Author: y.mcclamrock

Fashion Illustration: a golden key to open imagination

      “You don’t have what it takes: your drawings are off, you cannot get the proportions, you are not a good draftsman. Maybe you should think about textile design,” Bil’s art teacher told him after two months of his first semester at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). “You don’t understand,” Bil exclaimed, “I saved my money for this. It’s my passion and my life, I want this.”

Bil Donovan has been a prominent New York-based fashion illustrator for the past 30 years. In the days when fashion photography swiped the fashion world, he achieved what many could only dream of. He was commissioned to do fashion illustration, instead of photography, by Dior, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), Givenchy, Vanity Fair, Yves Saint Lauren and many others.

Return of Fashion Illustration

A depiction of fashion illustration started in sixteen century according to Cally Blackman’s book “100 Years of Fashion Illustration”. It evolved because of people’s amazement with costumes. It found its true market in 1900’s when Paul Poiret, a French fashion hauteur couture designer, began hiring fashion illustrators to draw his designs. In addition, during the golden years of fashion illustration – post the Great Depression through 1970’s – fashion publications such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar created a platform for pioneers and innovators of abstract fashion illustration.

Late 1970’s, however, fashion photography completely replaced illustration. Exploration of fashion photography began with visual masters such as Cecil Beaton and George Hoyningen-Huene in the late 1920s. In the next decade, the innovative photographer Horst P. Horst opened new avenues with his striking compositions. In late 1940’s Richard Avedon’s jumping models began appearing in Harper’s Bazaar. Furthermore, an accurate image of commercialized ready-to-wear garments became vital for mass production market. The new technology, such as Photoshop, gave photography limitless possibilities; fashion photographers such as Steven Klein, Annie Leibovitz, and Nick Knight began heavily using digital manipulations in their work.

Yet, everything in fashion moves very quickly. There are four seasons Spring/Summer, Fall/Winter, Resort, and Pre-Fall. For each season hundreds of designers from all over the world have to come up not only with new collections but also with fresh advertising campaigns. Additionally, fashion publications have to create new editorials for new collections mostly on a bi-monthly basis. “Photography is too mundane now and we kind of stretched the limits of it, people want something fresh on the page, what can draw their eye,” said Connie Gray, an art curator and co-founder of London-based gallery Gray Modern & Contemporary Art (Gray M.C.A.).

Recently, with social media’s popularity, fashion illustration is finding a renewed appreciation. Designer houses such as Prada for its 2014 Spring/Summer Prêt–à–Porter collection collaborated with illustrators to create wearable art pieces. This year almost every haute couture house from Dior to Chanel hired illustrators to draw their runway shows. “The wonderful thing about illustration is its impressionistic style,” said Ashley Gray, Director at Gray M.C.A., “Illustration got that golden key to open imagination.”

 

Social Media Influence

Social media let thousands of artists from different continents to share their imagination. An up-and-coming artist Diana Sultanova, a Moscow-based fashion illustrator, found Instagram encouraging, “It helped me to show my artwork to the whole world.” Young fashion illustrators like Marija Verde, a 28 years-old graduate from Fine Arts of Naples, Italy, as well benefits from social media, “It is a sort of virtual gallery where anyone can notice you and your work. It is like going to an exhibition.”

Many artists find the use of social media very helpful in building a clientele. London-based artist Abbey Watkins who is known for her dark style said that Instagram enabled her to talk to people who buy her art, “It’s such a blessing,” she said. Another European illustrator Anna Halarewicz from Poland emphasized that social media “definitely expanded my range of customers.” Natalia Jnete, Florida’s native who currently lives and works in Manhattan, even received commissions from ODDA and Nylon Magazines through social media, “I don’t think I would be able to get it on my own.”

