me the most visual keys as to what I can continue to create moving forward. Collage is a great way to physically see what you’re working with. From that, I'll try to change mediums , like using print or projection, or quite literally any kind of medium I think best fits the central project of my work.

I would also say that I experiment with different mediums by way of my high school, and the education I received there. I was really lucky because at my school back in England, not many people took art classes, so I had a lot of attention and careful guidance from my teachers. Our curriculum was very open-ended, so I was practically given free reign create any type of artistic work.

"Magic Puzzle", Cyanotype, 2018.

What themes or concepts do you find yourself working with a lot?

I always end up doing work that is related to the female experience. It comes up in one way or another, and I don’t ever want to escape something that is integral to my identity. I'm working as a female creator, and this is something that I will continuously grapple with (in terms of creation, work, vision). I’m also always interested in the uncanny: the weird things that we never fully accept (or want to accept), and acknowledge. For instance, mixing old and new, familiar and unfamiliar. All the strange things of the everyday experience that seem minute but can really have substantial effect or responses in my work.

Are there any life experiences that shape the way you think about art and your work?

I had this really influential teacher up until I was 17 or 18 at my high school. She was basically my mentor and introduced me to all of these crazy artists that I found myself in. Artists that worked outside of the conventional framework of what is accepted as ‘art,’ artists that weren’t afraid to produce work that meant something to them, and not solely for an audience. She also taught me so much in terms of using analog photographic processing — a medium that I now love working in. Looking back at all that she has taught, I can see how my everyday work is inspired by her passion and guidance.

When people see your work, what do you want them to feel? How do you want them to engage?

I like to have fun with my pieces and I like for my pieces to have bits of humor in them. If I can make someone laugh or feel intrigued, I feel as if they’re really engaging with the work. I also really enjoy when people figure out my work, like a puzzle, because it’s fun for the both of us. It’s aesthetically and conceptually interesting.

Describe yourself in three words, then describe your work in three words.

Perfectionist (that’s a double-edged sword), busy, and passionate. And then for my work: analog, digital, and experimental.

If you could consume one medium of art for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Film. Definitely film.

Do you find freedom in making art, in creating experiences for others, and for yourself?

Yes, I absolutely think so. It’s also helped me to to find freedom within myself, and in terms of how I can express myself - feelings, thoughts, etc. - through my work, which I never really had until I started making art. Not to be cliche, but as I started creating for myself, that's when I began to actually understand myself.

AMY GONG LIU

Photographed by Maya Hertz

Interviewed by Isabella Rafky

First, tell me a little bit about yourself.

My name is Amy Gong Liu. I am a senior in Columbia College majoring in Human Rights, English, and Asian American Studies. I write poetry, lyric prose, and essays on the Sino-American diasporic experience, translation between Mandarin and English, love, longing and loss.

What is the Sino-American Diaspora?

The term refers to several different waves of human migration and settling from China. My work focuses mainly on my parents who left Beijing when they were in their twenties and came over to the United States. It’s also about growing up first-gen and only knowing family as my younger sister, mom, and dad—and dealing with the kind of longing for family outside of immediate parenthood. I would see kids with grandparents, aunts, or uncles growing up, and would wonder what that kind of familiarity felt like.

Tell me about how you write and when you started writing.

I’ve always been writing poetry and prose. When I was younger I did so under the guise of anonymity and submitted a lot of pieces to different publications under pseudonyms because I was too afraid to bridge the distance between artist and artistry. I stored most of it in this semi-private blog that only close friends had the URL to, and in it, I rarely mentioned names. Publishing my work and connecting its symbolism to identity or personhood or even my name is only something I recently started doing, but something I absolutely want to run with in the future.

How young were you when you first started getting published? What inspired the pseudonyms?

I think I was in elementary school. It was a class assignment, so we all had to do it, but the story I wrote won an award. There was even a cash prize. My teacher slipped the money into my backpack and said something like: “Don’t tell anyone.” I carried that home; both the money and the symbolism of having words out there crystallized in a form of permanence, but also her words, warning me not to “tell anyone about this.”

So I kept writing, but I kept the writer behind the writing secret. There was a lot of desire to break free from whatever cultural rigidity I was trying to denounce in myself. I think as a child I had this ideation towards whiteness and any kind of assimilatory behavior, and what I was doing behind these pseudonyms and my work was trying to break away from myself.

In your artist statement, you write “my words seek to constellate stories of remaining.” What does remaining mean to you?

I think of it mostly in the context of place. Of people who leave established things, places, families, cultures, or people behind in the hopes of creating or finding something new. Often, when that process of migration occurs, people that either in the place that they left or the self that they left, that there’s something that still hasn’t been filled—and whatever that is is passed on through children and through generations. The kind of melancholy that lingers that is what I'm trying to explore in words. Remaining is something that remains in me, but also remained before, in parents, and what and who came before them.

“Storefront Windows” by Amy Gong Liu

I remember in your poetry you speak about your grandmother and that communication between the both of you…

I definitely write a lot about her. I’ve met her twice in my life, and both of those interactions provide all of the memories and images that I have pulled from when I’m writing. I find that even when I’m writing about immediate family, a lot of it I have to rely on something close to imagination. Not much is known to me about them, and part of the writing process borderlines into the fictional, simply because it’s the only option I have.

In describing your work as almost fiction, was there any semblance of magic growing up? You also talk about the disjointment of religion growing up, so how does that all come together?

Maybe magic isn’t the most specific term. I’m thinking more in terms of fantasy in coming back to this aspect of longing. I write not necessarily to find answers, but to find the questions around these answers. It’s why I think spirituality and religion really tie into a lot of my writing. I come back to memories of specific Buddhist practices done only for ritual; it was never explained to me why I went to the altar and said mantras. Now that I’ve returned, fifteen or sixteen years later, I discover that now, maybe I want to—and my writing is a way of reinventing and restorifying that memory into something with actual meaning.

What is one of the main things that is passed on through you and that you show through your work?

I’ve written a lot of poems and prose about the freedom behind movement, and a lot of this comes from stories I’ve been told about foot binding, and of using ribbons to wrap or control the women in my family. Writing about it helps me to explore the symbolism between physical and emotional staticity, and the trauma of femininity/feminine desire to move still limits me in some way today.

How have you engaged with Mandarin and English in your personal life? How does it come through in your work?

It’s become, as a writer and as a person, the biggest question for me to answer. I tell people that I have a mechanical fluency in English in that I can speak it, that my hands and head know exactly how to work with it. But as I have started writing more about Mandarin and family and culture, I find that English just isn’t enough to be able to capture whatever I’m trying to put on the page. There’s a heart fluency, almost, that I have in Mandarin, that English will never reach. Mandarin exists in something like blood or form or poetics in me. Even in the things that are unsaid.

My latest project is a series of essays about the gaps of translation between Mandarin and English, and the loss of meaning in intimate spaces, specifically between me and my mother. I’m trying to capture the difficulties of growing up and never being able to speak the same language as your own family, and the things that get lost along the way. The realization that I’ve come to, and the realization that the book is coming to, is that whatever language you’re working in—Mandarin, English, whatever—language is only the best option we have to translate emotion and experience. We all know that there are things that we see or feel, though, that no words will ever be able to capture.

“Storefront Windows” by Amy Gong Liu

How does the effect of language come through in your poetry?

Poetry is a chance to suspend or intimate rather than to say something directly. I like working with it because it can capture so much stillness. I can say something in English in it and mean something in Mandarin. That’s the beauty of it.

Did you read poetry before you started writing?

Not as much as I’m reading it now. Part of the beauty in sinking so deeply into writing poetry is that I’m reading a lot more of it. Specifically, poetry written by other Asian American authors. I’m also making an effort to read poetry in translation from Chinese poets like Bei Dao and the other Misty Poets. I love the different kinds of form they work with, and doing this kind of translation work myself, reading and comparing, has been really great in shaping my own work.

