Contributors
Penelope August (Pegasus) designs interiors and furniture for an architecture firm by day. At night she makes things with her hands. She often works in mediums that require a transformation by fire or sun, where the end result is not entirely in her control. She has been working with clay for 22 years. She has 84 houseplants. She lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with her husband.
Anne Beck (Andean Pampas Grass & Cotton Rag Paper) is a curator, educator, and artist working collaboratively and independently in a variety of media, ranging from painting to print- and book-making to public intervention. She holds an M.F.A. in painting from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in Printmaking and Art History from the University of Virginia. Beck lives and works in Northern California where she is director of Lost Coast Culture Machine, a contemporary art space and handmade paper mill that focuses on interdisciplinary sustainable creative practice Beck co-founded the space with Dietmar Krumrey in 2010. Beck's paper will serve as the background for each of Works & Days Quarterly's 2014 issues. Her work may be found online at www.anastomose.net.
Ashley Suzan Beck (Recipes: Salt of the Earth) was raised in Newport Beach, California, where she inherited her love for the kitchen from her Armenian mother and grandmother. Beck received her B.A. from New York University and most recently worked for the Marcus Samuelsson Group. She is returning to NYU to pursue a Master's of Science degree in Clinical Nutrition. When not studying or testing new recipes, she fancies running along the East River, knitting, reading Fitzgerald, and dining out with friends. She lives in Brooklyn with her Morkie, Coco, and can be followed on Twitter @AshleySuzan.
Vivian Beer (Desert Design Lab) is a furniture designer/maker in New England. She tiptoes through contemporary design, craft, and sculptural aesthetics, sampling from each one. Her collections include the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Brooklyn Museum, public art for Portland, Maine and Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art and was a resident artist at SUNY Purchase, SDSU and Penland School in North Carolina. This summer, she will be a research fellow at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum studying the history of American aeronautical design as an inspiration for her next series of furniture. Follow her work at vivianbeer.tumblr.com.
Sarah Katrina Bland (Calligraphy) pens calligraphy at www.nyccalligraphy.com and holds a dual M.F.A. in writing and performing from CalArts. She does better when she's around people. Small groups, you know. Structure.
Kit Boyd (Etchings) is a London-based artist following in the British romantic tradition. His etchings capture the mystery and strangeness of real and imagined landscapes, as exemplified by Samuel Palmer and the neo-romantic artists of the 1940s. Inspired by the landscapes of Shropshire and mid-Wales where he studied, lived, and visits regularly, there is sometimes a surreal edge to these bucolic images. Kit produces unique hand-coloured versions of the editioned etchings using watercolour and inks to create different atmospheres redolent of a particular time of day and year. He shows with several London printmaking galleries and the Rebecca Hossack Gallery. To see more, visit www.kitboyd.com.
Even on the coldest of winter NYC days, The Cabana Kids (Just Let Me Know) transport you to their world of sunshine, ocean waves, and surfboard harmonies. Formed in early 2013, The Cabana Kids are a collective born of friendships old and new. Founding member Joseph Lee had been friends with drummer Joe Zdaa and lead guitarist Curtis Williams through the LES music scene for years. With Zdaa and Williams already on board and Lindsey Hufnagle for percussion and backing vocals, Lee began looking for a female singer to complement his vocal. With a little help from above, Hannah Morris was introduced through a mutual friend at a local hangout where Kiki Karamintzas worked. The Cabana Kids have their first 5-title EP scheduled to be released in September on Small Plates Records. To hear more of their music, visit http://thecabanakids.bandcamp.com.
Matthew Coulter (Papeete Beach) grew up in Melbourne, Australia. After studying photography, he relocated to London and then to New York City, where he worked as an assistant to a wide range of fashion photographers. After a stint in the Motherland, spent capturing the natural beauty of the east coast of Australia, he has relocated to London.
