CREATIVE SUGAR M A R C H 2015 - A N E M E R G I N G A R T I S T M A G A Z I N E
THE FALL ISSUE
C O V E R A R T BY A N N E S TAV E L E Y & J I L L SUTHERLAND OF LIVINLARGE PHOTO
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Creative Sugar Issue 12 Editor-in-Chief Sabrina Scott Photographer Ayesha Malik Makeup Artist Alana Guy
FROM THE EDITOR
Wardrobe Styling & Production Sara Malik Megan Brosterman
Happy Spring! The theme for this issue features art
Model Meki Saldana
cover story by amazing Photographers Jill Sutherland
Art Direction Sabrina Scott
and Anne Staveley.
from several talented women artists, including the
Be sure to visit the artists’ websites and social media pages to get more involved with their work. Enjoy!
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Contact: info@creativesugarmagazine.net web: creativesugarmagazine.net facebook.com/creativesugarmagazine twitter.com/creative_sugar © 2015 Creative Sugar Magazine All rights to art, words, photos, design and copyrights are the property of the Artist. All work in this publication may not be used without the Artist’s consent. New York, New York
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ART
ARTIST DIARY - AMBER MICHELLE RUSSELL
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ARTIST DIARY - MARIA JOSE FRANCO MALDONADO
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ARTIST DIARY - VAKSEEN
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VICTORIA ROAD FASHION EDITORIAL
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ULTUR
WHEEL OF FORTUNE TAROT
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PAUL TILLINGHAST
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BARTOSZ BEDA
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CONCETTA ABATTE
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ARTIST DIARY
amber michelle russell I am a self-taught artist originally from St. Paul Minnesota and currently based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Most well-known for creating intense and emotionally captivating works of art. I specialize in mixed-media female portraits that incorporate graphite, ink, and watercolor. I had my first art exhibit at Foster Art Gallery on the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus at the age of eleven. Most recent exhibits include the 2014 solo exhibition “Blood, Sweat and Tears” at gallery Sev Ven in Los Angeles, California and the 2013 group exhibition “Art for a Cure” at studio 21 Tattoo and Gallery in Salerno, Italy. I started drawing when I was three years old. Other children played outside; I played in my sketchbook. During adolescence I realized that engaging in the creative process had supported and sustained me through some darker life experiences, and it continues to do so. For me, making art is emotional therapy. I get lost in the creative process and am able to exist in the present moment where I am able to explore and contemplate the darker aspects of life in a constructive way. Artistic influences include M.C. Escher, Francis Bacon, Zdzislaw Beksinki, and the writings of Charles Bukowski. Art enables me to express what I feel inside, with great attention to detail. In addition to graphite, ink and watercolor, I am exploring coffee as a medium—I find the way that it bleeds into the paper unique and beautiful. Currently, I am incorporating fluorescents into my work and am thoroughly enjoying expanding my creative boundaries by playing with color. www.ambermichellerussell.com
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DAYS END BY AMBER MICHELLE RUSSELL
CHECKING MY BRAIN BY ACHRAF BAZNANI
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DEFYING THE ARCHETYPE BY AMBER MICHELLE RUSSELL
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ENCHANTED BY AMBER MICHELLE RUSSELL
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RIA MOURN BY AMBER MICHELLE RUSSELL
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PULSE BY AMBER MICHELLE RUSSELL
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ARTIST DIARY maria jose franco maldonado My favorite time of the week was always Sundays, my father used to give my brother and I canvases and paint for us to create whatever we wanted to, that or some cardboard houses that where going to be used for the “pesebre” on Christmas. So Sundays went by with painting. My first real painting was a small 30 x 20 cm canvas, which I used to paint my favorite animal back then: dolphins. I gave it to my grandmother and she was so proud, she hung it in her bedroom and each time someone asked about it she would tell an amazing story about her darling artist. I guess art has always been a part of my life. It could be said that I’m a self-taught artist because I didn’t go to college to get a degree, but this will be a conceptual mistake. I have had the best art teachers someone could ask for, and having an impatient and curious personality has helped me built an artist background of my own. My family was my art school by the hand of Andy Warhol, Magritte, Rivera, Haring, Modigliani, Seurat, Basquiat, and many artists I discovered on the path that influenced me. I believe your art changes when you and your surroundings change. My name is María José Franco Maldonado; I was born in Bogotá, Colombia on January 4th, 1990. Typically 90s child one might say, raised by pop culture and MTV. I left my house when I was 18 years old, and before that my art can be summed up in colors, pop art, bad
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music and basic Lichtenstein acrylic copies. I left Bogotá to study Advertising in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was alone in a big city with thousands of new things to devour. Studying advertising made me realize how much I love art and dislike everything else. But the beauty of Buenos Aires and the people I met there fed me creatively. My taste in music evolved and I had a new crush: cinema. Cinema for me is the most complete art because it combines all of the arts in one. And I enjoy watching a good film almost as much as making a new work. So my art changed, I had a new world of idols to look up to and was influenced by their way of viewing the world, sometimes in black and white, sometimes surrealistic. I understood that any kind of art could influence my drawings and paintings. For the moment I wanted them to generate the same feeling as a Godard film generated in me. I love how Lynch, first a painter then a director, describes this process by saying he wanted his paintings to move, so he made them move. Feeling the need of a canvas that talked to me, I abandoned the cloth canvas and went to the streets to find the right canvases for my paintings. So for the last 4 years I have been painting in ghost woods that I found on the streets of Buenos Aires. Black and white is my favorite