Do you like to write within a form of poetry? Do you see a difference between writing within boundaries and writing without?   

I used to love working in prose because it was fundamentally about structure. I was afraid, I think, of how open ended poetry could be. But one of the things that I’ve been trying to play around with is mixing different forms in a singular poem: I’m working on something right now, dedicated to my father, that’s written in free verse, and has a section that’s a list, and has a section with a Google search history, and more. I’m just trying to see how they gel.

How does that reflect in the paralleling between your usage of Mandarin and English in your work?

It’s a sense of reclamation in a way: instead of trying to make something familiar to me, I’m simply sharing my own defamiliarization with everyone else. I’m sharing what it’s like to always be jarred in my own body and with my own work, to not be able to be familiar in one language but to use another. That experience of self, the simultaneously confused author and product, is something that I’m trying to understand.

Tell me about your senior project in Chinatown.

I’m working with the Center for Ethnicity and Race Studies on a photojournalism project about Manhattan's Chinatown. It’s called “Storefront Windows,” and it’s form of documentary reporting where I take pictures of semi-reflective window surfaces as an attempt visually trace Manhattan Chinatown’s history of commercialization from the 1950s until now. Instead of a story about show and tell, it’s more of a story about show and sell. It’s a look at the politics of display—who and what are we showing for whom? What are we saying about the commodification and development of land, its residents, and tourists passing through?

So, you do photography, poetry, and essays? Are those the big three for you?

Yeah, and I also make music. I grew up playing piano and I am self taught on guitar; it’s nice to have a break from words sometimes. I’ve been getting back into basic jazz composition and am trying to write from my chromesthesia. Basically if I hear a pitch on the chromatic scale I have a mental and almost visual association with a specific color. The coolest thing about this is once I hear a song I’m able to remember its visual colors and recreate or transpose it onto a piano. Sometimes I’ll listen to a song and translate it out to a visual format, or to try and write words to it.

How are photojournalism and poetry different? How do they feel similar?

I think they’re much more similar than they are different. When I think of a picture and a poem, I think for both to be good, they have to be first and foremost self-aware. Self-aware of their own limitations, of the fact that they are both two-dimensional. Good photography, good writing, good poetry—it does something with its self-awareness, tries to take it and move something or someone outside of the image or text. It transports itself outside of its own limitations.

How does it feel to be a senior? What are your creative outlets on campus?

(Laughs) It's very scary. It’s filled with a lot of uncertainty; not just with the immediate future, but in the far future too. Part of the magic of this semester though, since I’m graduating this December, has been sinking into the communities of artists that I’ve found on this campus and spending time with the people in my life who are also creators. It’s a bittersweet thing to recognize that the community I’ve found through Columbia won’t be the same again, but it’s pushing me to take advantage of it while I have it now.

How has your work changed over the years?

And another question that’s related to this would probably be “how is it going to change in the coming years?” too. To both: I’m actually not too sure yet. Since writing is one of those things that develops and matures alongside you, I wonder if what I’m putting out now may be written in the same way in the future but read differently. I don’t have access to a lot of what I wrote when I was younger, but if I were to go back and read it now I’m sure I’d understand it differently. The same probably goes, in ten years or so, to understand whatever I’m writing now.

CAMERON LEE

Photographed by Morgana Van Peebles

Interviewed by Noa Levy Baron

Introduce yourself. Name, year and what you are studying.

My name is Cameron Lee, and I am junior in CC, majoring in Creative Writing and concentrating in Visual Arts. I am one of the Editors-in-Chief of Quarto Literary Magazine here. I am a visual artist and a writer.

What mediums do you use to create art?

I mostly draw in sketchbooks with markers and graphite. Sometimes I paint with acrylic or watercolor, but I mostly draw. I would say that I use sketchbooks mainly out of convenience and because I like to keep all my art in one place. For a while it was daunting for me to have a whole separate piece of paper laid out that had to become “my drawing.” So it was much easier for me to experiment in sketchbooks and really track my growth. I use graphite because of the ease of being able to make mistakes, of experimenting; erasing and going back. More recently I have been into markers because I always wanted to find a way to incorporate color in my art, and I am a little too impatient for color pencils (laughs). In my experience, it takes a while and you have to work with layers. Whereas markers, for me, tend to be a faster way to add color and make a drawing vibrant.

As you introduced yourself also as a writer, how do you create in this medium?

My writing and my art are not usually directly tied together in the sense that I write prose in my sketchbook alongside a drawing, but occasionally I will illustrate something I’ve written to help bring a character to life in my mind. I almost exclusively write fiction, mostly in the third person, because I love the freedom it gives me to inhabit the minds of my characters while still getting the chance to invoke strong visuals and describe the setting, the characters, the world, etc.

How have your writings influenced your drawing? Have your drawings also influenced your writing?

Definitely. It’s funny because a year or two ago, my mom said she didn’t know whether she sees me as an artist who writes or a writer who draws. I love that she said that, and I think that is true about me. The way I write, the worlds I create and the kind of absurd, strange fantastical nature of my fiction definitely informs the way I draw. Even if it is just a few details, I prefer to give a character a little bit of a strange aspect.

I also think the way I describe people in my fiction is with the intention of making someone see the image or see something. I am a very visual person, just in life in general, so I really try to evoke images that help people see what I am describing and a lot of writers that I love do that so viscerally. I really see what they want me to see.

Papaya - Cameron Lee

Are there any particular moments when you prefer to draw?

I think my favorite time to draw is first thing in the morning just because I love when there is a lot of natural light in my room. No one else is awake or moving around so I can just sit there in the silence or listen to music. And I’m more productive in the morning too, so I am really motivated to get stuff done when I first wake up.

How did you learn how to draw ?

I started drawing before I started learning how in school, but I took some level of elementary, middle school, and high school art classes before I came to Columbia. I think most of my early knowledge came from practice, outside of proportions or some other basic things I was taught in high school or before. I was (and still am) always drawing and looking at other people’s art. More recently I have learned a lot from my college classes, artists I’ve found online, museums I’ve had the privilege to visit, and my incredibly talented friends and classmates.

In that regard, would you say there is any difference in the creative process of producing works for classes and for yourself?

Yes, I definitely think so. I do most of my drawings in sketchbooks and they just happen on the fly, so there is not as much thought and planning that goes into those as what I draw for class projects. For example, I was in the Drawing II class last semester and we had a project which was supposed to be an enormous drawing. The professor wanted us to try and meld styles and techniques that we had and had not used before and so that lead me to think differently about the subject matter. Having some form of limitation or guideline definitely changes the way I decide to create. In that case, I did not want to do graphite for an enormous drawing so I used chalk pastel and some color pencil and charcoal - that directly informed the subject matter and the process.

Has your life influenced your work?

I think I can definitely speak to life influencing my work because when I was younger I would always be so freaked out if I made a mistake. I’d be like, “This drawing is ruined, I am going to throw it away.” I was very dramatic and my parents always told me that it was not the end of the world, that I could fix it; but at the time I was using crayons or Crayola markers so it wasn’t easy to erase or to go back. I think through high school my favorite medium was graphite because I could just erase it. My fear of making a mistake that would ruin the drawing drove me to a medium that was easily erasable. I am only realizing now, as I am using markers more, that I was so terrified of messing drawings up in the past I would use almost exclusively graphite and do pretty realistic drawings that took a long time so I could think a lot about my next moves. Now I think I am slowly losing that fear of making a mistake. So I just decided to use markers and let it go where it goes and see what happens. If I make a mistake or if I don’t like the final maybe someone else will like it; and if not it’s not the end of the world. Or so I have to keep reminding myself.

