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Ines Kaag and Desiree Heiss, who founded Bless in 1997, exist in the design-as-art, art-as-design school of production, creating objects and clothing that both question the nature of consumption and fuel it as well with their highly coveted limited edition products. Each Bless collection starts with an object, an idea, a garment or an all-encompassing design solution for life – the Bless version of “basics” – often incorporating recycled goods as materials. They have sought out alternative business models to continue production according to their own vision, through creative funding, in some instances, via corporate sponsorship and collaboration. In this sense, they are like commodity artists, using the language of contemporary commodity culture – the buying and selling of goods – as their medium. Not surprisingly, their work sits equally well as a gallery installation, a pop-up shop or on the racks of a (carefully chosen) boutique. For the customer also seeking substance as well as style at the point where art and fashion blurs, Bless is the go-to, always ready with a new answer to everyday life that is as fashionable as it is functional. Here, we talked to Bless about their take on denim – the greatest symbol of the “everyday” if ever there was one – as well as their past collaborations and future dreams.

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You could call Antistrot a crew, definitely, though not of the graffiti variety – the output of the Rotterdam-based collective might look like street art from a distance, but they’re really Academy-educated muralists making paintings reflective of a generation raised on a diet of magazines like Vice and The Fader, graphic novels and classic comic books and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. They combining pop cultural references on densely painted canvases or in epic murals, like an extended YouTube video re-imagined by a group of bad boy muralists run amok. There’s lots of sex in the form of porn-perfect female characters, who might be juxtaposed with some very nerdy-looking guys next to a Papa Smurf yogi. In another painting with a beer theme, they’ve rendered New York hipster artist Dash Snow slurping a brew. And then there’s violence: Guns, tanks and scary-looking animals. Chaos on canvas.

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Once upon a time, at the dawn of the 21st century, art and music and fashion and dot com money were colliding in New York City, which had finally come out of its ‘90s recession funk. It seemed like anything was possible, and the boundaries between art and commerce were blurring at an ever-increasing rate. Being creative and making money were not mutually exclusive activities. Art fed off fashion and vice versa, and no one was accused of “selling out.” There were pop art collectives like Fischerspooner dazzling the art world and garnering corporate sponsorships from Levi’s, and Threeasfour – then As Four – who designed costumes once for Fischerspooner in the early days – were the darlings of a new indie spirit in New York fashion. Hype was the machine that fueled this new creative revolution. Then September 11th happened and the bubble burst. Art for art’s sake needed a smarter business plan….

Originally published in Fashion Wire Daily on August 1, 2008

Betsey Johnson’s Soho store in New York pulsed with pretty young things in party frocks on Thursday, July 31, for a very special birthday party. As guests tried to stave off sweat with glasses of chilled pink champagne, Betsey Johnson and her business partner and CEO Chantal Bacon celebrated the 30th anniversary of their business surrounded by their friends, family and fans.

Johnson and Bacon met in 1975 after Bacon moved to New York from London – Bacon was selling Johnson’s children’s wear line at the time – and they instantly clicked, both sharing a mutual glam rock style sensibility and unbridled energy to make clothes.

“We had even dated some of the same men!” said Bacon.

Johnson and Bacon officially launched Betsey Johnson the brand in 1978, on Johnson’s birthday, Aug. 10.

“We were very much in the moment every day,” said Bacon. “There was never a big grand plan, we just wanted to have a nice time, make good clothes and have a successful business.”

“When we started, we were doing everything. It was crazy!” chimed Johnson.

“The first show, I sat everyone, and then I modeled, and the next day I went to the showroom and sold it, and then I paid the bills, and Betsey did the patterns,” continued Bacon.

Johnson’s fashion shows have had a signature Betsey stamp on them from day one. From her famous cartwheel at the end of each show, to performances by the likes of Bjork, to models who actually look like they’re enjoying themselves, she knows how to convey wit and sass.

“Every show that Betsey does is my favorite show,” said Fern Mallis, senior vice president of IMG Fashion, the company that produces Olympus Fashion Week in Bryant Park twice a year. “She’s the best, and I look forward to it every season.”

Johnson’s collection, known for equal parts edginess and girlishness, hit all the right notes when she was just getting started in the Madonna-crazed ‘80s, with tulle tufted tutu dresses, wildly printed bodysuits and ruffled miniskirts.

