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Saturday, December 9, 2023
December News!!!!! Holiday Faire!!! DJ Chappel Interview!!
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Conversation between Storefront Window Gallery Artist DJ Chappel and artist HiTiger for Lovers Fight Tonight
DJ CHAPPEL interested in the relationship between clothing and movement and its influence on our character. He envisions himself as a future ancestor creating primary resources for following generations of gay black men. His training in dance and pattern making diversifies his work ranging from handmade garments and artifacts to interactive performances and installations. While studying at Point Park University's dance conservatory and working at the campus costume shop, DJ was developing a balance between the two mediums. The release of his ready to wear brand, DualityJunkie (2018), has allowed him to combine all of his techniques. DJ recently has been expanding to solo exhibitions, with his debut at World Fair Gallery and most recently at Larrie nyc. DJ’s has interviews published by Cultured, Essence, Office and Paper Magazine. DJ has also performed at The Shed and The Bronx Museum of Arts.
DJ was in the Dirt Palace Storefront Window Gallery this October - November. Below is a conversation between him and artist HiTiger for Lovers Fight Tonight.
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LFT: I took this question out but fuck it, what do you think about love?
DJC: LOVE IS LIFE. Love has been the motivation of most of the major decisions I’ve made in my life.
LFT: What place does music hold in your life? What music are you listening to now, grew up on, hope to explore in the future?
DJC: I keep a radio playing on the classical channel as my two parakeets sing along. I usually always have music or some sound playing. I grew up in one of the most active cities in the world. Sometimes silence is hard for me. I'm into music that sounds dreamy or like a video game. Lyrically I crave humor so Nicki Minaj will always be in the mix for me. I want to get into making music, rn I'm at the virtualdj8 on my computer stage. But I imagine my first rockstar track will be called “ Don't buy fake clothes with real money” and the album might be called “Confessions of a Project Baby.”
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/chappeldauan/playlists
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/daone-chappel?ref=clipboard&p=i&c=1&si=BE1696ED180448EE920941B8721E6B4B&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
LFT: What other artists working now do you see with similar ideas and do they influence you or are you in conversation with them through your work?
DJC: Ryan Cardoso is one of my main collaborators and inspirations artistically. We both love films and theater so this allows us to have a similar frame of reference when creating. He has an amazing ability to skim the line between a candid image and high fashion photo. We are also multimedia artists which is very reliable because when we discuss a project we look at it from all mediums which allows us to communicate our vision clearly.
LFT: Do you feel compelled to solve a problem? If so, what problem are you solving with your work?
DJC: I used to say “ I want to correct the miss documentation of gay black men blah blah blah,” but I'm not into that anymore. I don't have a “problem!” Now I feel like this is therapy. Lol. But I actually only want to bring beauty into the world so the only problem I'm compelled to solve is the issue with production of all the sexy womens shoes only going up to a size 41. I need to look good too. They need to make bigger shoes so I can't stop binding my feet in these little lady heels. The other day a customer sent me a message telling me she hasn't taken her boxer skirt off since getting it, she has been inspired to play in her closet more. So if I can solve the problem of universal lack of style then vote me into office.
LFT: I love your silhouettes, the structures. I feel the dance when I look at your work. Where are you now as far as the ways you integrate movement, the act or idea of ceremony, and constructing garments?
DJC: So I actually have been expanding on my curiosity in movement and garments as a movement coordinator for photo shoots. My background in dance and theater has really been showing itself lately. Daily, I spend at least an hour sexy dancing in the mirror before I leave the house, then when I get into the studio I runway walk around as I prepare for the work day. Fling fabrics behind me for special effect. Even as I'm sewing I have a chair that has an exercise ball in it so I can bounce along to the music. I also have a pair of heels that I keep near the machine that I usually end up having just one on so I can use the foot pedal. I feel that garments have a major influence on our emotions and personality. So I feel like most of the day is me defining relationships with silhouettes through movement. I'm enchanting my creations when I try them on and dance in them. Everyone should have spun in a circle in their boxer skirt at least once.