Michel François (Ecosystem) was born in 1956 in Saint-Trond, Belgium and lives and works in Brussels. Recent solo exhibitions include CRAC Centre Régionald'ArtContemporain Languedoc-Roussillon, Sète, France (2012); Ecolenationalesupérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (2012); IAC, Villeurbanne, France (2010); Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland (2009); SMAK, Ghent, Belgium for which he also proposed the curatorial project Faux Jumeaux (2009); Macba, Barcelona, Spain (2009); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2000) and Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2000). His work has been included in numerous important exhibitions such as Documenta IX (1992), the São Paolo Biennial XXII (1994), the 48th Venice Biennial (1999) and Sonsbeek 2008, and amongst other collaborations, he has often designed sets for the eminent choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.
Daniel Greenfield (Impossible Tourisms) is an artist and architect based in New York City. Exploring themes of identity, memory and place he attempts to recreate ideas about home and belonging through fictive landscapes and imagined spaces. He holds architecture degrees from Yale University and Pratt Institute.
Field Kallop (and upon each stood a siren, borne around in its revolution) was born and raised in New York City, where she currently lives and works. She received a B.A. in Art History from Princeton University and an M.F.A. in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. In addition to making drawings and paintings in her studio, Field creates installational works in gallery and museum settings that explore her fascination with math, physics, and astronomy.
Lucía Madriz (32 genes), was born in San José, Costa Rica; currently, she lives in Ettlingen, Germany. Her artistic output spans painting, video, and installation. She has participated in several biennials and other collective exhibits as well as solo shows. Recently, Madriz exhibited at IILA Pavilion of Latin America at the 55th Bienale de Venezia (2013), and Child of Three, a solo show at DesPacio, San José, Costa Rica (2014).
Anthony X. Marriage (Her Costumes Change) is a vagabond fond of islands, archipelagos, and far-off places: Alaska, Cuba, New Zealand, and Haiti. He holds an M.A. in Modern Letters from the University of Tulsa. His work has been featured in The Walt Whitman Review. He currently resides on the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona.
Mariko Nakatani (Bangkok Ceviche) is a New York City attorney, a connoisseur of the midwest's best Japanese restaurants, and a maker of sausage—delicious, delicious sausage. Nakatani hails from Osaka, Japan, and moved just outside of Pittsburgh, PA when she was seven. Her love of cooking began as a child, when she would help her food-obsessed parents chop vegetables and stir miso soup for dinner each night. Nakatani now lives in New York City, where she has cooked in a chili competition, offers kimchi sausage in a Brooklyn food swap, and once, threw an Emergency Ham Party. Mariko also hosts periodic supper clubs in Brooklyn, and is perfecting her secret recipes for a nascent sausage and charcuterie business.
Brian Newell (Wall Cabinets) began wood carving in his parents’ Michigan basement at age eight. Performing the task with X-acto knives and great enthusiasm, he still bears the scars of his first encounter with a chunk of balsa wood. Since that time, his arsenal of tools has expanded along with his range of fantastic wood; however, his love of the work has remained constant. In 1989, he officially abandoned the University of Michigan and headed west to Fort Bragg, California, where his childhood hero James Krenov led a furniture course at the College of the Redwoods. After graduating from the Krenov school, Newell worked in Chicago as a pattern-maker for the scale model industry. By 1994, he had his own shop, making commissioned furniture along with an occasional speculation piece for Pritam & Eames Gallery in New York, and commuting between Chicago and Siena, Italy. Newell currently commutes between Japan and Fort Bragg, along with his wife, Mari, and their daughter.
Simon Perchik (Poems) is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, including free e-books, and his essay titled "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" please visit his website.
Of both British and Persian descent, Kour Pour (Paintings) grew up in the Southwest of England before moving to Los Angeles, where he earned his B.F.A. from Otis College of Art and Design in 2010. Kour Pour has participated in group exhibitions at Roberts & Tilton and Steve Turner Gallery in Los Angeles. Earlier this year, he had his first solo show at UNT/TLED in New York.
Jon Eric Riis (Locust Series) is a distinguished fiber artist whose work can be found in the collections of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Museum of Art and Design, and the Smithsonian. Riis studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, received an M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and in 1970 went to India on a Fulbright Grant to study double ikat, a highly specialized dyeing and weaving technique practiced in Gujarat. During a career that has spanned more than four decades, Riis has exhibited his work in museums around the world and traces his passion for textiles to time spent as a child wandering Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. In 2011, he was a United States Artists Windgate Fellow and recipient of the Master of the Medium Award in Fibers bestowed by the Renwick Alliance. Locust Series is the third in a yearlong curated series of Riis’ art to be featured in Works & Days Quarterly.
