December 2015 - Page 5 of 10 - HUMANITY Magazine

BOB MARLEY AND LEE JAFFE

Posted on December 11, 2015September 26, 2017 by Jessica Bowler

EVER CURIOUS ABOUT WHERE MUSICAL GENIUS IS CREATED? IN THE CASE OF BOB MARLEY’S “I SHOT THE SHERIFF” IT WAS ON A BEACH IN JAMAICA WITH HIS BEST FRIEND, LEE JAFFE.

New York City, 1973. Lee Jaffe, a nice Jewish boy from the Bronx with a nose for trouble, was in a tight spot. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Just an experimental film that was falling apart—not like the Brazilian jail he’d had to survive in without getting sliced, not the stress moving truckloads of weed across the country. But while Jaffe had made his bones—and some serious cash—hustling weed and LSD all over the world, he was, first and foremost, an artist—and a savvy one at that. At just 23, he’d already seen his work, which ranged from conceptual performance pieces to multimedia paintings, included in two landmark exhibitions: “Projects: Pier 18” for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and “From Body to Earth” in Rio, a collaboration with his good friend, the influential Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica.

But now Jaffe’s latest project, a movie that he’d spent months working on and sunk all of his savings into, had just gone up in smoke, when his producer—and his money—mysteriously vanished in Chile, most likely thanks to a run-in with dictator Augusto Pinochet’s death squad. And now Jaffe was pissed off, anxious, and in need of a new creative trip. He didn’t function well when he wasn’t inspired.

And on that night, when he entered the New York hotel room of his musician pal Jim Capaldi, the founder and drummer of the British band Traffic, Jaffe stumbled upon his destiny. In the room with Capaldi was a soft-spoken Jamaican man of mixed- race ancestry who had just started growing out his dreadlocks. He was holding a cassette tape; a guitar sat on the floor next to him. “Lee, this is Bob—Bob Marley,” said Capaldi. “You should really listen to his record.”

As fate would have it, Jaffe had recently returned from a few months in London, where he’d been turned on to a new and absolutely mesmerizing musical art form that was still unknown in the U.S. One night, a Jamaican actress and model friend had called to tell him to be at her flat at 7 p.m. sharp—they were going to a movie. Jaffe arrived to find Esther waiting for him in a Firebird convertible with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, a white Jamaican based in London who’d just expanded his reach into film producing. Off they went to Brixton to attend the premiere of The Harder They Come, director Perry Henzel’s portrait of Jamaican gangster “rude boy” culture. The music that provided its soundtrack was reggae, an offshoot of the country’s ska/rocksteady genres that was still in its early stages. Starring Trenchtown reggae god Jimmy Cliff, the film was a game-changer. “I was the only white American person in the audience,” recalls Jaffe. “I didn’t know anything about Jamaican culture. Zero. Nothing. No one knew what reggae was. And I’m sitting there in this crowd of Jamaicans and there were no subtitles, and I was mesmerized.”

And now, back in the U.S. just a few months later, Jaffe was face to face with the man who would soon eclipse Cliff as the heart, soul and face of reggae music. Marley put his cassette in the boom box and pressed play. It was “Concrete Jungle,” track #1 from Catch a Fire, The Wailers’ most recent record. “I’d never heard anything like that. I had absolutely no doubt that what Bob was doing would change the world. For Jamaicans, the Wailers were already the voice of the people, but outside of that world no one knew they existed. Except me.” Jaffe, who had made a habit of trusting his instincts, then seeing his hunches pay off, knew then and there that sticking around the skinny young Jamaican who had come to the states to buy equipment for an upcoming tour would be his next big move. All he had to do was convince Marley that bringing a white guy with no professional musical experience into his inner circle would be a good idea.

Jaffe had a few cards up his sleeves when it came to winning Marley over. He began by connecting with him in a common language. Jaffe pulled out his harmonica, asking if he was in the mood to play. Marley agreed and picked up his guitar, and the two men began to jam. Jaffe skills were legit—he’d played harp in a few bands before dropping out of Penn State—and Marley was impressed. So far, so good. Next up: providing the devout Rastafarian convert with some spiritual relief. Jaffe took Marley to a buddy’s place on the Upper West Side. “My closest friends from college had become the biggest herb dealers in New York,” says Jaffe. “So I take him to this apartment and there was like 700 lbs. of herb filling up this apartment. It was Columbian, the best you could get anywhere. Bob was really, really impressed. We bonded over that for sure.”

To seal the deal, Jaffe played cupid and set up Bob with his Jamaican friend, who happened to be in New York with Chris Blackwell. She and Bob hit it off romantically. (Marley would eventually become one of the world’s most notorious lotharios, whose conquests ranged from European supermodels to a young, pre- Vogue Anna Wintour.) But they also had other friends in common that made their coupling good for business. In the months since Jaffe had attended the Harder They Come premiere, Jimmy Cliff
—who was looking to cash in on his impending stardom—had left Blackwell’s Island Records label for a deal at A&M Records. Blackwell had known of Marley and the Wailers—whose socially conscious songs had already made them heroes among Jamaica’s poor—but he felt that reggae was still too obscure an art form to warrant his having more than one act on his label. But when Cliff flew the coop, Blackwell needed a replacement, and in stepped Bob Marley & the Wailers.

“It’s just a crazy coincidence,” says Jaffe. “I was maybe the only American guy who knew anything about reggae or had any idea that Island Records was about to bring reggae to the rest of the world. And here I am, hanging out with Bob Marley, this genius nobody knows about yet, who Island had just signed to be their only reggae act. The tape Bob played me, Catch a Fire, was actually his first upcoming release for Island. And the next day I’m introducing him to this gorgeous Jamaican girl who happens to be in New York with her best friend, who happens to be the owner of his new label.”

Needless to say, Jaffe was in. A few days after that first hotel jam session, Jaffe was on a plane to Jamaica, with an invitation from Marley to join him and a few friends for a trip to Carnival in Trinidad aboard Blackwell’s DC3 jet. Jaffe had a blast, and everyone, especially Bob, was taken by Lee’s seemingly effortless ability to blend in despite the obvious cultural difference. “I also brought this amazing Brazilian girl with me,” Jaffe says with a wry smile, “but that’s another story.”

Once Carnival ended and the group flew back to Jamaica, Jaffe says, “I just didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.” Then Marley invited him up to the house that Blackwell had just bought as Island’s home base in Jamaican, and he decided to hold off on buying a return flight back to New York. The two men drove to 56 Hope Road in Kingston, just down the street from the Prime Minister’s house. Neither he nor Bob knew it yet, but that sprawling estate—later known only as “Hope Road,” would become perhaps the most symbolically important piece of real estate in the history of reggae (and the future site of the Bob Marley Museum).

“Behind this old colonial house was this shack, the former slave quarters, and they had turned it into a little rehearsal room,” says Jaffe. “So I walk in, and there were the Wailers. Peter [Tosh] is there with Bunny [Wailer] and they’re playing the song ‘400 Years.’ Then they go into ‘Slave Driver.’ You could feel the vibes, the colonial vibes, the legacy of slavery—just the weight of it. It was amazing. I wanted to stay just because it was this incredible new adventure. I felt this was someplace very, very special—with the most amazing people I’d ever met. Nowhere else on the planet could be more interesting than where I was right then. I didn’t want to leave.”

