Trust your voice and make believe.

Los Angeles based artist Sabrina Ward Harrison has a new book coming out this month. Rather, not quite a book: more of an interactive journal/collage that encapsulates as much your creative expression and experience as it does hers.

The book, titled And the Story is Happening, is another trademark project from the artist who has approached her life and work as “[an] interplay of artwork, photography, writing and video.” What she calls “True Living.”

Her first book, Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself, was published when she was 23 and she has several other tomes to her name including Messy Thrilling Life: The Art of Figuring Out How to Live and The True and the Questions: A Journal.

We reached out to Sabrina to talk to us about her latest illustrated journal, which features written words, mixed-media artwork, and pieces of paper ephemera enclosed in a vellum pocket in the front of the book.

The paper is meant for you, the reader, providing inspiration and prompting a response with words, sketches and collages of your own.

Can you tell us a bit about your process?

I work large and loose usually on and with found materials, it keeps my processes engaging and adventuresome and without expectation.

Have you always kept a diary or journal? Journaling and collaging is a hobby or practice so many of us have experimented with, but for whatever reason – age, occupation – we stop.

I really began journaling when I was about 18. My personal opinion is to avoid starting out with precious materials, i.e. fresh white pages. Go explore and find bits and pieces of color in your neighborhood.

What materials do you use?   

Everything.

Some of the things are…house paint, India ink, oil pastel, fabric, flowers, light, water.

Do you ever fear “ugly” or second-guess yourself in assembling a personal history/collage? What often happens in journal-keeping is that awareness of the possibility of being found. Did you think about the public’s gaze at all?

I relate to that.  I go back and forth with that all the time.

Yes, I do now [consider the public’s gaze], but I believe that we must create what we most need to find and if one stays true, committing to that in a strong and meaningful way, the work becomes its own.

Your book strikes me as a particularly female – dare I say, romantic – expression. Like something Emily Brontë would have composed if she was a mixed-media artist instead of a solitary poet and novelist. Can you speak to that observation a bit?

I think that is mostly true, although I haven’t heard the reference to Emily Brontë, that is interesting.

Being a woman, being my mother’s daughter, my grandmother’s grandchild. The well that I come from is one that draws from color and texture of a female living in this world.

I would say the color and texture of my emotional landscape is feminine as well, although most of the time making, I feel very Tom Boy. I tend to want to experience the physicality of making, much more that the mental planning of the piece ahead of time. I like to dive in the adventure of the story that is happening all around me.

And the Story is Happening Now (Chronicle Books) is available for pre-order and will be officially released on April 25.

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Your search for the ultimate coffee table book is over.

Coffee table books are generally oversized pictorials about subjects as diverse as Maryland plantations or Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry collection, topics you would otherwise avoid if not for moments of pause in your in-law’s living room, medical offices and stylish friend’s dens.

These upcoming coffee table titles, however, promise to be worth more than a casual perusal – worthy, perhaps, of prime retail space on your own coffee table. They’re from the iconic bookseller Rizzoli whose various imprints publish definitive portfolios on art, architecture, interior design, photography, and more.

Author Lesley M. M. Blume has said of publisher and bookseller, regarding their flagship store in Manhattan:

“There are few treats as sumptuous as a visit to Rizzoli. Every time I walk in, I get the distinct feeling that I could happily stay forever in that oak-walled oasis on 57th Street. And I’m not the only one who feels this way; everyone in New York City speaks about Rizzoli with a particular reverence. It is a strangely nostalgic reverence – a nostalgia for something wonderful from a fine bygone era, something that no longer exists anywhere else.”

What more can be said? It’s a venerable publisher housed in a splendid bookstore, both of which are dinosaurs in our post Amazon world. Lest they too go extinct, here are seven art books, portfolios and monographs to lampoon on your coffee table in the year ahead.

Handmade Houses: A Free-Spirited Century of Earth-Friendly Home Design
Written by Richard Olsen, Photographed by Kodiak Greenwood and Lucy Goodhart
Release date: March 20, 2012

This book showcases a century of innovation and environmental sensitivity and is the first study of handmade-homes. It explores how these dwellings and their builders spearheaded today’s spirit of salvaged, reclaimed, industrial looking design.

Made in New York: Handcrafted Works by Master Artisans
Written by Nathalie Sann and Ted Sann, Foreword by Jamie Drake
Release date: April 10, 2012

As reported, the New Artisans are spawning a build-it-yourself renaissance and this book takes you inside the studios of master artisans in New York City crafting away in trades like glassblowing, masonry, wood carving, hatmaking, embroidery, and calligraphy.

Brassai: Paris by Night
Written by Brassai, Foreword by Paul Morand
Pub Date: February 14, 2012

Sixty-four pages of a 1920s nocturnal Paris photographed by Hungarian photographer, Brassaï. He photographed “its every aspect,” from police to prostitutes and the homeless to socialites.

Tomboy: Breaking the Boundaries of Fashion
Written by Lizzie Garrett Mettler
Release Date: April 10, 2012

Confident, rebellious, adventurous, bold, brazen, fierce – and sexy: all adjectives that describe Tomboy. This book investigates the mass marketing of gender stereotypes, and turns it on its head.

Fafi: The Carmine Vault
Written by Fafi
Release Date: April 10, 2012

Give your coffee table the Fafi effect. Celebrated Parisian street artist Fafi exploits female stereotypes with over-the-top, in-your-face, hyper-stylized renderings. She’s collaborated with Adidas, M.A.C cosmetics and Chanel and now her work is being presented in a lavish graphic-novel art book.