Berndnaut Smilde (Antipode) lives and works in Amsterdam. He has exhibited across The Netherlands and also in Toronto, Taipei, Istanbul, Dublin, Paris, London, Rotterdam, and San Francisco. In 2013, he opened his first large scale solo exhibition in the U.S. at Land of Tomorrow in Louisville, Kentucky, and guest curated a show at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. Smilde’s work resides in both the Saatchi and the Smithsonian collections, among others. Smilde has been written about extensively in art publications; additionally his Nimbus series was recognised by TIME Magazine as one of the Top Ten Inventions of 2012?and was covered by the BBC and Reuters. Smilde had a solo exhibition at the DSM Collection in Heerlen, The Netherlands, this past autumn. His work was exhibited at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. as part of the ‘A Decade of Collecting’ exhibition last year and at SOMArts in San Francisco. Smilde is represented by Ronchini Gallery in London, where his most recent solo show, Antipode, just concluded its run.
Rudolf Stingel ("Untitled") was born in 1956 in Merano, Italy. Recent solo exhibitions include Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Trento, Italy (2001); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2004); Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2007, traveled to Whitney Museum of American Art, New York); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2010); and Wiener Secession (2012). His work was included in the Biennale di Venezia (1993, 2003); "Day for Night: Whitney Biennial," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006); "Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International," Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2008); and "Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection," Punta della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2009). Rudolf Stingel, a major exhibition in which the entire Palazzo Grassi in Venice was devoted to Stingel’s work, was on view from April 2013 to January 2014. Stingel lives and works in New York City and Merano, Italy.
Paola Tafur (Flores de Invierno) studied Visual Arts at Universidad del Valle in Cali and holds a postgraduate degree in Media and Technology for Pictorial Production from IUNA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Recent solo shows include: Emanaciones, Proartes, Cali, Colombia, 2012; Flores de Invierno, La Dársena, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2011; Museo Popular, Barrio Constitución, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2010; and Exequias, Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia, 2008. Tafur’s group shows also include: Salón Regional de Artistas, Zona Sur, Neiva/Ibagué/Pasto, 2012; Emergente, Entre Ríos, Cali, Colombia, 2011; Salón de Arte BBVA Nuevos Nombres, Bogotá/Medellín/Cali/Cartagena, Colombia, 2011; XII Salón Departamental de Artistas, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Neiva, Colombia, 2011; Imagen Regional VI, Banco de La República de Colombia, Cali/Pasto, Colombia, 2008; and Iluminaciones, Lugar a Dudas, Cali, Colombia, 2006.
Threats (Surf City Blues) is a three-piece rock and roll band comprised of lead vocalist and guitarist Jack K. Ridley III, bassist Matt Hitt, and drummer Paolo Dell’Olio. Rooted in punk rock, surf, hardcore, and filthy, Northwest-inspired grunge, the band was born in 2013 in a basement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It's a lifestyle, it's therapy, it's an outlet for everything that makes you say fuck yes—and also fuck you, said Ridley. The band’s self-titled debut album, out next month on limited-edition pressed vinyl at Glassinebox.com, was produced by Johnny T. Yerington and Gus Öberg.
Visual artist Ana Torfs (TXT (Engine of Wandering Words)) was born in Belgium in 1963. The relation and tension between language and image plays a central role in Torfs' work. Existing texts and images are often used as a starting point for her works, which constitute composed collages or montages, suffused with elliptical allusions to culture and politics. In her installations, Torfs uses a variety of media, ranging from slide projections, sound, photography, and film to xerography, off-set printing, Jacquard weaving, and silkscreen. Solo shows of Torfs' work include exhibitions at Generali Foundation, Vienna (2010); K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2010); Sprengel Museum, Hannover (2008); Argos Centre for Art and Media, Brussels (2007); Daadgalerie, Berlin (2006); GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen (2006), and at Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2000). She also developed a web project for Dia Art Foundation in New York (2004). Among her many group exhibitions, Torfs participated in The Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013), Manifesta 9 Genk, Belgium (2012); THe Montreal Biennial 2 (2000); and The Lyon Biennal 3 (1995). Torfs was awarded a DAAD scholarship. She lives and works in Brussels.