Jaffe ended up living on Hope Road with Marley for the next three years. With a natural skill set that meshed perfectly with the needs of the music business, Jaffe served as the Wailers’ jack of all trades: road manager, booking agent, publicist, harmonica player (he’s featured on several of the Wailers’ iconic tracks), tour photographer, and of course, herb connect. Occasionally they’d stay at Bob’s wife Rita’s house. It was one night, while watching Jaffe sleep on the floor of Rita’s porch, that Marley was inspired to write the opening lyrics to one of his most iconic songs, “Talking Blues.” “Cold ground was my bed last night, and rock was my pillow, too—that was about me,” Jaffe recalls fondly.

This period, 1973-75, was among the most inspired in Marley’s personal and musical development. The Wailers recorded some of their best early work, including Burnin’, and its lead single, “I Shot the Sheriff,” which catapulted them onto the world stage. Along with maturing as a songwriter, Marley also continued to develop as an activist and cultural figure. For Marley, reggae wasn’t simply an art form—it became a way of life that was profoundly influenced by the Rastafarian principles of social justice and public service—not to mention a devotion to the spiritual and medicinal benefits of marijuana.

Jaffe had no problem putting his own artistic ambitions on the back burner while living in Jamaica. “It was more than being about one person—it was about making a revolution,” he says. “As an artist I felt nothing I could do would make a bigger impact than getting this music out to the world. And there were things I could do to help. I had the privilege of spending time with Marley and playing harmonica while he wrote some of these amazing songs.”

Aside from a rotating cast of musicians, girls, and various hangers-on, the only people who actually lived at Hope Road during that time were Marley, Jaffe, and their two teenage gangster bodyguards, Frauzer and Takelife. “Whenever I was with Bob, no one bothered us,” remembers Jaffe. “But if I went someplace on my own, Bob made those two kids go with me.” (Marley had good reason to be concerned. A year after Jaffe left Jamaica, Bob and his wife Rita were both shot by gunmen during an assassination attempt at Hope Road. In 1987, Tosh and several friends were murdered during a home invasion robbery. Frauzer and Takelife were later killed on the streets of Kingston, after they stopped working for Marley.)

In 1974, Peter and Bunny decided they were ready to pursue their solo careers and left the band on good terms. Marley renamed the band Bob Marley and the Wailers, and continued his ascent to international superstardom. Aside from a six-month-long fight that started when Jaffe and Marley brawled in an L.A. hotel room following an argument over the Natty Dread cover art (a fight that ended when Jaffe got arrested with weed pollen at a roadside checkpoint in Kingston and Marley bailed him out), he was a constant presence at Hope Road.

Jaffe eventually moved out of Hope Road in 1975, following a dust-up with Marley’s new manager. The plan was to move back to New York, but when Peter Tosh played him a few songs he’d just written, Jaffe decided to stick around and try his hand at music producing. The result: Tosh’s classic solo debut, Legalize It, which was financed with $15,000 of seed money from Marley (who appears on the album) as well as the proceeds of Jaffe’s herb business. In typical fashion, Jaffe took on multiple roles to ensure the album’s success, including shooting the cover photograph of Tosh toking on a pipe in a field full of ganja, and securing a deal with Columbia Records.

Jaffe moved back to New York in the late ’70s and continued to produce. He was also a constant presence at Sloan Kettering when Marley, who was diagnosed with cancer in 1977, was receiving treatment there in 1980. Marley had traveled to New York under the radar, following an onstage collapse during a concert in Pittsburgh. Jaffe had a place in Putnam County, and he and Marley decided to take a few days off from treatment and spend a few days in the country. “It was really, really, sad, because he was such a vital person,” says Jaffe. “To me, he was responsible for helping me to transform from someone who didn’t care about living past 30 to really taking care of my body and coming around to a way of thinking that you could live eternally. And then here he was, 7 or 8 years later, and he’s deteriorating right in front of me. On the other hand, I was glad to be with him and support him in any way I could.” Jaffe took Marley to the airport, where he was about to fly to Germany for a round of experimental treatment. “I knew it was going to be the last time I’d see him. His dreadlocks had just fallen out from the chemo, which was a really shocking thing. He was already very, very thin. I got him to laugh about the dreadlocks, which I thought was a great accomplishment.” Marley died six months later in 1981 at a hospital in Miami. He was 36. “Towards the end, there were a lot of people trying to get things from Bob, and I didn’t want to be involved with that,” says Jaffe. “But we spoke every week on the phone. He taught me more about art and music and humility than anyone I’ve ever met.”

For the next 30 years, Jaffe alternated between making his own art and working as a producer and consultant in the music business. He also got back into film, co-producing musical pioneer Tricky’s directorial debut Brown Punk and executive producing the environmental documentary Flow: For Love of Water. Last year, after moving back to New York after nearly 20 years in Los Angeles, he returned to art-making full time with a series of wildly inventive multimedia paintings of the Brazilian rainforest, which incorporate photography, audio and video. In addition, Jaffe will be mounting an installation about boxing at Ireland’s Museum of Modern Art in 2015.

Jaffe, who in 2003 wrote a memoir about his days with Marley, was also prominently featured in Marley, director Kevin MacDonald’s celebrated 2012 documentary biopic, which helped re-introduce the reggae legend to a new generation of international fans and gave Jaffe a chance to relive those magical few years on Hope Road. MacDonald and Jaffe have also begun development on a fictional adaptation of Jaffe’s experience working with Tosh on Legalize It. Jaffe has remained close friends with the Marleys ever since, and occasionally plays harmonica onstage with Bob’s sons Stephen and Julian.

“To experience the music Bob created was just very, very special,” he says. “It didn’t feel as if Bob was even writing the songs. It’s like they were coming from this other magical place, that he was channeling something much greater than himself. To watch it happen, to be there and be part of it, there was nothing I could imagine myself doing at that time that would be more important, more exciting. And it was happening every day.”

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SIDNEY FELSEN

Posted on December 11, 2015September 26, 2017 by Jessica Bowler

SIDNEY FELSEN WAS AT THE EPICENTER OF THE ART WORLD IN THE 1960S. HIS PRINT SHOP AND STUDIO, GEMINI, WAS HOME TO THE MASTERS OF CONTEMPORARY ART: JOHNS, LICHTENSTEIN, RAUSCHENBERG, STELLA. BUT MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE ART CREATED INSIDE THE WALLS WERE THE FRIENDSHIPS, STORIES AND MEMORIES MADE THERE.

When best friends Sidney Felsen and Stanley Grinstein decided to try their hand in the art world there was no intention of reserving their place in art history. However, today there is no denying it. In 1966, together with master print maker Ken Tyler, they founded Gemini G.E.L., a print studio and artist workshop in Los Angeles. It wasn’t before long that the masters of American art history ( Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, etc.) would make regular pilgrimages to California to create at Gemini. I sat down with Felsen, who turns 90 this year, to discuss everything from the creative process of Bob Rauschenberg to the basketball skills of Frank Stella and Bruce Nauman, and how two best friends turned a passion into an institution.

JF: Where did the name come from and what inspired the idea to open Gemini?