“We were on the planet equal to Fiorucci,” said Johnson.

The popularity of Johnson’s archive is one reason why she’s launching the Betsey Johnson Vintage Collection this fall, to revive some of her best loved styles. A lot of the pieces, she says, they didn’t hold on to so she’s been spending a lot of time in flea markets and calling up friends to find some of her long-lost designs. Though, sometimes, Betsey Johnson fanatics beat her to the chase, she said.

“I was at a vintage show and I saw something of mine that I really wanted, but a girl picked it up right before me! I was like, ‘But that’s mine!’” laughed Johnson. “I should have gotten her phone number.”

Originally published in Fashion Wire Daily on June 27, 2008

There was something appropriate about a show of bronze sculptures on view in the black box space that is the newest Rogan store. Housed in the former Bouwerie Lane Theater, a historic cast iron building on the Bowery in lower Manhattan, the store’s dramatic interior, intensified by a sweltering late-June heat, provided the backdrop for R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe’s latest turn as a sculptor in “Relics,” an exhibition of his bronze castings, which opens to the public June 27 for one month.

“Michael and I had been talking it over for a while,” said designer Rogan Gregory, who said he plans to do specially curated collaborations in the new Bowery space on a regular basis, to bring a different kind of element to the retail environment. In particular, he’d like to highlight the space’s history as a theater.

“I don’t want to pretend that it’s not a commercial endeavor,” said Gregory. “We opened this as a retail store. But the Bowery is known for its nightlife, and for its music. I like doing things that are interdisciplinary, across mediums.”

Gregory, who also designs furniture, made the steel boxes and benches on which Stipe’s bronze sculptures are displayed: A stack of bronze cassette tapes are strewn across a low bench, like forgotten mixtapes dumped from a cardboard box, while rows of bronze Holga cameras line the top of another pedestal as though frozen in time in a post-apocalyptic window display. The display boxes are not solid cubes – instead, they function almost like the interior of a camera obscura, with slanted walls lined with mirrors forming an illusion of depth, a technique also utilized in the store on an architectural scale.

The result is an exhibit that feels something like an undiscovered archaeological site – maybe a lost building in a 20th century version of Pompeii, say – or a secret, back-room museum show

In creating the cast bronze sculptures, Stipe looked to objects from his personal collection that signified a transitory moment. A polaroid camera, for instance, revolutionized photography by allowing anyone to instantly develop their own photos. A cassette tape signals the moment when a listener could create their own playlist of songs, no longer reliant on just the radio to provide a varied sequence.

“I followed the same process that I use with my songwriting: First thought, best thought,” explained Stipe, on how he selected what to cast. “I chose objects that really resonated with me. It’s a very personal show, with things that meant a great deal to me at one point.”

To cast the objects in bronze, said Stipe, he had to destroy the original objects.

“The destruction then becomes another level of removing oneself of any sentimentality,” added Stipe. The objects, as relics, could take on a new life outside his memories, “allowing it to just be an object,” he said.

“Everything is ephemeral,” said Stipe. “Whatever feels very current now may become outdated in 10 years.”

Stipe walked over to an iTouch embedded into the floor of the store, with a three dimensional rendering of the first telephone answering machine, an now-obsolete object that completely changed communication. “For the first time, you could screen your calls,” said Stipe.

Yet despite the ephemerality of the original objects he cast, Stipe’s sculptures in effect become placeholders of a collective memory, literally bearing the weight of their legendary moments in the history of technology. Throwaway hollow plastic casings are immortalized as heavy, solid bronze.

While the sculptures themselves aren’t for sale, (“I have no idea,” said Stipe, when asked what he’ll do with them after the show closes) Stipe did design a limited edition Rogan button-down shirt that is for sale in the shop.

Or, in the “Gangs of New York” tradition of the Bowery, one could try to snag one of the cardboard boxes that were stacked up outside the store like cast-offs, printed to look like radio alarm clocks emblazoned with the words “Rogan vs. Stipe.”

“I’m sure the boxes will be gone by the morning,” said Gregory. “They’re being eyed up right now.”

