“...With her portraits, she focuses intimately on the intersection of women and the significance of encountering one another. Her process of creating is done in hopeful, clumsy defiance of a culture of rampant dehumanization.”This is how Artist and Painter Erica Elan Ciganek is described on the Arts Council for Long Beach, California’s website.
Most generations have a playground trend, like kendamas or silly bands, that spread through schools like a wildfire. Millennials in America were obsessed with beaded crafts, from lizard shaped keychains, friendship bracelets to handmade purses that could barely hold a wallet. Every kid either beaded or knew someone who did. And like most of these typical kids’ crafting trends, it was expected to be nothing but a nostalgic memory once you left school. But, fashion designer Susan Alexandra refused to let the fun, vibrant appeal of this craft go to waste.
Spirituality, sexuality and Americana don’t usually go hand in hand. The terms can at first seem contradictory, but American musician Sufjan Stevens combines them as his influences, along with folk and indie rock, to create a wholly unique sound that not even he can replicate from album to album. The Musician is perhaps best known for his soundtrack for the 2017 film, “Call Me By Your Name,” where his song “Mystery of Love” was later performed at the Oscars, but Stevens has been around for decades, making critically acclaimed music that speaks on deeply personal topics, despite Stevens being a private person outside of his music. As Stevens stated in a 2015 interview with the London-based magazine Uncut, “You have to cast out your demons and rebel against your traditions, but you always have to crawl back to the motherland.” Stevens’ music pushes and pulls from his surroundings, but he is always tied to his own histories and traditions.
