Jeevan Farias

Photography by Caroline Wallis

Interviewed by Joelle Milman

When Jeevan and I met in Brownies café, he was wearing all cool colors—navys, greys, darker greens. After he sat, he took out a brushed steel thermos and unscrewed the bottom, which served as a cup for his tea. He sipped from it, slowly, throughout our conversation.

Like his curated set of objects and the slow, considered ways he answers questions, Jeevan is deliberate. Born in Texas, Jeevan grew up in New Jersey, though his voice maintains a sort-of southern drawl. He speaks with slang and intelligence. At Columbia, he studies computer science and spends plenty of time in the Makerspace, laser-cutting skateboards and thinking about design. He sat down with Ratrock last month to talk about his ideal mediums, computers, and a life designed around making things.

Where are you from?

I’m from New Jersey. West County. I was born in Texas and I grew up in Illinois until I was five, so- pretty much I lived in New Jersey. 

Were you always into art?

Yeah. I’ve been playing music since I was three. I played violin for thirteen years. I played drums. I’ve been playing trumpet for the last ten. Now I only play trumpet. I did it a lot of visual art in middle school, but I didn’t really know I liked it ‘till my junior year of high school.

What type of music did you play? How did you learn?

I was in a lot of orchestras, jazz programs, basically took private lessons from when I was three until I was eighteen. It was really serious, very much so. I loved it a lot. I still love it. Of all the creative things I do, music is hardest for me. It’s very difficult, but I like it the best. Which I’ve only figured out pretty recently.

What’s hard about it?

I don’t think it really comes that naturally to me. Even writing music- I have a familiarity with it now that I’ve done it for so long. Drawing, painting, making things with my hands – I do it very ad-hoc, I don’t even think about it most of the time. It’s a lot easier to control what I’m doing, figure it out. With music it takes- it’s just straight up harder, is all I’m saying.

How do you go about writing music?

I made the EP last semester. Before that EP I had only ever written or preformed classical or jazz for the past six years before college. I had only ever written acoustic music with a quintet in mind- two horns, bass, drums, piano. So this was really fun for me, really different. I was making all the instruments appear, and thinking about trumpet and voice as other components on top of that. It was learning more intimately how other instruments work.

When you write for a live band, you don’t write out the drum parts: depending on the song you don’t always write out a bass part because the bass player will make one up based on the chords. But I was writing all of that, which was super cool because when you’re writing electronic music you can start at different points and link it all together, make little tiny pieces of it and then build them into one thing.

Writing music isn’t usually like that for you?

It’s not exactly about putting things together. It’s like my visual creative process in that I usually create the thing, a rough image of what I’m trying to do, then keep pushing that, molding it, until it resembles something that I want. The name of the album was Shrubbery and Pointalism but pointillism is spelled wrong on purpose. I‘m kinda into the idea of actual pointillism, that it’s pixilation, resolution, like when you zoom out it’s blurry and you zoom in and it’s blurry- actually with pointillism it’s the opposite. I named it that because that’s it’s how I was thinking about my creative process at that point.

Which is… what?

Which is- refining something. Working. Starting really fast and make something that’s super rough, super general, that lets me see the frame of what I’m trying to accomplish. Sort of like an underpainting. Other people can write a song from beginning to end, but I need the frame of reference.

What inspires your work? Trees, pointillism- where do you get your ideas? Do they just happen?

Well, that EP was super specific with what it was about. I had this idea of walking through a forest and seeing a glowing cube, something that shouldn’t be there. Each song is called ‘below, outside, above, inside. You’re looking at the cube from different points of view. The songs aren’t necessarily about that, but it’s where the idea came from. Which is why I think I was able to do it so quickly: I knew exactly what it was, it made lyric writing a lot easier. I had never really written lyrics before, so having that idea…

Your work covers a ton of ground, from painting to music to 3D Graphics. Is that just random?

Well, my portfolio has a lot of different mediums in it because I’ve done different things in the past couple of years, but I don’t really work with many of them anymore. Most of them (the mediums) I don’t. I painted with oil and watercolor quite a bit in high school, but I haven’t done that in ages. I did a bit of watercolor last year, but I haven’t really been painting for a year. I’m not that interested in it anymore. I like building things, making things. I’ve made some stuff out of wood and cardboard.

So, tactile sculptures?

What else did I make out of cardboard? I made some books over the summer. Notebooks.

Did you make the paper by hand?

No (laughs). That’s ridiculous. Let someone else do that.

I made a skateboard a couple weeks ago.

Have you been using it?

Yeah. It’s pretty fun.

Do you build a lot of the things in your life?

 I’m trying to. I don’t have enough time, but I’m trying to make all my stuff, eventually. I really want to not be in school for a month or so so I can do it. Not completely everything, but—

I’m kind of obsessed with this idea of materialism, but not materialism- being obsessed with a very specific selection of objects that are with you all the time. They’re a part of who you are. You love these materials. It’s a very minimal, specific selection of materials, objects.

And they’re different for everyone, a little bit.

Yeah, but they’re kind of a uniform. You need them all the time. For me, this thermos is one of those. I really need it.

Think you could make your own thermos?

Maybe someday (laughs). I don’t think I’m skilled enough to do that.

When did you start working with wood?

A little bit last year. I’m really- I use computers a lot when I work. I’ve never done a woodworking project, like “made a chair”. I use the Makerspace a lot- an open lab in the engineering building. I use the CNC machine and the laser cutter. But the main ones are the computerized tools I use to make stuff. That’s how I made the skateboard. I cut it with a CNC mill and finished it by hand. I’m gonna make more and sell them.

You do 3D graphic stuff too, right? And you’re a CS major? How has that work informed your art practice- did you have those tools before?