Originally published in Fashion Wire Daily on March 28, 2008

Kevin Carrigan, the creative director of Calvin Klein and Calvin Klein Jeans, looked perfectly at home in a trim gray suit, standing against a monolithic plywood structure erected in the center of the Calvin Klein showroom’s stark, white interior, which he had specially constructed. The fresh, polished faces of models, in an assortment of indigo denim, tweed pants and jackets, navy coats and performance wear, were arranged on three stepped levels, as though plopped down onto an unfinished mock-pyramid for a movie about teenage tourists visiting ancient Mayan ruins.

This was the setting for the Calvin Klein Fall 2008 presentation on Friday morning, March 28, and given the longstanding association with Calvin Klein and minimalism, it made sense that the set was inspired by the sculptures of minimalist artist Donald Judd.

“It makes you look at clothes in a different way,” said Carrigan about this imposing architectural form in the center of the room. “And Calvin has always been interested in his work. We have Donald Judd furniture in our stores.”

By playing with the proportion and scale of the presentation itself, Carrigan brought the notion of form in fashion to the forefront: The way clothes and people make statements in space through shape. Carrigan characterized the Fall 2008 offerings as “sculptural,” “architectural,” and “structural,”and he opted for strong silhouettes and flat surfaces in matte and opaque fabrics such as felt, cashmere and alpaca. The result of using compactly woven fabrics such as felt is that the clothes are decidedly form-driven, the collection effortlessly achieving silhouettes like an upright funnel neck collar while still managing to look streamlined and light.

“And no shimmer,” said Carrigan, who moved away from the metallics that have dominated past seasons, instead opting for rich solid colors like midnight blue and always smart-looking tweeds.

The collection is also, not surprisingly, free of prints, embroidery or embellishment. Instead, everything about the look is communicated through line and form. Horizontal or vertical pleats form strong lines, whether in a silk cocktail dress or a pea coat, and act as the “bells and whistles.”

“That to me is the perfect coat for next season,” said Carrigan, pointing to a navy funnel neck pea coat with a pleats extending from the waist. “Rather than saying it’s ‘military,’ I’m calling it ‘utility.’ Like the Bauhaus,” he said, referring to the design movement that originated in Germany in the early part of the 20th century, which emphasized a marriage between form and function and practical, utilitarian design.

“I think like an architect,” continued Carrigan. “There’s nothing wrong with everyday dressing. I design for people.”

Perhaps no other item of clothing than a pair of jeans is more iconic as part of the everyday wardrobe, and Calvin Klein invented designer denim in the ‘70s. This year, they will celebrate their 35th anniversary of their jeans, and in homage to the now legendary pair of jeans worn by a young Brooke Shields, Carrigan has brought back the original tan stitching and “omega” pocket detailing on a polished pair of rinsed indigo flared jeans. They’re not exactly a replica of the originals, however – Carrigan said it’s more about a subtle reference to the past, with a rinse and silhouette that’s completely contemporary.

So, take note – time to put the skinny jeans away.

Originally published in Fashion Wire Daily on March 19, 2008

Life for Donatella Versace during the last ten years has been nothing if not dramatic. She’s been parodied on “Saturday Night Live,” she’s publicly battled drug addiction and she’s been the primary creative force behind the whole Versace empire since Gianni Versace was murdered in 1997. With her unmistakable blonde mane, Barbie doll proportions and glittery roster of celebrity friends, she’s arguably the most visible and well-known female designer in the world.

So even if menswear collection launch in a department store doesn’t sound like the most thrilling event in the world, when it’s helmed by no less than Donatella Versace herself, a cocktail party held in her honor becomes a mega-happening, inspiring one of the more eclectic and dynamic set of guests than your average store party.

Every spectrum of American entertainment was represented on Tuesday night, March 18, at Barneys New York, from actors Alan Cumming and Kyle MacLachlan, to “Gossip Girl” Leighton Meester, to R&B legend Patti Labelle and rap phenom Busta Rhymes, happily posing for photos with fans as his bodyguard looked on. Two NBA basketball players – the Atlanta Hawks’ Zaza Pachulia and Al Horford, in town to play the Nets and the Knicks this week – towered over diminutive fashionistas. Even the famously reclusive Woody Allen made a brief appearance with his wife Soon-Yi Previn.

For Versace, the entertainment highlight of her stay in New York will be seeing Patti Labelle.

“She’s an icon!” Versace said, clad in a skin-tight black sheath dress and sky-high patent leather platform stilettos, her hair wavy with long, straight bangs obscuring her eyes.

