Ariel Brown

Know The South: Atlanta’s Food & Wine Festival

Southern U.S. food has gone from simple home cooked meals to gourmet dishes over the last few decades. These dishes have been influenced by several different cultures across the world, and shared at events for food lovers. The annual Atlanta Food & Wine Festival (AF&WF) is just one of many. It was created in 2011 to showcase the vast variety of Southern foods and drinks, and its influence on food from other parts of the world. The 2018 AF&WF was held from May 31st to June 3 in Midtown Atlanta, with over 150 chefs, wine stewards, and mixologists in attendance.

You are unauthorized to view this page.

Jaimie Alexander: Obscurity to Celebrity

Some young budding actors have a dream of becoming successful at the hands of a benefactor with immediate results, booking role after role, without having to put in much effort. I don’t believe this comes from a place of laziness. This false sense of success is a narrative painted in across all art forms, making it hard to come to terms with the fact that this is not reality. But, for actress Jaimie Alexander, her rags to riches story resembles this narrative.

You are unauthorized to view this page.

Brian Mashburn: Industrial Suicide

Since the 18th century, the industrial revolution industry has created a way of life that harms nature, from deforestation to air pollution. Many political advocacy groups, like the Environmental Defense Fund, have taken action to reduce industrial growth, while others have decided to let their voice be heard in a different way.

North Carolina based contemporary artist Brian Mashburn uses his artwork to express his feelings about the matter. Mashburn is known for his hyperrealistic oil paintings, which typically depict a post-apocalyptic world, in which animals habitats are encroached upon by human activity, and human beings are few in numbers. At first glance, his pieces portray beautiful scenes of nature, but the meaning behind his work runs a little deeper. The artist showcases the beauty of the environment by including animals and outdoor scenery in his paintings. He then brings you back to reality by displaying the negative effects of urbanization, while maintaining the fact that nature and industrial urban areas coexist. Though they exist in the same space, they appear to be on different scales.

You are unauthorized to view this page.

Jay Rodriguez: Jazz Virtuoso

Jazz is one of the few genres of music that has withstood the test of time, both with listeners and music critics. Colombian-born multi-instrumentalist, Jay Rodriguez, has been composing and performing music consistently for over 40 years. The musician also known as Hernan Ramiro Rodriguez-Sierra, began playing the clarinet at the age of 7 after moving to New York City. He later picked up the alto saxophone and the flute. The musician furthered his instrumental studies with Tito D. Rivera, a famous Cuban saxophonist and clarinetist. He also studied with musicians like Joe Henderson, Phil Woods, and Joe Allard.

By age 15, he was playing lead alto saxophone with Tito Puente, a famed musician, songwriter, and producer.  “I’d be coming home at 6 o’clock in the morning, then going to school. That was my childhood and I don’t regret it,” said Rodriguez on his official website jayrodriguez.com. After spending his high school years in performing arts schools, Rodriguez began making music professionally.

You are unauthorized to view this page.

The Vampire’s Wife: Fashion Inspired by Music

If you’re a woman looking for clothes designed to accentuate the female form, Mrs. Susie Cave is someone you should pay attention to. Cave’s collection, The Vampire’s Wife, features many long "flowy" dresses and skirts that emphasize femininity and delicacy. The collection’s name derives from an unfinished novel by Cave’s husband, Nick Cave, front man of the band Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. The novel details the relationship between a muse and the creative process, Mrs. Cave is a muse for her husband’s writing.

“Nick wrote a book called Vampire’s Wife that, in the end, he decided not to publish. He said: ‘Well, why don’t you use that as the name?’ The book that Nick was writing, it was sort of about me – not exactly me, but about his idea of me. I don’t know if it’s really who I am exactly, but it kind of works,” Susie Cave said in an interview with fashion blog/shopping website Matchesfashion.com.

You are unauthorized to view this page.

Katanu Kay: Kitenge Creations

With the birth of social media, several rare, innovative contemporary art styles and materials have garnered major attention, from packing tape murals to hyper-realistic paintings. The work of nineteen year old Kenyan artist, Katanu Kay fits into this category. She chooses to wield kitenge, a fabric used in most of East Africa, in her paintings. Kay breathes life into her work by draping her subjects in the cloth.

“The kitenge fabric in my art signifies all the different kinds of cultures represented by Africa because Africa is so culturally diverse. It’s so interesting to me that every single pattern and color holds a different deeper meaning,” Kay explained in an interview with the China Global Television Network (Africa).

You are unauthorized to view this page.