SF: The studio was started at the same time as the launching of the Gemini space capsule, and so that was an easy connection. How it started? In my own case, I grew up knowing I wanted to be an accountant. I majored in accounting, I graduated college, and I became a CPA and practiced accounting for many years. But somewhere along the way, I became interested in learning about art. I started reading about it, and then started going to art galleries, and then decided I wanted to paint. I first took painting lessons at the Frederick Kann School of Art here in Los Angeles. I studied painting there and then started going to Chouinard, which later became Cal Arts. I took just general courses in painting, drawing and sculpture and became interested in ceramics. I went to art school for 15 or 20 years, just for fun, weekends and evenings. Then I had a client who had an art gallery, and he was importing prints from Europe, and it looked interesting to me to have something like a workshop in Los Angeles. So I went to my best friend, Stanley Grinstein. Stanley and his wife, Elyse, were seriously collecting contemporary art, and I proposed to Stanley that we start an artists’ workshop, and we agreed to do it. In order to have a print studio, you have to have a printer. Ken Tyler had a shop he had started called Gemini Limited. It was a custom printing shop. In late 1965, the verbal agreements happened, and by the beginning of 1966, February, the shop was up and running.

JF: How were you able to attract artists initially?

SF: Gemini is an invitation workshop; we invited artists. Man Ray came to Los Angeles, for his retrospective at the County Museum, and he stayed at the Grinsteins’ house. He started coming to the workshop and just started hanging around. He even suggested to us that he do something. He did three editions with us. I think one of the early attractions was that California had palm trees, and the ocean, and the mountains. You’d come here, and you’d really enjoy your life; whatever it was, it worked. The first artist that really set the tone for Gemini was Bob Rauschenberg. He was the heart of what, in those days, was called the New York art scene. He was one of the young whippersnappers, and he was coming to Los Angeles somewhat regularly. He had his skating performances at Culver City, and he was a pal, and so he came out in February of 1967, and he did a series called “Booster.” He wanted to do a self-portrait of inner-man; that was the way he explained it. He wanted his whole body X-rayed. He asked me if I knew any X-ray doctors. It just so happened one of my closest friends from high school and college, Jack Waltman, was an X-ray doctor, and we went to see him. Bob wanted a 6-foot X-ray, one piece that he’d develop his print from. We found out that all X-ray machines are 1-foot, except there was one in Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York that was a 6-foot machine. Bob didn’t want to travel, so he stayed here and had the six 1-foot plates made. Out of that, he developed his print called “Booster,” which became an icon of the print world and still is. Bob helped us get Frank Stella. And then Bob helped us get Claes Oldenburg. And then we invited Jasper Johns. We wrote a letter to Jasper, and he agreed to come out. Ed Ruscha was here locally, and he worked with us. I’m talking about the first three years of Gemini, 1966, ’67, and ’68. Ken Price worked with us during that time too, as well as Roy Lichtenstein. Within those three years, we had all these great artists working with us. It was fantastic.

Then shortly after that, Ellsworth Kelly. Invitation was always by phone call, or go see somebody, or a letter. I think, in a sense, a lot of times one artist helped us get another artist. If you asked the question, “How do we choose an artist?” a lot of times, we used the advice of an artist, or museum curators, or collectors. A lot of times, artists suggested people that we work with, and it’s been good for us.

JF: What was the idea behind making prints? Was it to make art more accessible to the masses?

SF: That’s part of what printmaking is. But truthfully we started it to have fun; we wanted to be around the artists. And so, once we got into it, and had all these accomplished artists around us, we realized the importance of it. I’d ask myself the question, “Why do artists make prints?” I felt that it was the accessibility of it. Many artists would do 6, or 8, or 10, or 12 paintings a year. These were very accomplished artists, and they would be shown in a gallery and somebody would buy the work, and it would never be seen again unless a museum would buy it. So here was a chance to make 50 of this or 35 of that, and they would be in galleries in Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Miami Beach, and Europe. They were very much interested in the idea of the fact that the work could be seen everywhere, and the same way it could be collected and people could own it in all these different areas. A lot of people think artists make prints primarily for money, and that’s not true at all. If they did drawings or paintings or sculpture in the time they’d spend at print-making, it would have been more financially profitable for them, but they loved the idea of these works being seen around the world, and they also enjoyed the challenge printmaking offers.

JF: At what point did you realize how important these artists would end up being viewed?

SF: In the early days, we really didn’t understand. When we started, Frank Stella was 29 years old, and Bob [Rauschenberg] was the old-timer at 39. We didn’t quite understand how important these artists were. It probably took at least 10 years, and then all of a sudden you start realizing, wow, you know, we’re working with the most accomplished artists of our time, and they’re already in the history books, and the interesting part of that is they continued to work in a very high quality for the rest of their lives. Even today, Ellsworth Kelly is 91. He’s been working here for over 40 years, as well as Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, and Richard Serra.

JF: At what point did you realize that Gemini would be viewed so significantly in art history?

SF: I don’t know when exactly. It sort of just happened, the more we read books, the more we saw exhibitions, retrospectives, conversations, articles we read. Like I’d say to my daughter, “You go to a museum and what do you see?” You see Jasper and Bob, and Roy, Ellsworth, Richard Serra, and John Baldessari. And it just happens. I think by incidents, incident by incident, you realize it more.

JF: Why do you think someone should collect prints?

SF: I’ll answer in a different way. In 1968, I was in New York, and I called Jasper and asked him if we could go to dinner and he said, “Yeah, but we have to go to somebody’s house.” There were these famous collectors in New York, Victor and Sally Ganz; Jasper and I went to their house and I was introduced to them. I walk in the living room, and I can’t exactly remember the details, but let’s say there was a drawing by Bob Rauschenberg, a print by Roy Lichtenstein, a painting by Jasper, and then, around the room there were several paintings, drawings, and prints by these great artists. I looked around the room at the prints and they looked just as good to me as the drawings did and even though I’d been around prints, I hadn’t had that kind of comparison so directly. I was just thrilled to see that. It isn’t a matter of, say, if you put a print next to a painting or a drawing, and say, “Oh my God, that looks terrible, take it down.” It’s a different process. It’s different, but the quality of the print stood up so well. Another reason artists do prints is the challenge. You know, they’re in their studio every day, and they do paintings or drawings or sculpture, and they’ll come here once a year or every two years, and they have an opportunity to work with printers. It’s collaboration. It’s something that if they did this in printing last time, they want to do something else the next time. And they’ll try this, and next time they’ll try something else. It’s always a great experience. They probably have a better opportunity of experimenting here than they would, say, in their own studio.

JF: I’m going to name artists, and if you could, just describe them as you know them, whatever comes to your mind. Jasper Johns?

SF: Very hard working, very careful, tedious the way he works. He would bring a picture of a painting, a photograph or a drawing; he wouldn’t copy it, but he’d use it as a reference. He’d look at it once in a while and use it in his imagery here. The print was always different. His drawings were different, and his prints were different than his paintings, but there were similarities and references from one to the other.

JF: Roy Lichtenstein?

SF: Phenomenally precise. If Roy would say, in July, “I’m going to be out next February 2nd” he’d come on February 2nd, and he was really very serious about working the eight hours, no goofing off. He was always doing something, and he knew what he wanted. He brought all the studies that he made in his own studio. He would use an opaque projector, and he would expand up on a wall or screen the scale that he wanted, and [he’d] start working.

