Black tattoo artist Kilo poured boiling water onto his chest when he was two.

“I feel like it sort of set into motion the idea of harm and death always being around,” he said in a calm, reassuring voice.

His mother was boiling hot dogs to feed his sister. He flatlined in the ambulance.

“My mom said I was looking for food,” he remembers.

One of the EMTs gave him a stuffed puppy to comfort him. He held it so tight that it fused to the raw skin on his chest, and he had to go back into surgery for them to be separated.

He got a life lesson that not many two-year-olds get. This formative experience was the backdrop to the gospel his grandmother nailed into him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNn5-JhdtV/

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Life and death

“Everything isn’t forever, not even me. I was almost nothing.”

It gave Kilo a sense of awareness and acceptance, which presents itself in his artwork combined with childhood nostalgia.

“Just being a kid growing up, all I ever thought about was just dying; one day having to die.”

His artwork invites viewers into a conversation about the taboo of death.

“I like to use death within my pieces because it’s the ultimate reminder that, though I’m creating this artwork that’s gonna last forever, the artist themself won’t last forever,” he said.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDCjyxkh2iK/

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Flipping the taboo as a Black tattoo artist

“When it comes to me and who I am and who I seek to be in this world and get done, I always like the idea of not being there forever to be synonymous with me. I feel that everything in life is temporary; and to truly gain, you have to be willing to lose and risk it all,” he said to me over the phone.

I was taken aback by the power of the black tattoo artist and his words. Then and there, I tried to gather my thoughts for my next question.

“Yes, I know,” he said, and we both giggled. “I’m on this mode all the time, so thanks for calling.”

Though you might assume work about death would be rife with blood, gore, and suffering, Kilo’s visual style flips that on its head. As a kid, he loved watching cartoons. Kilo’s tattoos reflect this.

 

 

 

 

 

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🥺🥺🥺🥺😖🥺🥺🥺🥺 mach attacked my half of the trade w Toki✨ Puppy Man, my fkn dog!😭😭 TY EMILY this was so fun, loved all ur help throughout 💛 glad this piece has a home 🏩💒🐶🐰 🦋🐉🌸🎲🍄🦴☯️

A post shared by ᏦᎥᏝᎧ (@earth2kilo) on Oct 8, 2020 at 6:22pm PDT

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Love for cartoons

“They’re drawn out stories with exaggerated colors,” he said.

He mimics this in his art: neon colors animate playful 90’s cartoon characters, and smiley faced “Kool Kids,” whose melancholic puppydog eyes and grimaces stare out at viewers from his clients’ arms, backs, chests and legs. He tries to evoke a childlike expression which he describes as “the innocence of creating.”

“It kinda came to mind that if I did anything with art, I wanted it to be moving; whether it be a cartoon or art on a person,” he said. For him, that’s what makes art real.

That’s why angels, flowers, butterflies, and the Kool Kids with the lining and shading of the drawings of a student sitting in the back of class mark his brand.

“It just reminds me of not paying attention in class, just drawing on someone that’s like, ‘can you draw on me next?’ There’s a little line of classmates. Everybody is classmates in this world and we’re all just learning.”

 

 

 

 

 

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you say i’ve made your life a living hell, and yet still let me pay you when i felt…🦋

A post shared by ᏦᎥᏝᎧ (@earth2kilo) on Oct 23, 2019 at 5:21pm PDT

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More to Kilo’s tattoo art

Kilo says that’s also why he likes stick-and-poke tattooing so much.

“It’s true intimacy between me and another person. Two physical bodies doing something in a productive manner but for some outward reason. It makes me think of cavemen building the wheel together, which is also very true primitive artistic form.”

To Kilo, the artistic spirit of tattooing has a deeper meaning.

“To most people, they probably think of me as just being a tattooer, but I feel like, in some way, I’m some sort of art therapist, or like a life coach. There’s always something to gain from an interaction from someone else. I always go into an interaction with the expectancy to give as well,” he said.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-x5mtVBdG1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

“I don’t really feel like I’m speaking for myself. I feel like I’m explaining the blessings that I receive in life, trying to show somebody the recipe of how I got those same blessings. That’s why I do my art.”

As a celebration of the growing sustainability movement in fashion, photographer Olivia Ghalioungui and illustrator Anna Koutelas have joined forces to interpret an editorial fashion photoshoot that conceptualized the physicality of fashion.

