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KNACK is dedicated to showcasing the work of new artists of all mediums and to discussing trends and ideas within art communities. KNACK’s ultimate aim is to connect and inspire emerging artists. We strive to create a place for artists, writers, designers, thinkers, and innovators to collaborate and produce a unique, informative, and unprecedented web-based magazine each month.
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WILL SMITH co-founder, digital operations ANDREA VACA co-founder, photo editor, production manager, marketing ARIANA LOMBARDI executive editor ARIANNA SULLIVAN editor CHELSEY ALDEN editor JONATHON DUARTE design director FERNANDO GAVERD designer, digital operations, marketing spread photographs by JAKE GOODMAN cover photograph by JAKE GOODMAN
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KNAC K A RT M AGA ZI N E .CO M KNAC KM AGA ZI N E 1 @ G M AI L .CO M
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ARTIST BIOGR APHIES
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VIRGINIA ZIR K LE
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AISHA SUFE
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COLE CASW ELL
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AN INTERVIEW W/ COLE CASW ELL
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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
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VIRGINIA ZIRKLE
AISHA SUFÉ
Virginia Zirkle is a recent graduate from Columbia College in Chicago where she procured a BFA in Photography. She enjoys photographing Vibrant and Mystical elements of nature. Originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, she has always been surrounded by nature. She says, “Now living in a big city, it is important for me to spend time connecting with the limited nature we have access too. I believe we are all connected to each other and to the earth. We live in such a fast-paced city that I need to take time out to let my spirit rest and meditate with the trees, by our spirits intertwining with one being to another.”
Aisha Laila Sufé Arizpe was born February 7, 1987, in Monterrey, Nuevo León, México
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COLE CASWELL Cole investigates landscape, place, environment, and geography, through strata of observation, technology, subjectivity, and his surroundings. He uses traditional, historic and digital photographic mediums: GPS, environmental data sets, augmented sampling procedures, clothing design, and classification to investigate our current present state. Cole received an interdisciplinary M.F.A. from the Maine College of Art, and has been working, living and observing while traveling throughout the county in a nomadic format. Over the last few years Cole has collaborated with the arts collective Spurse, and the non-profit art organization the Creative Material Group [CMG]. Recently he has lectured at The Boston Center for the Arts, The Maine College of Art, The University of Maine in Orono, and Syracuse University’s School of Architecture. At the present he is exploring one’s ability to subsist
within our contemporary environment, while furthering his inquirers into emergent and experimental photographic processes, perspectives, and applications. His work is represented by Susan Maasch Fine Art in Portland, Maine.
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MY COLORFUL MAGIC ON THESE TREES WILL MAKE PEOPLE BECOME MORE AWARE OF THEIR UNIQUE QUALITIES AND THEIR SPIRITS
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VIRGINIA ZIRKLE P H OT O G R A P H Y
I have created a unique bond with tree spirits. Humans, nature, and the universe are interconnected. My process is based on intuitive exchange of energy with these trees. While painting on trees, I’m drawn to the flow of the grooves on the bark and certain areas that speak to my intuition. This meditative process creates sacred spaces with watercolor paint, pastels, and photography. Bonding with these trees has become a spiritual ritual. At first, I thought my paint and pastels would be temporary, but as I revisited these ancient beings, I noticed that my artwork still remained. This is my communication to the spirit world through the souls of these trees. My colorful magic on these trees will make people become more aware of their unique qualities and their spirits. In my other series of work, I inhabited a sacred community of amazing mystical creature-like people. This beautiful festival is called “Sacred Earth,� and is a smaller community of people who thrive on learning, creativity and genuine vibes of the universal connection. Unlike my first series of work, I used my film 35mm Cannon camera to capture the magic of the festival. I am always interested in meeting unique people with etherial personalities, and that weekend I was also observing and interacting. I will be going back again this summer to this enchanted forest to rejoin with my mystical friends.
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SACRED
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EARTH
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WE MAY FIND THAT THE WORLD IS NOT AS DESCRIBED, BUT HOW WE ACTUALLY SEE AND INTERPRET ITS COURSE
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AISHA SUFÉ STU DIO ART
“We are many who want to wake up in the darkness finding color.” Lines, through their points, extend the line’s course, guided by feelings, finding curves that go their way in different directions, creating new shapes and finding new paths. We may find that the world is not as described, but how we actually see and interpret its course. We create in our imagination a story full of life and color that is capable of providing the viewer a sign that there is still hope for something better. A blank canvas—the basic idea—a clear mind with the intention of creating and expressing to the world what the heart feels, is like writing a book or play, or new melody. It is my way of expression.