Anne Whitehouse (Smoke and Fog) is pleased that her poetry is appearing in Works & Days for the second time. Her most recent poetry collection is The Refrain, published by Dos Madres Press in 2012. Her novel, Fall Love, is now available as an ebook from Feedbooks, Smashwords, Amazon Kindle, and iTunes. www.annewhitehouse.com
Eric Wines (Recipes: Salt of the Earth, Director of Events) was raised in Detroit, Michigan and lives in New York City where he is Director at Skylight Group, NYC's premier event venue collection, and co-owner of Tre, a Neapolitan eatery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In his free time Wines enjoys biking, urban gardening, and volunteering for The Lowline. Follow him on Twitter @EricWines.
Editorial Staff
Luke Cissell (Infinite Progress) is a musician and composer who lives in Lower Manhattan. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he was a fiddling champion at the age of eight. In 2013 Cissell premiered his String Quartet No. 2 with the Hudson Quartet and he released his second full-length studio album, Cosmography. He recently appeared on Tara Hugo Sings Philip Glass (Orange Mountain Music) and performed at the New York premiere of Yves Klein’s seminal Monotone-Silence Symphony. Cissell is a 2013-2014 Teaching Artist Associate for the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program. Play with his jukebox at www.lukecissell.com.
Sarah Marriage is a maker of furniture and other fine wooden objects. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Sarah studied architecture at Princeton University and fine woodworking at The College of the Redwoods. She also serves as Art Director, Designer, Programmer, and Calligrapher for Works & Days. Her work was recently featured in Dwell On Design in Los Angeles and in Hand Made/Mind Made in the Dogpatch district of San Francisco. www.sarahmarriage.com.
Cara Marsh Sheffler (Guide) is a writer who lives on Manhattan's Lower East Side. In her past life as an actress, she was featured in Woody Allen's Celebrity and in The Looking Glass Theatre's Off-Broadway production of Much Ado About Nothing. A recipient of the Fagles Prize, she has most recently been working on Our Trespasses, and Guide. She is performing excerpts of Guide in tandem with Luke Cissell's (The Myth of) Infinite Progress around New York City. Sheffler is also providing the libretto for Cissell's adaptation of The Ambassadors. She won the White House Easter Egg Roll in 1986.
contact@works-and-days.com
Penelope August (Pegasus) designs interiors and furniture for an architecture firm by day. At night she makes things with her hands. She often works in mediums that require a transformation by fire or sun, where the end result is not entirely in her control. She has been working with clay for 22 years. She has 84 houseplants. She lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with her husband.
Anne Beck (Andean Pampas Grass & Cotton Rag Paper) is a curator, educator, and artist working collaboratively and independently in a variety of media, ranging from painting to print- and book-making to public intervention. She holds an M.F.A. in painting from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in Printmaking and Art History from the University of Virginia. Beck lives and works in Northern California where she is director of Lost Coast Culture Machine, a contemporary art space and handmade paper mill that focuses on interdisciplinary sustainable creative practice Beck co-founded the space with Dietmar Krumrey in 2010. Beck's paper will serve as the background for each of Works & Days Quarterly's 2014 issues. Her work may be found online at www.anastomose.net.
Ashley Suzan Beck (Recipes: Salt of the Earth) was raised in Newport Beach, California, where she inherited her love for the kitchen from her Armenian mother and grandmother. Beck received her B.A. from New York University and most recently worked for the Marcus Samuelsson Group. She is returning to NYU to pursue a Master's of Science degree in Clinical Nutrition. When not studying or testing new recipes, she fancies running along the East River, knitting, reading Fitzgerald, and dining out with friends. She lives in Brooklyn with her Morkie, Coco, and can be followed on Twitter @AshleySuzan.
Vivian Beer (Desert Design Lab) is a furniture designer/maker in New England. She tiptoes through contemporary design, craft, and sculptural aesthetics, sampling from each one. Her collections include the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Brooklyn Museum, public art for Portland, Maine and Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art and was a resident artist at SUNY Purchase, SDSU and Penland School in North Carolina. This summer, she will be a research fellow at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum studying the history of American aeronautical design as an inspiration for her next series of furniture. Follow her work at vivianbeer.tumblr.com.