LFT: What was the experience like of creating a physical installation in the storefront at Dirt Palace on a busy street where your work is seen by many people? How would you describe your vision for engaging the public with the installation as it is now?
DJC: So I went in with a bunch of my fabric scraps and I started with making a big mess, tossing them around and making piles. It looked horrible, but it felt so good like I'm in this window actually losing my mind. I've also been telling myself it's ok to fail. So the first draft was definitely that, but I stepped away and came back at it the following day. There is so much art being made in the world right now and I'm a part of that. So lately all I want to do is find new ways to share the work I've already done. The photos in the window were taken last year in Providence by Ryan Cardoso. The models are my friends that came to visit from NYC wearing my garments. As I walked down the block and looked at the store front windows I liked how they looked like work in progress. Like it'll change tomorrow or that the posters were hanging at a corner. Just more lived in. Its an active window and things can just move around
LFT: Are you aware of or concerned with trends at all? In your apparel you are very specifically responding to the cultural trend of saggy pants but I’m wondering if you consciously converse with other street or runway styles. I'm thinking about some of the skirts and bags. If we didn’t know the concept behind the materials, what are we seeing? Let me just qualify that what I see is very wearable, beautiful clothing. It’s so unique but at the same time very accessible. Ok enough fan girling, answer the question: what’s hot?
DJC: My creations are always responding to the culture and are trying to connect with a specific audience. I don't ever aspire to make anything new, I just want to share my opinion on what already exists. I have a desire for the classic thing in life. The garment that the majority of consumers already have a connection with. It started with the iconic boxer skirts. I hated boxer shorts growing up, but I had a relationship with boxers that I knew most people had as well. My brothers, my uncle, even my mom in her lover's boxers, I knew that making garments with this nostalgic material would be alluring to people. Same with the bobo bags. My cousins would have bins of hair accessories; bobos, barrets, bows, that they decorated through their daughters' hair. Or even Snoop Dog with his braids and bobos everyone knew someone or had bobos in their hair at some point in their lives. Right now I'm obsessed with plain white t-shirts, another classic article of clothing that everyone must have in their closet. I do stay connected to what's currently trending in fashion though. I'm also a stylist so having an eye on the latest bag, shoe and emerging designer is a mandatory.
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Lovers Fight Tonight was founded by multimedia artist Hi Tiger. Their latest work integrates apparel, visual art and live performance inspired by a fictional small town bad girl and the redneck outlaws she hangs out with. https://www.loversfighttonight.com/
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Conversation between Storefront Window Gallery Artist Rue Sakayama and artist & curator Brooke Erin Goldstein
Rue Sakayama is a multidisciplinary artist and photographer living and working in Providence, RI. She graduated from RISD FAV(Rhode Island School of Design, Film Animation Video) with a bachelor in Fine Arts in 2006. She is a contract commercial photographer with clients ranging from small independent artists and designers to larger commercial companies. Sakayama's artistic practice has a strong focus on craft spanning multiple mediums from photography to textile and fiber arts.
She uses her art practice to explore the spaces-in-between, the feelings of otherness that are experienced in a society that often lacks a nuanced viewpoint. She examines this otherness with a commitment to aesthetics, levity as a way to invite the viewer in. The first step in Sakayama’s practice is to ensure that her work is visually compelling in composition, shape, and color. Though she embraces formalism in this way, she is also compelled by the stories that can be imagined by the provocative nature of her work.
Rue was in the Dirt Palace Storefront Window Gallery this September - October. Below is a conversation between
her and artist and curator Brooke Goldstein.
BG: I stopped by the Dirt Palace to see your installation at night and it was extremely quiet out in a way that feels rare for Olneyville Square. The work was backlit and floating in space beckoning me over like a private invitation. When I got up close I was surprised and a bit delighted at how this piece seems to straddle the line between innocence and raunchiness, yet it is fully out for the public to see. I sort of fell in love with that right off the bat. As an appreciator of subversive art I wanted to laugh a little. You created a piece that has absolutely no obscene imagery but seems so wildly sexual. It's like you proved we are all perverts for thinking dirty thoughts while viewing your work. There's a mastery there that I really respect. What is art if not a jolt that makes you stop to question your own thoughts and opinions. You very much got me to question mine. Were you at all concerned the provocative nature of this piece displayed in such a public forum may bring some negative attention your way?