JF: Robert Rauschenberg?

SF: Phenomenally open and free; terribly creative. Bob reflected off of everything he saw or heard. And he never came prepared for what he wanted to do, but knowing in his mind exactly what he wanted. He would move with whatever the atmosphere was. Bob loved to have people around him when he worked. If he was in the studio, he’d have the TV on watching soaps as long as he could. He probably would ask us to hang around and talk to him while he was working and definitely listened to everybody. Terribly exciting.

JF: Ellsworth Kelly?

SF: Ellsworth needed privacy. If he were in the art studio, he would close the doors. You’d knock on the door, and he’d certainly let you come in and talk to him. But when he was actually working, he wanted his privacy.

JF: Frank Stella?

SF: Frank Stella, I had a great relationship with him. He’s a great sports fan, and he’s a tennis player. He was the youngest of the New York artists that came out here. He had done a few prints in school and was always excited about the processes.

JF: David Hockney?

SF: He was that British boy. David said he came to the United States and he turned on the TV and saw the Clairol ads, “Blondes have more fun.” So he went to the drug store and bought Clairol, became a blonde, and had more fun. David was something different for me in my life. His fashion fascinated me, and he was very much involved in society, worked very hard in the studio. If you go to David’s house, it’s like a Hockney painting. It’s red and green and blue, and he painted the house, everything about his life is about his life. He just sort of wove it together. Very exciting.

JF: Richard Serra?

SF: When he’s working, he’s like a steam engine; get out of his way. He’s probably 5’8” and he’s like a piece of steel. He’s just really, really, directly, “voom.” I mean that’s the way he works. And he’ll work for an hour or two and then he’ll just stop, and then he’ll just be very nice and ordinary and not so determined, but phenomenally determined when working. Exceptionally bright.

JF: Vija Celmins?

SF: Vija’s obsessive. If you look at her work, it’s all drawn. There’s no photography. It’s all little lines and marks that she makes. And she can spend three hours or two days with a piece drawing an ocean. She’s phenomenally dedicated to what she’s doing, and she talks about, “I have to learn how to make art easier for me.” And I felt, as the years went by, she probably made it more difficult for herself. She became more obsessive about what she was doing, but those drawings are so great.

JF: Claes Oldenburg?

SF: Claes is lyrical. There’s something about Claes when you look at his hand, the way it moves and the way he draws, it’s just beautiful to watch. And his voice, he talks like that. You know, he’s, I guess all these artists are magical in their own way, but there’s something magical about the way he creates imagery.

JF: Ed Ruscha?

SF: Ed’s cool, Mr. Cool. Phenomenally bright the way he creates imagery.

JF: Man Ray?

SF: He was tiny. You know, he was old when he was here, but I didn’t think of him being so old—he was so youthful. What I remember about Man Ray is that he had to give a talk either at Otis or L.A. County, whatever it was at that time, to the students. And he asked me if I’d drive him there, and he was phenomenal the way he connected to the kids. They just loved talking to him. He was really terrific. Afterwards we had sort of a correspondence. Man Ray lived in Paris then, and so I remember one time I just sent him a post card and just said, “How are you today?” He wrote back a note and said, “I’m alive from the waist up,” and that was it.

JF: Bruce Nauman?

SF: Bruce is great. Fairly quiet person, an athlete; Bruce was a really good basketball player. We’d have basketball games out here every day during the break periods. And Bruce, Frank Stella, Jim Turrell, and Richard Serra, they stood out as the athletes in the group. Bruce is sort of a mystical character and he is really rewarding to work with. He is a very good collaborator. The printers always feel they are part of his project.

JF: John Baldessari?

SF: John is the dean. If you go to a party where there’s a fair amount of young artists, they’ll come to John. It’s like coming to see the guru of your life, and they’re always so appreciative of what he taught them. Maybe what they’re really saying is, “Besides you teaching me art, you taught me about life, you really helped me in my own personal life, making decisions and understanding things.” John is 83 or 84 years old. He works every day. He has a trainer in the morning. He probably gets in his studio by 10 o’clock in the morning and works until 5 or 6 every day. He has five or six dealers who are always saying, “You know, I need more work.” He responds, and he doesn’t seem to ever be flustered.

JF: Do you have any advice for a young collector or young artist?

SF: This may be corny advice, but if it’s a young collector I’d say, look and make your decision slowly; don’t rush into something, but find something you really like. It’s important to ask questions, but I’d say go slowly.

JF: Any great lessons you learned from some of the masters who walked through these doors?

SF: My life changed a lot from being here, and it’s because of the artists. They’re such great people. You go to an art school; there are so many people that can draw a pretty picture. But artists that rise to the top generally are very intelligent. They could have been brain surgeons, or whatever you want to say the comparison would be. They’re all so kind. They’re concerned about humanity and about giving, and helping causes and just really being a better person.

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MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Posted on December 10, 2015April 2, 2018 by Taylor Norman

Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is considered among the greatest ballet dancers of our time, perfecting the art form insofar as any art form can be perfected. Although, as he’s quick to point out, perfectionism in itself is not what he strives for. “Perfection it’s a theory, you know, you cannot be a perfect human being, and you cannot be a perfect artist, you cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father,” he says. “All you have is that hope that, as you go through your daily routine, by the end of the day you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful, rather than have a day which just passed by senselessly, you know, just like ‘poof’ disappearing in fog of life.”

Baryshnikov, affectionately called Misha by family and friends, clearly remembers the moment he fell in love with dance, the moment from which each day would be imbued with meaning. He was just five years old or thereabouts, living in the Soviet-occupied town of Riga, in present-day Latvia. His mother, Alexandra, a dressmaker obsessed with the arts, took him to see a ballet. “The curtain was up and people were dancing, and it was beautiful, light, and lovely music. And I was hooked. I asked her a few days later, ‘can she take me again to see some dance?’ And the journey began.”

When he was nine, he began his life as a performer. He was shorter than most male dancers, but his exceptional talent carried him all the way to the elite Kirov Ballet in Leningrad. His interest in avant garde choreography, however, was not encouraged within the traditional Soviet system. In 1974, he defected to Canada, eventually joining the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer. “New York is an extraordinary place, you know, in all respects. In the 70s and early 80s in New York, the city was more generous and more welcoming to young people. You could live in Manhattan, and you could afford to go to the theater, and Broadway, and ballet, and opera, and the philharmonic; and it’s almost impossible right now for young people from, you know, Beaumont, Texas, to come and spend, their summer in New York. Or, God forbid, a year, and try to find their luck, because it will cost you, if you’re not the kid of rich parents, and it’s impossible.”

Embraced by the West, Baryshnikov explored his talent for acting, earning an Oscar nomination in 1997 for his role in “The Turning Point”. Later, he starred with Gregory Hines in “White Nights” and Gene Hackman in “Company Business.” Fans of “Sex and the City” will remember him as Aleksandr Petrovsky, Carrie Bradshaw’s artist beau, in the final season of the hit show. As beloved as he is by Hollywood, decades since moving to the US, he is and truly remains a New Yorker at heart. Through his arts foundation, BAC, he’s doing his bit to help young artists who want to live and work in New York, despite the prohibitive nature of the cost of living now. “I want to help the emerging talent to find their place. I’m always like, ‘we are not producers, we are providers, trying to provide opportunity to any kind of creative people to help them to produce their work in the most pleasurable way, without any commercial pressure.’”