Sarah Katrina Bland (Calligraphy) pens calligraphy at www.nyccalligraphy.com and holds a dual M.F.A. in writing and performing from CalArts. She does better when she's around people. Small groups, you know. Structure.
Kit Boyd (Etchings) is a London-based artist following in the British romantic tradition. His etchings capture the mystery and strangeness of real and imagined landscapes, as exemplified by Samuel Palmer and the neo-romantic artists of the 1940s. Inspired by the landscapes of Shropshire and mid-Wales where he studied, lived, and visits regularly, there is sometimes a surreal edge to these bucolic images. Kit produces unique hand-coloured versions of the editioned etchings using watercolour and inks to create different atmospheres redolent of a particular time of day and year. He shows with several London printmaking galleries and the Rebecca Hossack Gallery. To see more, visit www.kitboyd.com.
Even on the coldest of winter NYC days, The Cabana Kids (Just Let Me Know) transport you to their world of sunshine, ocean waves, and surfboard harmonies. Formed in early 2013, The Cabana Kids are a collective born of friendships old and new. Founding member Joseph Lee had been friends with drummer Joe Zdaa and lead guitarist Curtis Williams through the LES music scene for years. With Zdaa and Williams already on board and Lindsey Hufnagle for percussion and backing vocals, Lee began looking for a female singer to complement his vocal. With a little help from above, Hannah Morris was introduced through a mutual friend at a local hangout where Kiki Karamintzas worked. The Cabana Kids have their first 5-title EP scheduled to be released in September on Small Plates Records. To hear more of their music, visit http://thecabanakids.bandcamp.com.
Matthew Coulter (Papeete Beach) grew up in Melbourne, Australia. After studying photography, he relocated to London and then to New York City, where he worked as an assistant to a wide range of fashion photographers. After a stint in the Motherland, spent capturing the natural beauty of the east coast of Australia, he has relocated to London.
Michel François (Ecosystem) was born in 1956 in Saint-Trond, Belgium and lives and works in Brussels. Recent solo exhibitions include CRAC Centre Régionald'ArtContemporain Languedoc-Roussillon, Sète, France (2012); Ecolenationalesupérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (2012); IAC, Villeurbanne, France (2010); Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland (2009); SMAK, Ghent, Belgium for which he also proposed the curatorial project Faux Jumeaux (2009); Macba, Barcelona, Spain (2009); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2000) and Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2000). His work has been included in numerous important exhibitions such as Documenta IX (1992), the São Paolo Biennial XXII (1994), the 48th Venice Biennial (1999) and Sonsbeek 2008, and amongst other collaborations, he has often designed sets for the eminent choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.
Daniel Greenfield (Impossible Tourisms) is an artist and architect based in New York City. Exploring themes of identity, memory and place he attempts to recreate ideas about home and belonging through fictive landscapes and imagined spaces. He holds architecture degrees from Yale University and Pratt Institute.
Field Kallop (and upon each stood a siren, borne around in its revolution) was born and raised in New York City, where she currently lives and works. She received a B.A. in Art History from Princeton University and an M.F.A. in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. In addition to making drawings and paintings in her studio, Field creates installational works in gallery and museum settings that explore her fascination with math, physics, and astronomy.
Lucía Madriz (32 genes), was born in San José, Costa Rica; currently, she lives in Ettlingen, Germany. Her artistic output spans painting, video, and installation. She has participated in several biennials and other collective exhibits as well as solo shows. Recently, Madriz exhibited at IILA Pavilion of Latin America at the 55th Bienale de Venezia (2013), and Child of Three, a solo show at DesPacio, San José, Costa Rica (2014).
Anthony X. Marriage (Her Costumes Change) is a vagabond fond of islands, archipelagos, and far-off places: Alaska, Cuba, New Zealand, and Haiti. He holds an M.A. in Modern Letters from the University of Tulsa. His work has been featured in The Walt Whitman Review. He currently resides on the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona.