Building off of this, in what ways does your work express your identity?

I almost exclusively draw women, faces and bodies and part of that comes from the fact that I identify as a woman and for some reason it is instinctual for me to draw women. I haven’t thought a lot about why, but I am just really attracted to that area of art and that subject matter. I think I should probably try drawing men more because it might diversify my skill sets. But as of now I definitely think that I gravitate towards those themes because I am a woman and that is such an integral part of my identity.

What are the main themes you highlight? Do you want to communicate something through your drawings?

I think it’s kind of funny because I have been asked this question in the past and in different contexts: what is your art about? What are the themes? Do you mean to say anything with your work? I think the majority of the time, not necessarily. It is exciting if people can read into my art in certain ways, but most of the time it’s just aesthetically pleasing to me and for my own practice to explore different faces and bodies and positions and just learn and grow as an artist.

Medusa - Cameron Lee

Why do you focus particularly on faces and bodies?

I started drawing faces initially because that is what you usually first see when you look at a person. You look at their face and you see their body in front of you and it was intrinsic to me to try to represent that and to put that on paper. This is also partly why I enjoy drawing women and figures. It is so fascinating to me to see how we all more or less have the same features on our faces but everyone ends up looking so different. I am really interested in representing the variety of people that exist: the diversity of life and figures, the way faces and bodies can move, and the way bodies and faces can represent different emotions. It is funny that I am saying that actually because all of my figures are making the same expression but that is not intentional; just an unfortunate default of mine. I’m working on it.

Have you ever drawn self-portraits?

I have done a couple. Maybe only once or twice voluntarily, mostly for class assignments. I am interested in doing one huge self-portrait of myself because I did a painting in high school of myself, but it has been a while. And I use pictures of my body and hands as references all the time, so it may be nice to see how well I can draw my face, or how I might draw my face. That’s something I’d like to explore more in the future.

Do you have any specific artists or individuals who inspire you?

I can name a few artists that I have been interacting with and learning about recently and that I find really inspiring. It’s funny because a lot of them are actually painters. One of them is David Hockney, who had an exhibit at the MET last year. I had not heard of him before then but I was so struck by the colors and how he represents his figures. It was one of the best exhibits I have ever been to. A lot of the painters I love inspire me to try my hand at painting more because I love what emotions painting can evoke in me.

I also love Frida Kahlo, because of the subject matter of her art and because of who she was. The rawness with which she painted is always inspiring to me.

Recently, I have also learned about Charles White, who was a mentor of Kerry James Marshall, and I love both of their work. I was at the Charles White retrospective at the MoMA and the way that his portraits moved me was crazy; I did not expect that. That is part of what I want to do in art: just make someone feel something. Then I feel I have succeeded, whether they are chuckling or sad or angry.

Living in New York and being able to go to all of those museums, and see all those paintings, drawings and sculptures in person always inspires me. On Sunday I was at the Wallach Art Gallery, looking at an exhibition called “Posing Modernity” about black figures in art. Just being able to stand there in front of a painting with no glass between us and seeing how the brushstrokes look and what rich colors were used really inspires me to go off and try to emulate or learn from that.

Also funnily enough, a lot of my inspiration does not come from famous artists but just artists that I follow on Instagram: random people that I find through having an art account, or people recommending things to me. I just love the creativity of artists such as @pollynor who draws women and their demons and touches upon sexuality and gender. Also @a.creature and @flesh.png who are not afraid of playing with color, figures or creepy and weird things and just messing around with sketchbooks, forms, and all sorts of techniques that I would love to be able to do one day with my art.

Are you working on any future projects? Do you have any specific goals?

I think future goals of mine would definitely be to further shed my reluctance to try things that make me uncomfortable. I would love to paint more in my free time, and not be afraid to pull out the watercolors or ink even though it might involve more time and effort than something else. I have never done oil so I would love to try oil painting for instance. I would also like to explore the darker side of my art and what it means to be a woman or a demon or both. I have always loved weird things and strange things and the idea that there might be another world. This is why I like imagining things that should exist outside of our world inside our world, marrying the strange with the normal, just to bring a little more fantasy and interest to everyday life. I would love to continue this exploration and broaden my horizons.

As far as future projects go, I would actually love to do a self-portrait. I have been thinking about that for a while and I never managed to do one for myself that I feel really happy about. There are also a couple of unfinished things in my sketchbooks that I need to get back to. I would also like to be more experimental. I do a little bit of digital art and I usually forget that I can do it because it is not at the forefront of my mind but I would love to get back to experimenting with it. Overall, just trying a lot of new things and not being afraid to mess up and not like something.

KASSIA KARRAS

Photographed by Nico Lopez-Alegria

Interview by Courtney DeVita

Introduce yourself.

Hi I’m Kassia Karras. I’m a first year at Barnard. I grew up in Beijing, China for 15 years and then moved to Atlanta for high school. I went back and forth between the two growing up. I’m half Chinese, a quarter Greek, and a quarter Cherokee. I’m planning on double majoring in Art History with a concentration in Visual Arts and Political Science.

What were your first moments creating?

Art has always been part of my life. I started with finger painting when I was one year old, and honestly I don’t think I’ve made better abstract art since 2001. I’ve never been scared to use color, and I’ve been drawing all my life.

I started my art account in eighth grade. That negative social pressure that forces you to post on Instagram was kind of positive in terms of art because it forced me to create consistently and become part of the art community on Instagram. I got to see what other people my age were doing. A lot of the artists were also 14 and 15 and now they’re all 18 and 19, so I’ve gotten to see how they’ve grown too.

What role has social media had on your art making?

It can be a really positive business tool when the intentions are clear. My art account is mainly a digital portfolio and a way for me to commercialize my art and build an audience. When it comes to personal accounts it’s really a gray area, and kind of weird that we’re all mixing business and personal. The audience is also the creator, which is really confusing. I definitely like my art account better than my personal because everything is set out with clear cut intentions. I like being able to interact with all the other artists.

I’ve done collaborations with other small artists on Instagram and have gotten a lot of commission opportunities through illustrating people’s band covers. I just did a project with this Chinese children’s shoe company where I designed their logo and brand characters. I’ve gotten projects to illustrate for books. Instagram’s opened a lot of doors. Instagram is a great tool for artists in this day and age.

What mediums do you use?

I use Copic markers on Muji paper always. I hand draw everything and I also use my ink pens. Sometimes I’ll use water color and oil pastel, acrylic paint, oil paint, or charcoal. I use a lot of different mediums, but predominantly it’s pen and marker. Then I’ll scan the drawing and sometimes I’ll photoshop a digital background or color digitally.

Photograph by Nico Lopez-Alegria

How do you think growing up in two contrasting places has shaped your art?

Having lived in such vastly different and contrasting environments, it has taught me to learn from the differences. Comparing and contrasting, not only the two countries but how the people in them socialize and how different they behave, has shaped my worldview. I started thinking about the individual’s relationship to the environment once I moved to Atlanta, because I found the lifestyle to be so introverted and isolated compared to the city lifestyle. Everybody drives everywhere, and you rarely bump into friends. Whereas, in a city there’s a lot of chance and that’s definitely what I prefer - being able to walk everywhere, and not being able to plan everything. I try to incorporate that sense of spontaneity in my art.

In your artists statement you say your art style is superficially innocent, but underneath explores themes of corruption and deception. Can you expand on that?  

I like the idea of a lot of tension or contrast within an image. I just did a portrait of a young boy with really bright orange and green colors, but he’s sad. There’s a story built off of that tension and I like that with broader themes as well. I do a lot of pieces about deceptive things. I did this piece with pills and limbs coming out of them to talk about big pharma and the corruption within that. I’ve really been influence by Mark Ryden and Marion Peck. Their work is really pretty to look at but there’s a darker subtext that seeps through.