FEMININ ARAKI BY MARIA JOSE FRANCO MALDONADO
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palette, both in drawing and illustration, yet sometimes I add color if I feel that I need to. The theme has not really changed; I have always painted the human body and nature. Sometimes I got obsessed with certain parts of the body. In 2008 I had a series of blue pencil color illustrations of ears, feet and hands, in 2009 I had a fascination with feet, from 2011-2013 I painted faces surrounded by nature, and since last year I have been painting female nudes. My last series of illustrations is a group of pointillism black ink nudes. I called it “Féminin” after my fixation with French cinema and French music, and a strong feeling about Godard’s muse Anna Karina. Yes, it’s a feminist series. Hours of making infinite dots have being a meditating therapy and sometimes had made me feel like Yayoi Kusama. I enjoyed making this series and showing it.
FEMININ CALACA BY MARIA JOSE FRANCO MALDONADO
I’m currently living in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I left Buenos Aires in order to concentrate on my art and nurture myself in the most artistic city of all, New York City. The four months that I’ve coexisted in Andy Warhol’s beloved playground, I have been devouring every museum and gallery in the City. I have “met” my favorite idols, eye to eye with “The Eternally Obvious”, contemplated Modigliani’s muses and stressed out about not finding Basquiat’s paintings. Trying to follow Patti Smith’s adventures, I have shown my work in Brooklyn Fire Proof Gallery, Greenpoint Gallery and Shervin’s Bar. I hope you enjoy my art. https://www.facebook.com/ mariajosefrancomaldonado
instagram: mariajosefrancomaldonado FEMININ CAC TUS BY MARIA JOSE FRANCO MALDONADO
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ARTIST DIARY vakseen Being a creative mind, the arts have played a major role in my life since childhood. I grew up overweight, so I wasn’t always the most confident. I wasn’t a hermit or anything, but I was insecure. Society does that to people. Especially with the importance we place on each other’s outer appearance. It wasn’t until I was much older that I was able to love myself, and express the inner voice that my childhood circumstances wouldn’t allow. When you can’t find the words, or even worse, aren’t allowed to vocalize your feelings within an accepting environment, it’s amazing how creativity can serve as a conduit for emotional release. Art helped maintain my sanity in this crazy world. It’s fitting that this same insecurity would manifest itself as inspirational subject matter in my art years later. My creations pulsate with feminine energy. Women are God’s greatest work of art and I believe life as we know it, evolves around them. Although I couldn’t fathom being a woman in this patriarchal world we live in, I open my creative process to the allure inherent to women. I aim for my art to celebrate the acute imperfections and endless perfections that exist within every woman. Today’s media rarely allows for flaws. There is an overload of perfect images that are packaged as if they represent a reflection every woman can see herself in. And that’s not realistic, because there is no balance. Young women who are spoon fed hatred of their natural selves are likely to become carbon copies of magazine covers, and find it difficult to love themselves. And that is something that unfortunately, I can relate to all too well. As quickly as the aperture of a camera opens and shuts to capture light, the unique radiance of the female image is photoshopped away. Models cut away and cover the parts that give them distinction. It’s been happening for so long that
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perfection is the new role model. I’m not against new and unfolding trends in fashion or personal enhancements. I simply do not appreciate beauty being defined for me, or anyone else. One of the wonderful things about the human experience is that we are free to explore, discover and evolve our perception of the multifaceted aesthetic this world has to offer. If I have to label it, my art falls under the surrealism category. I’ve created a signature style that fuses elements of photorealism, cubism and fashion design. Each painting is a unique portrait of an insecure soul with an incredible story to share. This clearly defines the base of my work; however the method is more complex. I attack my creative process the same way a cosmetic surgeon would. I use high end fashion and beauty magazines to clip and surgically collage the perfect features together, bringing my ideas to life. From this point I recreate everything by drawing, then painting these beautifully insecure souls onto the canvas. Initially, I would create using both acrylic and oil or water color paint. Now, I solely work with acrylics. My pieces come to fruition quickly, so I love the flexibility, depth and complex layers acrylic paint allows for. Vibrant color is my preference so my pieces tend to be loud, sensitive and vivacious. Colors demand attention. They play with our senses and evoke emotion responses within the human mind. I use that to my advantage. The colors are essential to the complete story of each creation. In essence, my art is a visual dialogue about society’s idolization of beauty and the surreal, superficial times we live in. I only hope to be fortunate enough to produce art that consistently ignites discussion, captivates the senses and most importantly, questions the importance we place on outer appearances.