“Era” is a photo series and their interpretation of a COVID-ridden industry that is forcing us to find solutions to the traditional elements of fashion and marketing.

They are challenging the reliance on physical fashion when creating editorials. This approach falsifies what we expect, selling an idea based on the development of textiles and how we are attracted to the notion of the prototypes and samples.

Olivia Ghalioungui is Athens-born photography and filmmaker working in Paris and Zurich for fashion magazines, including Elle magazine [Europe]. She has a unique perspective of her photography, raised between Cairo, Egypt, and Antiparos, Greece. 

Olivia’s work is fashion-focused, capturing styled portraits for brands like Marie De La Roche, GUNTHER PARIS that channel the soul of the model or subject to the forefront. Her images are that transcend a voyeuristic experience, frozen in time.

Anna has work in fashion since finishing her graduate studies at the Paris College of Art. The textile designer spent the beginning of her career at Malhia Kent and has since moved into other creative endeavors.

Together these two artists have visually set the industry template of what a COVID-era editorial spread can accomplish. The idea is taking the traditional aspect of photography and turning the style portion into an infinite exposé of textiles and garments. Fashion that is, at best, a physical circus transforming into a visual fantasy of endless possibilities.

Illustrated garments appear over a real model photographed in a city center. The model wears a leotard for the shoot, and in post-production, decorated in the observed piece of clothing, potentially of the vision of a fashion designer.

The geometric design of the garments creates a surreal effect while contrasting with transparent designs within the illustrations. The images provide a sense that the illustrated clothing holds a physical property that is complemented with the perspective and of the captured gestures.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFcg1ZwnmRT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Radiant and geometrically designed illustrations represent real clothing in this series of photos moving with the model and sharing her posture.

The transparent portions of the covering design are what takes the mind into creating a subconsciously realistic appearance. Anna’s illustrations are a cubist appreciation of clothing, with acknowledgment for the global design leaving out details more associated with textiles. 

The pandemic has already shifted fashion to similarly adapted. We saw fashion weeks using 3D runway shows and presentations to showcase their latest collections.

As this consistently becomes a norm, Olivia and Anna both have given life to a new concept in the era of “phygital” fashion.

Quarantine has lasted a lot longer than most people expected, and as we all know, the boredom is very real. While crowds followed the trends of making sourdough and joining TikTok, others have become obsessed with giving themselves tattoos.

If you’re Gen-Z, you probably know what stick and pokes are. If you’re older than a millennial, it’s simple: they’re tattoos done by stippling with a needle, instead of lines with a gun.

Stick and poke tattoos are also a part of alternative and DIY culture, especially spaces that tend to be more inclusive of people of color and queer people – often where these two groups converge. That’s where 23-year-old New York City artist Ocean Gao comes in.

Gao is a self-taught tattoo artist who loved drawing on friends in high school. One day a friend asked them to do their stick and poke tattoo, to which Gao apprehensively complied under the auspices of a friend with more experience.

Sanitizing a needle with vodka and sitting on a carpet, Gao poked their way into the art of tattooing. “It was super unsanitary and not recommended,” they said. “It was just very grungy and not it.”

Grungy is part of the DIY scene, (though it’s important to maintain proper sanitation when doing stick and pokes!) Turns out, tattooing wasn’t as scary as they had originally thought as they started to practice on their own body.

They proudly posted their work under the hashtags #qttr and #qpocttt. These hashtags on Instagram spotlight queer artists and queer tattoo artists of color specifically to help boost the community.

Gao, who is nonbinary and Chinese, says it’s especially important for queer people of color to have a safe and comfortable environment to get tattooed, which can be difficult to find in an industry that’s been so hypermasculine and white.

There are countless examples of people committing acts of cultural appropriation by bastardizing imagery or characters from cultures to which they have no real connection (my favorite example is Ariana Grande’s barbecue grill).

Not only is this just cringey, but it continues the commodification of the identities and cultures of people of color. It’s important to Gao that people on the receiving end of their work have a personal and meaningful connection to the image they’re permanently engraving into their bodies.

“When I first started getting tattoos, I was like, ‘I want a dragon, but I want an Asian person to do it,” as having someone who’s not a part of that shared culture of tattooing it takes the meaning away from the cultural iconography.

