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© Claire Lawton

Phoenix Illustrator Kelsey Dake’s Mid-Century Modern, Hyper-Organized Studio

Kelsey Dake has a very thick half-wall between her studio and the rest of her home in uptown Phoenix.

The 23-year-old illustrator stresses the importance of a work and home-life balance, which is hard to pull off when both things happen in the same space, but probably necessary when you’re juggling personal projects, assignments form big-name publications, and a commission from singer/songwriter Beck (more on all of that later).

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Published: Phoenix New Times, March 2013

James Turrell’s Latest Skyspace Now Open to the Public in Tempe

There’s no more construction fencing around the installation by Arizona-based artist James Turrell on ASU’s Tempe Campus, and if you have a minute to spare around sunset or sunrise, you’re going to want to spend it on one of the benches inside.

The structure was designed and built by Turrell along with Phoenix-based architect Will Bruder, who designed Burton Barr Library, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Nevada Museum of Art (to name a few).

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Published: Phoenix New Times, August 2012

Clare Patey and Matthew Moore Explore Copper Politics, Artwork, and Identity at ASU Art Museum

Clare Patey and Matthew Moore come from very different worlds, but very similar perspectives.

Moore has made a name for himself in Phoenix with art projects that address the urbanization of farmland in Phoenix’s outskirts and the sustainability of urban life. Patey is an internationally renowned artist who activates vacant space and shuts down a bridge every year in London to put on a sustainable feast.

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Published: Phoenix New Times, January 2013

Photographer Bob Carey on Growing up in Phoenix and His Latest Work, “The Tutu Project”

From the second-story patio of Phoenix College’s art building in downtown Phoenix, photographer Bob Carey can point to the hospital where he was born, the neighborhood where he grew up, and the three or four houses he lived in after high school and university.

The Phoenix native moved to New York in the early 2000s, but he remembers his first big show at RoxSand, a restaurant at the Biltmore, long before he started taking calls from The Today Show, Carson Daily, and Yahoo! News (to name a few) about his latest series, The Tutu Project.

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Published: Phoenix New Times, April 2012

Phoenix Art Venues Hope to Survive Summer … Without Air Conditioning

Summertime’s dicey for galleries in downtown Phoenix. Artists are still making art. And it’s not that folks are leaving town in droves. They are here — but they’re staying home.

Truth is, arts venues slow down this time of year because no one (except, perhaps Beatrice Moore — more on her later) wants to be in a building in Phoenix in the summer without air conditioning.

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Published: Phoenix New Times, June 2011

Calle 16: A Mural Project

Silvana Salcido Esparza’s on a wall hunt.

You may have heard her name; she’s the badass chef behind the Barrio Cafe. She says she told herself growing up that when she turned 50, she’d start speaking up — positively and negatively — about what she really believed in. Just a few months after she turned 50, SB1070 was in the national spotlight.

Esparza rolled up her sleeves.

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Published: Phoenix New Times, September 2010

Tucson Artist Jackson Boelts on Watercolor, Jared Loughner, and Tucson’s Future

Jackson Boelts describes his artistic process as “quick”: First, he lays a 3-by-5-foot piece of damp watercolor paper on a large glass surface.

He’s careful to choose the colors before applying the paint — the entire canvas is usually finished in less than an hour. And as the paper dries and bubbles, it forces the paint to gather and darken in certain areas and leave lighter impressions, or “holes” in the remaining parts of the paper.

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Published: Phoenix New Times, January 2011

Pinterest: An Illustrated Field Guide (Plus a Few Survival Tips)

Friends, creatives, crafty types, and internet obsessed — meet Pinterest, the prettiest time suck you’ll ever see.

No need to worry about small talk, Pinterest will cut to the chase. It already knows all your friends from all your networks and is wide open to anything you’d like to pin on its boards (just don’t get any ideas).

Simply put, Pinterest is the brainchild of a team from Palo Alto, California. It’s an endless place to store, pin, and refer back to things you find while down the rabbit hole of the Internet and your friends’ pin boards. Pinterest is an inspiration wall on crack, a bulletin board with no borders, and a supply of visual stimuli that’ll take you a lifetime (quite literally) to get through.

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Published: Phoenix New Times, January 2012