Yeah. I started caring about doing creative things because- I went to an engineering high school and had to take CAT classes, so I started doing 3D modeling. We also had a 3D printer, which was super sick in like 2011. 2010. Longest time ago. So I was doing a lot of that on my own since it wasn’t happening in class. I got really into art 3D modeling, so it was quite a bit of character design, digital sculpting, things like that. I was actually adamantly opposed to learning CS for a long time, which was stupid (laughs). I was like, ‘I don’t care, I don’t wanna know about that’. After I graduated (high school) I realized I was pretty interested in it. I took my first CS class at Columbia. I was going to be an architecture major until a few days ago actually.

I always feel like there is some correlation between the worlds of coding and writing, the process of creating something, writing and coding as art.

Absolutely, absolutely. I was thinking about that the other day too, writing a program compared to essay writing. Just code is easier. It’s also- you have to really think about organization, you have to think about your beginning, how you end it. You don’t really think about arguments, but- you’re composing, when you write a program, which is cool too.

That sounds connected to music. It sounds like all that you do is interconnected.

Word. I guess so. It’s all- I think about everything the same way. Which is really helpful in some ways and counterproductive in others.

I think that’s one of the ‘creative people’ things, one of those double-edged swords of thinking creatively.

I fuck with that. I don’t want to be studying CS to be a computer scientist, studying architecture to be an architect. I think it’s all one toolkit that I’m trying to flesh out.

I think college, for me, is building that toolkit to feel that I can do the work I want to do creatively. Specifically what I want to do is temporary architecture, or installations, audio-visual stuff. I kind of just want to organize parties, build spaces for music.

What about the visual art that’s up there? The eye from the security camera, stuff like that?

Those are actually a few years old, but I like them a lot. I actually wanted to make t-shirts out of them, which I did, through one of those e-commerce websites. Kinda lame, but Columbia doesn’t let you use the print studio unless you are in a printing class, so.

Those designs are also part of a general obsession with technology. Technology has produced my most intense love hate relationship.

Can you tell me more about that?

Sure. Everything I want to do relies on computers. I really love making things that are made possible by my computer. The things that I am able to output using a computer I really love. But I also hate that I spend, like, 12 hours a day on my laptop. And that I basically can’t go anywhere without my laptop because I need it to do everything. Yeah. It’s kind of counter to what I think is good in life. Fun. Farm produce, human interactions. Wood and cotton and glass as opposed to…

Do you have a particular medium that you most often turn to? Or is it always in conversation?

Medium. I think for now, for making things, it’s wood and cotton. Yeah. I think that there are only five materials that are worthwhile: wood, cotton, steel, glass, paper. Yeah. That’s the ones.

What about what’s inside a computer?

Right. So you can’t – I am- I’m realizing that I unfortunately can’t get to that point (where I only work with wood, cotton, steel, glass, paper). Which is kind of sad. It’s mostly an effort to villainize plastic as the worst thing ever.

Do you think that politics or larger ideas influence your life and art? Or is it just the object?

No, definitely. A lot of the drawings I made, mostly about surveillance, which is something I’m still very interested in and fighting against. Environmental activism is really important to me- the whole plastic thing is about that. This obsession with design for people to have a small selection of objects is about that: consume, but consume on a small scale. Consume long-lasting things that are actually important to you.

Would you consider yourself an activist?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely. That question is hard for the same reason that ‘do you consider yourself an artist’ is hard. I think it has a lot of gravity of ‘do you really put your money where your mouth is’ kinda deal. But, also, activism is similar to art in that it’s not one thing. Activism is not only protesting- that’s not true because protesting isn’t even one thing. Activism is not just vocally gathering and chanting with signs. Direct action is great, but it’s not the only activism. It’s also trying to be aware and up to date as you can be, and to always have conversations with people and calling people out when they say something you don’t agree with. Being confrontational in a way in which you’re not fighting, but trying to educate and learn, and have other people learn, and stuff like that.

I think being an activist means caring about things, to be honest.

And here’s this question: Do you consider yourself an artist?

No. I thought about this a couple weeks ago. Well… yeah.

On the Ratrock page, I didn’t say ‘visual artist’, I said ‘designer’. I think it’s easier to call myself a designer. ‘artist’ has a lot of weight. I like the intentionality of calling yourself a designer.  

(pause) Let me just find the words…

Calling yourself an artist is chill and great for a lot of people, obviously. For me, using the word designer is less pressure.

What does being a designer mean? To you? And literally, what it encompasses?

It incorporates the concept of function. For a while, I didn’t fuck with that, so maybe I won’t fuck with it in a while. I actually don’t see that happening. I’m really interested in highly- functional but very beautiful things.

That’s a good ethos. Anything else you feel like sharing, any upcoming works? Andglowing cube in a forest ideas?

What have I been thinking about… I think what’s been on my mind mostly is the uniform. Making all your own clothes. Everything you own being made yourself or traded with other people. I think that we should all- well, not we all- but I think it’s really sick to limit yourself in certain ways. Your uniform doesn’t need to all be the same thing. You don’t need to wear the same thing every day, but instead of wearing thirty clothes, you have 10. So you repeat things a lot, and it’s predictable. I think that’s interesting. Not school uniform- definitely not everyone should wear the same thing. That would suck. But I want to wear the same thing every day.

Me and my friend met this professional knitter on the subway last night. He’s a student at parson but he also ‘knits freelance’. High brands employ him to knit shit for for them. He makes his own stuff and sells it on commission, so like. He makes sweaters and shit for all these people. It was cool.

Also: a moneyless and plasticless world. That’s what I’ve been dreaming about lately.

Lena Rubin

Photography by Clara Hirsch

Interviewed by Matt Munsil

If you had to use 3 words or so to describe your poetry, which would you use?

I guess water, memory, and opaque.

When you say “water” in regards to your poetry, what does that mean?