RS: (I really enjoy the way you set the tone of this question and your really careful observations! Thank you for such care.)
My answer comes with a bit of a chuckle- because this very public facing piece isn’t quite as provocative as I initially intended! I was conscious of what I was putting in the windows, in fact to me, this work was much more mild than other work I make. It was intentional to make this work focused on hands/gestures and composition relative to the space that it was being installed. I wanted the work in the windows to stand out- which is why I chose to black off the majority of the windows and add very small led lights that focused on the work, pulling in a passer-by’s eye.
BG: One thing I really liked when reviewing this piece in conjunction with your previous work is
that you continuously focus on arms and hands. I particularly adore the sewn piece on your website
that has 5 arms draping down entangled with one another while the hands grasp on toeach other in a meaningful embrace. I found myself wondering if you were sending us a message
through the hands, maybe a message about autonomy or choice. As if you want us to consider what the hands are pointing out and how the arms control the direction we look. I also felt like maybe we are supposed to figure it out ourselves, you gave us the opportunity to explore and now it's up to us
if we want to go down that road. That being said, do you want to tell us more about the arms and hands and what they mean to you or do in your work?
We often unintentionally share so much about our inner thoughts and feelings with the gestures we make- big or small. Hand and foot movements are things I often notice when I’m in conversation with others, they symbolically and literally communicate our fears, anxieties, joys and desires.
Hand gestures or postures have been used in artwork for-ever to depict statements, to share information, to evoke a feeling. Some of the most recognizable depictions of hand gestures that have been repeated throughout time to communicate something greater than the image itself are in religious paintings. To be clear, this window piece full of hands is not referencing any religious hand gestures. The hands in this piece are both an exploration of the feelings of desire, connectedness and an experimentation in making work at this scale. These are some of the largest hands I have constructed to date!
BG: In your artist bio you talk about formalism as far as relating to the composition, shape and color in your work. I see that very clearly especially in the sewn works from your AS220 show titled The Answer is Still No… and a few other demons, as well as, your collection of photographs titled No Gods No Monsters. There are a lot of visual references to religious imagery as well as mimicking of pornographic positioning in these pieces. Knowing many artists that grew up in religious families where sexuality was vilified or repressed I wonder what is your relationship to religion and does that play into how you see sex and sexuality as it pertains to your work?
RS: Despite not being raised in a religious household, I have been acutely aware that religion, especially christianity is this very influential thing in our broader culture. I find that a lot of religious iconography carries a sense of power and many depictions have an eroticism that simultaneously appears repressed. My work is appropriating some of the trappings of religious iconography, not as a direct commentary on religion itself, but as a recognition of the power and beauty inherent in religious paintings. As you noted in your question- I am playing with the juxtaposition of “pornographic positioning” alongside religious imagery as well as working with a very tactile medium. I love exploring the tension between the depiction of a subject matter that is vaguely or explicitly erotic and working with fabric that is full of texture beckoning to be touched (who doesn’t enjoy exploring out what a texture or material feels like between their fingers?).
BG: Otherness is also something you touch upon in your artist bio “She uses her art practice to explore the spaces-in-between, the feelings of otherness that are experienced in a society that often lacks a nuanced viewpoint. She examines this otherness with a commitment to aesthetics, levity as a way to invite the viewer in”. My relationship to feeling othered is quite nuanced as I’ve experienced it often in the company of people and groups that I'm supposed to feel the most support from and intimacy with. Would you be willing to expand upon your thoughts and/or experiences of otherness and what about that drives your artistic practice?
RS: I think it is a fairly universal deep desire to feel understood, seen, known and appreciated for being one's truest self and thus, connected to others. This deep desire inherently creates room to feel the space between oneself and others. My intersectional identity- racial, gender and upbringing - live in the in between. I am someone who has often had my identity questioned (generally out of curiosity) by strangers- encouraging a feeling of otherness. In many ways this has enabled me to forge connections with individuals who similarly reside in an in-between realm. Regardless, I hold the belief that complete understanding of another or being completely understood is actually impossible. In essence, my art practice becomes a bridge between my inner world and the outside, helping me process and make sense of my own feelings in ways that words alone often cannot capture.