Even thought social media helped numerous emerging artists to find an audience, established artists such as Donovan find it unfair, “I often see how young artists on social media copying work of famous illustrators without giving them any credits. It’s just unethical.” It happened to Donovan on several occasions. Yet, art collectors know whose work is valuable, “Bil is the contemporary master of fashion illustration today,” said Connie Gray. This year, during London’s Fall Fashion Week, Gray curated “Drawing on Style” a contemporary fashion illustration exhibition. There, Donovan’s work was shown next to that of the fashion illustration pioneers such as René Gruau, René Bouché, Carl ‘Eric’ Erickson and Antonio Lopez. “Most contemporary illustrators work digitally but Bil takes the tradition of fashion illustration back and draws from life. It is very rare these days,” said Connie Gray.

 

Digital Drawing

In today’s digital age, Bil Donovan is unique. Many artists enhance their hand-drawings in software such as Adobe Illustrator. Seoul’s, South Korea, emerging artist Paige Jang loved to use ink pens and crayons but recently she began coloring her work digitally, “I like it because of the editing and re-editing is much easier.” An established fashion illustrator Esra Roise from Oslo, Norway, whose client list includes Stella McCartney, Burberry and NIKE prefers to draw with pencil and watercolor, yet, digital embellishment found its way in her work too, “I enjoy the juxtaposition of something handmade mixed with something digital.”

Digital illustration made it possible for fashion apps such as Chic Sketch app to find its audience. This app allows its users to have their photographs turned into a custom fashion illustration for only $9.99 per photo. Ksusha Kovaleva, a Ukrainian artist and one of the leading illustrators for this app, shared that she never leaves her Samsung tablet out of her eyesight because almost every other minute she receives request notifications for new illustrations, sometimes as late as midnight. She is required to finish a sketch within 30 minutes. “I feel that digital drawing is killing my art. I find myself often missing my ink and quality paper,” she said. The perks of her job, however, keeps her motivated: “I worked at many fashion events that I could not even dream of! During this New York Fashion Week, I illustrated for Kate Spade’s fashion show and often illustrate at Bloomingdales for special events.”

The Contemporary Master

Ever-growing fashion is still a small market where everybody knows each other. Donovan teaches his students at FIT and the School of Visual Arts (SVA) that an illustrator should be versatile. Besides having an understanding of graphic design, digital drawing, and composition, an illustrator should be able to hand draw anything. Throughout his career, he learned that it’s vital to make mistakes on a paper and see what shows up because “it’s more about discovery than about success or failure.”

Aside from teaching and doing commissioned work, Donovan facilitates events at the Society of Illustrators in New York, where he encourages illustrators to hand draw from life, and he hires a range of models from professional boxers to high fashion models. “You never stop learning and if you want to be the best you have to continue taking classes. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone,” he said to his students at Washington Square Park where he took them for a field drawing session.

“Simplicity of brush strokes, leaving far more out than putting in. This is where he is an absolute genius,” said Ms. Gray while looking through Donovan’s original pieces and evaluating potential prices for her collectors. Donovan acknowledged that he receives numerous comments about how effortless and easy his work looks. However, he is upset that not everybody understands that his talent comes from years of practice, from taking many classes and learning from so many different teachers.

Decades ago, as a FIT freshmen student, Donovan began drawing 24/ 7 from a life figure, never copying from photographs. He drew his roommate, his cat Porkchop, his toothpaste, even his toilet. Later, Donovan went to SVA where he enrolled in Jack Potter’s class. Potter, an innovative 1950’s fashion illustrator, completely changed Donovan’s artistic approach. He only taught selectivity and was known for teaching artists to feel their drawings, instead of copying what they see. During the first class with Potter, students were required to bring all their best work. Donovan brought two drawings and when Potter approached them and exclaimed,“ Whose are these?” Bil proudly proclaimed, “They are mine.” Potter said, “Oh my Gosh, what is such a young man doing such an old lady work for?! You are young and you should not do this. Draw your age.” Bil laughingly recalled, “I just wanted to die. But I learned a lot. And I’ve studied with Potter for over eight years even after I graduated from college.”