I just mean that I’m obsessed with water in my writing. That wasn’t supposed to describe the quality of my writing, that’s just the center of a lot of my writing, which just happened this summer because I was living in New York, and I went all the way out to the beach sometimes. I realized that being in water is my favorite thing, so I go swimming pretty frequently at Dodge in the pool and I found that swimming is a lot like writing in a lot of ways, so I think of swimming and water as a main-- not just subject, but technique in my writing.

How do you approach producing poetry? Your poetry seems to take on different voices, sometimes it’s more stream-of-consciousness, sometimes it’s more calculated, is there a general approach you have, or does inspiration just strike?

I think I tend to write down a lot of notes in my journal, and a lot of my notes are just long paragraphs of items I put together to see how they work, and some of my poems are just direct transcriptions of those. And then others are based on things I’ve read or I’ve studied in school. One of the poems I wrote when I was writing a paper about Emma Goldman [note]. And I think it depends [on the poem]. This is hard because I’ve been writing more fiction this semester but I think the approach is the same. But I think that a lot of my poems have been things that I’ve wanted to turn into stories, so I think I approach them from that perspective.

You mentioned the notes you would take in your journals, and some of the works of yours on Ratrock are just literally scans of notebooks, so at what point do you say, this is a work of poetry which I want to share with someone? What is the difference for you between when you type out a poem and submit that as a finished product versus when you submit scans of notebooks?

I think when I look back at poems, even those that are typed, I never really feel satisfied with them, so often I like to just preserve a poem in its original form because no matter what I know I’ll want to come back to it and change it, so I like just having it be what it first is before I can change it at all, if that makes sense. I’d rather it be completely out there without any changes rather than like-- the process of revising any piece of writing is infinite, so I feel like I need to capture what it first is in order to come back to it later.

For you, what is the purpose of your poetry? Do you see it as self-expression, self-exploration, societal exploration? Or is it just whatever strikes you?

I think writing is just a way to keep myself happy. I like when other people read it and I’m happy it was published, but I don’t-- I think a lot of-- I’ve always written because it’s a way to regulate -- so the poet Anne Carson, she has this quote, I forget which book it is, where she talks about her mom. But she talks about writing as like-- everyone is always carrying things around and you need to find a way to put them down, and that’s sort of what writing is for me, because I’m very neurotic so it helps to break the cycle of that by just putting stuff down on paper. I think in my fiction which I’m working on now I’m trying to do more journalistic-type writing to capture people and places without involving myself as much.

It seems like you go into deep emotional spaces and also intellectual questions in your poetry, do you find that process cathartic, usually?

Yeah. I think-- definitely. I think that emotional and intellectual questions are often really intertwined for me. And thinking about intellectual questions allows me to think about - being intellectually stimulated is a big part of my emotional life, and vice versa.

Two of your handwritten poems actually display artwork alongside the actual text. Do you like to play poetry and the visual arts off of each other, or is that incidental?

Yeah. I mean I have to say I sort of submitted a bunch of random stuff, because Caroline (Ratrock Editor) talked about contributing stuff that showed my process of writing, so I thought sending in scans from my journals would be good. I think visuals are very good for me, I was thinking about a volcano after another Anne Carson book. And then the other drawings were from this-- I found this thing online which was an interactive, very blown-up painting of the Hieronymus Bosch painting (The Garden of Earthly Delights). And I do a lot of this while I’m at work, I work at the music library at Dodge, and a lot of the time I’m just sitting there and I don’t like to have my phone or computer out so I like to just draw things or copy things down. So a lot of it is just filling my free time, but it usually turns into something.

You mentioned that Caroline asked for a sketch of your process or work that demonstrates that process. When you submit something that’s handwritten or from a journal where it might seem less complete or finished to a typical reader, is that a self-conscious thing? Do you want to change the way people perceive the poetry?

I mean I think I’ve always really been drawn to people who keep personal notebooks and like, I love to share my journal with people and I love when people share their personal notebooks or journals with me, and I really like the idea of that being its own art form. I’ve always been really interested in that. I guess you could look at it as incomplete, but as I said before, because you’re not working on a computer and there are traces of everything you do, it’s a lot more honest.

Segueing based on the idea of completeness. You’ve mentioned that you think of writing as a continual process of revision. Have you ever felt like you’ve reached a point where a poem of yours is complete, or is it just impossible to have a complete poem? Or are you always trying to improve it?

I think there are some things I do with poems to try to complete them. When I’m very specific about meter or line length, or set rules for a poem, then when I fit a poem into those rules then that helps me complete it. But I don’t know. But the summer after my freshman year I made this zine with a bunch of complete poems and I think of that as a finished product, but when I look back at it I think that they’re all really bad. So I guess yes is the answer.

Other than Anne Carson, are there other poets or artists who have influenced your work significantly, and in what ways?

The singer Joanna Newsom is one of my biggest inspirations. I listened to her a lot over the summer when I was near the beach, and that was really great. She plays the harp and her lyrics are just incredible, and voice adds so much to everything she does. I’m taking an interesting class right now called Early Ecopoetics where we’re reading a lot of medieval poems about the natural world. So we’ve read Chaucer who I really love, and-- Magical Realism is a modern genre, but reading medieval writing from this period it’s incredible to imagine what life was like at that point. And the idea of writing about nature throughout time is really interesting to me. Annie Dillard is a naturalist writer as well who wrote in the late 20th century. And other Magical Realist writers: Toni Morrison, Bernadette Mayer the poet.

Shifting gears a little bit, how are you involved creatively on campus now? What organizations and what sort of work are you doing on campus?

I'm a staff writer for the Blue and White, a programmer for WKCR, and a member of the Barnard Columbia Socialists. 

Related to that, how do you view the artistic community on campus? Do you find it encouraging or do you think there are some things missing from it?