“I struggled to find somebody, and I find that a lot of people that I tattoo, or that tattoo me want this culturally relevant thing and want someone of that culture involved.”

– Ocean Gao

On the flip side, it can be especially challenging to try to mediate possible cases of cultural appropriation.

“Sometimes I’ll get a booking from someone who wants the Chinese-inspired flash, and I don’t know how to be like ‘just wanna make sure you’re Chinese.’ It feels so awkward.”

Part of the challenge is figuring out where the boundary lies in asking personal information or maintaining a level of professionalism. “If they have an explicitly Asian last name, I don’t ask. I just assume that they are,” Gao said. “I don’t think there’s a good way for me to go about doing it.”

Making sure that clients are genuinely a part of the community whose imagery they’re getting tattooed is a way to protect that community from further objectification. The hard part is figuring out how to verify that they are a person of color.

“People who are mixed will want something, and they’ll come in and look fully white. I’m not gonna be like ‘no, I won’t tattoo this on you because you look white,’ but it also is a little bit weird.” Gao said. “I don’t want it to be my place to determine who looks Asian enough, you know what I mean?”

Understandably, issues like race and how to treat clients while maintaining a sense of safety for both the artist and the client is part of the learning process.

It’s one of the many interpersonal skills that come with being a tattoo artist. Gao hasn’t explicitly made any posts on their Instagram or their booking form to structure those delicately nuanced racial negotiations.

“It makes me an authority in a way that I don’t want to be.”

Though identity can be murky, Gao says it’s important to find some way to maintain those boundaries.

“I feel like it’s kind of necessary. I think sometimes people look at vetting and call it gatekeeping when that’s not what’s really happening.”

Another demand of being a tattoo artist is handling the heavy subject matter and the conversation that comes along with it. Part of the importance of sharing a queer identity with clients is because trauma is common in queer people.

“There definitely is some sort of emotion management,” Gao said. When tattoos are related to trauma, it’s hard to figure out where the boundaries are while also maintaining professionalism.

“I can’t just like be absorbed in their story, like I have to maintain some sort of distance from it,” Gao said. “It’s cool that people trust me with really intimate things, but on the other hand I sometimes feel like I’m not trained to be a therapist.”

Gao’s clients aren’t always blatantly queer people of color. Though their work focuses on creating a safe space for people like them, their community of clients keeps growing. Just the other day, they tattooed a very muscular white dude.

“I don’t think that’s ever happened before, so that was really cool, but it surprised me.”

The growing community of tattooers who are queer and people of color helps to expose that every avenue of life has a specific niche for everyone.

For Gao, their values and tattooing are very ingrained in identity.

“Even if I weren’t a tattooer, identity politics would still be floating around in my head.”

“My ultimate purpose of life is to become a cartoon,” said artist Mike Perry.

Granted, it might seem like a shocking goal at first. How can anyone become a cartoon? Why would anyone want to be one? More shocking, however, was the fact that following Mike Perry’s interview, I wanted to become a cartoon myself.

And you might end up realizing that after getting to know his art, you might want to be one too. 

Pop Surrealism

After learning about the interesting philosophies of an artist like Mike Perry, life’s most complicated questions come to a simple solution: explore.

“What does it mean to be alive?” “What is the meaning of life itself?” “Does it have a meaning?” And, perhaps his simplicity and audacity are what makes Mike a first-generation “Pop Surreal” artist.

“People are no longer surprised by melting clocks,” explained Mike.

“So much of my art is about trying to explore the things that are presented to us in a normal existence but through the lens of something different.”

The idea of a cartoon makes reality limitless, exploring the sudden possibility that anything can happen. “Making a painting is taking something that does not exist and projecting it into the universe through time, effort, talent, and craft,” he said.

It is bringing imagination into real life. 

And he proved that possibility with the animation for “Mushroom,” the fourth episode of the fourth season of the Comedy Central series Broad City.

With over 14,000 separate drawings and more than seven months of work, Perry illustrates Ilana and Abby’s (the show’s characters) trip on the mushroom.

The episode starts off with just animated eyes. Then, as the trip starts peaking, Abbi and Ilana walk through a tunnel that slowly builds an 8-minute fully animated cartoon.