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26 Torito 5’ 10 55/64” x 3’11 ¼” mixed media (acrylic and enamel on canvas) 2013
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He & She, 2013
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Fireworks of Love mixed media (acrylic and enamel on canvas) 4’11 1/16” x 6’25 1/64” 2011
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Positive Vibration 4’7 1/8” x 4’7 1/8” acrylic and enamel on canvas 2012
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A’s of Love 3’11 ¼” x 5’10 55/64” acrylic and enamel on canvas
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Fragmented Celebration 3’7 5/16” x 6’6 47/64” acrylic, enamel, and aluminum enamel
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Looking for Color in the Darkness 5’10 55/64” x 5’10 55/64” acrylic and enamel on canvas
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A PHOTOGRAPHIC CATALYST, A COLLECTION OF STORIES, AN ARCHIVE OF RELICS, A MEAL, AND A SET OF QUESTIONS PROPELLING ONE TO SEARCH OUT NEW PERSPECTIVES AND OPTIONS
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COLE CASWELL P H OT O G R A P H Y I attempt to engage and record the contemporary landscape through a practice that considers the evolution of the landscape’s conditions. Re-appropriated tools, technologies, and systems aid me in exploring the space between human perceptions of the land and the land’s actual state(s). A constant curiosity in regards to this space pushes my work into an intricate play between social and geological landscape; for me this exploration is one that is framed within the arc of a historic photographic perception and its contemporary transversal shiftings. Nomadic research into these ideas started in the Fall of 2012 and has taken on the title The Unknown Expedition. This research-driven trek into the peripheral American landscape has a meandering course or direction that is determined based on research interests and an ever-growing network of people and archive of places. The coalescing focus of the expedition investigates contemporary forms of subsistence living: survival tactics of people, place, and our environment. As the expedition traverses the diverse practices that allow one to dwell in a subsistence manner, it is making images, collecting stories, running experiments, meeting new cultures, and developing its own forms of subsistent living. Encounters with people or places take on a form of exchange, encouraging and deepening the self-developed practices attached to the act of meeting, learning, and moving between these groups of people. In this way the expedition becomes a contemporary act of subsistence as one navigates the needs and wants of existing in transition. The expedition is open ended at this point in time. In its entirety it could be seen as a performance, a moving installation, a research kit, a studio. In parts the project is a photographic catalyst, a collection of stories, an archive of relics, a meal, and a set of questions propelling one to search out new perspectives and options. Research subjects have varied from homeless self-proclaimed punks couch surfing in Savannah to a retired stock trader turned primitive skills master hidden on his swampy homestead. Between 2012 and 2013 the Expedition surveyed the perimeter of the United States, through the south and into rural areas of Maine, New Hampshire, Georgia, Arizona, and New Mexico. Currently the expedition is researching and investigating public rangelands and off-the-grid high desert living. 37
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ACCRETION ARCHIVE
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ARSENAL
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PERIPHERAL SUBSISTENCE
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an interview w/ cole caswell what colors most represent the way you are making art?
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UV or antic lights cast picture shadows within my cameras, and this spectrum of light conjures chemical reactions, solidifying observations, daydreams, and reality into slippery representations of our time. These photographic documents reflect combinations of colors and light that are not represented to the human eye. To perceive the reactions of this light and color is to imagine a world separate from what we see. It is this act that begins the creative process. Perception of this world based in light, color, and chemicals allow me to predict, exploit, and create images by bouncing rays of colored light.