Can you talk a little bit about your use of animal and clown heads that pervade your illustrations?

I think the animals I draw are very unrealistic and more like toys or masks more than a literal animal. I really like the idea of playing with the masks we wear, because everyone has that persona they put on or multiple personas. Whenever I draw clowns or smiling animals it’s to display these different masks. I like the idea that you can’t tell what they’re really like or what they’re really thinking. You can only see what they’re presenting and that doesn’t always tell you a lot. It’s up to the viewer to interpret, but often times there aren’t a lot of clues so you end up feeling like you’re searching. I like to put a lot of different elements within a piece, so you can search around and uncover something.

Illustration by Kassia Karras

How did your clothing brand, O.K. Fun, come about?

I got frustrated by online clothes shopping for graphic tees. I felt like artists with really cool art were holding back in terms of what they could do with their art in combining it with fashion. They simplify drawings. It just felt like there was another way to do it. I’m also interested in commercializing my art a little more. I think illustration is the base, but there’s so much more you can do with that. I just figured out Square Space and then I got a bunch of my friends from high school and we did a fun photoshoot. I wanted to limit the clothing line to seven or eight pieces. I definitely want to put out a new line soon for winter and spring with a more cohesive theme.

How did you decide on the name of the brand?

I thrifted this sweater that says, ‘bad fun,’ which I liked, but then I ran it by my dad and he suggested not to use a word with a negative connotation. I like ok fun because it’s like a neutral good - It’s not great fun, it’s just okay fun. It doesn’t expect too much from anyone. It has a very mellow vibe, which I think reflects the art and clothing.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a some of track and album covers for a couple of rappers, and a tattoo commission. I’m also doing illustrations for the Blue and White. In general, I’m trying to make more art. I want to get to a point where I have a cohesive series that would show in a gallery space. Whether that be paintings, or illustrations blown up on canvas, I think a show would be dope to put on, and maybe with other friends’ art and live music. My main goal is to just keep making art, I think that’s the best way to improve, to just keep making art.

PHANESIA PHAREL

Photography by Elle Wolfley

Interview by Alexa Silverman

Can you introduce yourself?

I’m Phanesia Pharel, a sophomore at Barnard from Homestead, Florida. An undeclared theatre major - what else am I going to do, to be honest?!

Describe your first moments of creating. Were you always interested in playwriting?

I started out performing, like a lot of people. I continue to perform when I can and however I can. When you’re a black woman in theater it’s different because acting can’t be as fulfilling as it is for other people. I remember when I was 10 or 11 - maybe middle school, 12 or 13 - and I was auditioning for Oklahoma. It’s a very classic American musical. I remember my drama teacher telling me I just didn’t fit the part for a character in the show. I don’t know if she meant it in that type of way but I was this very awkward, pudgy black girl with these sprouting dreadlocks - I wasn’t very palatable as a kid, I think. And I knew it. There are so many instances where I just don’t ‘look the part.'

My goal was to go into comedy. Stand up, sketch comedy. Sarah Silverman, of course Joan Rivers, Wanda Sykes, Ayesha Curry as well; I listened to these women and I was like, ‘This is so amazing, this is so funny, this is so fucking weird. I want to go into comedy.’ Then I did this public program [in my sophomore year of high school] that was for young kids to get them to write plays. It ended up not having anything to do with sketch or comedy writing, and it was all about playwriting. I fell in love. I started writing plays. Now that’s kinda my main gig, but I still perform and sing.

Was that your first introduction to playwriting?
Yeah. I read a bunch of plays the summer after I did the program, as well as an anthology of black plays from the 1400s to 1961. Junior fall I was a part of the Thespian Society. The Florida Thespian Festival is actually the biggest festival in the world; you can usually take three items to present or perform with you, in various categories of theatre. I took two performance pieces and did playwriting. I wrote this play about the public education system because I was super pissed off with the way me and my friends were being treated. A lot of shit was uncovered in the play: Trauma that I had experienced and feelings of how systems work to hold us down were unleashed… it was nice to be able to step aside and have a say over my education, because that’s a privilege I wasn’t afforded until that moment.

I took it to the Miami Festival and it won Critics Choice, which is first place, and then to the State Festival where it won first place again. It was selected for the International Thespian Festival and workshopped, and it was published by Samuel French (they publish plays. They actually have the largest collection of Latinx playwrights).

What was it called?

Penelope.

Was that the first play you wrote?

It was the first play I finished.

Where do you first start in a creative project?
It’s different for every project. With “Penelope,” I knew what I wanted to do. I had images - it’s very different from any other play I’ve written. I just sat down and wrote the treatment (a short summary of what’s going to happen). I wrote the first draft, which was 12 pages, and kept writing and I got to 30.

Describe your process of writing.

I feel like sometimes when I’m writing it’s like I’m walking, like I’m looking for pictures. Maybe I’m at a museum and it’s very foggy, and I’m walking, and I’m like ‘Oh, I see this, I see that, oh these two people are talking to each other, I can sort of hear what they’re talking about. Let me guess what they’re talking about.’ As I continue, maybe I get one really clear image, and I see a conversation. And it continues and it continues and it continues and it continues. I knew I wanted to leave the summer with a full length, and I finished it in a month.

(Note: in the fall of 2017, Phanesia’s play “The Revolution Will Now be Televised” was produced by the Black Theater Ensemble at Barnard). What is it like to see your work performed and given life?

If I like [the work], it’s the most amazing feeling in the world. If I don’t like it, it can be really hard to write. It’s really crazy because you have built a world, whether it be an altered version of the one you’re in now or a completely different one. I’m so happy that I discovered playwriting. I feel very lucky. If I were just an actor I don’t think I’d ever be fully fulfilled. Just me personally, everyone’s different. Acting is amazing; actors bring so much to the script, but I like to build worlds. You can’t build worlds as an actor. You can build a character in a world; you can add to it; you can be the paint, but to build a world you have to write. Writing is my salvation, but performing is my essence. You can’t separate the two.

Now that I think about it more I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I would never be who I am today if I didn’t write plays.’ I wrote plays after “Penelope,” and some of them were taken to festivals, which is cool. It’s been really dope seeing them put up.

How has your work changed since coming to Barnard?

I have written several plays, from one minute to five minutes, and a full length [play] that I’m working on. Since coming to Barnard I’m a lot more confused on writing things that interest me rather than doing it for other people. Just because a play is political doesn’t mean it is actually good.

Are you involved in theater on campus?

One of my plays, called “Zoo Story,” was actually done during Wordplay, last fall semester at Columbia. It was also put up in LA. It was about people zoos, which still now is a thing - just we don’t know about it. [People zoos are] people who are considered exotic held up for exhibition, which is an interesting concept. Capitalist gain and sick fantasy; white supremacy.

Right now I’m a part of XMAS!13, which is a secular spectacular musical that happens every fall at Columbia. I’m writing lyrics. It’s really hard to write an entire musical in a semester - really, less than a semester - because you have to give the students time to learn it. It’s a low high pressure environment you’re writing one musical and setting decent deadlines for everyone’s mental health. Last semester I auditioned for shows, and XMAS was the one in which I got to do the most creative thing: be Assistant Director. Student theater is super cool. And XMAS’s thing is XMAS is for everyone. It is really awesome.

Do you think playwriting is an accessible hobby for young students?

