Korean crafting

The 33rd annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show is this week. It includes 26 crafters from Korea. There are lots of ceramics artists and sculptors among the list, but I'd be the most eager to check out the handmade metal cameras created by Hyun-Seok Sim. So cool!

The show runs through November 15 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Ninja snacks

Artist Denise Poon has a fondness for painting Fruit Loops and felting ninjas. Now we're talking.

Boating

Beautiful letterpress designs by 1canoe2.

Kristiana Parn

Kristiana Parn illustrations. Swoon.

Corky Lee

"Keeping watch over the silent minority," features Corky Lee, a New York photographer. Check it out.

Depth of Field

Jared Soares is a photographer based in Roanoke, Va. who documents daily life through his job at The Roanoke Times newspaper.

Born in Santa Cruz, Calif., Soares says his mother first piqued his interest in photography when he was a kid. "My mom always had cameras around the house, taking pictures of me on birthdays, family trips and first days of school," he said. "She also had a subscription to National Geographic, so I was always sort of exposed to photography, but I wasn't aware you could make a career out of it until I got college. Before that I was just taking photos of things around my neighborhood and my friends skateboarding."

As a working professional, Soares says he tries to "keep it simple" by working off one camera body and one lens -- the Canon 5D and a 35 mm f/l.4. "This set up allows me to be more in tune with the people I'm photographing and that's something I find hard to do when hauling around a backpack full of equipment," he said.

Newspaper colleagues provide inspiration, as does Christopher Anderson's gorgeous book on Caracas, Venezuela, called "Capitolio," and Aaron Huey's work from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Then there's books: "I'm currently re-reading Norman Maclean's 'A River Runs Through It' -- one of my favorite books of all time," he said.

Soares' first solo exhibition, a series on hip hop culture, will open next month at the O. Winston Link Museum.

Yoshitomo Nara

The current issue of the rad magazine Juxtapoz has an interview with Yoshitomo Nara. The painter/sculptor talks about some recent exhibits, nostalgia and individualism. He sounds a bit tired, but overall it's good stuff.

Starving artists, indeed

Fast facts from the Asian American Arts Alliance today, based on a year-long delve into New York City's Asian American arts community:

+ 60 percent of artists make less than $10,000 a year from their art.
+ 70 percent of artists work either full- or part-time outside of their artistic career.
+ 40 percent of artists are accruing up to $5,000 each year in debt to create their work.

Want to read more? Click here. There's also a related discussion scheduled for 6 p.m. Tues., Sept. 15. at the New York Univesity's Asian/Pacific/American Institute.

(Image via Jeff Grader at Fly by Frog Blog.)

Park on Park

Shin Park dishes on fashion, crafting and general sassiness from London, via her blog, Park & Cube. Park is a design student with a sharp eye for photography (she uses a Canon 400D according to her blog bio), vintage fashion and D.I.Y. creativity. Her latest is a gorgeous hand-knit shawl that she models herself.

Blender

What does merging cultures look like to you? Enter the East West magazine cover contest and show us your take.

The winner earns bragging rights, a magazine profile and a *national* audience. Deadline is Sept. 4. Can't wait to see what you creative cats come up with.

(Illustration courtesy Michael Austin.)

Get your stitch on

Mimi Shim sews a mean pillow. Just look at her revolver pillowcase. Tough! But the New York-based artist isn't the only one into needlework that would make my grandma grin. Read on.



First up, a nifty book with photos and patterns called "Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts: Woolly Embroidery." ($14.95 at The Curiosity Shoppe)

Then there's this little lion, handcrafted and felted by Cary Walker of Atlanta. ($48) Her etsy shop, Little Love Blue, has a few other animals as well. No scary jungle beasts there! (Check out her adorable Flickr page for more.)

Finally, want to try your own hand at embroidery? Hearts and Laserbeams, an online goodies shop, will show you how with its "underwater critters embroidery pattern." ($4) Buena suerte!

Helping hoodies

Pancho, Clark, Milo, Jet and Lucci may be cute and small. But they have big dreams about helping others.

Sarah Sung, a graphic designer based in Lawrence, Kans., is the creative brain power behind the cartoon quintet. It's aim: "To promote social activism in our communities," Sung says.

Sung works as a full-time graphic designer and tends to The Lucha Narrative brood on the side. She and her sister, Venus, also do freelance designing.