Barneys New York will be the exclusive department store retailer of the Versace men’s collection in New York, though the full line is carried in the Versace boutique in town as well.

“Barneys is one of my favorite department stores,” said Versace. “I love everything.”

That night, Versace even took a turn as a live model of a Versace display for the benefit of curious passerby and Donatella fans. Posing in one of the store’s famous windows designed by Barneys’ creative director Simon Doonan, Versace played up her status as a design icon.

Recently, Versace brought on menswear design darling Alexander Plokhov as a consultant. Plokhov, whose critically-acclaimed line Cloak garnered him a CFDA Perry Ellis award for menswear design in 2005, recently shuttered his business. But clearly Versace saw a sensibility in the Russian-born designer that would infuse new life into the mens’ collection.

“I knew his line Cloak and I thought he was very, very talented,” said Versace. “We give something to each other. I gave him colors, he gave me fantastic tailoring.”

And how was it for formerly indie designer Plokhov to work with a major fashion house like Versace?

“Well, apparently fine!” said Plokhov. “I cannot complain. I just wanted to do something different, and use the expertise and incorporate the heritage. It’s a mixed bag, but hopefully it looks good. What do I know? I think it’s a challenge for every designer to keep doing the same thing. For me, it’s boring. I know sometimes it sounds like a cop-out from your earlier principles, but on the other hand, as long as you keep working and doing the things you like, who cares.”

New York – Dutch fauvist painter Kees van Dongen inspired the artful, frequently stunning Fall 2008 collection by Vera Wang, which she showed early Thursday morning, Feb. 7, in Bryant Park. Van Dongen’s charged portraits of women, with their crimson lips, emotive, smoky eyes, and draped in loose folds of richly colored fabric, proved to be a ripe starting point for Wang, who was an art history major in college. Wang’s collections exude romantic eroticism in a way that is as sensuous as van Dongen’s paintings are.

Fauvism (“les fauves” or “wild beasts” was how this circle of artists was known, Henri Matisse and Georges Braque among them) is characterized by strong brush strokes and vivid colors in their depictions of French bohemian society.

In van Dongen’s paintings, silk stockings might peek out from underneath a lifted hem. For Wang, opaque stockings could be viewed beneath sheer slips of silk gauze, with an overpowering allure of transparency taking hold. That which is revealed (the legs) still remains concealed.

Or take the contrast of delicately executed plisse in rust against a charcoal felt top – it sat like the trace of one of von Dongen’s subject’s lipstick kisses on a glass as it sips red wine.

The languid drape of a cashmere cardigan over a dusty rose washed silk blouse might elicit ebullient swoons and sighs on a plush velvet chaise in the drawing room as one flirts with a gentleman caller.

In this collection, the back especially became a source of intense erotic pleasure. A tutu train shapes and molds the backside into the ultimate rounded object of lust, again both concealing and enhancing. The irony being, of course, that it can only be appreciated as this creature, who epitomizes elegance, walks away from her admirers, leaving intense longing in their wake.

But ultimately, the main message at Vera Wang was in the drape, as in the fashions worn by the women in van Dongen’s sultry paintings. Whether it was in the drape of a dress, the way a skirt cut on the bias was pleated asymmetrically on the hip and fell off the body just so, or even in the way a pair of silk twill leggings clung and slouched on the leg at the hem, it was all about the way fabric wrapped, concealed, revealed or reshaped the female form.

A running motif in the Fall 2008 collections in New York has been that of the sexy, disheveled intellectual. She’s feminine, but with an edge of impropriety, the guilty mistress engaging in an early morning walk of shame. She’s feminine enough to win the affections of a hundred and one suitors, but not entirely forthcoming – an air of mystery is key. In Wang’s case, this means wading through a few layers of sculpted Japanese techno tapestry, hammered satin twill or silk gauze first.

Originally published in Fashion Wire Daily on Sept. 11, 2007.

The Marc Jacobs show started two hours late last night, but then again, who ever expects it to start on time? All the conventions of a typical fashion show are hardly the point at Marc Jacobs, one of the only designers in New York who can get away with doing just about anything he wants and still retain pope of American fashion status.