It’s super accessible. I think the most oppressive thing to a playwright is Shakespeare. It’s not even his fault - it’s his fanbase. Like Lady Gaga is great but her fans are the worst. That’s Shakespeare, his fans are the worst. Test makers, professors, and reading lists pretend Greek theatre and other forms of classics don’t exist. It’s limiting. They’re all fans of Shakespeare, to the point that I’m like, ‘Have you read any other playwright?’ It’s such a disservice. We live in two different worlds. I think it’s really sad that people say Shakespeare is the greatest playwright or the greatest literary figure of all time. How do we expect young writers to feel like anything they’ll do will be valid when the peak of writing has already come?

What factors do you take into account when writing a play?

I think it is better if you just write whatever the play is. If you’re thinking about factors of other people before the play is written, or before the first draft, you’re going to get stuck. That’s happened to me in previous drafts. Where I am right now is that I just write the play when I feel like it - when I have the fire.

When do you write and what inspires you to write?

I usually write during breaks but after I met Ntozake Shange I felt energized to write. So I did. Next semester I hope to write more.

How does your work express your identity, and what themes do you often feature in your work?

Usually my plays are centered around black women, but I’m writing a play right now and I don’t think there is [one]. That’s really weird, but it’s also cool. It’s limiting, the idea that black women always have to center their work around black women. It can be liberating but it’s absolutely limiting. If I’m building a million different worlds, there’s going to be worlds where certain people just aren’t in them at the moment.

I also think if you’re building a million different worlds as a writer. The people who have written 100 plays, and they’ve never considered a person of color or a queer person or a disabled person or a person living within the margins, you have to really reevaluate that. It doesn’t need to be on the stage; it doesn’t need to take up space.

What is the value of theater for you?

Theater is one of the most precious things humanity has - and theater looks like a million different things. A bunch of people go into a room, and you [the audience] build a relationship within two hours with the playwright, the character, the actors, and everyone who is working backstage. Everyone knows you’re watching a play, when you’re watching a play, but you actually believe it. If you can believe that you’re in a room of people and that they are something other than what they are, that I think means you can believe in so much more. People who are like, ‘I don’t believe the world can be a better place; if you can fucking watch your TV and believe that Sarah Silverman is Miss America (in her show), then you can believe the world can be a better place. It gives me hope. You can actually make people believe anything, and theater is proof of that.

LING GROCCIA

Photography by India Halsted

Interview by Eliza Jouin

Introduce yourself.

Hi, I'm Ling, I'm a sophomore at Barnard College, and my main art medium is metalwork and jewelry.

You've done a lot of art throughout your life. What made you choose to start working with metal?

I started in 8th grade, and then I took it every single year of high school. After my junior year, I got into Metals Intensive at my school, which met the same amount of time as math class or English class would; you're in the studio a lot. Metalwork offered me a form of art where I felt successful, in that I was able to effectively create the products I envisioned, in a way I can't in 2D art. This is probably why I don't like drawing, because I can envision things and the reality of it ends up looking terrible. Whereas with metalwork, I'm actually able to produce what I want to.

Can you describe to me your artistic process from when you conceive something all the way to when you present it?

I feel like I'm a very organized, detail-oriented person, which is probably why I like metals so much. You need a certain thought process to know how all the moving parts are going to come together. You have to be conscious of the order in which you construct your piece. You can’t move on to something prematurely, because often times you can’t go back. For example, you can’t go back to solder something once you’ve attached something flammable. So much of it is having a really good outline to start with and knowing what all the steps you need to take are, and ultimately what you're trying to make. But then also, there's this weird paradox because at any moment, you could literally melt your piece to a ball. It's terrifying. So it's about figuring out what to do now and being able bounce back.

What kind of metals do you prefer to work with to create your jewelry?

In high school, we only had access to copper, silver, and brass, and my favorite is brass. I really don't like copper - something about the color. Whereas when brass gets oxidized, it comes into this really nice antique look. It's not as brash as gold or expensive as gold, but it's a nice cheap alternative that ends up having an earthy look.

Echoes of Tears - Ling Groccia

Since there aren't any metalworking classes here at Columbia/Barnard to create this specific type of 3D art, what's your creative outlet here?

It's been really upsetting to not be able to do studio art classes here. But I did get into embroidery this summer. I’ve wanted to try embroidery ever since I came across Jessica So Ren Tang, this Asian-American artist from San Francisco. She’s amazing. Her work examines exoticism and Chinese stereotypes. She embroiders portraits of sexualized asian women, but then their skin is filled in with embroidered traditional Chinese patterns. For me, her work speaks to the ways in which identity voices itself in art. She also does 3D embroidery, which is insane.

Okay, so it's @jessicasorentang on Instagram.

She's super cool and she deserves so much attention.
So I got into embroidery, and I've been recently trying to figure out how I can do metalwork at school or in New York City. The new Barnard design center seems like a good opportunity. They don't have any metalwork stuff, but they have a lot of equipment for woodworking, so maybe I'll back get into that.

Going back to what you were saying about that artist that inspired you to start doing embroidery, are there any artists that you really look up to or that have inspired your work?

Todd Pownell does really amazing channel setting, and kudos to anyone who does diamond setting because I had a diamond setting project once and it's the worst thing ever. It's a pain in the ass. But he does really stunning diamond setting where he'll have a ring or a bracelet or something and the metal on top will be super textured but there's this channel of diamonds or stones where it looks like somehow the earth is cracked and reveals this horde of diamonds underneath. When I make jewelry, I see myself tending towards representations of nature. I love creating a juxtaposition of a representation of nature in metal, and duplicating nature in something that's so cold and not natural.

Do you feel that your life experience has influenced your art, and if so, how does that manifest itself?

I am a pretty firm believer that your identity and your life experience ends up manifesting itself in your products. I'm less sure in the "how:" the visual ways I can see identity in my work. I'm thinking about my tiara piece, and going in I knew I wanted to incorporate thread. For me, one visual image I keep with me is the Chinese mythology of the red thread. This red thread represents the bloodline that connects everything and everyone. Making this tiara was my one biggest meltdown of highschool: the night before it was due I had to thread all of it and it was just a mess! But I'm so glad how it came out.

One thing I've been reckoning with, this year especially, is as a Chinese adoptee, how much can I claim authenticity to my Chinese identity? I've written a lot of things recently on self-exoticism and finding the balance and knowing what you're exoticizing. I feel this attachment to things like the tiara. I named it "Unearthed Empress" which is kind of cliché, but because it's so dirty now because of air and decay it looks like it could have honestly been in the dirt for a year or something! But feeling those connections, and also after making them, being like “do I have the right to make those connections and claim these feelings?”

Unearthed Empress - Ling Groccia

Tell me more about your Unearthed Empress project mentioned earlier.

The way Metals Intensive worked was each term you had a term project. For that term, the project was called the "Add It Up challenge," and all these different techniques and materials had a different number of allotted points, and you had to get up to 500 points. So like the use of enamel was 20 points, cold solder seams was this amount of points. You definitely had to get creative. So I ended up using the gems and the thread in it.

You also won an award for it, right?

Yeah, that was nice! We sent things to the globe show which is the Boston Scholastic show, and if it gets a Gold Key; it goes on to the national level. The tiara one won gold at the national level, which I’m incredibly grateful for.

You also have a human body series, can you tell me more about that?

My human body series explores how you can replicate and represent nature out of something seemingly so hard and inflexible as metal. There's the heart piece, the lungs, and a piece inspired by mitosis. I really loved making the heart. To make it, I used chasing and repoussée, which was a requirement for a term project. Basically, you have this pot of tree sap and you heat it up and put the flat piece of metal in. Then you use different hammers and tools to make whatever 3D shape you want. It's incredible to see the depth you can get out of a single piece of copper. I had to use copper; you can only put copper in this certain type of tree sap, but I ended up covering it. If you look closely, it has my fingerprints in a red design all over it!

What is your favorite thing that you've made?

