how to make the highest-quality image,” Raafi says. “I always admired friends or collaborators who start with the idea. I’m trying now to work explicitly in concepts. I used to be concerned with making a slick cut; now I’m much more concerned with what I’m communicating. I think that artists who serve ideas first have more to say, so I’ve been trying to build that into my process earlier. That doesn’t come naturally to me, though.” One such artist that Raafi admires is Joe Carini, a high-end carpet maker in Tribeca. Joe travels the world collecting the finest materials for his rugs and tapestries, which retail in the tens of thousands of dollars. When Joe turned to Raafi for advertising inspiration, Raafi took him to an unlikely location. The Gowanus “Bat Cave” in Brooklyn is the abandoned central power station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit. It has since become an illicit hub for inspired graffiti artists and a hideout for homeless of all ages. Grit, grime, street art and detritus cover the walls and floors. The contrast between the location and Joe’s carpets was alarming. “Joe was game,” Raafi laughs. “He crawled into the Bat Cave with me and rolled out one of his $20,000 carpets onto the floor, which was covered in God-knows-what. He has the sensibilities of a young man who can find inspiration anywhere. I admire his ability to keep his mind alive. He’s my hero.”
Outside of his work at the Color Machine, Raafi is developing a feature film that he hopes to begin filming this spring. He’s been writing the heist movie, How to Steal, over the last two years. His previous short film, Their Eyes Were Watching Gummy Bears, is a coming-of-age comedy about two young African Americans about to graduate from Princeton. It has played in competition at more than 15 film festivals. “When you’re used to creating films for ad agencies, your goal is three minutes or less. Working on a feature film, and walking onto the same set five days in a row, you’re able to draw connections between scenes rather than just executing one premise. Filming day after day is a test of your skills; it means getting past abstract apprehensions and getting elbow-deep in the elements of film itself—the actors, cameras, lighting, location, script—and actually making something. “Film work combines many creative disciplines—writing, photography, costumes, music—which means compelling conversations with lots of smart, talented people. You have access to all these different fields in one. I don’t know of anything else as dense as filmmaking. That’s why I love it.” Erin E. Berg From Their Eyes Were Watching Gummy Bears
From Downtown/Connect
From Rockhouse Foundation
From Khoi Vinh
Spring 2013 17