On par with his philanthropic work, he remains incessantly active as a stage performer. He recently he appeared in “Beckett Shorts,” a compilation of four short Samuel Beckett plays, and “In Paris,” based on a short story by writer Ivan Bunin. Later this year, he will perform opposite Willem Dafoe in an adaptation of “The Old Woman” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His creative restlessness is, he says, perhaps a result of the great freedom he enjoys as an artist. “I do rest sometimes, but it’s always a short rest, you know? I am blessed with the ability to do what I want to do in my life. I don’t restrict it myself with my financial goals. I don’t have to climb up, to prove to anybody, nothing like that. I can just be myself. Perhaps I’m afraid to get bored with myself.”

Read more on Mikhail Baryshnikov’s participation in Citizens of Humanity’s “Just Like You” philanthropic film series: http://www.citizensofhumanity.com/justlikeyou/mikhail-baryshnikov

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JUSTIN O’SHEA

Posted on December 10, 2015April 9, 2018 by Jessica Bowler

It was 2009 when Justin O’Shea, who had just quit his job as buying director for the Kuwait-based company Al Ostoura, met Christoph and Susanne Botschen for coffee in London. Through a friend, he had heard the couple was looking for someone to buy for their site, preferably someone from outside of Munich who could bring a fresh perspective and turn the site into a sleek, modernized operation.

In the days leading up to his meeting with the Botschens, acquaintances warned him to tone it down a bit. The couple was conservative, so if O’Shea wanted the job, he should soften his look and maybe try to be more soft-spoken than usual. He did not take the advice. “I thought, they’re not going to like me if I turn up one way and then I’m different the next day,” he says. “I just went how I was: leather jacket, Doc Martens, black jeans, shaved head” (he had no hair at the time). He remembers them looking at him suspiciously when he arrived. “It was kind of like, is this guy going to rob us, or what’s happening?” But then they sat down and spoke for three hours. He and Susanne had compatible ideas about fashion and the possibilities for a digital platform. When he got up to leave, Christoph politely thanked him for his time, said they would be interviewing for the next few months and would be in touch. But Susanne interjected. “I don’t think so,” she said, and asked, “Can you start tomorrow?”

In the years since he began working for mytheresa.com, O’Shea has become something of a fashion icon himself. He describes his personal style as “classic, clean and masculine.” It consists of vests with ties, jeans and dress pants, items that really don’t depend on seasonal trends, even though he’s up on, and sometimes helping to shape, the seasonal trends in the women’s markets for which he buys.

O’Shea fell into fashion almost accidentally. Raised in a tiny town in Australia’s Northern territory, where his mother taught aboriginal children and his father worked in a mine, O’Shea tried going to college, but wasn’t that excited about any one subject or career path. So at 21, he moved to Perth on the Australian West Coast, where he fell in with some new friends, one of whom owned a clothing store at which O’Shea started working. Murray, the man who owned the store, may not have had the fashion savvy that O’Shea has since developed, but he knew what he wanted. “There was never an in-between with Murray,” O’Shea recalls. “That’s probably the best lesson I learned from him. You can deliberate all day but that’s not going to help anyone. You just need to choose.”

By the time he was 25, he had left Perth, worked briefly in Amsterdam and then landed in London, where he continued to work in the clothing industry. It was the only industry in which he had any experience, and he also found it was one in which no one asked much about his background. “Everything was personal opinion, and I guess, even from the beginning, I had a lot of opinions,” he remembers. “And so I sort of bullshitted my way through it, and people were like ‘you seem to know what you’re talking about even though you’ve got no bloody idea.’ I think that’s what my first boss said.” He moved to the Shoreditch neighborhood, wore all black and worked all the time—he liked that there was no weekend in fashion and that the world was full of colorful personalities.

He had just finished a gig styling the band Snow Patrol when his parents divorced and, because he was the least tied down of his siblings, he moved home to live with his dad, who needed help getting adjusted. For that year, 2008, he worked in the mines, getting up around 4:30 in the morning to start days that could continue until dark. “I thought I would get beaten up on the first day of work,” he recalls, “but all the guys wanted to hear were stories of girls and parties in London.”

Toward the end of his mine-working stint, when his father had learned to make passable meals for himself and acquired a Harley Davidson, O’Shea received a phone call from a man he had met a few times in London who ran Al Ostoura, a high-end group of fashion stores in Kuwait, and wondered if O’Shea would sign on to be his company’s buying director.

So O’Shea moved to Kuwait, although he would spend at least 10 months of the year traveling with just a suitcase, living out of hotels. His first meeting on his new job was with Alberta Ferretti, the Italian designer, only he didn’t yet know who Ferretti was. “There was a lot of that kind of thing,” he recalls. “I had to learn extremely quickly and develop a certain rhythm right away because I didn’t want people thinking, ‘this guy doesn’t know anything.’” He did learn quickly. Buying had two main facets, he discovered. “You have the prediction and gut feeling about what is right and what is wrong,” he explains, “and then you also have the analytic side where you have reports at your fingertips which will show you what has worked and what hasn’t.” You also had to know your clients, which in this case were women in Kuwait who had certain cultural and religious restrictions to how they could dress but still wanted to have their own distinctive looks. O’Shea developed a certain formula to how he bought, and when a line like Balenciaga didn’t have items that fit the formula, he might ask them to make something specifically for his market. Since he couldn’t return something he had custom made, he had to have complete confidence in its salability.

After about a year and half, when he had gotten quite good at the formula, O’Shea became a bit restless. “It was super interesting but the fact is, it was on repeat all of the time,” he says. “I wanted to move back to London and find a job that was more open.” His meeting with the Botschens happened almost immediately after he returned to London, and then began his tenure at MyTheresa.com.

Even if his job is primarily to buy for the site, O’Shea has been involved in the site redesigns and editorial strategizing since the beginning. The site’s aesthetic and content have to be in sync if it’s going to be successful, which it has been. The staff has grown from 20 to about 250, and there are clients in Pakistan, Hong Kong, the U.K. and just about everywhere else. For O’Shea, trends, how they work and how he can be more in tune with his clients have become even more of an obsession over the years. “You can spend a lot of time with the numbers, but then you also have to be thinking outside the clothes about global trends. Art and music and architecture all play a role in fashion trends,” he says, recalling how Valentino’s collection inspired by Dutch master Vermeer coincided with a resurgence in interest in the Dutch masters among institutions and collectors. Then the interest shifted to contemporary artists, and the same people buying art at auction are buying clothes off of runways. “All these trends are colliding and there starts to become more of this umbrella feeling, which really dictates what the year is going to be like.”

Since taking the job, O’Shea has done little else but work for MyTheresa.com. “It’s probably a bit too extreme but it’s so difficult with a digital platform—there’s so much information, there’s so much more you can learn,” he says. “I always think that we can be better.”
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CLEON PETERSON

Posted on December 10, 2015September 26, 2017 by Taylor Norman

Cleon Peterson was born in Seattle in 1973. That’s perhaps where the boring bit begins and ends. Raised in an open, intellectual and creative family (it was the ’70s after all), young Cleon rode skateboards and read comic books in between home-school assignments from his grandfather. This inspired guidance may have helped to foster careers for the two boys—Peterson’s brother is photographer Leigh Ledare, known for his series of provocative photos of their mother, Tina, titled, “Pretend You’re Actually Alive.” Cleon is featured in a few of Ledare’s portraits as well, as the family served as Leigh’s preferably taboo subject matter at the beginning of his burgeoning fine art career. Unfortunately, this was also during a time of personal strife for Cleon, who was wrestling with drug addiction, a diagnosis of mental illness and a severe asthmatic condition causing him to be deathly allergic to oil paint (and cats).