Each Lucha character represents a separate category of advocacy. Clark, the accordion-playing monkey, he's passionate about music and arts, of course. Lucci the pirate, peg-legged owl loves promoting literacy. The list goes on.

How can you help? A portion of proceeds sold on The Lucha Narrative Web site go toward non-profit aid organizations. (Think cute T-shirts, hoodies and tote bags.)

Sung has also started venturing into event planning by organizing a benefit concert this month. There's little doubt there will be more do-gooder goodness coming out of this fledgling project.

Learn more by checking out an awesome audio interview with Sung on lawrence.com.

(Photo courtesy of the lawrence.com/Lawrence Journal-World.)

Scrub-a-dub-dub

A gift of goat’s milk soap, made by a family friend, prompted Jeff Kurosaki and Tara Pelletier to enter the world of soap making. It was 2008, and the present came from Pelletier’s grandmother. “After using it, there was no way that we could go back to commercial soaps,” the pair said.

Around the same time, Kurosaki and Pelleitier were venturing into “urban homesteading.” They created an indoor compost and a large herb garden in the windows of their Brooklyn apartment. (Kurosaki was already into furniture making and Pelletier was sewing her way into her own wardrobe and bag line.)

A soap-making book taught the couple basic recipes. They then ventured into recipes of their own. First up: a shea butter bar with tea tree and oats.

“We had made so much that we gave some away to friends, who also became addicted,” Kurosaki and Pelletier told Creative Cat. “At the same time, we had been going to the Brooklyn Flea and the Brooklyn Indie Market and were inspired by all of the cool things people were making and wanted to be a part of it.”

Here's a look at how it's done:


Now that Kurosaki and Pelletier have formed their own organic soap company, Meow Meow Tweet, they really like developing recipes and making drawings for product labels.

Kurosaki is also into “using these big, beautiful glass droppers to measure out the essential oils.” And Pelletier “loves to bring the soap to trace (this is when the oils and the lye combine).”

But the hardest part, Kurosaki and Pelletier say, is balancing day jobs with their art and soap-making. Also tricky: “Realizing the scent we have in our minds and communicating that to our noses.” Most of the meow meow tweet soap scents are inspired by food flavors.

Pelletier cooked in restaurants for many years and Kurosaki says he loves good food. “So our natural sensibility was to create flavors that we'd want to eat,” they said.

Drink up

The Korea Society, in New York, interviewed Korean film director Park Chan-wook about his background, influences and newest movie, "Thirst." The recording is in Korean and translated into English. Click here to listen.

Tweet

Now on Twitter at CreativeCatMeow. See you there!

Jeana Sohn

L.A.-based artist Jeana Sohn has beautiful paintings posted on her art Web site and food photos on her blog.

Jenny Kim

A graphic designer by day and an illustrator by night, Jenny Kim is “trying to build a clientele for both areas and plunge myself into a diverse array of projects,” she said.

Summer events such as cultural festivals and movies currently “quench” her “inspiration thirst.” She recommends checking out "Megane" by Naoko Ogigami and "Thirst" by Park Chan-Wook.

“I couldn't stop drooling as I watched both movies, but it was the solid screenplay, cinematography, combined with the art that made the movies top notch,” Kim told Creative Cat. “There are so many people who are just way too talented in this world.”

Music also keeps Kim going. She keeps Priscilla Ahn, Vampire Weekend, Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor, Cocoon, Duke Jordan Trio, Nujabes, Naomi & Goro and Kings of Convenience on heavy rotation in her iTunes.

Kim lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. There, she is working on ideas for personal and commercial illustration projects. She’s also focusing on photography – working with her Lomo lc-a and Pentax Spotmatic-F. Keep tabs on her Web site for more.

"Taking Woodstock" and Ang Lee

Journalist Li Jing talks to director Ang Lee about his newest film, "Taking Woodstock." Lee is responsible for many big hits: "Brokeback Mountain"; "The Ice Storm"; "Sense and Sensibility"; "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and perhaps, the upcoming "Life of Pi."

"Taking Woodstock" starts showing in theaters Aug. 28. The trailer is below.

Design and you

Be a part of the East West Exhibit. Design our much anticipated re-launch cover! Click here to learn more.

Home sweet home

Maybe it's all the great interior design ideas. Maybe it's that it's just a wee bit voyeuristic. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoy Todd Selby's Web site, which depicts creative minds at home, in their own spaces. (Plus, he wears fabulous glasses.)