I don’t know that there’s one scene, but there are a ton of writers here which I think is really inspiring. I mostly know writers at Barnard because I’ve taken a lot of workshops there, and I really love Barnard workshops and have made a lot of friends that way. I was involved in the Columbia Review for a while. I don’t think that I’m as plugged into the writing scene as I’d like to be, but I don’t think it’s the main thing I’m doing, and I’m mostly doing it just for me. I think the academic side of it is what I’m really interested in. I don’t worry about having an artistic community around me because I’m inspired by all the people I know, whether or not they’re particularly artistic. I’m very happy with the Creative Writing program at Barnard; I love it.

You mentioned that you’re doing more fiction writing this semester. What does that look like for you? Are you looking for opportunities to publish your fiction or is it more of a personal activity?

The reason why I’m doing fiction is because I’m looking to create more finished products. I think with fiction, because it’s not so much about individual moving around of words, but it’s a larger scale and I think it allows me to write about things outside myself and in that way make my work have more of a purpose of documenting. I’m also a journalist, and have always been interested in journalism, so I see my writing as a creative way of doing journalism.

So where should we go to find more of your work? Do you have a website?

LR: Yes! I should update it but I have a Cargo Collective website. My stuff has been published in different places but it’s all on there. (http://cargocollective.com/lenarebeccarubin)  

Anderson Peguero

Interview by Cecilia Lee

Anderson Peguero writes poetry and fiction.  His work is emotive and concise, marked by a minimalism that was reflected in the head-to-toe black outfit he wore the day of his interview.  Anderson was candid about the inspiration behind his art and his inner conflict about choosing to seriously pursue a career as a writer.

How would you go about describing your poetry to someone who’s never read it before?

My poetry is very modern, very visceral, kind of dark, kind of sad.  I do prose writing most of the time and poetry is a way for me to be more evocative and more personal than writing fiction. My poetry is- I guess emotional is the right word.

Can you describe your writing process?

It’s entirely digital.  I cannot write-I think I have a bad way of writing with my hand. I can’t write much without my hand getting tired so I do most of my creative writing on the computer.  Sometimes when I’m walking around or at an event I’ll use my phone and I’ll just transfer it to my computer.

I noticed that there are spiritual elements in your poem “Malice”.  How do you incorporate your own spirituality and faith into your poems?

I am not as spiritual as I should be, according to my family, but I guess in my writing, I sort of fall back on it as a vulnerability, like a wound that keeps opening when I’m writing.  I can’t write a poem praising God or expressing what He’s done for me because I feel like that’s not the point of my poetry- it’s to show damages that I have had to get over, or showcasing them. I never write a poem expressly for the purpose of talking about God or being spiritual but it’s always in the back of my head, I think.

What’s your favorite poem and why?

Probably “Ash Wednesday” by T.S. Eliot.  That was my final for my poetry seminar this semester. I like a lot of poems.  I guess you could say one of my other favorites is “Paradise Lost”, by Milton. I realized my favorites always have a certain tone to them, but it’s not like a hymn or something, it’s something that sort of challenges one’s faith.  And “Ash Wednesday” in particular, chronicles T.S. Eliot trying to find faith. It’s just one of the first poems that I really looked at critically, and I related to it spiritually, and it was interesting, and of course Eliot has really incredible word play.

What do you see is the relationship between poetry and music and lyrics?

I think poetry is very interesting because it can have music to it, a lyricism.  I think Eliot’s really great at having his poetry have a music to it.  But also, it can have no music quality to it, it can be completely discordant or chaotic and that even can be a kind of music, I’d say, to have no rhythm to yourself and be unpredictable.  When I write my poetry, I almost never rhyme; I almost never try to make it lyrical.  It may happen that it ends up like that, but it’s never on purpose and I kind of admire people who can do that because I absolutely cannot.  In terms of finding poetry in music, I think that’s definitely possible.  I listen to all kinds of music, sometimes for fun, sometimes for moods or whatever, but honestly I would say the sort of music I find the most lyrical meaning in would be like rock or metal music, especially the heavier or darker genres like black metal or like death metal, which everyone here is going to assume is screaming and all that but sometimes those bands are really deep.  Sometimes I’ll listen to music because I like the sound, but then I’ll look at the lyrics too and they’ll be really interesting, insightful, and sometimes even inspiring.  I like the fusion of things in genres.

What artists inspire you? 

Writer-wise, I get inspired prose-wise by reading random books that are great and looking at different paragraphs and lines that are great; I write those down.  But poetry-wise, I would say I’m influenced by modern spoken word poets.  Safia Elhillo is really great, Sam Sax, I saw him for a little bit, it was great.  But also in poetry I try to do- it’s obviously a written medium; it’s writing- but I try to be visual with how I do my poetry. I look at a lot of art. I look at a lot of past movements and sculptures. The poem about St. Peter actually came from me being in the Met. I saw this painting of St. Peter and I had that idea.

Themes about black identity and family are prevalent in poetry.  How have your personal experiences shaped your poetry?

I think something that I’m vulnerable about with my poetry is that I feel like I don’t have enough personal experiences besides what has happened within my family. I’ve lived in military bases in a lot of places around the world so I’ve always felt disconnected from people struggling though hard core oppression. I’m aware of this oppression but I never really felt connected to that experience. The things that come out in my poetry are what I have experienced.  Recently I’ve been trying to widen that a lot through varying themes and common structure of my poetry.  I’ve been doing that since the summer with a lot of my pieces.

 Could you elaborate a little bit more on what you’re doing to widen the scope of your pieces?

After the summer, I was researching different art movements and I was reading a lot of surreal fiction like the Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake.  I was reading short stories and was really interested by the surreal and the abstract. I’ve heard people say that my writing- my poetry- can be surreal almost, so I wanted to take that further and sort of develop a style.  I came across this – it was on Wikipedia- it was just a bunch of random themes in modern black fiction and one was Afro-Surrealism. My favorite art movement besides that has been Italian Futurism for like years, so I had the idea of merging those and seeing where that could take me. 