I really liked making the lungs. Weirdly because is was so much torch soldering, which is a real pain in the butt. Basically, the frame of the two lung cages is all made out of wire. Each piece is a different piece of wire, so soldering it to make it look seamless is hard. You have to hold it in place while you heat one part up, making sure all the other solder seams don't come undone. It's a lot of work but I remember when I was doing it and then filing after; I usually hate filing but being able to get that flushness was so satisfying. And the fact it opened after, I really liked that. To give it mobility. And the red thread, coming back to it.

Beating Heart - Ling Groccia

Given that metalwork is generally perceived as a more manual and difficult form of art, how do you feel societal conceptions of masculinity and femininity play a role in your art? Do you feel as if you're breaking gender norms through doing this? Does it play a role?

There definitely is a sort of industrial-ness to it, which I really like. I really liked taking woodshop in 6th or 7th grade for some reason. I think it spoke to me more because of the type of labor, and I was actually able to produce something I wanted out of the industrial materials.

As to femininity, the things I make are more feminine. I haven't thought about this too much, but I think part of the juxtaposition that I like between metal and nature is the relationship of something industrial used to make something so delicate. Obviously metal is still natural, but doesn't have that same edifice.

Do you have any ideas for works in the future?

Recently, not being at a studio, I've been brainstorming a lot of pieces I want to make. I’ve been really in to oysters and freshwater pearls and believe that their movement and organic shape would look really amazing represented in metal. I also really like bees, and want to make a pair of bee earrings in brass where the abdomen is this amber-colored gem. I love how earthy, orange colors add nuanced depth and warmth to gold and brass.

Do you have any advice for people interested in learning about making jewelry and getting into metalwork?

I would say it's definitely something to try, just because it's such a different skill set. I feel like we rarely use our hands in that sort of industrial capacity, or in that type of art. In general, sculpture and 3D art should be something we teach people.

AJA ISABEL

Photography by Natalie Tischler

Interview by Yosan Alemu

Before we start, can you briefly introduce yourself?

Right. My name is Aja Isabel. I’m a sophomore in Columbia College, majoring in history with a concentration in  human rights. My DJ name is 7_100, because that was the license plate of a car we’ve had in the family for years—and I listened to a lot of music in that car—my baby. I’d describe myself as a DJ, a radio host, and an occasional producer. I’m very self-critical and a huge audiophile, which makes producing hard as I’m always looking for perfection, but having music and being able to DJ has been vital to my happiness here at college.

How did you find out about music production and what's your history with music?

I was raised in a household that valued and appreciated music. My parents, baby boomers and children of the 70s, have vast catalogs of music that I was exposed to from nearly birth. My dad, for example, loves classic rock, but also rap, and my mom loves the Dave Matthews Band, but also R&B—pretty incongruous. They both love jazz, which I hated at first, too—as an angsty kid who despised it just because they loved it so much, and because I felt like I was exposed to jazz almost to the point of excess—but now I can’t get enough of it. As a kid, all friends were listening to things like Radio Disney and Kidz Bop. That was just not a thing in my house, at all. Looking back, I’m so grateful, because I got to hear real music from such a young age. With music production, my older brother actually got me interested in being a DJ. He got me set up with an old deck he no longer needed, and things took off from there. For years, I was always messing around on Garage Band—but eventually got pretty good on both that and a board. And now, I love mixing, as I think mixing old songs with newer ones bring certain songs back to life that may not be so mainstream anymore.

Do you think social media influences the way people consume art, especially music?

That's hard. But I think especially now, when albums are released, they sometimes lose their fullness. I feel like we don’t get the same sense of ‘entirety’ in an album because things like social media require such a high demand of production from artists, so they always feel like they need to always have music out.

Are there any life experiences or moments that have shaped you as a person and are reflected in the way you make or mix music?

Well, one moment I can think of was when I was pretty young, and at my first Steely Dan concert. I was so mesmerized by the way the group grabbed the audience’s attention and engaged with everyone in the crowd. Music isn’t just about making a tune, it’s also about interacting with people at an intimate level. When I'm deejaying, I keep that in mind. I want people to leave with an experience they’ll remember. It's not going to be a Steely Dan level of experience, but it can be somewhat close.

How does being a black woman influence your work? Are you conscious of your identity? And if so, how do you perceive identity in music and production?

It’s one thing being a female deejay, but it’s another to be both black and woman on the deejay scene. It’s like being a unicorn. I take pride in knowing that. The music world, especially music production has been dominated by white men, like Calvin Harris, Skrillex, and Martin Garrix. I can’t list off of the top my head a single female black DJ who has the same popularity or platform as these white, male DJs. That’s why Missy Elliot is such a role model for me. She’s been in this for decades, producing, mixing, and making music. She’s literally defied the odds.

How does sampling play a part in creating music, and does it help or harm the quality of music?

For my WBAR show, I recently did a West Coast rap episode where I was going through the discography of West Coast rappers. Tupac, for example, is especially known for sampling. People often think sampling is stealing music from other artists, but I think it provides a really cool opportunity to create something new, to create a different experience that gives older, often less-popular songs a second—or third—life, It’s also a really great way for artists to uplift and incorporate lesser known musicians.

Earlier, you mentioned that Missy Elliot was one of your role models. Who are your others?

I also love Pharrell; he has such a distinct sound. You can almost always tell if a song was produced by him just by listening to the first 15 seconds. I also love Kaytranada. Whether it be remixes of songs by Janet Jackson or Teedra Moses, he always manages to breathe new life back into classics. And he pays close attention to his roots when he makes music. Kaytranada is Haitian by way of Canada, and it’s really interesting to see the ways in which he combines the musical culture of both places into his work.

If you could pick one song to be your all-time favorite, which one would it be?

I would say ‘Black Cow’ by Steely Dan, because that song is everything.

SOPHIE KOVEL

Interview and photography by India Halsted 

Introduce yourself.

I’m Sophie. I’m a senior at Barnard and an artist. I’m majoring in Art History and Visual Art. I was born in Los Angeles and raised in Northern California.

What were your first moments of creating?

I was exposed to a lot of art when I was quite young: in the home, in museums, through conversations, through family members that are artists. There was a specific period of time when a group of friends and I would see gallery and museum shows and re-create the work.

Who are the artists who influence your work?

Lisa Oppenheim, Emily Jacir, Rachel Whiteread, and Lorna Simpson have in large ways influenced my thesis. I am also very influenced by Eva Hesse.

What materials do you work with? How would you describe them?

They tend to be malleable, organic, and non-rigid – like wax and cheesecloth. I want to play with resin too. I am attracted to its luminosity: the way it glows and the way it can take form.

What classes have most informed your work?

Though it’s hard to locate a specific class, Leslie Hewitt’s “Freestyle and Displacement” had and continues to have particular influence on my work. In large part because of its focus on representations of cultural trauma: trauma of dispossession and diaspora. Leslie renewed my faith in the political power of abstraction. The Atlas Group’s work is a very good example of this subtle strength. So is Leslie’s – it’s quiet but deeply political.

Describe your studio space. Is it a place of exhibition? For yourself? For others?

It’s an exhibition space for myself, but then in the case of the open studios it’s a way to collectively open up the class’s thinking. When others enter the studio the thinking is on display in addition to the work.

How would you describe your artistic process and when would you say a work is finished?

Sometimes it’s clearer than others. Ultimately an artwork is finished for me when it feels that the work can stand. I always have my hands in a lot of places which helps because I don’t just have this linear way of saying “this is started” and “this is done.” Because I work so fluidly, I often find resonances between projects.

Describe your series “We Are Not On Solid Ground.”