Selby's latest installment features fashion designers Susien Chong and Nic Briand in their home in Sydney, Australia. The couple runs the label LOVER. Loved — not just liked — it.

Coffee, illustrated

It's dreary — yet again — here on the East Coast, which makes me crave a cup of coffee and a good book so I can curl up under a blanket and cozy the day away. Alas.

At any rate, I'll admire this spiffy coffee graphic by Lokesh Dhakar, of Baltimore. Buy T-shirts and mugs here. Mmmm...mocha...

Slim Vin

Wow. Love these.

Big bags are a necessity in my business. As a journalist, I'm constantly lugging around a mishmash of computer cords, recording devices, notebooks and miscellany.... Pens, tape, thumb drives, chapsticks, you name it.

All this makes the purses and totes from the Brooklyn-based company Skinny Vinny seem like a fashionable investment. Founder Vincent Lai is a 2006 graduate of Carnegie Mellon. He spent time at a design consultancy in Soho before launching his own line.

"I wanted to combine my product design education with the soft goods and pattern-making knowledge I gained growing up in a garment factory," he said.

Lai, who named the company after a teasing nickname, makes the product samples himself. They are then reproduced at a small factory in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Hooray for handbags!

Weekend wanderings

The Renegade Craft Fair schedule is still going strong this summer. This weekend's location: San Francisco! There's also the stop in Chicago on Sept. 12 and 13.

Would love to hear about your finds if you attend. Happy hunting!

Sprouting ideas

Love to go green? Meet Jenny Poon, an Arizona-based entrepreneur who runs Eeko Studio. It's little design boutique with big ambitions.

Eeko does Web design, apparel, editorial and advertising work with a twist: The company focuses on sustainable methods and materials, and donates a portion of profits toward local environmental charities.

Paper waste triggered the creation of Eeko. "I have never been a 'die-hard' hippie tree-hugger, but I am big on being non-wasteful," Poon said.

The budding company's blossoming goal is to rethink traditional design.

"Traditional design follows this timeline: think, design, create, print and trash," she said. "Design has a lifespan just like human beings. There is birth and there is death — and hopefully there is love in there too. You get a project and you design based on clients' needs and when it is completed you are done. The audience gets the printed piece and then it gets trashed."

Eeko also aims to rebuild design into a cyclical, sustainable process. "From the get-go we think about ways to lessen the waste, use recyclable material, from there we go into the aspects of HOW it will be used and think of alternative uses to prolong the life of the piece," Poon said.

There's lots of great green products out there. Here are a few of Eeko's favorites: D.I.Y. wine cork boards and recycled shipping container houses. Tree-hugging, indeed.

Kapow color explosion

Give me an afternoon to scavenge garage sales, flea markets or thrift stores, and I'm one content kiddo. Thus, I was thrilled to see that the wonderful blog "yes, please." can be counted among those of us who love digging through 99 cent stores for treasure.

The author, Kelly, pointed out an installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art called "Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists From Korea." I'm dying to check it out.

The LACMA exhibit reminds me a lot of the terrific series, Second Lives, that was at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. It's gone now, unfortunately, but CubeMe still has photos. Lucky!

This burst of butterflies that were laser cut out of records was my absolute favorite. Really though, the whole installation was energizing.

A night — or two — at the museum

The new location of The Museum of Chinese in America just opened last month at 215 Centre Street in New York City. Architect and designer Maya Lin is responsible for the Manhattan building. (She also designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in Washington, D.C.)

It looks like there's lots to see, but I'm particularly interested in the exhibit on Hazel Ying Lee, an Oregonian and aviator who flew during the 1930s and 40s. She even flew fighter plans for the U.S. Army. (Plus, she wore kickin' boots.) How cool is that? Lee died young, at 33, but apparently you can learn about her life through photos, letters and memorabilia at the MOCA.




Upcoming events at the museum include The 32nd Asian American International Film Festival and a grand opening celebration on Sept. 22.

Admission is free on Thursdays, thanks to Target. Let me know if you check it out.

Raindrops are falling

Courtney Chu, of Chicago, creates imaginative clothing for kids using found fabrics that look as comfortable as they are colorful. She even incorporates silk screening into the CourtneyCourtney line. Each item is one of a kind. Totally giftable and adorable!

On whimsy

Life is too serious sometimes. Or at least mine is, unfortunately. That's why work like Kim Haller's is so necessary. We're talking whimsy to the max here, people.