So I started working on something called Afro-Futurism and sort of moving past what I have experienced personally, and showing globalization. The theme of exploring the normal and modern life of blacks as a whole is like moving towards a futuristic society; like overemphasizing our need to stay current and be as good as every other race out there. So I’ve been expressing that with themes of machinery and industry in my recent poems and highlighting that sort of struggle to become one as a people with struggles we’ve gone through in the past. 

How do you see poetry received and perceived among your peers compared to other forms of art?

Usually, at least in Columbia, I see way more poets and writers than I do other forms of art.  I only know a handful- maybe this is my personal closure because I don’t have Facebook or anything.  I only know a handful of visual artists but I know a lot of poets; I know a lot of people in the poet community and I feel like a lot of the people at Columbia have- not common backgrounds- but common interests and that’s sort of what brings them here to New York City. It has been a city for literature and writing for a long time so people are drawn to that.  It’s definitely really supported here at Columbia.  I feel like whether you are just starting out poetry or if you’ve been writing poetry for a long time, it’s really easy to get a nice support system and -I don’t want to say “fans”- but a lot of people who appreciate what you do here. 

There’s obviously the literary magazine open mics that they have here, but there’s also all types of different clubs and events that happen across campus.  And you’ll see the same people at some of them sometimes and they always love to hear what you write, even if you repeat the same things.  So I think poetry is something that can definitely thrive at Columbia, and it is thriving and it’s just a medium that a lot of people want to experience.  A lot of people come out to poetry slams for the first time at like every new open mic I go to. 

Do you have a specific audience in mind for your poems?

That’s actually a good question because sometimes I feel like I’m writing, when it’s like really personal, I feel like I’ll write it and I write it with the intention of reading it to a specific person, or someone who just understands what I’m talking about.  But then sometimes I will write just because I hear words in my head and I want to write this out and I’m like “man, this is a good line it’s gonna be great. My friends back in Georgia used to say I do remixes all the time because I would never read out anything until I’m there and I would always change words around as I’m reading it, because I’m like “oh, this works better here”.  And sometimes I change words around depending on who I’m reading it to.

Are there any stereotypes about poetry that you’d like to challenge?

Yeah that’s interesting actually.  In high school, before I started poetry, - I’ve been writing fiction my whole life, but I started poetry junior year of high school- I didn’t want to start earlier because I was afraid of people would be like “oh this kid writes poetry and he’s all sad and it’s so girly and pathetic” but actually once I started writing poetry, nobody said that to me.  I’ve never had that happen to me, which I was surprised about; I still kind of am.

A lot of people, when you tell them that you write poetry, they’ll imagine something soft like “roses are red, violets are blue, it’s raining on my curtains”, and then on the other hand, a lot of people when they hear you’re a person of color doing poetry, they imagine you’re on a stage all the time telling people you need to “fight back against the like slave masters” and “your religion is not real”. I think that poetry is as versatile a medium as fiction writing.  When you say you’re a writer, no one assumes you’re writing Twilight Part Two.  So, I guess just freeing myself from the trappings of genres and what I look like; I write as a person.

Where do you see yourself and your projects in the future?

There’s two different answers.  I see where I want to be in the future and then where I see myself being.  Preferably, I want to be a writer full-time, probably fiction and poetry if possible, so I don’t know where I would be living or what I would be doing.  But that’s just what I love to do, so I wish I could do that full-time.  But then, with the way the economy is set up, that’s probably not very feasible, at least for now, so that’s why I’m here at Columbia studying biology. I’m going to major in that, get a job somewhere, do research somewhere, and then I’m not sure if I’m going to med school, because that’s like a fulltime thing and there’s no way I can write and project that career if I’m in medical school -that’s impossible.

Do you feel any pressure from the Columbia community to follow something that people would call more “practical”?

Actually, I feel the opposite.  Everyone in Columbia that I tell I’m studying biology for a job they’re always like “what are you doing? No, you hate it- you should study writing- it’s what you want to do” and I’m like “that’s idealistic and it’s great but the reality is I have to feed myself”.  Especially if I want to do creative stuff I have to be in a creative place like New York City, and that is not cheap; I can’t just work in a McDonald’s and live by myself like that. 

And the pressure I do feel to do something practical comes from my family of course.  My whole extended family is in the medical field and then growing up I got good grades in school all the time, so when that happens your parents are like “well, you’re a lawyer or a doctor that’s all you’re going to do” and I was like “I don’t really like lawyers”, so here I am.  And I’ve brought it up to my mom before, I’ve been like “man I really like my poetry class; I love this image class” and she’s like “yeah I’m sure you do; that’s a great side hobby to have” and I’m like “I guess so”.

 

 

Perla Haney-Jardine

Interview by Amanda Violetto 

Who are you, and where are you from?

My name is Perla Haney-Jardine and I’m from Asheville, North Carolina, though I was born in Brazil. Asheville is definitely the place I call home but I have such strong ties to Latin America because that’s where my family is rooted.

What is art to you? Do your poetry and visual art grow from the same interests?

My poetry and my visual art are definitely, totally linked. I am such a visual person – I like looking at shit, you know, and drawing from everywhere. I’m constantly in that mindset, where I’m thinking about how I can translate something stylistically, or how I can translate something I notice into a poem. Art is the only way I can interpret the world and the things I’m ingesting every day. I have to constantly do it or else I’d be super depressed.