Indeed, it’s almost like taking a semi-annual trip to church to worship at the altar of MJ. For good reason. Whether you love his collections or hate them, they have a way of setting the tone of the season. And because he and his people are so clued into what’s cool, you are pretty much guaranteed to find out what trends to expect from fashion in the next six months. Will it be Wednesday Addams goth punk? Grunge? Soviet Constructivist? Jacobs had everyone waiting at the edge of their steamy seats for his Spring ‘08 presentation, held in the Lexington Armory, wondering what would happen next.

When people’s limits of patience and sanity had reached a pinnacle – being stuffed like a sardine on uncomfortable bleachers has a tendency to do that to people – the show finally started with a moment that felt like we were watching a TV game show directed by David Lynch.

Jacobs – all trim, tanned and boyish – jogged out onto the runway, which consisted of multi-level whitewashed planks of wood, perspective line drawings, giant wooden cube frames and semi-transparent screens. He waved to the audience, who let out a collective cheer as though they’d just won a million dollars or maybe a nice sofa. Was this his way of apologizing for running so late? Not really – he just opted to run the show backwards, with the final bow followed by the full run of show. Meanwhile, projected onto the screens was a countdown of numbers and later, a previously shot video by artist Charles Atlas of the models walking down the runway in just their skivvies.

As the models solemnly walked out, the audience sitting in hushed reverance in this cathedral of fashion, you got a glimpse that the collection was as mixed up as this order of operations, a collage of materials such as lace, crepe, satin chiffon and even long strands of thread that resembled silly string.

These were all pieced together in a seemingly haphazard, Dadaist manner – “re-constructed” is what Jacobs called it in his program notes – as though they were the rescued parts left of moth-eaten dresses stowed away in an attic or pieces of different patterns all spliced together. One-third of a dress here, a partial tuxedo jacket there; elsewhere there were color blocked tops, georgette floral toga capes and partial shirt dresses with semi-transparent panels of chiffon interspersed.

Accessories included fetish-like pumps and sandals that gave the illusion of being too small for the foot, hilarious pave mouse necklaces and rings, pave lifesaver hoop earrings, double bags with a smaller clasp purse affixed to a larger attache. Placed in the models’ mad librarian-gone-bonkers hair were black spray-painted objects like the Concorde, a Duchampian bicycle wheel and a cartoonish ribbon that stiffly sat on top of the hair. Think Dali in a lobster hat.

But it was really what the clothes revealed underneath that was the focus of the collection – the foundation garments. This was Jacobs’ take on sex for the highbrow, nerdy set; a witty way of exploring sensuality that avoided the typical feminine stereotypes, or so he said. Satin tap “pan-tease” and bras in nude and black, sheer corsets that revealed their construction and a variety of negligees.

Jacobs said he started with the bras and panties and built the collection up around them because he wanted to explore sex – and “sexy” dressing in an ironic or perverse way. “I’m not known for doing sexy clothes,” he said. “This is what I thought was sexiest.”

By taking everything out of context, and mixing it up in a cartoon-like, madcap way, Jacobs played with the things that typically represent sexuality and sensuality, forcing it to be looked at from a different angle – a new perspective.

Two years ago in Paris, conceptual jokester Viktor & Rolf’s “upside-down” collection also started with the show in reverse order, with clothes that had been turned upside down and all mixed up as well. Like Jacobs, they’re also well known for their shows-as-spectacles, which often times end up overshadowing the clothes.

Is that what happened to Marc Jacobs last night? The jury might still be out on that one. As Jacobs remarked after the show, his productions each season have turned into the staging of a theater piece.

“We’ve become almost fetishistic about doing things in a very conventional way,” said Jacobs. “I was bored. We design clothes every season.”

So, in the end, perhaps designing a collection around undergarments was just a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Will people rave about it? Of course. And will people buy it? In droves.

Originally published in Blend (Netherlands) Issue No. 30.