However, Peterson rewrites his story and it begins again. He has made the incredible journey of overcoming these impossible obstacles and is thriving, using his past experiences to inform and develop his amazing talent for design and art. Peterson went on to receive a BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and kids. When he’s not painting in his studio, he works as a freelance graphic designer. Peterson has shown at New Image Art in Los Angeles, Alice Gallery in Brussels, Lazarides in London, Joshua Liner Gallery and Deitch Projects in New York.

With all his hard-earned success, he can see things from the other side now; however, his view is not necessarily pretty upon closer inspection.

Stripped down to the most concise visual information he can offer you, Peterson’s paintings portray only slightly ironic nightmares born from years of personal struggle, street violence and ultimate survival. There is no escape from Cleon Peterson’s work and his exorcised demons, which sometimes wear uniforms or just underpants. His narrative is dark and uncomfortable, a car wreck you can’t look away from. The canvases provide a catharsis for the painter and, depending on individual experience, his audience.

Peterson’s street fighters remind us there are sinister, very personal ways to die by knife, stick, fist or claw. Rarely will you see a gun. This is absurd, graphic violation in spot color—the flat fields of red, black and white contribute to the anxiety, the rawness and the inescapability of the static chaos in his compositions.

The faceless, generic violence that Peterson depicts is at its most frightening in that it lends itself to any neighborhood, any ethnicity, any gender. Anyone in Anytown, USA. It’s Dante’s Inferno depicted for a modern age. Heavily influenced by comic masters Dan Clowes, Charles Burns and Robert Crumb, as well as his own unwavering ability to design the hell out of a blank page, Peterson’s quality of line and perspective drawing is flawless. He provides beautifully rendered street corners at alternative angles and battlefields viewed from above for his imaginary urban territories, even if the society he’s depicting is massively askew.

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CARY FUKUNAGA

Posted on December 10, 2015April 9, 2018 by Jessica Bowler

The first time I became aware of Cary Fukunaga was after I saw the “Levi’s America” commercial. It was beautiful, inspiring and nostalgic: Levi’s is an icon, so to see that spirit translated visually was exciting. Since then Fukunaga has only continued to expand and challenge boundaries. To date his credits include the Sundance Film Festival standout Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre and HBO’s True Detective, for which he deservedly took home the Emmy for best director. Needless to say we were excited when he sat down with us to discuss everything from his passion for the game of polo to his upcoming Beasts of No Nation, which sounds incredible.

AM: So where do you think you get your love of film from?

CF: I was raised oftentimes with the television or cinema as sort of a babysitter, if you will. My dad would drop my brother and I off at the cinema and we’d watch every single movie in the cinema before going home, and that’d be our afternoon. So I think I learned a lot about my moral tales and those kind of things from watching movies rather than from reading books, even though I did read a lot as well as a kid. But from a very young age I kind of used to fantasize about my own stories—always in a visual manner. Like, whether it be landscapes that I saw, or places around—I kind of imagined the stories taking place within them and wanted to organize my friends to make movies. But of course, you know, kids are flaky. It’s hard to get them to commit.

AM: What were the movies you were trying to make?

CF: I mean, there were so many. There wasn’t just one. I wrote my first feature screenplay when I was 14. It was like a long short film, it was like a 60-something-page screenplay.

I learned how to type while doing it too. It was about two brothers who fought in the Civil War. I was obsessed with the Civil War then.

When I was in high school I found a group of friends who used to make little comedy skits on video, and that was a lot of fun. That was what we did after school every day, we just made little videos. Then I wanted to take it a little further and make comprehensive stories and again ran into difficulty getting people to commit—so I kind of gave up making movies for a while. Just focused on school and other parts of life. Chasing girls and stuff. And then my senior year in college, I did a film project again just for the hell of it and made my first short film. Then I was hooked and decided I was going to try and make movies. That was it.

AM: What do you love about filmmaking? What’s the most enjoyable aspect of the filmmaking process for you?

CF: It’s hard to say now because I find so much of the filmmaking process actually not enjoyable.

AM: Is it because it became your work?

CF: I think it’s partially because it became my work but also because the projects are just so difficult. And sometimes the struggle feels like it’s not worth it. You spend years of your life disappearing from your friends and family to go make movies and you come back and everyone’s life has moved forward, and all you’ve done is make a new movie.

So it’s hard to say what the most enjoyable thing is anymore. I mean, I could make stuff up.

AM: No, you don’t have to do that.

CF: What would be or what should be fun or what I know under the surface is actually fun. But right now, after having done these two really exhausting projects, my feelings about cinema are very different.

AM: Are you taking a break right now?

CF: Yeah. Maybe after this month I get a break but maybe not. I don’t know. We’ll see.

AM: During the time you were having movies as a babysitter, is there any movie that had a really large impact on you?

CF: You know, very early on I was really interested in sort of more adult movies. I remember seeing Never Cry Wolf and The Last Emperor at a pretty young age. Bertolucci’s Last Emperor. I just really kind of liked being taken with the scale of stories and cinematography especially. And when I watched Empire of the Sun, I was nearly the same age as Christian Bale when that movie came out.

I was obsessed with the air force. I wanted to become a pilot, so I identified a lot with the characters. That was also the age when I really started paying attention to how the movies were made. Not critiquing but observing and the process and the shots and the construction of it all. And for a while it sort of ruined my experience of cinema, because it made me look at it with a critical mind instead of just being taken away.

But I can’t remember any one particular movie that, you know, struck me. Not necessarily one.

AM: Is there anything you do to prepare yourself before starting a project?

CF: I do a lot of research for the writing on the direction side of things, just to make sure that I know exactly what it is I’m trying to create. And once we get into pre-production, which is the planning part of the film, I spend a lot of time on location scouting.

There are people that come from different philosophies on this and people who think for a movie, it doesn’t matter what the location is if the characters in the story are strong, but for me the location always plays a very big part.

AM: What are some of your favorite places to shoot?

CF: I am not sure I have a favorite place. They’re all so different. I did like shooting in the UK. It was a lot of fun to shoot there. But I’ve shot everywhere. I’ve shot in Africa, I’ve shot in the Caribbean, I’ve shot in the Arctic, I’ve shot in Mexico and Central America and different parts of the United States. And they are all so different. I think part of the joy of shooting is the exploration. One of the things that I like most about location scouting is the people you meet. You go into people’s homes and their properties. And what happens is that you end up having these conversations with people that you would never have otherwise. It’s really refreshing and sometimes you meet just really fascinating people, but you also hear some pretty sad stories too. Maybe they have medical bills they are trying to pay or some other issue they’re dealing with and they’re going to lose their home. Sometimes you are forced to see just how desperate so much of the world is, it’s kind of frightening. But you also get to see some really interesting things and meet some really amazing people too.