I really like excess. I wish I was better at being simple, more fine-tuned, but I love layering, adding detail, building. I’m really interested in symbols, lately. I think we operate in a very semiotic world where everything means something, whether we recognize it or not. We’re so entrenched in symbolism and I’ve started thinking about how the symbols I see every day affect me and my identity. I also think the people who hold power politically and economically also have the power to determine our symbolic world. By using unconventional symbols in my work, I am trying to question what we consider normal and what we consider weird and grotesque and gross.  

Also, I’m really not a very good committer. I’ve quit everything I’ve ever tried – karate, any musical instrument. Art has been the only constant thing in my life that I’ve been doing basically forever. I don’t even consider art a hobby because it’s something I’ve always done, without even thinking, really. It’s only recently that I’ve started to take my art to a further level of introspection, while I’ve been making art for basically my entire life because it’s simply how I process my experiences.

Do you have a creative process, and if so, what is it?

Hm, well I’m really, basically, just constantly doodling. Though I’ve taken a few art classes, when I was younger, almost all of my experience is from just constant practice. I don’t have a process; it’s more so that I find literally everything to be important – like, the smallest details have meaning to me, and there’s just so much weird shit, and the only way I can process anything is through art. I try to translate the absurdity of the world – the little, everyday details that are so, so bizarre when you take the time to notice them and really think about them.

Your visual art has a sort of dark humor to it. It’s both sarcastic in a very relatable way yet clearly you’re wrestling with heavier themes in your work. Is this intentional?

I think what I am trying to do with my art is have it be uncomfortable, but also precious and tender. I feel less bad about how my brain works when I see other people’s art and it makes me uncomfortable, because it’s like “oh, I’m not the only one who thinks like this!” I’ve had family members, like, message me on Facebook about artwork I’ve posted, checking in on me because of how obsessive and gross my art can appear. And I used to have a lot of weird shame about being dramatic and emotional, but I have realized that that’s how people are. That’s how I am! Over the past year I’ve really tried to push past that. I’ve been doing a lot of work, and trying to find my style, and while I believe in being respectful, I no longer want to censor myself emotionally anymore.

The characters you create - are they based on people you know? Or imaginary?

The people I draw are pretty much people I come up with myself. Mostly, I’ll become obsessed with a certain feature, like for a while I obsessed with hook noses, and for a week I only drew hook noses. For a while I was doing a lot of self-portraits, which for a while felt really indulgent but it’s really not.

What are your favorite mediums to work in? I noticed you do digital art as well – what do you use for that?

It really depends on the piece but I’ve been branching away from my usual mediums, sketching and pen and ink, and trying to look at the process more. There’s so many mediums I have never tried, and I want to try them! Recently, I drew with lipstick and sugar water, and I also used my body as a stamp. I covered my face with ink – for example, I covered my ear with ink and then used it as a stamp! Now that I’m taking visual art more seriously, know that I know it is something I’m really passionate about, I am looking to get rid of any preconceptions I have to find what works for me.

As for digital stuff, I actually have been using the little memo pad in the Notes app on my phone! I want to branch out more with digital art, for sure, and would love to get something more substantial, like a tablet.

What people, books, films (etc) inspire you the most?

I saw Harold and Maude when I was younger, and have seen it a million times since. I love the film’s caustic, dark humor, and how it uses symbols and everyday vignettes to display how absurd life is. I also love Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. I’m super into anime as well. Another of my favorite films would have to be Güeros, by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios. I recently saw the film Cosmos by Andrzej Żuławski. You should see it – no, you have to see it. It’s so good. One last film I saw recently is The Handmaiden, by Park Chan-wook, the same guy who directed Oldboy. I’m big into horror movies and find myself using a lot of horror movie imagery in my art. The Witch, The Babadook, and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night are a few recent horror films I have really liked. I’m also super into documentaries because they’re kind of what I’m most interested in – chronicling the most absurd, bizarre, phenomenal parts of real life.

As for artists – some of my favorites are Ray Pettibon, Bruce Conner, Mike Kelley, Clay Wilson, and Robert Crumb. I’m also inspired a lot by erotica, especially old Japanese erotica.

Where is your favorite place to make art?

I like writing poetry in the subway. That’s the best place for me to write. I like to ride the train back and forth and do my poetry assignments. Because of that, I find that everything I do ends up being somehow about the subway.

I don’t like drawing in the subway because people peek, you know? I took a gap year before coming to Barnard, and travelled a lot, and though it wasn’t my best work, by far, I was creating a lot. I was able to really practice, practice, practice. Travelling helped my art develop simply because I was producing so much work.

Do you listen to music while drawing or writing?

I can never listen to music because I’m focused so hard on what I’m drawing or writing, usually. It’s pretty dramatic, for like a college drawing assignment, to be so extremely focused, but I just get really intense about it. I don’t think about anything else when I’m doing it.  

Why do you do what you do? Career, or hobby? Where do you want your art to take you?

I don’t know about fine art, but I have to do something visual, something aesthetic. For a long time, I had thought I wanted to be an actress and only just realized that’s not what I want to do at all, and since the start of this year I’ve been realizing that art is something I want to be more serious about. It’s the only thing I could ever do without getting tired. It never feels like a job to me. But then, there’s such a stigma surrounding a visual arts major. Also, I want to have a family and travel and buy my parents a home. I don’t necessarily think it’s 100% materialistic to want to be financially stable. I’m extremely family oriented, and the idea of being able to support my parents one day is something I really would like to do, and while pursuing the visual arts, there’s no certainty about finances.

Are you currently working on any projects or collaborations? Anything on or off campus you want to plug?

I am currently working on a self-portrait in the form of a Venn diagram. One side is my mother, and the other is my father. It’s getting intense but I’m not sure if I’m ever going to share it because of how personal it’ll probably be.