Fashion imagery development follows trends and new technologies. The mixture of different medias: photography, illustration, digital manipulation, and video already have built a platform for new ideas. Perhaps, a century from now, art collectors will find value in those ideas and call them masterpieces of contemporary fashion illustration. Social media that helped to discover emerging fashion illustrators could as easily cause depreciation of this art form. However, there is always going to be something about having a blank piece of paper, whether it’s digital or not, simply because art begins from a pure imagination. “It’s almost like being an alchemist you are creating something out of nothing. It has merit and spirit and essence. It’s magical,” Bil concluded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The opening of the article takes the reader into the scene where a lucky refugee mother of three wakes up in a comfortable home in Canada. Throughout the article the writer keeps coming back to the leading character to emphasize her difficulty to transition into a new life

The article is written in the past tense. It is very humanized, have a lots of quotes and description of characters’ daily routines and background stories. The statistics are wived in the paragraphs, they are not separate which makes reading very fluent. The story begins and ends in the same theme, it comes back to circle.

 

I would like to write for ProPublica because I really enjoy their investigative journalism. This is an example of the work they do:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-govt-is-saddling-parents-with-college-loans-they-cant-afford

I would like to investigate why biodegradable packaging is still in development process. Ho long will in take huge corporations to realize that it is time for change.

Switching majors

“I had so many problems last semester,” said Katherine Ward, an FIT transfer student, “due to holds from different departments.”

“My associate’s is in fashion design,” continued Ward. “I had to change my fashion major because it required too much homework. I became anemic.”

“I really wanted to go for creative writing,” said Ward, whose new major at Baruch College is journalism. “But my mother suggested to have a degree in something that has an actual job, like journalism.”

On the past Friday, Governor Cuomo signed Bill A8704C which makes hosts who rent out an entire apartment/home/units while being absent illegal.

This Bill meant to monetize home-sharing industry. Due to its rapid growth, home-sharing companies such as Airbnb have a hard time to control all their users’ activities. Therefore, the city decided to take actions in their hands.

Today, dozens of Airbnb hosts protested in front of Cuomo’s office. On the left hand, hosts with sings “I love Airbnb”, on the right side, protesters with support of Linda B. Rosenthal screamed “No to Airbnb because it raises our rents.”

I tried to speak to both side. Interestingly, hosts were the friendliest people, all of them wanted to share their stories. The protesters, did not want to speak at all, although they were the louder people on the street.

Rosenthal, person who actually wrote Bill A8704C, on another hand, was very nice and happily gave an interview. Non of Airbnb’s officials that were present there wanted to comment. They told me to speak to hosts because hosts have a right to say whatever they want. I thought it was a strange twist.

In my paper article I want to focus on that twist and investigate what causes it.

I was reading a profile about Barack Obama, called “Obama’s Way” in Vanity Fair.
The article showed a private live of the U.S. President. The purpose is to understand and to see how the decisions are made. The article began with a description of how American invaded Libya in order to save its citizens from a massive massacre that was planned by Syria in 2011. To show how Obama decided to save Libyans, and, how he made other decisions, the reporter, Michael Lewis, spent six months with President. He went inside President’s daily routine that included basketball game where President showed his undeniable competitiveness. He went into the White House and was present at the Oval Table meeting where the vital decisions were made. He even visited President’s private residence and saw where Obama enjoys spending his quiet time. He flew with Obama on a private plane where Obama could spare only 30 minutes to answer a few questions about his emotions and gave the reporter a list of principles that any presidents should a have.
I love how the reporter transitioned the story. He kept coming back to the Captain Tyler Stark who was a navigator in the first air force plane that dropped the bombs in Libya and whose plane was attacked. Tyler Stark end up in the middle of a desert at night while non-knowing if he would be captured by rivals or peace-makers in Libya.