Both the characters and the audience are taken into the surreal reality of the world. Within 22 minutes, he not only successfully accomplished delivering a comical and fascinating episode, but he manifested all the possible sensations that the characters encountered during their trip. 

Like the characters, the audience is surprised by the craziness of Mike’s illustrations. The bizarre feelings of a higher awareness; from experiencing higher alertness of emotions to spotting people butter skating over pancakes. 

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The cartoon experience

“Anything that moves has the abstract element of time,” he told VICE.

Movement, therefore, is something that is essential to fundamental to all of Mike’s work. Its the combination of movement, color, and shape, which brings a cartoonish surreal experience to the beholder. 

Mike explained that with art, like with cartoons, there is a moment in time when reality starts drifting away. They get deeper into the building of a world, which in its essence, just reflects humanity on a different level.

“What I love about these is when people see things that are unrelated to me. That gives me joy. That is my language communicating in ways that I don’t understand,” he says. Thus, his work speaks to the beholder through a personal layer.

“I am a human and there are other humans out there. So there is a good chance that if I make something that I believe in, there are probably other humans that will also be into it.”

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Mike is a true artist

His interest in cartoons started as a kid when his mother gifted him a Chuck and Buck book. He never read a single word from it, but he just drew every single picture found there.

When he got older, he studied Minneapolis College of Art and Design. This is where he truly learned something with animation excited him further.

But it’s all about creating a language that works best for him. And that probably explains why he makes art through so many different scales; Illustrations, sculptures, and paintings. 

Essentially, they all mirror an exploration of life through Mike’s own experience. Thus, creating a space for others to reflect on themselves through shared times and spaces and hopefully find joy, a positive point of view, and an optimistic landscape. 

“I feel grateful to be an artist because so much is dedicated to discovering what it means to be alive, what it means to me to be alive.”

Animation, painting, and culture, after all, are visual storytelling. And for Mike, these illustrated characters have the imaginary freedom to explore life’s experience in a simple, fun, and comical way.

All of the sudden, the idea of coming to a cartoon makes sense.

So, you just moved into your new place; but the generic movie posters and Polaroids from your old dorm room aren’t going to start a conversation with your new Tinder boo or make a good backdrop for your Insta pics.

Your walls need a little culture.

Here are some artists to get the inspiration and the conversation flowing.

Kenneth Zenz // @zenz.k

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1zHxcKFIEx/

Kenneth is a trans artist based in Chicago, Illinois. His work often features body-horror: subjects have extra limbs, dismembered floating appendages, or find themselves in peculiar, fantastically horrific predicaments. Borrowing compositions and visual motifs from religious artwork, he depicts gender and chronic illness. He mostly works in watercolor.

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Gummy Gunk // @unfiltered.ooze

https://www.instagram.com/p/CC3_MicFUNf/

Gumi is a nonbinary mixed media artist based in Honolulu, Hawai’i. They mostly work in fiber, making “blobs” of pink, brown and pastels. They also paint and collage, highlighting an aesthetic of nostalgia. Their products include charms, zines, stickers, pins, magnets and prints.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAQo2J1lPvH/

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Mack Brim // @madamemack

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDzMARbBIj5/

Brim’s work explores femininity with a “previously disregarded aesthetic vision.” Her hyper-realistic oil paintings are a mostly neutral palette with a touch of pink, often including high-contrast glittery highlights. She is based in Dallas, Texas.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDhzexgBuPo/

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Jimmy Knives // @jimmy_knives

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_8HwkHjvgG/

Knives is a digital illustrator whose creepy-cute, often gory work combines warm and cool tones to make a shocking palette. Negative space is sparse in his compositions, which usually jam-packed with borders, textures, and gruesomely adorable icons.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9VclG_DzlN/

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Allison Aboud // @allisonaboudart

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-KkUoJhcP7/

Aboud is an acrylic painter from the East Bay, California. Thick black sections in her paintings indicate her love of stained glass and the cubist tradition. Her work features a palette of tame, muted neutral colors. She also works with textile.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAZiqXCDv_C/

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Trude Is Krude // @trudeiskrude

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFH5RRxBzcE/

Tascha is an illustrator from Berlin, Germany. Her work is reminiscent of the pictures in The Little Prince, using simplified subjects in whimsical environments. Her palette is mostly blue, ochre, and terra cotta, deliberately placed in an otherwise empty canvas.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBfiihLhzic/