I’d actually love to plug my professor, Nicholas Gaugnini. He’s the one who showed me Ray Pettibon! He’s a really, really great professor. I can just feel myself improving much more than I ever have. Before this year, I had never made art with much intention or intelligent thought. Now, I’m actually trying to revel in the process and push my boundaries, partly thanks to him. The continuous dialogue I’ve held with him over the past semester has been really revelatory for my art.

Any advice for other artists looking to improve?

If you’re into visual art and living in NYC, go to museums as much as you can. I know everyone says that, but it’s true. I think that there is a lot of inspiration to be found in the rhythm of the place you’re living, and New York City has so, so much to offer. As of right now, this city is the best place I can be as an artist.  

 

GRACE NKEM

Give us a peek into your creative process, from inspiration to creation.  

I like to reproduce something I like, over and over and often- I like to self-refernce- until I feel like it’s become a fulfilled piece. Or, I’ve taken the concept and fulfilled it to the best of my ability- I think. I dont know, I dont ever pay that much attention to what the process is- but it definitely consists of iteration and reiteration. Self-documnetation.

Pick three of your strongest inspirations - people or work from any medium - and detail how their influence manifests itself in your work.

The Desert. Utah, the California Desert, the Southwestern United States. There are such vivid vision to be had out there; there are such fantastic forms. Nothing moves me like a big slab of rock- which brings me to my next point:

Brutalism. Nothing moves me like a big slab of concrete. Brutalist architecture feels like very fine, alive, and imposing temple architecture to me. But Brutalist art looks like wall decor in a waiting room. The desert and brutalism make me think of scale very much- the monumental- and they make me conscious of space and how a mass or volume exists within it.

And, Good product design, with a capital G. I might cite the Vignellis or Bialetti. Something about a good object with no thoughts of fads nor planned obsolescence. It has a purpose and permanence to it- even if it is just a metal coffee pot, it becomes part of a very long term ritual. This makes it a staple, a classic- timeless. I would like to make timeless art, and avoid certain images therein. A trend is a fickle friend- save yourself the time and money dont buy leather slides this ‘season'; save yourself the effort and don’t paint a potted plant. But, I totally did both of those things this year.

Your work undeniably plays in surrealism’s toolbox.  What draws you to depart from reality in your work?

I just don’t want my artwork to have the feeling of art with an agenda- there’s no commentary in it. That is to say, I want none. So I’m just left with introspection, self-reference, and things that don’t really have an ‘objective’ subject-matter.

I mean: I’ve been trying to peg what I dont like about certain art I see right now and aside from irony and cynicism, there’s a lot of hanging, blasé reference; art that is all ‘show it dont say it,’ but in a very bad way.  Like Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, Solid Gold Pepe (it is relavant and I don’t care if it’s literally Pepe the Frog™!), or B*nksy’s work. Warhol too, though he kind of started it. Point is, we live in an environment that puts the artist at such a distance from their work that the artist also begins to (sub?)consciously distance themselves, and eventually they are reduced to a mere observer who makes snide or catchy remarks through art and whose work is merely an indicator, directing a viewer to make an observation and telling them what feelings to leave with. I feel like that sums up all of B*nksy’s œuvres. An icon and an index, but hardly a symbol (I’ll expand this thought someday).

I feel like that’s why wit and irony have such a hold right now, and I dont like irony one bit. I dont think you should ever do something ironically. So for now I’m just avoiding depicting anything I can observe (figuratively- I am always staring) and depicting things that I am not perceiving in an effort to eliminate commentary in my work, (but goodness do I make a lot of commentary outside of my ‘work'), so it leaves only room for introspection, which naturally puts me in the vicinity of surrealism, stuck with this imagery for now.

Your works possess a captivating sort of dream logic.  What do you dream about most often, and do you pull from your dreams?

Dreams! Okay I get it I seem surrealist- I don’t have an opinion on my genre, but I get it. I really do feel that the artist no longer is an authority in the life an artwork takes on once it’s finished, so I respect that this feels surrealist, and what I feel about it really isn’t so important as the response from the viewer to a work of art as it exists in it’s cultural context and environs. 

But the surrealists were a bunch of at-best passively-sexist men, to whom a woman was a muse and an object onto which to project themselves, who I do not want to be casually bunched up with. I’m sure there’s some irrelevant exception nowadays (Frida Kahlo isn’t one), but I can’t be a part of a history that has actively excluded me, point blank. Maybe bunch me in with remodernists, if you want to put me in with something like the surrealists that badly, because they are my contemporaries and exist in my cultural context. Like even say I’m appropriating surrealism because that’s mad funny. I can’t exist as a surrealist because I’m not living at the real time of the movement (a conscious movement with a purposeful start) but rather I’m living with surrealism as a part of a history which informs my contemporary circumstance. I also realize now that it sounds like I dont like to be genre-ed but I’m not being stubborn and- perhaps I’m speaking as an art historian- I really mean it.

But to answer your question I hardly ever remember my dreams, and it is a bummer. My last dream was about driving a minivan and taking a French exam. I dream very often of driving, and in my dreams the sky is often purple.

If you were to branch into a medium you’ve never tried, what would it be and why?

I would do photography, but rather earnestly- I think I could become very serious about street-style photography because despite avoiding producing any commentary in my art, I am a Huge Critic of Everything.

Describe your studio space.  Under what conditions do you work best?

It’s actually very neat- I show up to a neat space, and I leave it neat when I go. Whether it’s my dorm or 404 Diana, a mess sets my teeth on edge.

Tell us about your engagement with Postcrypt.  What should we look forward to seeing next?

I’m an installation manager and I’ve curated a couple shows. One was about sensory experience and the other about the process of self-doccumentation. Right now we’re throwing the idea of food and performance around. My current concerns are our viewership and ability to get information about us circulating.

Got a project in the works that you’d like to tease for us?

Yes: With great hope for the future I say that this century will be bigger and better than the last.