how has your relationship with art and creating art changed throughout the years? My relationship to making has changed in a few key ways. Recently my creative practice has become based in a nomadic way of life—traveling throughout the United States, exploring, researching, and making images. The focus of this work is how people subsist within our contemporary context and landscape. The methods of survival that I am interested in photographing range in scale, and often exist on the periphery of our perceptions and physical worlds. Sometimes these individuals or systems are permanent, and other times they are temporary. In either situation, it has become important for me to enter these various worlds, or subsistence-based lifestyles and systems in order to gain knowledge, participate, and understand what was important about them. In addition to this nomadic lifestyle, my commitment to the craft of making has developed into a set of skills that is now becoming reliable, fluid, and adaptable. The cycle that is inherent in making has not become more predictable, but with each aspect of the rotation a sense of familiarity has crept in. Practice is a real thing, which can be applied across many disciplines with successful results as long as there is focus and a real attention to detail. T oday I work in one of the most changing conditions I have experienced so far. Producing 8”x10” tintypes out of a portable darkroom often perched on the side of a road, or on some vacant and arid landscape, poses challenges that have become part of my daily work. Just last week I had a set of tintypes squished while drying, and a gust of the extremely strong winds in New Mexico tore into my equipment and my resulting images. These challenges are part of the environment, which means that they need to be dealt with creatively, as part of the practice. I address almost all challenges or projects in this way. They are connected to the act of making. Learning to harvest food or to repair our vehicle is a step along the process of making an image. In combination, these aspects of my creative process have allowed for the integration of my practice into my lifestyle. what was your defining moment as an artist/thinker/human? I have a hard time with this question. It is hard to choose. Being a father definitely has affected my
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sense of self and my subconscious focus on family and home. I notice these ideas sneaking in and affecting my work at moments when I am not expecting. There is a grounding aspect to this role in my life, however it also needs a balance. I aim to have a defining moment each day. Often this takes the form of feeling grateful for the opportunity to pursue my ideas, photographic practice, and nomadic lifestyle. what impression or new perspective would you like someone to take away from your work? Right now I am focused on exploring and documenting how people are surviving in our current world. I hope that these works pose questions about how we live off the land and in turn, make us think about how we should choose to engage with process of surviving. Identifying these various practices within our collective environment also allows for one to question how we are surviving, in doing so there is a realization that people are fighting to live in our world. which teacher has been your most influential? I have had two influential teachers in my career. The first, I met while pursuing my Associate of Arts degree from Rockport College / Maine Media Workshops, where I was studying photography for the first time. With passion and detail, the first teacher, Brenton, presented the history, craft, and conceptual aspect of the photographic medium. Studying under his watch, I became fully entangled with the medium of photography. Notions of home, and my own personal narrative combined with a growing technical proficiency. The lessons and information passed on to me while I was a student of Brenton’s inspired me to pursue the medium as a career and to do so with a commitment to craft, personal narrative, and the medium’s history. I met another influential teacher while pursuing my Masters degree at the Maine College of Art. Iain’s application of creativity, philosophy, and studio theory captured my attention and creative energy. It was within this context that I learned how to craft the application of my thoughts and ideas. Iain’s perception and deployment of his idea through the medium of philosophy enriched my conceptual tools, and encouraged me to develop an art practice that was more encompassing than the act of photographing—rather it suggested that one must actually create a world for
themselves, in order to experiment and engage with the questions that are riddling our social and environmental systems. what place(s) have defined you, and your art, most? Peripheral locations, either rural or urban, have always been of interest. To me there seems to be a latent potential in these tuck spots. Whether the location is a subterranean wild garden in central Philadelphia, or a remote section of the high desert in New Mexico, there appears to be a similar energy to these societal and actual outposts. My focus on these types of locations comes from my interest in survival, and the potentials that are suggested when the only free and open spaces that are left are these peripheral locations. precursor to these ideas about the periphery started A in notions and concepts that related to islands. These perimeter-bound places have acted as research locations and conceptual tools of mine for years. The isolation and self-containment of these types of places are a starting point in my consideration of open space, and what it is like to live with limits, in a micro-world of sorts. T he land I grew up on in central New Hampshire is an influential location in my art practice. It serves as a barometer of sorts, a location with which I can hold and compare new and foreign locations. Embedded in the acres of woods and fields that make up this place are my notions of family and home. I find myself thinking of this place often as I engage and photograph people and place through out the country. In a way, I am searching for the methods, skills, and perspectives needed to protect this place from the forces of capitalism, development, and misuse. It’s about a type of healthy survival–it takes conceptual strength and day-to-day practice. what is your daily relationship/routine/practice with your medium? I work in cycles. Everyday I am making images of some kind. Whether documenting my investigations and explorations for the Accretion Archive or investigating a location, situation, or set of objects with my medium format camera for my ongoing project arsenal, I am making work. Often when shooting 8”x10” tintypes, I will scope and familiarize myself with my subject and the location for a decent amount of time.