Haller is a mom and a part-time high school art teacher in Milwaukee, Wis. (Also, she's a Korean adoptee, like me!) She has an amazing collection of illustrations and prints that she sells on Etsy.

Here's Haller — in her own words — on inspiration: "I spend a lot of time making notes of things that my husband, daughter and son say and do. We have post-its everywhere in our house. I also have a collection of them in my head. Most of my work is inspired by these floating phrases and pictures. I like to build them into the characters and patterns that I create, mixed with little bits and pieces of my own various collections, obsessions, quirks and childhood stories. I hope when people look at my work they can find a sort of familiarity, whether it be in a particular character illustration itself, a pattern, texture or color that I used or a relatable environment that I created."

An uplifting way to start the week, m'thinks.

Weekend adventuring

Good stuff from a blog with good taste: 3.1 Phillip Lim Safari Dress via Cracking Good.

Pandamonium

Artwork by Stephanie Grace Lim makes me smile. Grin, really. Afterall, who doesn’t need a healthy dose of pandas, sumos and ninjas, especially on a Friday?

Lim is an artist, illustrator, designer and overall creative firecracker who is based in California. She most recently worked as a creative designer at PayPal, but her background is in newspapers, logging time at the San Jose Mercury News, The Charlotte Observer and The Ann Arbor News.

Fulfill even more of your (OK, my) panda fixation here. Tai Shan, the panda cub at Washington, D.C.'s National Zoo, turned 4 on Thursday. He celebrated with a beet cake!

Bowled over

Karen Ford is a Chinese-American artist who says she “found her roots in clay.” She creates functional porcelain and glass art out of her Westport, Conn. studio.

I’m a fan of these pretty white bowls. I’m pretty sure the pale white coloring is just begging to hug a crisp green garden salad.

Luv Lauren

Fun earrings, bracelets and rings are coming from the hands of a budding jewelry designer named Lauren Weber. She’s out of the Los Angeles area, and her wares are under the brandname LaurenLuvS on Etsy.


Lauren says she got into jewelry making after attending a bead show in January. "My favorite pieces that I like to use are peace signs, love, inspirational words, feathers and stars," she said.

Her favorite style? "I like the 'soulful' urban feel with a hint of modern day fashion," she said. "I like the inspirational charms that say 'believe, live, love, dream' because it is a physical reminder to the person who wears it. And to top it off, anything that can make a girl feel pretty is always a plus!"

Cambodian conscience

As the Khmer Rouge Tribunal continues to weigh who should be held responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million people during the Pol Pot era, a film about Cambodia's genocide is airing here in the U.S. on HBO2 this month.


Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki is a Japanese-American who has used his medium to create documentaries on addiction, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the HIV virus. This time around, he focuses on the atrocities that occurred more than 30 years ago at a Phnom Penh school-turned-torture camp called Tuol Sleng. Visitors to Cambodia's capital can go inside S-21, but Okazaki's film also gives somber but beautiful insight into the terrible things that happened there.

Click here to learn more and view an airtime schedule.

Type calendar

Parker Hu is a young designer who is creating cool work out of Connecticut. She’s currently searching for a manufacturer that can produce this eye-catching 2010 type calendar she designed for the Society of Typographical Arts.

So noted

Joy Deangdeelert Cho is a Philadelphia-based graphic designer who runs Oh Joy! Studio and OhJoy.com. She transfers her love of color and pattern into products for the likes of Swell by Cynthia Rowley and Ilene Rosenzweig, Target, Mattel, QVC, Charlotte Ronson, Michele Varian Home, Otis & Claude, Pfiff Lingerie, Mari's New York, Joya Candle and Urban Outfitters.

Current offerings include a winsome set of notebooks available via her Web site. I am especially fond of the “Noted” Olive Ombre Notebook, pictured above. So pretty! File folders, available through Chronicle Books, are also tempting. Why waste precious desk space on boring manila?

Tick tock

Bang-Yao Liu created an amazing stop-motion video, “Deadline,” for his senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design. Don’t forget to check out a behind-the-scenes look at how it was done, too.

Welcome!

Welcome to Creative Cat, where East West Magazine spotlights work by some of Asian America’s best and brightest in the fields of art, design and craft. Working on a project? Know of someone who deserves to be showcased? Hit us up at creativecat at eastwestmagazine dot com.