AM: Sounds like a real adventure.

CF: Sometimes it feels that way. In Africa we were trailblazing. We’d pull up on the side of the road and I’d want to get to some edge of a cliff. We’d pull out our machetes and just start cutting trail through the jungle.

AM: Sounds fun.

CF: We have fun sometimes.

AM: Do you have any books or records or anything that puts you into the mode of inspiration?

CF: I don’t have a good mantra yet for my work. It’s almost like the most difficult thing, especially for me, in writing is getting to that zone. First couple weeks are painful if nothing’s happening and then eventually I get into a very focused place, you know, without the aid of pharmaceuticals. I’ve always tried coming from a very pure place. I’ve never let anything but my own discipline get me to the point of concentration. But I am open to the idea of some sort of meditation or mantra to get me to a creative space.

AM: Do you reference other films for a project? If so, what were they for True Detective?

CF: You know, I usually don’t reference films as much as I reference photographs. A photographer named Misrach was a big influence. Richard Misrach. He had this thing called the Petrochemical Highway, which was really fascinating to me and was a very big influence on what we did. My cinematographer Adam Arkapaw and I started talking about it. We spent some time trying to figure out the right look. A lot of the crime dramas go for the sort of cold, blue feel. That edgy sort of look, but that was not what we wanted to go with. We liked what the Coen brothers did in No Country for Old Men. But we also liked the sort of moody investigation [feel] David Fincher did with Zodiac. We kind of did a mixture of Zodiac and No Country for Old Men. But I think Misrach’s photographs are really interesting, sort of a mix between both those worlds. It has the movie-ness of Fincher as well as his mastery of imagery—I mean Fincher, there’s no one like Fincher in terms of mise en scène and movement of camera. I think he’s taken the ropes from Scorsese and gone further with it, you know. Torch I should say, not ropes. But you know, the Coen brothers are so idiosyncratic as well, and their work and everything is consistent throughout, even though it’s all so different. I’m sure [cinematographer] Roger Deakins plays a big part in that, but they’re the ones that board everything in; they create the sequences.

AM: Create the world …

CF: Those were definitely influences.

AM: How did True Detective come together?

CF: My manager brought it up to me. It was a project that he had with Nic Pizzolatto the writer. And then I came on board as director. Then we got the cast involved. It happened pretty quickly.

AM: Was this your first TV show?

CF: Yeah.

AM: Did you like it?

CF: Did I like it— what do you mean?

AM: You know, compared to films. I’m sure it’s very different.

CF: Yeah, it’s different. But it’s also not that different. The construction of it is exactly the same.

AM: Did you feel different after winning an Emmy?

CF: No. [laughs] That stuff doesn’t matter to me. The Emmy went quickly into a closet and that’s about it.

AM: [laughs] Oh. How do you spend your downtime?

CF: I don’t really have much downtime. I work a lot. I mean, when I’m on my weekends or something, with friends, New York City has a lot of distractions. I play polo, but that season’s over now.

AM: Is there anything you do to relax?

CF: I think polo is pretty calming for me. When you’re on the horse and you’re doing your thing you forget about your everyday work and you’re just—you’re focused on the game.

AM: Where do you play polo in New York?

CF: Upstate. Can you ride a horse?

AM: I have, here and there, but I don’t. It’s not that hard to ride a horse… right?

CF: You’re not walking around on a pony. You’re running hard. [laughs] You’re galloping across the field and you’re turning and going the other way.

AM: I really need to come see this. Do you have any exciting projects on the horizon?

CF: I’m working on two scripts right now that will hopefully be done around the new year—

AM: You’re working on them simultaneously?

CF: I have about 12 projects in development. I have a lot of projects at different stages of development, some will be ready in the next year or so and some of them won’t be ready for years. But I wouldn’t be doing any of them if I wasn’t excited by them. It’s more just a question of which becomes real first. And to be completely honest, until I finish this little monster, Beasts of No Nation, it’s difficult to even guess.

AM: Beasts of No Nation?

CF: It’s the film I’m just finishing. It takes place in Africa. That should’ve been the first question you asked.

AM: Am I failing at the interview? [laughs]

CF: I assumed you knew about it. It’ll be done sometime in the new year and then hopefully I’ll take it to festivals later on, but it was a very difficult movie to make.

AM: How long have you been working on this project? CF: Eight years.

AM: How would you describe this project to someone who doesn’t know about it?

CF: Ugh, I hate those questions. [laughs]

AM: [laughs] Well, now that we’ve talked about it and opened the door, readers are going to want to know what it is.

CF: Well, it’s a Nigerian novel, written by a Nigerian about 10 years ago. It’s about a boy from a good family who was swept into a war—a civil war is taking place in his country. And it’s his philosophical and moral journey through becoming a killer—and then out. I don’t want to call it a child soldier story because it’s not an issue movie at all; it’s not about the issue of child soldiers by any means. It’s just about a boy. It’s a coming of age story, but in a very obviously extreme way.

AM: Do the projects that you’re working on influence you in your personal life? Your mood, how you feel every day?

CF: Yeah, I don’t think you’re doing your job unless it does do that.

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HUMANITY DINNER WITH ISAMAYA FFRENCH

Posted on December 10, 2015September 28, 2017 by Jessica Bowler

i-D Magazine Beauty Editor Isamaya Ffrench and Citizens of Humanity kick started London Fashion Week with an intimate dinner at Bistrotheque to celebrate Issue N06 of HUMANITY Magazine. Isamaya, who is featured in the latest issue, hosted the exclusive evening with a mix of young designers, musicians, artists, top stylists and editors from fellow inspirational publications.

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CHRISTOPHER “NICELY” ALAMEDA

Posted on December 10, 2015September 27, 2017 by Taylor Norman

California’s Venice Beach has no shortage of star attractions, from the carnival-like boardwalk to its peaceful canals. The beachside destination also boasts culinary cred, as home to some of Los Angeles’ most respected restaurants, including Gjelina, known for its farm-to-table fare, and institutions like Joe’s, which has presided over Abbot Kinney for more than two decades.

Increasingly, Venice is also earning a reputation for its world class coffee shops, thanks in part to Christopher “Nicely” Alameda, who has not only played a part in the opening of Intelligentsia’s über-popular Abbot Kinney location but is also the barista behind buzzed-about java joint Menotti’s Coffee Stop on Windward Circle.

“It gives me something to live up to,” he says of his nickname, which was bestowed upon him after he played the part of Nicely-Nicely Johnson in a high school production of Guys and Dolls—and for being voted “Most Courteous” three years in a row.

It’s a moniker that suits Alameda, whose warm demeanor, can-do attitude and passion for coffee brought him to Venice by way of Seattle. “That’s where I found coffee and coffee found me,” says the Queens, New York, native, who moved to Seattle at age 15 with his mother to study vocal performance and art. In true Seattle fashion, it was a job at Starbucks that first ignited Alameda’s love for coffee, but it wasn’t until he landed a job at a grocery store that he had his true a-ha moment. “I realized I want to be in coffee, period. I could see myself working there for 40 years, getting a great paycheck and really hating life,” he says.