Apparently, pink and blue is the official Pantone color combo of 2016.  You’ve employed this vivid pairing to great effect in your work - any opinions on this?

No, not really.

You can design album art for any musical group or performer. Whom and why?  

Someone who might make me very famous very fast: Kanye.

FOLLOW @GRACENKEM + THEVOLGA.TUMBLR.COM

SEE MORE OF GRACE in  Faces and Coordinates

 

 

Phil Anastassiou

Congratulations on releasing your first single on Rare Candy, “Holy Moly”! Why did you pick this song to be Drug Bug’s debut track?

Thanks! I thought it’d be a good first track to put out under the Drug Bug moniker mostly because it was one of the first songs I wrote right after moving out for college, which happened to coincide with when this project was conceived. In retrospect, it’s bizarre listening to the kinds of songs I'd write before then; they were all generally a lot folkier, just intended to be played solo and acoustically. To me, “Holy Moly” symbolizes the beginning of a new stylistic chapter in my songwriting, so it felt right to officially introduce everyone to the project with it.   

Your vocals are simple and raw, evoking a lot with a little. How does your background as an actor influence your musical storytelling?

My background in theatre definitely informs the way I go about writing and playing music, in that they’re both basically trying to do the same thing: tell a story, like you said. I guess in a lot of ways having that experience telling stories through the lens of a play made the transition to writing music a bit more natural for me. I’m sure a good amount of my lyrics could double as weird, trippy, confessional monologues. At the end of the day though, whether it’s through a play or a song, what I’m after as a writer isn’t very different at all. 

Give us a peek into your songwriting process. Feel free to do so in any format (diagram, elaborate metaphor, song itself…)

Each song sort of calls for its own unique writing process, but the music almost always comes first for me. Sometimes I’ll sit with a basic idea of a song for months before the right circumstances will come up in my life that’ll compel me to add words. I've tried, but I can’t usually write anything that feels worth listening to unless I’m actively experiencing the feeling I’m trying to capture in a song as I’m writing it. If I’m in the right mood, it can take a few hours from start to finish. Sometimes it’ll take years. Regardless of how long it takes, though, I always try to approach every song I’m working on with complete honesty and emotional transparency. I used to self-censor a lot when writing lyrics because I was scared of how it might change the way people perceived me if I were to be a little too candid when I'd talk about my mental health, just as one example. But the more and more I do this, the more I begin to understand that it’s that sort of honesty that turns people to music in the first place and I’ve been learning to embrace that lately. 

Who is your dream duet partner? What would a collaboration with them look like?  

The first person who immediately comes to mind is Emily Sprague of Florist. Ever since I listened to her first record The Birds Outside Sang, I’ve been a huge fan of her music. I love the brutal honesty of her lyrics, how delicately she layers synths with these beautiful, warbled guitar tones, the raw vulnerability in her voice. That entire record has been a major inspiration in my music lately and if I ever had the chance, I’d totally love to collaborate on something with her.

You spent the end of your summer recording the first Drug Bug EP in New Paltz with Christopher Daly at Salvation Recording Co. What was that like after mostly self-producing your own music?

It was a totally exhilarating and terrifying process in the best way possible. Like you said, anything I had ever recorded in the past I'd do by myself usually in my basement, tracking and mixing each instrument piecemeal with pretty limited equipment. I had never really recorded in a setting where there was someone else whose role was to engineer and produce the overarching shape of the record as a whole, and in many ways that was both a challenge and a huge relief to adjust to. My bandmate Mert Ussakli (who plays drums on the album) and I went upstate for five days in August and I honestly feel very lucky to have had the chance to make my first record with Chris. The beautiful thing about Salvation is that it doesn’t have that stuffy, rushed atmosphere that a lot of other professional studios tend to have. Instead it feels like you’re working at home with found family and that kind of environment is perfect for fostering a whole lot of comfort and creativity. Ultimately, Chris had just as much control in directing the sound and structure of the record as either Mert and I did. There’s still a little more work left to be done on it, but it’s very close to being finished and I’m stoked to share it with everyone once it’s ready.

In a few words, what would you say your new record’s primarily about? 

While the record doesn’t necessarily have a specific underlying narrative, a lot of thought definitely went into which songs made it on there and their arrangement was done very purposefully. It’s hard to put it into words since I’d rather let the songs speak for themselves, but I'd say it covers a good amount of terrain over the five tracks: getting high all the time, the initial excitement of falling in love and the fear of letting someone new in, mourning the death of a relationship you had a lot of hope in, reckoning with the burden of mental illness. Happy shit like that. 

Everyone has a song that feels like home - no matter how much time passes or how many phases you go through, this track is on rotation. What is yours?

A few come to mind, but I should probably go with “Kinder Blumen” by Real Estate. Anyone close to me knows that they’ve been one of my favorite bands for years and this is probably the first song of theirs that I really fell in love with. I grew up in essentially the town over from where they all met and started off in northern Jersey, and they tend to write a lot about bumming out in those sleepy suburbs, so maybe that’s why their music resonates so much with me. One of my favorite things to do for a while used to be driving alone on Route 17 late at night with their second LP Days on repeat. To this day it still makes me super nostalgic. 

If you could try any genre that is wildly out of your comfort zone, what would it be?

I’ve really been getting into a lot of lo-fi hip hop instrumentals lately and would love to fuck around in that corner of music if I knew more about how to make it. I’ve been trying to teach myself different DAWs that are better suited for producing electronic music than what I’m used to and so far it's been pretty mind-blowing for me.

What does your music taste like?

LSD and my tears, probably. 

What’s coming up for Drug Bug? Anything we should look out for?

We’re finishing up the EP and hopefully that’ll be out for everyone to hear soon. Also, we're playing lots of shows around New York over the next few months, a bunch of those are still in the works. Come through to one of them if you’re nearby, should be a real good time!