WRITTEN WORK

Published interviews and articles covering creators who design, photograph and curate.

ALEX FRANCO'S OMO VALLEY STREET STYLE

The Last Magazine | May 11, 2016

“Trends are reviewed and renewed without relent. Photographer Alex Franco, having seen the best of that in his years assisting Mario Testino and shooting for the likes of Vogue and V, sought a world beyond those regular realms for a new kind of project and source of inspiration, but instead found a familiar focus.”

WELCOME TO SLATE STUDIOS

Slate Studios | April 28, 2016

“Despite the complexities of our modern world where the ways which we conduct our lives are changed with increasing haste, the simple art of an image still overrides all other communicative means. Whether that image is static or in motion, documented or digitally formed, its evolutions are irrelevant to the impact of its existence – to evoke emotion, to influence impression, to serve as a narrative that transports its viewer.”

JAMIE HAWKESWORTH'S FIRST SHOW

The Last Magazine | April 15, 2016

“Forgoing the field of forensics for a study of the living, photographer Jamie Hawkesworth’s creative style was discovered on a walk to university in Northern England, where he began to document his contemporaries commuting along a parallel path. The way the pictures portrayed a particular moment, that of-the-now feeling of youth, compelled him to focus on an exploration of portraiture.”

THE CLASS OF 2016: NEW DESIGNERS, PART TWO

The Last Magazine | March 31, 2016

“Culture and its various subsets are the driving force of creativity for designer Siki Im. Having straddled different worlds as a child of Korean immigrants living in Germany, his sensitivity to societal dichotomies translates well through his designs as he satirizes conflicts of East and West, art and subculture, man and machine.”

THE CLASS OF 2016: NEW DESIGNERS, PART ONE

The Last Magazine | March 30, 2016

“A vinyl record from Eighties British post-punk band the Durutti Column inspired Akasaka’s vision for his graduate collection. The sleeve of the LP, cut from coarse sandpaper, was made with the intention of scratching any other records stacked next to it. His heavily patched pants with swatches of varying denim hues overlapping each other’s frayed edges appear sharp to the touch. A wool coat treated to rust and rupture its surface bears a textural finish. A jacket made of sandpaper itself is embellished with rivets and bolts for additional edge. But, to ease worry for the wearer, each piece is lined with the softest, recycled cotton for a final contradictory effect.”

ARTIST ANA KRAŠ

The Last Magazine | March 22, 2016

“I grew up surrounded by Communist buildings and a lot of mess,” says New York–based furniture designer Ana Kraš, acknowledging the lasting influence of her formative years in Belgrade, Serbia, a city that has known its share of war. “I grew a love for brutal shapes and things that are not the [subject] matter of classic beauty.”

MONA KUHN'S BILLBOARDS

The Last Magazine | December 08, 2015

“In times of waiting, the tendency is to look down. Almost anywhere, on a train, in a line, at a corner café, there are heads hovered over small, glowing screens seeking a distraction from being still. But in Los Angeles this month, travelers tortured in traffic will have the option of a better reprieve and a very worthwhile reason to look up.”

DISTRICT VISION

The Last Magazine | December 03, 2015

“There is something primal about feeling the beat of a breath. Whether it rushes in and out from exertion or steadily swells inside a resting form, it serves as a reminder that external matters are secondary to this one life-sustaining act. For those that can find the ability to focus on that, to return to center, a more peaceful mind is possible.

Two friends, Max Vallot and Tom Daly, sought that peace in similar ways…”

PHOTOGRAPHY IS MAGIC

The Last Magazine | October 28, 2015

“A photograph itself is a kind of magic. In its simplest form, it captures a moment gone and preserves a place and time unchanged on its two-dimensional plane. The mechanics of that alone are an astounding feat, where the goal is the image produced and the subject is clearly framed and readily recognized.

But there’s another kind of magic; a more familiar one that misdirects and plays with points of view and calls on our imagination to question what it is we see. It is the application of that practice to photography in contemporary art that Charlotte Cotton explores in her new book…”

TICO'S TEQUILA BAR OPENS UNDER TIJUANA PICNIC

The Last Magazine | August 17, 2015

“A little past ten PM, the disco ball starts spinning, casting spots of light around the room on patrons spilling in from the restaurant upstairs. The music from the DJ booth keeps a loud but steady beat, reminding the crowd that a dance isn’t out of the question. A flight of agave spirits seems most appropriate then to keep up with the energy: a mezcal distilled with toasted corn, a sotol so earthy it transports you to the depths of Mexico with one sip, and a bacanora with just enough sweet citrus to flavor a brave bite of sun-toasted crickets and agave worm salt.”

HOMEY HOUSEWARES FROM SAMUJI KOTI

The Last Magazine | April 03, 2015

“In Finnish, the word koti means home. At its best, the idea of home represents a place of origin as well as a living space that evokes elements of past tradition and heritage through the objects that occupy it. For the team at Samuji, a creative studio and design house founded in Helsinki, these two meanings are married through the designs of their new home collection.”

KATHY RYAN'S 'OFFICE ROMANCE'

The Last Magazine | December 01, 2014

“Inside the New York Times Building at Eighth Avenue and 40th Street, a lot of light is shed. Most of the time, it emanates from the pages of business or world news, but on a good day it shines right through the windows. On the sixth floor, in a corner on the building’s eastern side, a woman patiently waits by her desk to capture it.

Kathy Ryan, director of photography for the New York Times Magazine, often comes in before she needs to…”

SHARON WAUCHOB

S Magazine | Issue 17

“As a designer, Sharon Wauchob’s practicality and patience in her processes are likely rooted in her Northern Ireland upbringing. Raised in Newtownstewart, where her family has lived for over two hundred years in the same house, Wauchob observed her grandmother running her own farming business. It encouraged her strength of independence. And although limited to its exposure, Wauchob turned to fashion as an escape from rural life, absorbing any catalog lying around the house.”