Two stories with two different perspectives: how President’s decision affected soldiers and their families, people in Libya who were grateful to the U.S. for involvement, criticism that followed by Republicans who were the ones insisted being involved in the conflict.

The main angle, I thought, was to show on which principle president based his decisions. That it takes more than a discussion at the Oval Table, it takes also intuition and taking in consideration not only what President’s advisers tell him but also what an opposition thinks, what people think and expect. There is so much more to what outsider does not see. It is a job, as President mentioned in his last quote to the reporter,
“
There is such an element of randomness in who gets this job. What am I here for? Why am I walking around the Lincoln Bedroom? That doesn’t last long. A week into it you’re on the job.”

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama

HUMAN TRASH 

By Yulia McClamrock    SEPT. 26, 2016

On a Saturday morning in mid-September, five volunteers with three New York Restoration Project (NYRP) staff members were determined to clean the Harlem River’s shorelines at Sherman Creek Park, Inwood, New York. But nature took its unpredictable course. On this Stewardship Day, high tides forced Shakara Petteway, NYPR volunteer manager, to use her plan B.

“It is hard to coordinate schedules with nature,” said Petteway, who had been volunteering for a year before she got an offer to become an NYRP staff member. “We can try to clean up other parts of the park today. Hopefully next time the tides will be low.”
The park is supervised by a non-profit organization that collects funds through public and private donations. It is able to afford only three full-time employees who are not always able to pick up trash in hidden areas of the park. Situated on 15.38 acres of rich land, the park requires constant maintenance.
“Non-profits, such as NYRP, help to support parks and the community by tackling projects on public and private land, something the city agency cannot do,” said Rosemarie Miner, NYRP Citywide Volunteer Program Coordinator. “Non-profits are generally not as tied up in bureaucracy as city agencies and can work faster, and even on the fly, with community-based organizations.”
The city’s parks and community gardens rely heavily on volunteers. Miner shared her concerns about the volunteer shortage in smaller parks located in low-income neighborhoods. She said that for Central Park, it is easier to get more volunteers, but for distant parks such as Sherman Creek, it’s a struggle.
“During the fiscal crisis in the 70s there was not enough money and many organizations started up funds by wealthy people to help fix up the parks,” said former Deputy Director of Planning, Joseph P Chu. “The Central Park Conservatory was the first because it had so many rich people that live near the park. Others like the non-profit Prospect Park Alliance started later on. Those and many other organizations still exist. They supplement the city’s funding.”
NYRP is one of the non-profit organizations. Bette Midler, an American actress, songwriter, singer, and producer, founded it in 1995. There are more than 1700 parks across the five boroughs, according to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. NYRP owns now 52 community gardens and stewards four parks across the five boroughs. The main focus of NYRP was to restore parks in neglected neighborhoods. It took decades of constant work. Now, rehabilitated parks and community gardens, such as Sherman Creek Park, serve local communities in less fortunate neighborhoods. They are filled with trees, plants, some with mini waterfalls, ponds with turtles and vegetable gardens for children.
“It is our second visit at Sherman Creek Park. We love how clean and peaceful this park is. Kids love it,” said Maria Marte, an event planner who came with her family on Saturday afternoon to have a picnic and get inspiration for a commissioned birthday party at the park.

But, before NYRP became a steward of Sherman Creek Park, it was a place for illegal dumping.
“In the past, we used to find buried cars in this park,” Petteway said.
The announcements about volunteer events are constantly being posted at the NYRP and the New York City Department of Parks websites. Despite that attendance, such as on this Saturday morning, is oftentimes low, volunteers play a vital role in the city’s communities. According to Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency, volunteers contributed 352.6 million hours of work that equals to almost 15.5 billion dollars in New York back in 2014. This means that donated funds can be used to build more parks, create more public facilities in the parks such as playgrounds, amongst others.
“Volunteers are important because they give people an opportunity to form a deeper connection with the space they use recreationally,” said Miner. “It is also a way for people to build as stakeholders in a community.”