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Vacuum Chan // @vacuumch_

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByV-dkyojFP/

Vacuum is a digital art student and freelancer. Mostly female subjects meet the viewer’s gaze, veiled in dark palettes with pops of neon.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwc4-LInXgW/

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Linnea Serte // @turndecassette

https://www.instagram.com/p/CE8-iqJAuZQ/

Most people know this artist for placid images of frogs, but her other works are just as beautiful. Her Ghibli-esque representations of animals in blues and greens give a relaxed vibe.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7odUULjpqK/

If you don’t want to get rid of the Pulp Fiction poster and the Polaroids from Firefly, most independents artists supply stickers, T-shirts or pins that are great as gifts, too.

Once upon a time, writing on the street was considered vandalism, acts of criminals, and uncivilized efforts to communicate. It was (and, sometimes still is) sanctioned by law with penalties up to 1-3 years of prison.

Then, how did mural “stains”  end up on museum walls?

Longer-than-life graffiti

Drawing on walls is not something new. On the contrary, it is a practice that has been around for more than 40,000 years ago. Cave art was the first form of human storytelling ever recorded in history.

The first painted cave is known for being Paleolithic (from the stone age) was found in Altamira, Spain. The artists [experts believe] were our fellow beings Homo Sapiens. These are considered being the first form of symbolic communication of their beliefs.

It wasn’t until the mid of the twentieth century that writing on walls became recognized as a rebellious act endorsed by gangs and criminals.

By 1965, things got interested when 12-year-old Darryl McCray covered the Philadelphia’s Youth Development Center walls with the word “cornbread.” He had pestered the center’s cooks so much cornbread meals, he was nicked named after the bread.

And she passed his time leaving his unique signature at the walls of the YDC  instead of getting involved in the drug dealing as his mates did.

No need for violence to make himself known.

Upon his release, Cornbread took the streets of Philadelphia and tag his name across the city.

Soon he was using it to communicate his other deeper messages. And messages like “Cornbread loves Cynthia” started to become not only popular but effective. His name became widely known and appreciated, his messages spoke for themselves (literally), and he became a celebrity under Philadelphia’s eyes.

These inspired others to do the same and in no time the city’s walls grew dense with names and numbers. Each writer writing their name to glory.

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The urban problem

Soon, New York City’s walls and subways were covered in color with tags and names and new pieces. It became a form of expression and an essential aspect of the formation of a subculture.

Naturally, as being an extraordinary form of expression, graffiti art became a political target. In the mid-1970s New York mayors, John Lindsay and Edward Koch saw the movement as “a symptom of a larger urban problem.” Thus, washing graffitis off became a symbol of political control.

But writers fought back, using their own elaborated systems with subway maps and shared intelligence warned each other about the spots that were safe to write on.

This gave birth to both, a “Guerrilla War,” that drained the city’s resources and a counter-movement of collective efforts that provided writers a platform to speak against some of the government’s oppressive systems.

Superkool 223, Phase 2, and Kotter became popular writers. They became an active and valuable part of popular culture. Tracy 168, for example, appeared in John Travolta’s classic sitcom Welcome Back. 

These fostered a climate of creative innovation and matured into a subculture of artists and innovators.

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From the street to the museum

Yet, during the 1970s, art was still seen as part of the bourgeoisie, high class and it was sealed inside museums, protected from the “unworthy.” Although people were getting used to the idea of having the walls of their cities colorfully painted, graffiti was still considered acts of vandalism endorsed by criminals and uneducated people.

Then, how did it leave the streets to museum walls?

Perhaps two key figures for the movement to flourish into an art form are Keith Haring and Jean Michael-Basquiat, kings of street art.

During 1970s, still studying at the School of Visual Arts, Haring started his career using  New York’s subway walls as his canvas. He wished to communicate with a larger audience in a less formal way. Bringing art to the streets and breaking the exclusivity of the museums.

At the same time, 17-year-old Basquiat, together with his high school friend Al Diaz, started to write cryptic phases, easier to read and digest than other graffiti.

“It was supposed to be a logo, like Pepsi,” explained Basquiat.

Basquiat and Al Diaz became known as SAMO. The ad-like phrases, became interactive as people started to cross them and add their own ideas. And people reacted to their messages as it spoke about the mundane in an organic way.