BG: Fiber vs Photo…It's so cool to me that you have a duality to your practice in the sense that you work in both photography and fiber art. Formally your photography and fiber work have many similarities but as a textile artist myself, I’m also a terrible photographer. Like really bad. So it’s interesting to me how you switch back and forth from a medium, fiber, that is so tactile to working with photography that looks like it's so removed from touch, in my limited knowledge and experience. Can you talk about that?
RS: A little background. When I was kid, my mother was a textile designer and had studied weaving in college. Fabric, texture, and composition surrounded my upbringing. She also taught me at a fairly young age how to use a camera. And while it might not be the most obvious, texture and composition is very much part of film photography. As a teen I developed my own film, printing in b&w and color as well as collaging negatives to create new compositions. This kind of photography is quite tactile! While I have since moved on to working with a digital camera which the process of actual image making is less craft, there are aspects of my art practice with photography that are still rather tactile- or at least I think so! This part is in the creation of the actual composition. What I mean is- playing with costume, make up, planning out space, considering the physical textures in the image and adapting as I create.
BG: Skin and hair are extremely prominent in this piece as well as your previous bodies of work. The way you choose monochromatic damask fabrics to show different skin tones in this piece and some of your previous works is brilliant. This reminds me of all the little hairs and surface bumps of our skin and points out the vulnerability of the people and bodies you illustrate in your sewn work. The maximalist way you sew lines for each strand of hair into these pieces builds up the surface to feel so alive, so human. What fascinates you about skin and hair that lead to your beautiful depictions of it?
from your dreams i came, Detail Stitched fabric, 2021
(I kind of can’t get over the flow of your comments and questions- they are just so right on!)
RS: Texture!! I am completely fascinated by texture. Slubs in fabric are like the keloid scars on skin, monochromatic prints are like elegant depictions of skin texture. What textile lover can’t stop themselves from wanting to touch an intriguing fabric!? Working with fabric and using a sewn line to draw is a continuation of an exploration of fibers(this includes skin and hair). Our skin and hair are our own textiles…
BG: I can’t help but think your work would translate into an incredible animation style but I also know that would literally take forever to make. Since you have a degree from RISD in FAV (Film Animation Video) have you or would you ever animate your sewn work into a film?
RS: I have thought about this and I will likely never do it- for the exact reason you mentioned, time! I have thought about what it would be like to make really big weird flat puppets….
the fight is over, stitched fabric, 2015
BG: What are you most excited about in your work moving forward? Are there any shows or projects you have coming up you can share with us at this time?
RS: I am most excited about building out and moving into a studio space- this space would allow me to have a bigger photo and sewing studio and my hope is to finish a few projects that have been in process for a couple of years. One is a long piece- inspired by fabric emakimono(japanese narrative scrolls) that I started at a residency and hope to continue to work on. It's currently approaching 6 feet in length - right to left and perhaps one day I will share it!
BG: This is my favorite question to ask artists every time I get to conduct an interview or moderate a panel discussion and I can’t wait to hear what you have to say…In general or as an artist what’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given? RS: Ten or so years ago a distant friend of mine visited me. I was casually showing her some of my sewn work- one which was a piece that she had modeled for me when I was visiting her a few years prior. This was a rare occasion for me, as I wasn’t actually showing any of my work to anyone. I was creating in a vacuum and shyly showing it when someone asked to see what I was up to. She enthusiastically and forcefully yelled at me : Show your work to other people. ****************************** Brooke Erin Goldstein is a textile artist, independent curator and teaching artist living and working in North Providence RI. She/They is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in Textiles. Goldstein’s quilted room installation experiences have shown both regionally and nationally since 2014. To see more of her work check out her website brookeeringoldstein.com or find her on instagram @brooke.erin.goldstein.
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