Indonesian Eye: Contemporary Indonesian Art
Written by Serenella Ciclitira
Release Date: April 24, 2012

Today’s contemporary Southeast Asian art market is being driven by Indonesia. This book presents work from seventy-five of the nation’s emerging artists and explores what differentiates them from their western counterparts.

Christian Louboutin
Written by Christian Louboutin, Foreword by John Malkovich, Contribution by Eric Reinhardt, Photographed by Philippe Garcia and David Lynch
Release Date: Now displaying on a coffee table near you.

If you don’t see yourself shelling out $500-$2,000 for a Louboutin, the gawking price is a mere $150 care of Rizzoli. The monograph is as theatrical as his shoes, with an elaborate pop-up, foldout cover, and dramatic stills photographed by David Lynch.

Prop your feet up on that.

Images: Mitch Steinmetz

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New fashion book inspires and elicits fashion industry conversation.

Logo-emblazoned tote bags and clothing and Vogue magazines more than half-filled with designer ads beg to question: Does indie design still exist? With New On The Catwalk, a coffee table compilation of fresh faced designers, readers get to explore what fashion’s future looks like. Daab Books says: “The fashion newcomers are introduced with an informative portrait and a selection of images that feature the hallmarks of their creations, bringing out the stars of tomorrow and their collections onto the open runway of fame now.”

Forty designers spanning the globe fill the book’s 400-glossy pages.  Each have produced more than two collections—one gauge for “making it.” While this number by no means accounts for the volume of independent designers sending their creations down the runway and into shops each year, it’s a shimmer of hope that indie design still has a prominent place on and off the runway.

Can creativity, however, accompany success? According to Patrice Farameh, editor of New On The Catwalk and notably a publisher, not a fashion insider, “Yes,” with a few caveats.

“Financing [the first collection] is so tough and so important for a new designer. And designers like Vivienne Westwood [by all accounts far from the indie point in her career] have to constantly ask, ‘How can I survive, keep my independence and adhere to what the buyers want?.’”

Farameh is convinced that the true art of fashion still exists. “Just look at Lady Gaga. One thing the recession has done is it’s made people very selective, and they care more about quality. People are looking for something different. I think you have a better chance now [as a designer] of standing out and making it.”

Success, free from price tags for the sake of this conversation, requires a few essentials. Simon Collins, Dean of the School of Fashion at Parsons The New School
for Design in New York City, believes a designer must unequivocally have, “Hard work ethic, absolutely incredible skills and a genuine vision.”  The last bit, he says “is something we can’t teach you. You’ve either got vision or you don’t. Our role at Parsons is to help people find their vision and articulate it.”

Indie Inspiration

Up-and-comer Long-Nam Tô, whose collection Tô Long-Nam, under his Vietnamese last-name-first nomenclature, is featured in the book.  Tô’s equally conventional and unconventional career in fashion is felt in his lines’ vision: “A man’s style for a woman.” After graduating with a Masters Degree in Fashion Design from the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin, an education he describes as “great for free time and not great for learning design,” Tô aspired to have his own line yet recognized a need for experience. Rather than apprentice for other designers as goes tradition, Tô worked as a stylist in Paris assisting the likes of Victoria Bartlett. Within a few short years, he began designing his eponymous collection. To foot the bill of his creations, he still works as a design consultant by day, a common story for many emerging designers.

“When I design, I don’t think about anyone [buyer’s needs, customer’s opinions], I just think about what is important to me. You have to if you want to stay true to your vision,” says Tô.  Not to mention, he adds, “As a young designer, success is relative, and buyers’ feedback on what you should and shouldn’t create really becomes part of a natural evolution that works so long as you keep your identity.”

Tô Long-Nam

Others, like Cushnie et Ochs have taken a more classic journey. Created by Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs, both graduates of Parsons The New School for Design, the duo racked up internships with Proenza Schouler, Marc Jacobs, Oscar De La Renta and Chado Ralph Rucci. Currently among the top ten finalists for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, you could say they’ve made it. Ochs, as a designer, looks at fashion design like an MBA. To her, “it’s 90 percent running a business. We really don’t start designing until everyone else goes home. We’ve also learned it’s all about the team. Without them, we can never create anything.”

Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs

Beyond the Runway

As cutting edge and boundary-pushing as these up and comers are purportedly free to be, the conversation around sustainability hasn’t quite run abuzz. When I ask Farameh about the sustainable practices of the young designers in her book, she notes, “I see it in fabrics and inks—a care about what they are producing.” However, when probed for examples, no designers came to mind, leading me to believe this isn’t the most topical conversation among young designers today. Tô, however, hushes with excitement, “We’re beginning to use new fabrics in our 2012 collection.  The textile manufacturers are able to reduce their water consumption by up to 40 percent. I can’t say more. It’s not ready to be released, but soon!”

Tô Long-Nam

Fashion Forward

If fashion’s future lies, as Farameh and Collins would lead us to believe, in the hands of the young creatives, sustainable design practices ought to be a given—built into the core of all design classes rather than as an add-on elective, and inspiring a new way to look at design and the life of a garment. As Farameh says, “It [fashion design] is more experimental than ever before; your fashion taste is good taste so long as you are confident.”

And, we hope, aware of the consequences of all your choices.

Image: Reviews

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