Alameda’s epiphany led him to Seattle’s Espresso Vivace, a coffee shop and roaster he refers to as the “godfather of specialty coffee techniques.” Within four years, the up-and-coming barista had caught the attention of Intelligentsia, which wooed him to Los Angeles. And three years after opening the company’s Abbot Kinney space, Alameda joined a handful of friends to break ground on downtown’s Handsome Coffee Roasters coffee shop and roasting facility. “I basically went to the University of Espresso Vivace, graduate school at Intelligentsia, and then I had an accelerated business course at Handsome Coffee Roasters. It taught me a lot of lessons, including essentially how not to screw up.”

Now, Alameda has taken all of his experience and poured it into Menotti’s Coffee Stop, located a stone’s throw from the Venice Boardwalk. Owned by Louie and Annette Ryan (the same family behind neighboring Townhouse), the coffee shop’s name pays homage to original owner Cesar Menotti, who transformed the place into a speakeasy during the Prohibition era.

Today, Alameda presides over the small spot as head barista, serving San Francisco’s Four Barrel beans in drip coffee or espresso, topped with his award-winning latte art (he’s a three time Coffee Fest World Latte Art champ). Alameda, who lives in Venice with his wife and son, was inspired to create a community hub in an area that attracts a lot of tourists. “I have an appreciation for the locals and what they want.”

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PETE THOMPSON

Posted on December 10, 2015September 26, 2017 by Taylor Norman

How did you get into photography?

My grandmother. She was fairly unique in the way she looked at the world. She bought me my first camera when I was probably around 12. Then, from there, I was mostly shooting skateboarding, which led me to the first part of my career, working for Transworld. I was a sponsored amateur and so most of my friends were pretty good skateboarders. I was living in Raleigh at the time and was sort of the only guy photographing.

What was it about photography as a medium that interested you?

Initially, I feel like it was just mostly the passion for documenting skateboarding that started things out. As my career developed, I was driven to be more creative with it, which was a bit of a confusing place to be, because a big part of shooting skateboarding is about showing what’s happening in a way that the trick that your shooting can be measured and evaluated. It’s also a real challenge to be creative when you have very little time and are constantly getting harassed by cops and security guards. After I stopped shooting skateboarding, it took a while to step away from that mindset and reconnect with what I truly loved about photography, which is capturing a moment that speaks to me. Sometimes, that moment is a reflection of how I feel about the subject and other times its about capturing someone or something in a truly authentic moment of its own. It’s a bit like a conversation. At times you step back and listen to what someone is saying and try to understand how they feel, and sometimes you speak and express how you feel. Hopefully, whoever is looking at the picture can share in that truth.

When did you move to NYC and what prompted the move?

I moved to New York City on November 19th 2008. Anyone who has come to New York remembers the exact date. I was living in San Francisco at the time, and I was just kind of wandering in the world of photography odd gigs here and there, not really sure what I wanted to do. Then I was at a wedding for a friend of mine, and I met Paul Gilmore who convinced me to come stay with him in Brooklyn and check things out.

The lessons you learn from surviving in New York City are lessons that you can’t really get anywhere else. New York forces you to take a hard, honest look at yourself and then everything gets thrown at you. New York doesn’t care about you, your problems or your excuses, and so you really have to tread water till you figure things out. However, if you can dig deep and survive, then the City can become like a friend (that has occasional tantrums).

What were your first thoughts when you moved?

My first thought right when the cab dropped me off from JFK was “umm, I think I fucked up.

What are your favorite aspects of the City?

The energy, it just can’t be overstated. There’s no other reason why I can be somewhere far away, on a beach in the sun in the middle of January and at the same time feel the need to get back home.

Who are some of your artistic heroes?

Stanley Kubrick, Bruce Weber, Peter Lindbergh, Terrance Malik, Paul Thomas Anderson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Muhammad Ali, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Maya Angelou, Richard Avedon, Milos Forman, John Lennon, ThomYorke.

What are your favorite places to shoot/work?

I really like shooting on location. It’s obviously much more challenging than working in a studio, which is something, I learned when I was working as an assistant for Anders Overgaard. But, it is far more rewarding and can be much more organic in telling a story when you give an image a sense of place. Cape Town is unreal; it has so much to offer in terms of landscape. Northern California is amazing too.

What are your favorite places to relax?

That’s a bit tricky. I have a hard time relaxing, ha! I think if I’m with my family/friends in SF or DC, then I’m usually pretty content. Somewhere quiet, where I can have one-on-one conversations.

Is there anywhere you want to go, but haven’t been?

I’ve been all around the U.S., but I’ve actually never been to New Orleans. I wish I had gone there before the hurricane, I’d also love to go to Cuba. Iceland is also on my list.

Where do you like to spend down time?

When I’m in New York City, I like to hang in my hood (Carroll Gardens). It’s quiet, peaceful. There are great restaurants, and its low key. So, I hang out around home quite a bit when I’m not working.

What’s a good day for you?

Sometimes it’s a day when I’m shooting and everyone on set is enjoying what they do and the vibe is just right, creativity is in motion. And, it’s beautiful outside. Other times, it’s just a day when I wake up, the sun is out, and I’ll listen to NPR, and step outside for coffee, meet a friend and have a good conversation.

What should anyone who visits New York City do while they are here? Do you have a guide for taking in the city?

Well, the main thing that I would suggest is to just wander around. Each corner of New York is so different from the rest. There is no other city like New York; its the ultimate laboratory. It’s the first place that people from all over the world came to inhabit together. The history of New York is fascinating and the energy is seductive. I would try to grab a few slices. I recommend, Grimaldis and Lucalis are my favorites (both in Brooklyn).

But, the main thing is to just go explore and avoid Times Square at all possible costs.

What is the best advice you ever received?

One lesson I learned from skateboarding is that when you fail, you have to get back up and try it again and again… and that your own particular style is what sets you apart from others.

What is your best advice for someone who hopes to find a career in the arts?

It won’t be easy. Finding your own way is very challenging, and you will have to make considerable sacrifices, but ultimately you have to be still and listen to what your heart tells you. You have to keep moving forward, keep evolving, and accept that it’s not something you can just rush through.

It’s a long road, and there will be periods when you think your just wasting your time. But, you have to just keep going and believing in whatever it is you do. Don’t compare yourself to anyone, and surround yourself with people who share your passion to create and think.

Take time to develop yourself. And, really get to know who you are; that’s crucial. I think part of being successful is also understanding and developing the skill of looking at what you do from other people’s perspectives which can help you find a way to make a living doing what you love. And, don’t make big decisions based on money or fear.

Are there any specific words you try to live by?

Always do your best, and treat people with respect.

How do you define success?

Doing what you love, and understanding who you are.

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SEAN LENNON X HUMANITY MAGAZINE

Posted on December 10, 2015April 6, 2018 by Sacha Cosentino

On Thursday, October 29^th, Citizens of Humanity celebrated Issue No. 7 of Humanity Magazine along with Club Monaco on the anniversary of their 5^th Ave Flagship in New York City. Everyone from Christy Turlington Burns, Taylor Schilling and Garance Dore gathered to watch Sean Lennon, who is featured in the issue of Humanity Magazine, perform with his band Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger. Friends Putnam & Putnam joined Citizens of Humanity and Club Monaco to celebrate along with the best of fashion, food, flowers, and coffee from the world’s top chefs, florists and mixologists.

Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Sean Lennon, Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

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