R I B B O N I N H E R E Y E S B Y VA K S E E N
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S H E G O T T H E J A Z Z B Y VA K S E E N
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VICTOR ROAD A D E S T I N AT I O N F O R T H E C U R I O U S W O M A N S E A R C H I N G F O R A L I N K B E T W E E N S T Y L E A N D C O M PA S S I O N Named for a busy street in Karachi, Victoria Road is a social enterprise that curates hand-picked collections that incorporate traditional materials and techniques to create modern and edgy fashion. We help designers scale their operations by providing them access to the U.S. luxury market as well as business, creative and logistical support at all levels of the value chain. www.victoria-road.com
P H O T O G R A P H Y: AY E S H A M A L I K M A K E U P A R T I S T: A L A N A G U Y MODEL: MEKI SALDANA STYLING & PRODUCTION: SARA MALIK & MEGAN BROSTERMAN
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EMBELLISHED BANGLES WITH STONES AND THE JEWELED BIB NECKLACE, BOTH FROM THE SHALIMAR COLLECTION
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I N S TA L L AT I O N I S A N I N T E R A C T I V E D I V I N AT I O N T O O L
C R E AT E D B Y A N N E S TAV E L E Y A N D J I L L S U T H E R L A N D O F L I V I N L A R G E P H O T O. T H E I N S TA L L AT I O N R E C E I V E D A B U R N I N G M A N 2014 H O N O R A R I U M G R A N T.
WHEEL OF FORTUNE TAROT
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WHEEL OF FORTUNE TAROT
W H E E L O F F O R T U N E I S A C I R C U L A R I N S TA L L AT I O N O F S A LVA G E D D O O R S W H I C H , U P O N E N T E R I N G , E A C H R E V E A L A L A R G E - S C A L E B L A C K A N D W H I T E M U LT I P L E E X P O S U R E M E TA L L I C P H O T O G R A P H . T H E P O R T R A I T S E R I E S O F W O M E N F E AT U R E W I L D LY U N I Q U E D E P I C T I O N S O F T H E TA R O T ’ S M A J O R A R C A N A A R C H E T Y P E S . I N S I D E I S A B E A U T I F U L PA R L O R W I T H A H A N D C R A F T E D, M E TA L , O P E N - A I R G A Z E B O W I T H B E N C H E S M A D E W I T H V I N TA G E B E D F R A M E S , A C E N T R A L S E AT I N G O T T O M A N W I T H S T E P S W H I C H I N V I T E C U R I O U S V I S I T O R S U P T O S P I N A B U L L E T R I D D E N B A R R E L L A N T E R N T H AT C A S T S B E A D S O F L I G H T T H R O U G H O U T T H E S PA C E . T H I S I S A L L C R O W N E D B Y A F I R E C H A N D E L I E R W H I C H E X H I B I T S D E L I C AT E P R O PA N E F L A M E E F F E C T S AT N I G H T. H A N D MADE LINEN DRAPERY CONNEC T THE GAZEBO TO THE RING OF DOORS, PROVING SOME PROTEC TION FROM THE ELEMENTS WHILE ALSO CONTRIBUTING TO THE INTIMACY O F T H E S PA C E . A L A R G E L E AT H E R B O U N D G U I D E B O O K I S A L S O C E N T R A L T O T H E P I E C E O F F E R I N G V I S I T O R S G U I D A N C E , Q U E S T I O N S , A N D A F F I R M AT I O N S T H AT E A C H PHOTOGRAPH INSPIRES.
