inspiration
Joni Sternbach
This week my inspiration post features Joni Sternbach. I first learned of Joni’s work via the 500 Photographers project. What makes Joni’s work unique to me, is the fact that she focuses on methods less commonly used in the digital age. All of the photographs I’ve chosen to feature with this post are part of her SurfLand series and are one-of-a-kind tintypes (thus the reverse lettering). All of the tintypes are made on location with a portable darkroom. To me these methods have a textural component that is impossible to create in the digital darkroom and creates an added layer of interest.
Joni currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and primarily photographs in areas close to her home. In addition to being a photographer Joni has been an Adjunct Instructor in Photography for more than 20 years and currently teaches wet collodion photography workshops with ICP and the Center for Alternative Photography in New York City.
Joni entered art school as a fine art major, but after dabbling in photography for a year and a half decided to change her major and has been working in the field of photography ever since. After art school she worked as a professional black and white printer and was able to print for Mary Ellen Mark, Dennis Stock, and Danny Lyon.
Joni’s work has evolved over the years. The past ten years Joni has been making landscape-based photographs, capturing landscapes, seascapes, and the human imprint on these areas. She uses both large format film and wet collodion, either as a tintype, ambrotype, or glass negative. Joni works in an intituve way, and doesn’t aim for a specific style. She has found that her more successful photographs have a minimal amount of information, with plenty of space for the eye to travel through the photograph.
The ocean is a huge inspiration for Joni. She has returned regularly to the same locations which has lead her to examine the land and sea juncture, a subject matter in a constant state of transition, with surfers playing a pivotal role. Joni is facinated by both the physical and poetic way that they reside on the seascape. She is inspired by the people that she meets on the beach and photographs and the lifestyle that they choose to live. As a city dweller, the idea of coming to the beach several times a day, sometimes just to look, seems impossible to Joni.
I hope that you are also inspired by Joni’s work. Please scoot over to her website to see all of her amazing photographs.
Shelly Kerry
Before meeting Shelly Kerry, of Em’s Studio, I don’t think I wore earrings for more than 10 years. But I love Shelly’s style (and it doesn’t hurt that she is a fantastic person) and over the course of getting to know her, I’ve learned more about her craft. This knowledge has made me appreciate the art of jewelry making and has translated into the beginnings of a handmade jewelry collection based on pieces by Shelly and other local artists.
Shelly grew up with really crafty women in her family and she can recall making projects with them during the summer months and vacations. Some of Shelly’s earliest memories are of spending days entertaining herself with a pencil and crayon, drawing and doodling on the floor of her living room.
She dabbled in many art forms before she fell in love with jewelry making. This love affair started when she realized that she could make jewelry better than a lot of the cheap pieces she was purchasing in chain stores. She learned by deconstructing pieces, taking them apart and figuring out how they were made. She then took questions to her jewelry maker friends and after taking a few classes, began selling pieces at local shows. For Shelly jewelry making satisfies her love of manipulating little things – twisting wires and playing with delicate pieces. Her style often leans towards big and raw, but there are always small, precious parts to each of her pieces. Her pieces often contain the juxtaposition of a raw, rough stone with a glitzy chain.
Shelly draws h
er inspiration from color and textures. Something as simple as the pattern on a dress or the color of an unknown plant are examples of items that have inspired a new line of pieces. She also takes 30 to 45 minutes each day to look through art and design blogs and magazines in order to get external inspiration. From personal experience, I am inspired regularly on Shelly’s ability to draw inspiration from the most unlikely places. She has the ability to keep her eyes and mind open to the possibility that anything could be inspirational. Another important aspect of being creative to Shelly is to live each day creatively, not tucking away things at 5 pm, but living every second of life as an opportunity to express yourself. She fosters this by surrounding herself with creative and supportive people and maintaining her home/studio in a visually and mentally stimulating way.
In addition to making beautiful jewelry she is one of the owners of Lightbox SF. Lightbox SF is designed to be a support system for emerging artists. They offer consulting services to these artists to assist them with things like marketing, public relations, social media, or line sheets. Their eventual goal is to create a workspace and gallery that will create a creative community for the resident artists. They also organize two art event series, The Crafty Hour and 200 Yards. The Crafty Hour is a combination of a craft show and happy hour, that features about a dozen artists who sale their wares right in the bar. While 200 Yards is a gallery show where all pieces have been created within 200 yards of the host location (yes, this is the upcoming show I am in).
Shelly is another fantastic creative person that I feel lucky to know and I hope you will take the time to investigate out her work.
Jill Allyn Stafford
I was really honored when Jill Allyn Stafford said that I could write a post about her art. I’ve known Jill for several years now and am lucky enough to have one of her pieces in my house (plus a little ATC card that sits in the corner of my mirror). Jill somehow has the time to be the artistic director of Vox Sacramento in addition to being a mom, an artist, and working full time as a legal assistant. What I admire most about Jill’s work is the way she utilizes negative space, which is something that I struggle with.
Jill began creating art in her mid-30′s. She started realizing that she had images in her head that she wanted to place on paper. Claiming that she had no natural talent for drawing or painting. Jill started by cutting images out of magazines using them to create a new story. Jill’s work has now evolved from using recognizable images, to tearing up paper and creating a piece based on colors and textures, to creating everything by hand and using images from photographs she’s taken.
Traditionally, Jill has focused on one image and using that created a piece that worked around that image. However, Jill’s latest work is inspired by her friend Jennifer Hoffmann, who died of breast cancer last year. From Jill’s description of Jennifer it sounds like she was an amazing woman and I can see why she has been the driving force in Jill’s work the past year. Jill describes Jennifer this way:
She found the strength to leave an unhappy marriage, met and married the man she was supposed to be with, and almost immediately discovered she had stage IV breast cancer. Her diagnosis didn’t deter her from living life completely and fully and with all the deepest love and affection she could have possibly wanted.
Lisa Congdon
Welcome to the last *new* feature on the re-designed journal. In this feature I will introduce you to artists whose work inspires me, makes me happy, and makes me want to be a better artist.
I first learned of Lisa Congdon through her A Collection a Day project. For the Collection a Day project, Lisa either draws, paints, or photographs a collection that exists in her home, studio, or mind. After stalking her Collection a Day project for a few weeks, I made the leap and checked out her art and illustration website.
Lisa got into illustration by accident. Before being approached by Chronicle Books to design stationary, her primary source of income was making art for shops and galleries. While she still makes art for these venues, she now has an agent to handle her illustration needs.
I totally adore Lisa’s style. She too was partially raised in Northern California and I was drawn to that fact that her work combines whimsy with natural elements, particularly animals and trees. Plus, she draws fantastic owls. Lisa’s has two primary styles: a more painterly style of animals and nature, and a colorful, graphic, flat style. She attempts to create a mood with her pieces, aiming for a balance of color and boldness with negative space. Lisa told me that when working on animal subjects, she attempts to paint their eyes perfectly, because that is where she connects with living things.
Like me, Lisa is a resident of the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco and draws much of her inspiration from the places that surround her. Lisa says “San Francisco is really bright and beautiful and filled with amazing art and creative people from cultures all over the world.” Like her I feel lucky to live in a city that provides abundant inspiration. She also is attracted to the nature that is present both right here in San Francisco and for miles surrounding the city.
After contacting Lisa I learned that in addition to being an awesome artist and illustrator she co-owns the cutest little shop and gallery in my neighborhood, Rare Device. They sell jewelry, design objects, housewares, books, and art. If you ever are in the ‘hood, you should check it out. I always leave the store wishing that I had more disposable income, because I want to own half the items in the store.