“I’m completely convinced that I’m almost a diabetic, even though I’m really careful,” says video artist Shana Moulton, who as an undergrad once did a performance where she covered her face with a caramel mask, waited for it to dry, peeled it away and ate the entire mask. Then she washed everything off in a basin filled with white sugar. “I was almost puking,” she says, and explains how at the time, she’d just learned her parents had Type 2 diabetes. So her self-professed hypochondria isn’t completely unfounded. In Moulton’s ongoing video series, Whispering Pines, she plays a character named Cynthia, an alter ego who is plagued with a variety of illnesses, perhaps more imagined than real. She’s constantly looking for a cure, or some kind of answer to all her problems. Cynthia tries everything from beauty products promising miracles, to water fountains spouting New Age energy speak, to an Avon lady hand healer. It’s these illnesses and the subsequent remedies that are the catalyst for Cynthia’s fantastic escapist adventures through the looking glass. Whether Cynthia actually finds liberation – or salvation – is unclear, and the video’s low-tech aesthetic and over-the-top citric acid color scheme make the viewer feel a little loopy, as though you’ve just stayed up all night, bleary-eyed, watching cable access infomercials for crystal-wielding psychic healers. Moulton grew up in Northern California, a hotbed of spiritual self-help and seekers of healthy alternative lifestyles, but she’s recently moved to Brooklyn. We meet up around the corner from her house just as she’s finishing the final edits of her latest video, “Sand Saga,” to discuss Cynthia’s fate, New Age kitsch and why Kombucha tea is Moulton’s new hope in a bottle.

Renata Espinosa: So you’re working on a video for your new show opening next week. What is it about?

Shana Moulton: It’s basically another episode in this series I started in 2002. I keep going back to this character Cynthia, who is my alter ego. I’m doing another episode with her, but I’m calling it something else, giving it a different title.

RE: Does it signify a break in the kinds of things that are happening to her?

SM: The video is slightly more abstract than the other episodes, but it’s the same sort of narrative style, going from a mundane reality to a parallel universe. I still don’t exactly know what’s happening at the very end yet, but it’s a really generative way for me to work, and it has been since I started the series.

RE: How did the series come about?

SM: When I was in grad school, Cynthia came out of these costumes I was making. They were dresses with medical devices embedded into the fabric, like a neck brace was part of the dress, or a hemorhoid pillow, or a walker. They weren’t so interesting on their own, so I tried to think about what kind of person would have to wear these dresses.

RE: The clothing was kind of like a medical prosthetic device?

SM: Yeah, and it was also extreme fashion at the time.

RE: So the idea is that she’s plagued with either real or imagined illness.

SM: Yes. And in the videos, they also became the portals into the parallel worlds. The hole in her neck brace, or the hole in the hemorhoid pillow was her entrance. That’s something I feel is particularly important to me in all of the videos, and something I always forget to mention. It’s this idea that her body and her illnesses are the actual portal to the fantasy worlds that she has.

RE: Are they fantasy worlds in a positive sense? Or maybe you’re not sure.

SM: It’s definitely ambiguous. I don’t know if they’re positive or negative. They’re definitely escapist, or wishful thinking, or positive thinking. Right now the video I’m working on has these series of bathroom decorations in it. They’re in the first scene, the normal section of the video, and then they reappear [in the fantasy world]. They’re all heads.

RE: Is it the same kitschy aesthetic as in the other videos?

SM: This one I made in my parents’ house instead of in my studio, so it’s slightly more realistic, though I altered their bathroom to be more colorful and kitschy. And then my mom happened to have all of these heads she’s collected. A year ago I made another video at my parents’ house, and my mom also collects hands, and so I used hundreds of these hands.

RE: Like ceramic hands?

SM: Ceramic, glass, plastic. So this time I wanted to use her head collection. In the end, I place the heads on these bodies. It’s actually me, dancing around in a green suit, and then I chromakey out the green and I put these bad skin conditions on the bodies. The video starts with her applying a facial beauty mask, and I’m waiting for it to dry. So that’s the whole trigger for this adventure she goes on in the video.

RE: You use a lot of American beauty products in your videos, all these things designed or marketed to make a woman feel or look like more of a woman, like the Biore pore strips in Whispering Pines #6.

SM: With the cosmetics, I feel like those things are really similar for me to the different New Age ideas. At least for me personally, whenever I see one of these new products, I really want it to work. I think, “Here is the answer to beautiful skin.” But my attitude towards it is that I’m really skeptical of it, but I actually do want it to be the answer to all of my problems. At the same time, I feel like it’s garbage and it’s just about making money and marketing. So for me, it’s that dynamic that is really motivating most of the videos.

RE: Cynthia is trying to find something to believe in order to cure herself. But in the episodes I saw, she never really seems to get to that point. In one, you end with a quote from “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”: “Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body too.” That seemed like a more hopeful way to end.