The medium became the message for both artists, trying to reach a popular audience where they could connect with the ordinary in a creative way.

Haring and Basquiat attracted the attention of commuters and the city’s authorities, but most importantly also of art critics, dealers, and other artists. As their career expanded they gain recognition and respect from one of the most prestigious industries of all.

And, after being endorsed by the public eye and prominent artist like Andy Warhol, graffiti became accepted as “street art.”

Both artists inspired and contributed to the modern narration that “art is for everyone” by going against the belief that art should only be for the educated. And graffiti was no longer vandalism, rather a rebellious form of art.

 

With her powerful photography and elegant jewelry, Latricia Morgan is showing that “normal” is the new perfect and encouraging people to stay weird through incredible pieces of art.

For five years now, Morgan has been taking photos and breathing new life into the art world with subjects who are just normal people. While she’s only been making jewelry for a little over 7 months now, she’s already crafted a variety of elegant and unique pieces. Not only that, but she creates all of this artwork while managing her time as a student.

Take a look at the art of Latricia Morgan and how she’s re-defining perfection her own way.

 

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Sis is learning to love herself 🦋 (Sis is me) Oh yea & August is the last month to book me for a while📸

A post shared by Latricia Morgan (@theartsyplug) on Aug 3, 2020 at 9:14am PDT

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What drives her work

One of the inspirations behind Latricia Morgan’s work is not just the fun of it, but also being able to interpret the world and people in it through her camera lens. According to Morgan,

“I think what inspires me is maybe how fun it is, for me to be on the other side and to show people how I see them from my lens specifically.”

Another source of inspiration is giving attention to regular people and promoting a sense of diversity in style in beauty. While mainstream media and art may promote a certain image of what’s supposedly beautiful, there can be a disparity at times between what the media and art world portrays, and what actual people are like.

“A big reason I started was like, ‘what about us? What about the regular people? What about the girls with big noses, flat noses, or the girls with big lips and dark skin like myself’,” said Morgan.

“I thought it definitely was my job to shoot for more girls that look like me and also make space for any girl within the minority role, who don’t look like what the media fetishizes.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Tonight *AT 12AM* July 4th Is The Official Opening of @theartsygemshop . 25% of each purchase goes to a Weekly chosen charity of my choice that supports or serves ✊X ️‍. All pieces of jewelry that enter the skin is Hypoallergenic. All pieces are made with Love from me to you I’ve turned an anxiety suppressing activity into something Fun ! I welcome you to join me on this journey & to #SupportYoFriend (Swipe through for product photos & click @theartsygemshop to SHOP !) . . . . . . . . #blackgirlmagic #melanin #blackgirlsrock #naturalhair #melaninpoppin #explorepage #blackexcellence #love #beauty #protectivestyles #fashion #blackwomen #hair #explore #blacklove #blackownedbusiness #NYC #naturalhairstyles #blackisbeautiful #blacklivesmatter #braids #melaninmagic #black #blackgirls #beautiful #teamnatural #model #afro #blackqueen

A post shared by Latricia Morgan (@theartsyplug) on Jul 3, 2020 at 8:33am PDT

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Photographing the revolution

Current events are also impacting Morgan and her work. In the wake of the racial justice protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, she created her “For George Floyd” photo series, which provides a close look into local protests.

“I think that it’s the revolution. And the revolution, like they say on Twitter, is now being televised. Thanks to phones and thanks to the internet,” said Morgan. “The series is there for me to be able to photograph the revolution.”

Not only that, but Morgan also has a personal connection with these protests.

“I am black. I am from the projects in the South Bronx, and for me to sit on my hands with the tools that I’ve been given in order to record and to photograph and to document, I would be doing a disservice to myself and the people that come after me…it’s a responsibility to not be silent.”

Beyond just the protests, the COVID-19 pandemic is also taking its toll on her work. For one, Morgan has to deny photography gigs to protect herself and her household. However, it isn’t entirely without a silver lining. She also mentioned it has “granted me a weird recharge, in some ways not all.”

“I’m in the community that it’s hitting the most. People are like dying every day, candle vigils every day, and it’s because these neighborhoods that I live in, that I’m from, are overpopulated, poorly taken care of,” said Morgan.

“It’s just it’s a different type of life. So it’s hitting me hard, but I’m finding the light in it, because I do have some privileges.”