Mariko Nakatani (Bangkok Ceviche) is a New York City attorney, a connoisseur of the midwest's best Japanese restaurants, and a maker of sausage—delicious, delicious sausage. Nakatani hails from Osaka, Japan, and moved just outside of Pittsburgh, PA when she was seven. Her love of cooking began as a child, when she would help her food-obsessed parents chop vegetables and stir miso soup for dinner each night. Nakatani now lives in New York City, where she has cooked in a chili competition, offers kimchi sausage in a Brooklyn food swap, and once, threw an Emergency Ham Party. Mariko also hosts periodic supper clubs in Brooklyn, and is perfecting her secret recipes for a nascent sausage and charcuterie business.
Brian Newell (Wall Cabinets) began wood carving in his parents’ Michigan basement at age eight. Performing the task with X-acto knives and great enthusiasm, he still bears the scars of his first encounter with a chunk of balsa wood. Since that time, his arsenal of tools has expanded along with his range of fantastic wood; however, his love of the work has remained constant. In 1989, he officially abandoned the University of Michigan and headed west to Fort Bragg, California, where his childhood hero James Krenov led a furniture course at the College of the Redwoods. After graduating from the Krenov school, Newell worked in Chicago as a pattern-maker for the scale model industry. By 1994, he had his own shop, making commissioned furniture along with an occasional speculation piece for Pritam & Eames Gallery in New York, and commuting between Chicago and Siena, Italy. Newell currently commutes between Japan and Fort Bragg, along with his wife, Mari, and their daughter.
Simon Perchik (Poems) is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, including free e-books, and his essay titled "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" please visit his website.
Of both British and Persian descent, Kour Pour (Paintings) grew up in the Southwest of England before moving to Los Angeles, where he earned his B.F.A. from Otis College of Art and Design in 2010. Kour Pour has participated in group exhibitions at Roberts & Tilton and Steve Turner Gallery in Los Angeles. Earlier this year, he had his first solo show at UNT/TLED in New York.
Jon Eric Riis (Locust Series) is a distinguished fiber artist whose work can be found in the collections of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Museum of Art and Design, and the Smithsonian. Riis studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, received an M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and in 1970 went to India on a Fulbright Grant to study double ikat, a highly specialized dyeing and weaving technique practiced in Gujarat. During a career that has spanned more than four decades, Riis has exhibited his work in museums around the world and traces his passion for textiles to time spent as a child wandering Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. In 2011, he was a United States Artists Windgate Fellow and recipient of the Master of the Medium Award in Fibers bestowed by the Renwick Alliance. Locust Series is the third in a yearlong curated series of Riis’ art to be featured in Works & Days Quarterly.
Berndnaut Smilde (Antipode) lives and works in Amsterdam. He has exhibited across The Netherlands and also in Toronto, Taipei, Istanbul, Dublin, Paris, London, Rotterdam, and San Francisco. In 2013, he opened his first large scale solo exhibition in the U.S. at Land of Tomorrow in Louisville, Kentucky, and guest curated a show at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. Smilde’s work resides in both the Saatchi and the Smithsonian collections, among others. Smilde has been written about extensively in art publications; additionally his Nimbus series was recognised by TIME Magazine as one of the Top Ten Inventions of 2012?and was covered by the BBC and Reuters. Smilde had a solo exhibition at the DSM Collection in Heerlen, The Netherlands, this past autumn. His work was exhibited at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. as part of the ‘A Decade of Collecting’ exhibition last year and at SOMArts in San Francisco. Smilde is represented by Ronchini Gallery in London, where his most recent solo show, Antipode, just concluded its run.
Rudolf Stingel ("Untitled") was born in 1956 in Merano, Italy. Recent solo exhibitions include Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Trento, Italy (2001); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2004); Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2007, traveled to Whitney Museum of American Art, New York); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2010); and Wiener Secession (2012). His work was included in the Biennale di Venezia (1993, 2003); "Day for Night: Whitney Biennial," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006); "Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International," Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2008); and "Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection," Punta della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2009). Rudolf Stingel, a major exhibition in which the entire Palazzo Grassi in Venice was devoted to Stingel’s work, was on view from April 2013 to January 2014. Stingel lives and works in New York City and Merano, Italy.