W E A R E F U L LY S O L A R P O W E R E D B Y S I X 130 WAT T PA N E L S H O U S E D B Y A C U S T O M L E D L I T S O L A R A R R AY O U T P O S T. T H E A R R AY C A N B E U S E D O P T I O N A L LY D E P E N D I N G O N T H E D U R AT I O N N E E D E D A N D WA S S I Z E D T O M A I N TA I N A C H A R G E F O R U P T O T W O D AY S O R C A N B E I N S TA L L E D F O R S H O R T E R E V E N T S T O D E M O N S T R AT E T H E T E C H N O L O G Y. T H E O U T P O S T P R O V I D E S T H E E N E R G Y N E E D E D T O I L L U M I N AT E T H E 22 D O O R S I N S I D E A N D O U T, P L U S T H E C E N T R A L S P I N N I N G L A N T E R N A N D T U R N S O N W I T H A T I M E D S Y S T E M . T H E S O L A R A R R AY A L S O S E R V E S A S A N O T H E R S H A D E D S I T T I N G A R E A F O R VISITORS. I N S TA L L AT I O N S P E C S : 44 S Q R F T. - 26 F T D I A M E T E R C I R C L E - 7 F T TA L L R I N G O F D O O R S - 13 F T TA L L AT C E N T E R O F G A Z E B O
Anne Staveley and Jill Sutherl and are the Designers and Creators of the WHEEL OF FORTUNE. Together they are LIVINLARGEPHOTO. they create surreal images on a massive scale such as L arge murals & multimedia install ations from their photography. they are Believers in the Power of Images to start Conversations of Change.
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paul tillinghast I have been a Still-Life Photographer in New York City, for almost 30 years; collaborating with Art Directors to shoot Advertising. Creating art is a way for me to have complete control of the image, from start to finish. Each piece begins with a photograph, which I manipulate in the computer, and then print. From there I build each one with found objects and seal it in liquid glass to create something unique. http://paultillinghast.weebly.com/
QUONSET B Y PA U L T I L L I N G H A S T
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Red Wrap Dress: L a Maison de Fashion Tap Pant: DKNY S U B WAY B Y PA U L T I L L I N G H A S T
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bartosz beda My paintings explore the relation between daily life and human nature. I perceive humanity as a chocolate cake, where beneath the ‘iced’ surface are those more intriguing and challenging mixtures, with fears and social pathology. Through the application and process of painting, I cut a piece of that cake to explore the nature of these problems. With simple, yet powerful gestural strokes and mark making, I search and re-investigate solutions to bring these hidden depths to the surface. bartoszbeda@bartoszbeda.com
(RAS) PUTIN III BY BARTOSZ BEDA
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B LU E F E L LO W B Y B A R T O S Z B E D A
SOLARIS (STUDY) BY BARTOSZ BEDA
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concetta allegra abatte My name is Concetta Allegra Abbate- yes that’s my real name, not stage name. I inherited it from my beautiful Sicilian great grandmother. My name has both musical and spiritual roots which I am grateful for. Having such a name always motivated me find reason to live up to it. I grew up on the east end of Long Island close to beaches and strip malls and native american reservations. My parents came out of the hippie generation. Before I was born they gigged around with their disco band Positive Proof in which my mother played electric violin, sang and my father played bass. I guess my mother wanted me to have the classical training on violin that she didn’t get to have when she was a kid so she started me at the North Shore Suzuki school when I was 4 years old. I continue to study classical violin today. I deeply love and enjoy the repertoire but I could never accept that as en end in itself- rather a means to something much larger, much more expansive, something pointing towards the future. At the age of 7 I began studying with violinist Irene Lawton who was more than a music teacher. She was a sound healer and an inventor who lived in the forest in Stoney Brook Long Island. She had gongs and finger pianos all over the house and a contraption by which she would hang upside down from her ceiling every day. Irene was the kind of teacher that if you told her that you had a headache she would ring a Tibetan singing bowl upside down on your head. She helped me feel grounded in understanding music as a philosophical endeavor and a spiritual one. She was not a teacher who cared about what chair you got in orchestra or what competitions you passed. She wanted to know that you were serving your music and your life the utmost Blwith ack Bustier, Bl ack Skirt-Belt, seriousness and integrity. Tap Pant: Damsel
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My father is a tinkerer and scientist. He builds odd musical instruments like theremins and wind harps. I remember visiting his workshop as a kid filled wall to wall with instruments and parts. He taught me how the root of music is waves and vibrations. He inspired my interest in tuning into how the vibrations of every day life influence our experience of the world. I can’t help but to have inherited the eccentricities of the influential adults in my life. My latest album Falling in Time is a musical exploration of anthropology, science and poetry. The tracks feature vibrations of stars, some of my father’s own hand-made Aeolian wind harps, home made music boxes and a South American charango. They lyrics are comprised of poetry that I wrote throughout the changing seasons of the year. each poem seeks to find large expansive meaning in the tiniest objects and experiences. The tracks flow together seamlessly with the aid of dreamy soundscape recordings and whispers. I do hope you look this album up and listen. It is available on iTunes, Spotify, Bandcamp and the Waterbug Records website: http://waterbug.com/catalog/product_info. php?products_id=500 And also check out my website!: www.concettaabbate.com Concetta Abbate Violinist/Composer www.concettaabbate.com
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