The crisis is providing her with some opportunities, however. She says,

“A lot of allies are trying to show their support, and in doing so, they’re offering helping hands, and they’re also uplifting black people…or just help a friend.”

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The significance of her art

Latricia Morgan’s art encourages and even empowers people to embrace their imperfections as what makes them unique. With her jewelry especially, her message is to “be okay with being weird.”

“I want people to wear them and be okay with being weird,” said Morgan. “I want them to be head-turners, and I want them just to wear them and have fun.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

As we close out July’s earrings. . We are giving free shipping for anything left over in stock which is only about 10 items

A post shared by The Artsy Gem Shop (@theartsygemshop) on Jul 20, 2020 at 4:02pm PDT

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Restocking over 10 different styles as we speak ✨ Processing time will be 7 days & Shipping will be 1-3 days with a little add on due to Covid-19. – All shipments will come with 1 or 2 alcohol pads for disinfectant before applying into the ear for small precautions. Xoxo, @theartsygemshop

A post shared by The Artsy Gem Shop (@theartsygemshop) on Jun 25, 2020 at 4:32am PDT

Morgan’s photography meanwhile is a breath of fresh air in the art world. Unlike most professional photography, hers doesn’t contain any actors or models, just regular people.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Serving looks within a MySpace template inspired Frame ❣️, @0hsoalyssa_ and I have been meaning to shoot for a little while now. I was Kinda scared & but definitely more nervous than her about the shoot due to it being over the phone. Here’s My very first FaceTime Photoshoot with someone other than myself #CalmSlay #theartsyplug

A post shared by Latricia Morgan (@theartsyplug) on May 17, 2020 at 11:43am PDT

“The people that I post on my Instagram are not models. They are real people,” said Morgan. “I just want people to see, you know, imperfections…made someone perfect to me. If I’m posting them, then it’s perfect to me.”

 

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– This is an OLD favorite photo of mine. Photographing Black women in a state of Delicacy is the best part. Black women are soooooo strong but I have one question and one question only. “Who heals the HEALER ? “

A post shared by Latricia Morgan (@theartsyplug) on Jun 25, 2020 at 9:52am PDT

“I just hope people see the errors and be okay with it and see that nobody is perfect on my page. Please get with the time. We will be fine. Accept your differences. People will get on with it. They will get with the program.”

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A call to come together

One defining aspect of Morgan’s art is how she creates it just for the sake of creating. In these tumultuous times, that philosophy is important now more than ever.

“In this time, where money is very uncertain, I think that networking should be at an all-time high,…People need to just take the time to take the L on some payments right now during a world crisis and create just to create. Just to intertwine and maybe earn each other’s following, and just uplift each other,” said Morgan.

“Whether you’re Black, White or Asian, we need to work, because we’re in a pandemic.”

Latricia Morgan’s photography can be found on her personal website and her Instagram @theartsyplug, while her jewelry is available @theartsygemshop and on her website.

Elisa Lee’s body positive illustrations and great artistic talents are a very interesting take on fashion and the depiction of beauty. She is a Korean born illustrator and an Otis College of Art and Design graduate, located in Los Angeles, California.

Lee is someone who sees the diversity in fashion as her muse. Growing up in Korea, Elisa has only recently been introduced to the American fashion market and feels that fashion is drawing up great avenues of expression for all to benefit.

Notably, Elisa’s time in Korea, transitioning to the states, has made her see the contrast of her upbringing. Priming her worldview of fashion and how diverse it can be.

This is what has influenced her to create an illustrative art series called “Body Positivity” which represents the different types of women who crave fashion regularly.

Korean trends follow a certain template, not just of the demographic but even the size of the women.

“As a Korean, I think it is great to see the United State’s fashion industry because Korea’s fashion industry still lacks inclusivity. Considering the fact that most of the customers are not size 0 or 2, I believe it is great to see more [diversity],”

She acknowledges the influential factor in fashion and considers it as most inspiring. The views Elisa shares of fashion is one that embraces individuality and offers “a way to express yourself and make yourself look beautiful regardless of your flaws.”

Body Positivity is a series of illustrations that display the beauty shared throughout human beings and fashion. Depictions of actual people who range in physical beauty from size to physical disabilities like skin disorders and genetic disorders.