SM: I really do believe that quote, that if you break the chains of your mind, you break the chains of your body. I want to believe it. I think I believe it. I’d love to go with an Eastern philosophy, or at least our New Age version of that, but at the same time, I mean, something like “Jonathan Livinston Seagull” I mean, Neil Diamond made the soundtrack, and that quote is just so absurd.

RE: There is a lot of cheesiness to that kind of New Age stuff. It’s rooted in a very sincere place, but it’s hard to separate it from the kitsch factor.

SM: I’m not really being ironic. I really want to believe in this. But then, I sort of am being ironic. I’m at this stage now where I feel that one day, when I’m mature enough, I’ll be able to believe this stuff, but not now.

RE: Is Cynthia is representation of someone older, or is she more of an everywoman? Does she exist in a particular time and place?

SM: I’ve never been able to pin her down. She’s really just me, but maybe slightly dumber [laughs]. It’s me, and a combination of other women in my life.

RE: She reminds me of a kooky aunt.

SM: She’s definitely a conglomeration of different women in my family, like my mom and my aunt. They love shopping and they collect these things, like the hands, or crazy fountains. The first video I made was totally inspired by this fountain that both my mom and my aunt had bought at a department store. When my mom put it in her bathroom, I told her, “Mom, that is so ugly! You have to get rid of that! It’s awful.” And then, five months later, it struck me how amazing it was, that it was actually the coolest thing I had ever seen. It had green and blue pebbles around the base, and then a classic crystal middle part that rose up like a mountain and then an emerald ball in the center. I was in Pittsburg and I said to my mom, “You have to send that to me.” But she had gotten rid of it because I had told her it was so ugly!

RE: Is that the same fountain that Cynthia buys in Whispering Pines #6?

SM: No, it’s a different one, but a very similar idea. I’m always trying to recapture the feeling that this fountain gave me. You know when you think something is ugly or bad, and then later you realize that it’s actually really cool, it’s just an amazing feeling or revelation. So that happened with that fountain.

RE: So you grew up near San Francisco?

SM: I grew up in Oakhurst, which is near Yosemite, in Northern California. The whole Whispering Pines series is named after the trailer park I grew up in. I think it’s also slightly inspired by it. It was a senior center, so there were a lot of widows who lived there and they would have these amazing collections of little things.

RE: New Age-type collections?

SM: The women there were from an older generation, so not necessarily New Age, but they definitely had their little altars of things. So I think part of the videos came from that. Oakhurst is also slightly New Age-y, though not as much as the Bay Area. It’s definitely a more conservative town.

RE: Tell me a little bit about the color palette of the videos. What was it influenced by? Did you watch a lot of television growing up? I was saying to you the other day how it reminded me of kid’s shows, like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. It’s so acidic and neon.

SM: I was a massive fan of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Growing up I watched so much television. I think I probably watched 6 hours of TV a night. But part of the reason I have all these colors is because my advisor in grad school was a video artist, and said that black and white don’t show up well on video, so I avoid black and white. Bright colors just work better on video. The quality is so bad with video, that if you’re going to have really bad quality, you should at least make it look really bright and exciting.

RE: They’re very graphic and hypnotic. The color makes it hard to look away.

SM: I went to grad school with someone from Paper Rad and he influenced my work a lot as well. I don’t know if I could make something that wasn’t colorful. I’ve never been a fan of black and white films, for instance. It’s really hard for me to watch them.

RE: Do the bright neon colors act as a representation of Cynthia’s psyche? Are they the rose colored glasses that she sees the world through?

SM: It definitely goes along with her fantasy worlds. Although there was a criticism, at least when I was in Amsterdam two years ago, that the mundane worlds that Cynthia starts out in are already so fantastic looking, so that when you go to the next level of fantasy, it’s not that big a leap. I took that to heart. After I left Amsterdam, I started to make the videos in more real environments.

RE: On the other hand, it could be that her nightmares or her parallel universe is more mundane for her.

SM: That would be an interesting flip to do, to have her fantasy worlds be really boring and colorless. But I do feel like people’s home decor can be really odd. In the videos, everything is really fantastical in the first place and so bright and colorful, and I feel like these elements just being together in the same room combine and work their magic together to help her go to this new world. Like in Whispering Pines #8, she’s just making a flower arrangement out of these disgusting pearls and different colored sands and then suddenly that in combination with her drinking the Crystal Light takes her to a new level.

RE: What is your relationship to illness?