All attendees on this sunny and humid morning were women, most regular participants. At the meeting spot, bottles of bug spray, anti-itch creams for poison ivy, sunscreen lotion, and cold water bottles were provided. Everybody was required to sign a waiver and provide an emergency contact before getting to work.
“You never know who has an ivy allergy,” said Petteway.
Then Petteway asked everyone to introduce each other and name a food they would choose to eat for the rest of their life.
“I love eggs. You can fry them, boil them, etc.,” said Natalie Peralta, who began her volunteering a few months ago. The women giggled. Positive vibes infused the air. It was time to clean.
NYRP provided gloves, trash pickers, and garbage bags. The group divided into ‘pickers’ and ‘bag holders.’
“Oh there is a buried black plastic bag, I don’t know if I want to pull it out,” one of the volunteers said.
Miner shared a story with a smile. She said that some volunteers had previously stumbled upon dead bodies in a plastic bag. “It happened years ago and not in this park,” she added.

Aside from plastic bags, foam particles were the prevalent garbage found in the park, as well as bottles, plastics cups, and even baby diapers.
None of the women shied away from carrying heavy trash bags. While many of their friends were still asleep or heading out to a leisurely brunch, they preferred to spend a beautiful Saturday morning bending, lifting and patiently picking up trash.
“It gives me a peace of mind,” said Kathy Peng on her way home after three hours of volunteering. “It is Saturday morning, and I’ve already done something useful.”

Compost me!

A week ago, during a lunch break, I stopped at Starbucks that is across the street from Baruch College. The huge line of nearly 40 inpatient students amused me. It is a second coffee chain on that street and there are thousands of others that never cease to fail in sales during breakfast or lunch traffic.

Almost every morning I make myself a cup of coffee. I never feel guilty about it. All my coffee grinds get composed and my favorite coffee mug gets washed – zero waste, literally. I made series of attempts to prologue my zero waste contribution by bringing a reusable coffee cup to work. However, after 40 min in a subway, my coffee would get too warm. An attempt to carry the cup, apparently Starbucks gives its customers a discount if they bring a reusable cup, also failed because sometimes I just wanted to have a little purse that unfortunately cannot hold a giant metallic mug.

Yet, every time when I would buy a cup of coffee from a street vendor or everyone’s beloved Starbucks I could not help but experience a sensation of guilt. Guilt began from the moment my lips touched a plastic lid. How many of those lids are used daily? Are they end up in our landfills? Do people understand that 5 minutes of caffeine or any other type of liquid pleasure in a plastic container covered with a plastic lid will stay on this Earth with our future generation for 500 or even 1000 years?

I began to wonder if there are any coffee chains or maybe perhaps a local coffee shop that pays attention to the small eco detail such as, well at least, a plastic lid. Last week I stumbled upon a coffee chain called Blue Bottle Coffee near Bryan Park. When I was ready to make my guilty sip from a plastic lid, I’ve noticed a few words on it “Compost me!” Apparently, aside from having cozy French patisserie style interior and delicious coffee, this 15 years old coffee chain based in California, is one of the leading eco-friendly coffee chain in the world. They use not only compostable plastic lids but also compostable straws and paper cups.

In this article, I would like to explore what are eco-friendly plastic lids and paper cups.  The founder of Blue Bottle lives in California, I will contact him by email and in the meanwhile will interview employees.  Also, I want to speak to their customers and see if that little sentence “Compost me!” contributes to their devotional support. In addition, I want to use data from www.nyc.gov, www.recyvlingadvocates.org to educate a reader about waste statistics that are based on scientific research.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/publicworks/wastereduction/?hootPostID=a20fed3dd729672033e3833e33a00b54#!rc-cpage=39022

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/16/takeaway-coffee-cups-recycle-environment-waste

http://www.recyclingadvocates.org/single-use-coffee-cup-reduction/