Elisa, being minimal in her fashion style, reaches for lots of colors when creating her art.

She has a canny ability to represent the different varieties of women with a vibrance that makes them pop from the page as stylish, recessing the physical ailments and disabilities of the subjects.

Read the rest of this article on PAGE magazine.

There’s a saying in show business: “the show must go on.” But what happens when most shows can’t go on because of a pandemic?

Here are ways some theaters and performing arts groups are taking the stage to the digital age and adapting to quarantine.

The Shows Must Go On

Yes, this was just mentioned, but this isn’t about the popular saying. The Shows Must Go On is the name of a new YouTube channel by musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is most famous for plays such as CATS, Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Jesus Christ Superstar, among many others.

For the past few months since quarantine started, the channel has streamed a variety of shows for two days each weekend, or just one day for those outside of the US. While the channel often streamed many of Lloyd Webber’s shows, it recently streamed musicals such Hairspray and The Wiz, a black re-telling of The Wizard of Oz.

The channel was initially going to stream Peter Pan this past weekend, but it has now been rescheduled to this upcoming Friday in the wake of recent protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Even if you missed the limited run of some of the many musicals on the channel, The Shows Must Go On still features a variety of clips and songs from them. Don’t worry, you can still enjoy some of your favorite songs from musicals you love, or even discover a new one.

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Shakespeare’s Globe

As the Bard wrote in As You Like It, “all the world’s a stage.” Shakespeare’s Globe, a replica of the original Globe theater, is taking that famous phrase to the digital world.

The theater now offers a variety of their productions online. People can buy or rent through their on-demand platform, stream a selection of their shows on BBC iPlayer, or watch a few full productions for free with their limited run of Youtube premieres.

Shakespeare’s Globe currently offers an adaptation of Macbeth designed for young people at only 90 minutes, as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream that will run until June 28. It also has a production known as Globe to Globe, whose release dates will be announced soon.

The theater’s website also has a variety of blog posts, video series, and interactive online events if you’re looking for a good dose of Shakespearean content on a time crunch.

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National Theatre

Even while closed, London’s National Theatre is still devoted to providing audiences with world-class entertainment.

If you’re looking for plays as opposed to musicals, and you’ve decided to take a break from Shakespeare, the National Theatre is a solid option for you. The theater offers a variety of more modern productions each week.

This week’s show is The Madness of George III, and the full-length production is available to stream now on YouTube.

Upcoming plays include Small Island, which discusses the history between Jamaica and the UK in the years after World War II, and “Les Blancs,” which showcases a fictional African country that teeters on the edge of revolution. Keep an eye out on the National Theatre’s website and YouTube channel for more updates on upcoming productions.

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The Metropolitan Opera

For those looking for a nice offering of opera in their lives, the Metropolitan Opera in New York is now streaming a different production of theirs each night until June 21.

Their platform offers a variety of operas from a range of composers and languages. From romantic tragedy to moving drama, the Metropolitan Opera has plenty of performances in store.

Tonight’s opera that will be offered on-demand is “Armida” by Gioachino Rossini, which tells the romantic and dramatic story of the titular sorceress and her ill-fated lover Rinaldo.

1/ @ReneeFleming and @Brownleetenor star as Armida and Rinaldo in tonight’s Nightly Opera Stream of Rossini’s magical masterpiece. Available June 15 at 7:30PM EDT until June 16 at 6:30PM EDT.

📸: Ken Howard

Watch: https://t.co/Lc2OYyjp2T pic.twitter.com/SG3i46Z6ZX

— Metropolitan Opera (@MetOpera) June 15, 2020

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The impact is real

Due to the pandemic and quarantine in place, the theater world has been among some of the industries most severely affected. And the effects of this are more than just economically adverse; also artistically.

Performers can no longer express their art and creativity in the way they used to. Productions that have had so much effort and thought put into them have been snuffed out.

This impact affects not only theaters themselves, but potential audiences too. Many people expecting new seasons of shows only find disappointment as productions are cancelled. They’ve been stripped of the vital experience of being exposed to art through performance in a personal and intimate setting of the theater.

Yet it’s because of these issues that make many theater’s attempts to adapt and overcome these problems all the more important.

If you’re seeking ways to help, consider donating to your local theater or actor’s fund so that these creators can keep on creating.