SM: I am such a hypochondriac! I think “Oh my god, something inside burst, I have cancer…” I mean, I’m okay. If a friend is sick, I won’t run away. I’m not afraid of germs. I’m more concerned with trying to be healthy. But it’s hard, because in my family we have a massive sweet tooth. But Kombucha tea is one thing that I’m convinced about. As I was saying earlier, I’m not totally convinced by a lot of New Age or beauty-related answers, but I’m sold on the Kombucha! Maybe it’s just the alcohol percentage, but I feel like it’s an easy answer to a whole range of problems. It’s supposed to be good for your skin, and I’ve been fighting a cold for the past week, so I’ve had two kombuchas a day and now I’m not fighting it.

RE: Do you see your work as a critique of New Age culture, or maybe just that very commercial aspect of New Age spirituality?

SM: For me, I’m critical of anyone who is not self-aware. I’m really self-conscious. On the one hand, I always really admire when someone is not, but I’m not like that. I’m really trying to figure out a spirituality that works for me, but I feel like I can never fully go with any of these different systems.

RE: You’re just too smart for them.

SM: Or maybe it’s just laziness! I don’t really want to do all of the stuff they want you to do. When something becomes really dogmatic, I can’t go all the way with it. I want to believe, and I need something. But I think the version that exists in a lot of these places like Northern California is just so capitalist. It’s crazy. They put out these magazines, and in the back there are these ads where everyone’s a “life coach” and it costs a lot of money.

RE: It feels like such a scam. Someone I know called me a few weeks ago to tell me all about some “personal development” seminar he had done, and tried to convince me to do it as well. But I felt like the motivation behind his call was that he was going to get some kind of discount on his next seminar. He was probably just calling up everyone in his phone book.

SM: Those things are so tied up in making money. I could never really get into it. In one of my new videos, I use these reflexology gloves that my aunt bought me from Avon [A popular door-to-door cosmetics company in the U.S.]. This product was so exciting to me, because it really sums everything up. It’s Avon and it’s New Age reflexology. They are the ultimate object for me. I was even using them for a while and thought, “This works!” They have massagers with magnets in a pyramid shape. In the video, my mother plays a hand healer named “Lady Nova.” She was like an Avon lady witch doctor.

RE: The beauty industry really is like the new New Age.

SM: A lot of it is probably motivated by not wanting to age.

RE: We don’t want to deal with our own mortality.

SM: The cover girls of those New Age magazines are always these beautiful, angelic looking ladies with long, flowing blonde hair.

RE: It’s funny, because you’d think it shouldn’t really matter. Supposedly we’re all going to go to this other plane of existence and leave our bodies behind.

SM: I was in L.A. once, staying near Venice Beach at this woman’s house, and her reiki massage healer came over and she was so gorgeous it was scary. And I was talking to her and she was only speaking in New Age speak. Everything she said was about energy, and it was so intense. I thought she could see straight through me, and I almost started crying she was so intense. That was odd, because I couldn’t tell if it was because she was so beautiful that I was affected by her, or if she actually had these powers. It was really freaky. At the same time, she was really L.A.

RE: She seemed like she was just inhabiting a character herself?

SM: Yes, exactly.

RE: At the same time, she was someone who felt really authentic.

SM: Something was definitely going on. Usually, I feel like I can see through someone like that, but it was like she could see through me. I know some other people like that, where they’ve just got that in them. Either they think they are enlightened, or maybe they really are, but something happend to them and they speak in that “energy speak” and I can’t be around it. It’s too intense. Maybe it’s because I feel like a fraud, or I’m not enlightened enough to be around them. Or maybe it’s because it’s bullshit.

RE: They have a way of making you feel really uncomfortable.

SM: I hope if I ever do become enlightened, it’s not like that!

RE: I feel like if someone is truly enlightened, when you’re around them you’re not going to feel anything but good. You shouldn’t be thinking, “Who is this person, they’re bullshitting me” because they should be so amazing that you’re not even aware that there’s anything going on or feel like they’re better than yourself.

SM: I would hope so. Maybe it’s just that those others are in a younger, earlier stage of their enlightenment and they haven’t reached that wise, mature level yet where they’re not constantly thrusting their amazing powers at you.

RE: Right, with their gorgeous, amazing bodies!

SM: Luckily, you don’t meet many people like that in New York, which is great.