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T he arts collective Spurse, has also had an influence over the years. Working with this collective has enriched my methods of creative problem solving, both as a maker and a thinker. In addition, the folks from Spurse have influenced my perspectives when it comes to integrating my art practice into life.
what does your practice space look like? At the moment I work within the landscape. About three years ago I started the development of a mobile studio. Today this mobile workspace houses a portable darkroom and chemical lab, a variety of cameras, and wheat-paste ready large size murals, as well as a GPS and other digital and computer-based tools. The context of this mobile laboratory is often changing. As it explores and wanders the United States, it is adding unknown spaces to the developing archive of locations. T o support the mobile studio, I work out of two studio locations back east in New England. My primary studio in New Hampshire allows for large-scale production in a rural environment. This location also functions as an archive and testing facility for the objects and ideas that I have collected throughout my travels. The creatively built and raw studio is developing into a live-workspace that will act as a gathering place for the diverse ideas of the communities that I have been exploring. y secondary studio is located in Portland, Maine. M This collaborative space is used most for the various, business related projects or aspects of my art practice. Ranging from a collaborative clothing design, to portrait commissions, and engagements with the community. Slowly this space is turning into a working installation where patrons will enter the space to view the alternative structure and objects within, or will enter with the intention of purchasing a portrait commission, or a collaboratively designed garment. 
 who is/are your biggest influence?
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T his has shifted with time, but at the moment I am interested in Nineteenth Century explorers. This influence is mostly a conceptual one, based on how you look at or consider a condition or location. Lately, as I have been working on the Peripheral Subsistence project, I find myself thinking of August Saunders, and his portraits of the German population.
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PHOTOGRAPHERS, GRAPHIC DESIGNERS & STUDIO ARTISTS Up to 10 high resolution images of your work. All must include pertinent caption information (name, date, medium, year). If there are specifications or preferences concerning the way in which an image is displayed please include them.
WRITERS K NAC K se e ks writing of all kinds . We will eve n conside r re cipes , reviews , and essays (although we do not prefe r any thing that is ac ade mic). We se e k write rs whose work has a distinc t voice , is charac te r drive n , and is subve rsive b ut tastef ul . We are not inte reste d in fantasy or ge nre f ic tion . Yo u may submit up to 2 5 ,0 0 0 words and as lit tle as on e . We acce pt simultan e ous submissions . N o cove r let te r n e cessar y. All submissions must be 12pt, Tim es N ew Roman , do uble -space d with page numbe rs and include your nam e , e - mail , phon e numbe r, and ge nre .
ALL SUBMISSIONS: KNACK encourages all submitters to include an artist statement with their submission. We believe that your perspective of your work and process is as lucrative as the work itself. This may range from your upbringing and/or education as an artist, what type of work you produce, inspirations, etc. If there are specifications or preferences concerning the way in which an image is displayed please include them. A brief biography including your name, age, current location, and portrait of the artist is also encouraged (no more than 700 words).
*Please title f iles for submission with the name of the piece. This applies for both writing and visual submissions.
ACCEPTABLE FORMATS IMAGES: PDF, TIFF, or JPEG WRITTEN WORKS: .doc, .docx, and RTF
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EMAIL: KNACKMAGAZINE1@GMAIL.COM SUBJECT: SUBMISSION (PHOTOGRAPHY, STUDIO ART, CREATIVE WRITING, GRAPHIC DESIGN )
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KNACK operates on a rolling submission system. This means that we will consider work from any artist at any time. Our “deadlines� merely serve as a cutoff for each issue of the magazine. Any and all work sent to knackmagazine1@gmail.com will be considered for submission as long as it follows submission guidelines. The day work is sent merely reflects the issue it will be considered for. Have questions or suggestions? E-mail us. We want to hear your thoughts, comments, and concerns. Sincerely, Ariana Lombardi, Executive Editor
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ISSUE 23 7.13.2014 ISSUE 24 8.10.2014 ISSUE 25 9.14.2014 ISSUE 26 10.12.2014 ISSUE 27 11.16.2014
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ISSUE 28 12.14.2014
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KNACK is requesting material to be reviewed. Reviews extend to any culture-related event that may be happening in the community in which you live. Do you
All review material can be sent
know of an exciting show or ex- to hibition opening? Is there an art
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collective in your city that de- CDs and films to 2732B Agua serves some press? Are you a
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musician, have a band, or are
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a filmmaker? Send us your CD, returned to you include return movie, or titles of upcoming re- postage and packaging. Entries leases which you’d like to see
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reviewed in KNACK. We believe
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the KNACK community—no mat- proper time for assignment and ter if you live in the New York or Los Angeles, Montreal or Mexico.
review. We look forward to seeing and hearing your work.
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