The fires in Santa Rosa and Hurricane Irma happened right as I was beginning to think about what I wanted to make for the semester.  I wasn’t preparing to respond to the trauma of natural disasters. That is the source of the images for “We Are Not On Solid Ground." The theoretical grounding came from an idea in a documentary film class last year. We read an essay by André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image.” Bazin describes a film of a bullfight in which the bullfighter dies. He then recounts his own uncanny experience of seeing the bullfighter’s death a second time when watching the film on a different afternoon. Change is ‘mummified’ in film for Bazin; film makes death repeatable. So, I was interested in this idea of mummification as the repetition of  trauma.

What about these two events inspired you? Is it their timeliness or their personal significance?

I was feeling particularly affected by the news at the time. I was trying to insulate myself and so the work was a way to not insulate myself. And in the case of the fires I was particularly unsettled because they happened just half an hour away from where I grew up. I was looking at images of the fires in The New York Times. They were incredibly beautiful images – charred ground and soft pink skies, and that was unsettling. I was curious if the images of [Hurricane] Irma, which was happening simultaneously, would be equally romantic. I think beauty was a point of entry for me. Because these horrific disasters were photographed so beautifully, I could look at them and there was a sense of stillness as something captured. There is a dichotomy between the stillness of the image and my repetition of it through mummification.

How do you define mummification and what does this process mean to your work?

Mummification alludes to the journalistic original. It’s also a kind of psychoanalytic process. The masking (through gauze and wax, or in another case, Neosporin) re-enacts repression but at the same time it’s also a preservation, a way to bring the repressed material to light.

How is material important to “We Are Not On Solid Ground”?

The images are printed on vellum, which is a sort of filmic material. It’s an inkjet print that I wrapped in cheesecloth and embalmed in wax. This series in particularly was largely inspired by Eva Hesse but also by the idea of the wound, the materials that might dress a wound. Yet these dressings don’t necessarily fix anything. It’s a kind of naive attempt. With some of the works, like one image of charred washing machines, you can see the impression of the turkey pan – there are these domestic traces.

How do you separate the work of taking photos and borrowing and embalming images?

I recently got disenchanted with producing images given that I experience so many images. Relevant to all the work is the assembly of images or the assembly of an experience of images. There are these associative networks between each of the projects [some integrate the same events] which a part of me identifies as nebulous, but it  is also a psychoanalytic logic.

Does the process of mummification bring you closer or farther away from the original?

It’s hard to call myself a witness because I wasn’t there. I try to emphasize my distance in all of my work and yet I think of my work as a kind of bearing witness. The process of mummification represents my distance but it also brings me closer because I needed to work through these events. I didn’t just want to hear about the ash that was falling on my friend’s car in Los Angeles when Southern California was ravaged with fires soon after [those in Santa Rosa] and not process it. There’s the witnessing and experiencing of these images and then there’s also its aftereffects. The aftermath of these events carried with them an atmosphere, both environmentally and psychologically.

Photography always raises the question of the original. But calling these appropriated images ‘sources’ rather than ‘originals’ more closely approximates what I’m trying to do.

Describe your series “Picturing.”

The name “Picturing" came to me as a way of saying that I was documenting, a kind of journalism of journalism, one or two steps removed. It locates myself. I applied Neosporin to my camera lens, which is a Pictorialist technique. Stieglitz used petroleum jelly to create a romantic effect, to make photography more painterly. I first saw this technique in this Man Ray’s film “Étoile de Mer.” It followed from” We are not on stable ground” to use Neosporin as another way to to mummify images, a more integrated affront than before. In this case [using Neosporin] was a way for me make the digital image more sculptural and material.

What about films or specific films inspire you or your work?

I think back to certain moments of stillness or repetition. There is a scene in Truffaut’s “Jules et Jim” where Catherine is laughing and her laughter stills, then continues, stills, then continues. Or at the very end of the “400 Blows” when Antoine is suddenly freezes running on the beach. I think these examples were initial ways for me to think about photography and film. This reflexive thinkingthat the moving image is composed of stills informs my work. Chris Marker’s film “La Jetée” has this archival quality.

Describe your current project “Junior.”

I’ve been collecting junior pilot wings, the pins you are given on planes as a kid, in thinking about totems of safety. In my work that there is also this concern of nuclear warfare. I was thinking of the sky and atmosphere and these junior pilot wings  came as a sort of solution. I soon found that photographs I took of the wings had more weight than the wings themselves. I wanted to play with the apparatus of display so I decided to use a commercial, museological postcard display so that viewers would be able to take them. So that they can carry a talisman. I liked the idea of passage, of publicly locating yourself, and I was thinking of On Kawara’s work.

I’m still in the process of theoretically framing them in all honesty. I went to the March for Our Lives yesterday and was really moved by the signs children had written. It really changed how I defined the wings and made me think, could they be voices unheard? What could they locate? What could they demand? I’m leaning towards putting these slogans on the back of these postcards vertically as a structural aspect. I want to leave space for other people to write.

How do you reconcile physical and cultural trauma with collective loss in your work?

I’m not exactly sure if these are concepts that need to be reconciled, but they are definitely all at play. Rosalyn Deutsche introduced me to an interesting rereading of Freud’s “Mourning And Melancholia.” For Freud, one withdraws from the world in response to trauma or loss. This is what he calls depressive melancholia. So what’s interesting about these works, “There is No Threat” in particular, is that they seek out another form of melancholia. Jonathan Flatley uses the term non-depressive melancholia to say there is a form of melancholia that leads to an interest in the world rather than a withdrawal from it. That through one’s own losses you can attach to others’ losses.

Is part of being an artist being sensitive?

I think sensitivity is essential to my work. Anxiety has taken on physical effects and that’s the juxtaposition I’m abstractly making in “There is No Threat” with the clinical swabs. It brings two languages together – the language of safety alerts (which I’ve screenshotted) of the false ballistic missile threat in Hawaii this January and the language of medical props. I’m trying to infuse a sense of healing but also of fragility or vulnerability.

Where do you see your work going in the future?

I’m very responsive and I typically have a lot of threads at any given time so it’s difficult to see exactly where my work will take me.

That said, I collected newspapers from the day of the Los Angeles fire – I bought about twenty of them. I’ve thought about dipping them in wax or stacking them.

In terms of my own plans, I will be in New York next year doing what I’m not sure but surely maintaining an art practice. I ultimately plan to get an MFA.

Nudity vs Nakedness

Interview by Maeve Flaherty, artwork by Amanda Ba

The shades in Dodge 501 are drawn, but the morning sun seeps in and mingles with the powerful overhead spotlights. They’re focused on a woman in the nude, who sits upright on a throne-like chair draped with flowing green fabric. Around her, twenty artists glance between her and their paper, capturing her figure on the page.

The model will spend the next two hours moving between positions as she models for one of Columbia University Artist’s Society’s twice-weekly figure drawing sessions. The sessions are free to the public and organized by Artist’s Society, a student-run Columbia club that provides studio time for the artistic community.

The models, who are paid and treated like any professional artistic model, are nonetheless faced with a unique challenge. Drawn from the Columbia student population, the single session they model for Artist’s Society is often their first time being naked in public. And they do it in front of their friends, classmates, people they’ve seen in dining halls and on College Walk- people they are very likely to encounter again.

To learn more about the student models, I interviewed Artist’s Society board member and graphic designer, Amanda Ba, CC’20. Ba rolled into our meeting on her trusty pink scooter. She explained that the models, who sign up by filling out a google form with availability at the beginning of each year, are selected alphabetically from a list of names. The length of the list means that the model is different for each session and Columbia students are normally only selected once in their four years.

I asked Ba what makes a good model. She explained, “It’s somebody who has versatility with their poses. This allows artists room to be more stylistic in how they choose to draw a body– because a body is a body, but you can play on it. Someone who will twist and create curves and folds and angles and convexes in their body. A pristine, beautiful body is actually the most boring body. What is more fun to draw is curves, undulations.”

