Month: April 2020

Steve Chen: The First YouTube Sensation

Do you remember what the internet was like in the early 2000s? Social media hadn’t taken off yet, not everyone had computers in their house. Having to go to the library to type your papers, and there was a time limit for how long you could be on it. Back then, chat room usage was almost forbidden for many of us, I know my mother wasn’t having it. Over the next few years, home computers would become close to a necessity. Even if it meant just having a laptop, there was no getting around not having a computer in the house for various reasons. It sounds prehistoric now, but we lived through the boom in the internet era. One company that’s greatly responsible for technological advances is YouTube. 

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Bisa Butler: Storytelling through a Lost Art Form

Quilts are often passed down through generations and come to represent a shared history. Although quilting can be considered a lost art due to the ease of just going to the store and buying a blanket, modern artists are still making quilts, using them to construct a history while also reflecting on their own past. For modern fiber artist and art teacher Bisa Butler, quilting is a mode of storytelling and of autobiography.

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Quarantine Artists: Creativity out of Chaos

Delicately put, the world is in chaos. The Coronavirus threatens to take our family, friends, and neighbors from us. Statewide stay-at-home orders across America have secluded people in their homes if they're fortunate enough to have one. Healthcare workers fight this battle on the frontlines with minimal federal support. Essential workers are being forced back into work prematurely, or risk losing their income and health insurance if they’re fortunate enough to have it. 

Around 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment claims in the last five weeks. The world is lacking beauty, joy, security, community, but certainly not inspiration. Since COVID-19 arrived in the United States, all sorts of artists are using this pandemic as their muse, documenting history with creativity and resilience. 

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Scott Storch: Finding His Way Back

Record producers are one of the most important parts of making music, but with the exception of big-name producers like DJ Khaled, Dr. Dre, and Kenny Beats, it isn’t easy to identify who the producers in the songs we consume on a daily basis are. With roots in Philadelphia, New York, South Florida, and even a connection to the American hip-hop music group The Roots, Scott Storch has a varied background that has led to his current position in the music world, as a producer to big names such as DJ Khaled and Russ, an up-and-coming rapper from Atlanta.

Storch has experienced his fair share of ups and downs but he has continued to rebuild himself throughout his long-standing music career.

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Jaclyn Alderete: Artistic Socialist

A concept and a sketch are followed by a photographed model, ending in a unique, symbolic piece of art. This is a depiction of none other than the artistic process of San Francisco Bay Area artist Jaclyn Alderete who creates paintings of dreamlike female figures that express social, environmental and worldly concerns. Through the use of oil and acrylic paint as well as ink and watercolor, Alderete uses both photo references and her imagination to complete works of art that are both beautiful and emotional.

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