Francisco Alvidrez, CC’19, was up to the challenge. “At the beginning,” he said, “I was doing weird, difficult positions. I was like, ‘Well, here’s how I can contort my body for you today.’”

As an artist himself and an architecture major, Alvidrez saw nude modeling as a creative exercise. He explained, “It was important to me, as somebody who makes the art and also as someone who partakes in it all, to be on both ends. To create with my body or with materials.”

The model is an active participant in the art created. In the Artist’s Society sessions, the model’s job is not to simply stand on the block-- it is to move in a way that pushes and inspires the artists.

Virginia, BC’19, had never modeled in the nude before. She found the creative conversation between artist and model surprisingly empowering. “Whenever I changed positions,” she explained, “I was presenting new challenges to them. I don’t know much about drawing people myself, so I assumed that I would be less in-charge because I couldn’t control how my body was being represented, but I actually had a lot of agency.” She added, “I thought it was a cool exercise, choosing how to represent my own body so that other people could represent me.”

But the line between choosing how to represent the body and being represented is thin. Inherent in the experience is a lack of control.

Alvidrez, who is very comfortable with his body, didn’t find the experience frightening or unpleasant. Still, he recognized the limits of his agency: “I’m completely naked on this block, in the middle of a room, surrounded by a bunch of people who I don’t know, who are drawing every knick and cranny of my body. It’s one of the most apparent affronts to my body-- I have no say over what people are drawing of my body. If they want to draw my left nipple, they can spend twenty minutes drawing it. Or they could be spending that same amount of time on my foot. It doesn’t matter. For me, it’s really weird that I am in total control of the situation but at the same time extremely vulnerable.”

Artist’s Society recognizes that vulnerability and tries to make their models comfortable. On the physical level, they offer a private changing space and keep a heater next to the stage on cold days. On a more emotional level, they make sure to talk to each model when they arrive to make sure they are clear on what will happen over the course of the session.

But at the end of the day, the model has to find it in themselves to get up on the block. Ba explained, “A good model is someone who is comfortable with themselves, who knows what they are getting into-- it doesn’t mean that they have to have done it before. But they have to have their minds wrapped around ‘Yes, I am going to be naked in front of a bunch of people but they aren’t going to sexualize me, this is in an artistic pursuit.’”

Artist’s Society emphasizes that the modeling is artistic, not sexual. Before the model enters each session, the organizers repeat a quick code of conduct on how to handle the session: don’t take photos, etc. To make sure the model feels safe, the artists are not allowed to instruct the models on how to pose their bodies.

For Virginia, that element of control was key. “One time, a guy suggested I stand up and the person coordinating the event quickly said ‘If you’re comfortable.’ I did stand up, but I didn’t feel like I had been forced into doing something I wouldn’t have done otherwise. I did it because I was like ‘Why not?’”

Virginia didn’t feel uncomfortable or sexualized. She said, “I didn’t know anyone and I could tell that they were not looking at me in a creepy, gazy way. They are looking at you and trying to capture you on the page. I felt really safe.”

Isaiah Feldman-Schwartz, CC’18, agreed. He’s modeled for Artist’s Society twice, and both times enjoyed the experience. “Something I really appreciate about the Artist’s Society is that it very much doesn’t feel like a sexualized space at all. It was like, ‘I’m standing here naked and that’s only weird if you think it’s weird.’ They’re here to do figure drawing, I’m here to model for the figure drawing, and it is what it is. Everybody was very professional.”

For a student modeling in front of other students, a professional and artistic attitude is key. Most nude models can show up to their job, do it, and leave, not worrying about running into the artists. But at the Artist’s Society sessions, the attendees are mostly either students or Morningside Heights residents. For many of the models, they will walk into a room and recognize one or several of the artists they are about to be naked in front of.

Although Feldman-Schwartz didn’t tell his friends about his modeling beforehand, a friend happened to be at his second session. It was “slightly more awkward,” he said. “In particular, it felt that way because it was someone of the opposite gender. Which I would be lying if I said didn’t factor into my consciousness. But it didn’t feel like a big problem. It was more of an awareness. I was like ‘don’t make too much eye contact, don’t be weird about it.’”

Like Feldman-Schwartz, Francisco Alvidrez knew several people in the room. During his session, both friends and classmates of his were drawing. Alvidrez felt more comfortable with the strangers present. “I think had no one I know been there,” Alvidrez said, “I would have been a lot more comfortable, but the fact that I knew people there didn’t hinder my experience or make me more nervous.”

Still, although Alvidrez was didn’t really mind seeing people he knew on the day of the session, he did mind the way the modeling bled into his later life. Several times after his session, people approached him in Morningside Heights to compliment him on his modeling. Alvidrez explains thinking, “I’m at a restaurant, why are you complimenting me on my nude modeling? I appreciate the compliment, but at the same time it’s like ‘why is this necessary right now?’”

Alvidrez felt comfortable during his session, but the later encounters broke the boundaries that Artist’s Society carefully constructs between model and artist. Those boundaries are fragile, and require the commitment of all artists and models to maintain a respectful distance between what happens during and after the session.

After being approached in public while eating a meal by someone from the session, Alvidrez wondered, “When does people practicing stop and sexualization start?”

In Virginia’s experience, the boundary between body and art form was clarified the second she stepped off the block. When Virginia finished her session and started to put her clothes back on in the back of the room, she assumed that after two hours in the nude, it didn’t matter where she got dressed. One of the organizers approached her and offered the privacy of a curtained corner to put her clothing back on. Virginia said, “I realized that once I wasn’t the subject anymore, it was like we were people interfacing in public, as public as a classroom is again.”

In that moment, the difference between nakedness and nudity became clear. Virginia: “Then I was naked, and then I needed privacy to change. When you’re in the setting where you’re the person everyone is looking at, then you’re nude.”

The nude model walks that line between naked and nude. The art critic John Berger wrote in his seminal text, Ways of Seeing, “To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude.”

Amanda Ba agreed. She explained, “Naked is a state, right? Naked is ‘I am naked now but I will be clothed later.’ It’s almost like a noun, not an adjective.” In Ba’s opinion, nude is something else entirely: “You are using it to describe the visual term for a human body. It’s just ‘the nude’. When we have nude figure drawing sessions, you aren’t looking at somebody and saying ‘Oh, they’re naked,’ because you are seeing them in a naked context. You are like, this is just a beautiful form for me to depict.”

This difference between naked and nude is key to how the models and artists approach the artistic interaction they take part in. For Ba, nudity reduces or purifies the body to a form for artistic interpretation. For Francisco Alvidrez, the word nude has sexual connotations. He said, “Nude for me seems sexualized, and naked doesn’t. For me people being naked was always some nonsexual situation or not even fully undressed, but nude seems more charged with that connotation.”

For him, the sexual connotations of the word nude shaped how he experienced the session. He said, “We use it for this nude modeling. Maybe that’s why I had that thought of prevailing sexualization with my body. I associate that word, nude, with sex or with some charged other meaning. I was more in tune with that sensation afterwards.”

As much as Artist’s Society tries to present the session as a vacuum, a space in which the interplay between model and viewer is entirely artistic, it cannot block out the outside world. Each model walks into the session with their own understanding of their body and the meaning of being unclothed. They bring that perspective with them as they model for their classmates, and back out onto the Columbia campus.

I asked Feldman-Schwartz if he felt more naked or nude during his time modeling for Artist’s Society.

He responded without hesitation.

“I felt naked.”

[Artist’s Society’s figure drawing sessions occur twice-weekly, every Friday from 6pm to 8pm and every Saturday from 10am to 12pm in Dodge 501. They are free and open to the public.]