Paola Tafur (Flores de Invierno) studied Visual Arts at Universidad del Valle in Cali and holds a postgraduate degree in Media and Technology for Pictorial Production from IUNA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Recent solo shows include: Emanaciones, Proartes, Cali, Colombia, 2012; Flores de Invierno, La Dársena, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2011; Museo Popular, Barrio Constitución, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2010; and Exequias, Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia, 2008. Tafur’s group shows also include: Salón Regional de Artistas, Zona Sur, Neiva/Ibagué/Pasto, 2012; Emergente, Entre Ríos, Cali, Colombia, 2011; Salón de Arte BBVA Nuevos Nombres, Bogotá/Medellín/Cali/Cartagena, Colombia, 2011; XII Salón Departamental de Artistas, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Neiva, Colombia, 2011; Imagen Regional VI, Banco de La República de Colombia, Cali/Pasto, Colombia, 2008; and Iluminaciones, Lugar a Dudas, Cali, Colombia, 2006.
Threats (Surf City Blues) is a three-piece rock and roll band comprised of lead vocalist and guitarist Jack K. Ridley III, bassist Matt Hitt, and drummer Paolo Dell’Olio. Rooted in punk rock, surf, hardcore, and filthy, Northwest-inspired grunge, the band was born in 2013 in a basement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It's a lifestyle, it's therapy, it's an outlet for everything that makes you say fuck yes—and also fuck you, said Ridley. The band’s self-titled debut album, out next month on limited-edition pressed vinyl at Glassinebox.com, was produced by Johnny T. Yerington and Gus Öberg.
Visual artist Ana Torfs (TXT (Engine of Wandering Words)) was born in Belgium in 1963. The relation and tension between language and image plays a central role in Torfs' work. Existing texts and images are often used as a starting point for her works, which constitute composed collages or montages, suffused with elliptical allusions to culture and politics. In her installations, Torfs uses a variety of media, ranging from slide projections, sound, photography, and film to xerography, off-set printing, Jacquard weaving, and silkscreen. Solo shows of Torfs' work include exhibitions at Generali Foundation, Vienna (2010); K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2010); Sprengel Museum, Hannover (2008); Argos Centre for Art and Media, Brussels (2007); Daadgalerie, Berlin (2006); GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen (2006), and at Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2000). She also developed a web project for Dia Art Foundation in New York (2004). Among her many group exhibitions, Torfs participated in The Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013), Manifesta 9 Genk, Belgium (2012); THe Montreal Biennial 2 (2000); and The Lyon Biennal 3 (1995). Torfs was awarded a DAAD scholarship. She lives and works in Brussels.
Anne Whitehouse (Smoke and Fog) is pleased that her poetry is appearing in Works & Days for the second time. Her most recent poetry collection is The Refrain, published by Dos Madres Press in 2012. Her novel, Fall Love, is now available as an ebook from Feedbooks, Smashwords, Amazon Kindle, and iTunes. www.annewhitehouse.com
Eric Wines (Recipes: Salt of the Earth, Director of Events) was raised in Detroit, Michigan and lives in New York City where he is Director at Skylight Group, NYC's premier event venue collection, and co-owner of Tre, a Neapolitan eatery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In his free time Wines enjoys biking, urban gardening, and volunteering for The Lowline. Follow him on Twitter @EricWines.
Editorial Staff
Luke Cissell (Infinite Progress) is a musician and composer who lives in Lower Manhattan. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he was a fiddling champion at the age of eight. In 2013 Cissell premiered his String Quartet No. 2 with the Hudson Quartet and he released his second full-length studio album, Cosmography. He recently appeared on Tara Hugo Sings Philip Glass (Orange Mountain Music) and performed at the New York premiere of Yves Klein’s seminal Monotone-Silence Symphony. Cissell is a 2013-2014 Teaching Artist Associate for the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program. Play with his jukebox at www.lukecissell.com.
Sarah Marriage is a maker of furniture and other fine wooden objects. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Sarah studied architecture at Princeton University and fine woodworking at The College of the Redwoods. She also serves as Art Director, Designer, Programmer, and Calligrapher for Works & Days. Her work was recently featured in Dwell On Design in Los Angeles and in Hand Made/Mind Made in the Dogpatch district of San Francisco. www.sarahmarriage.com.
Cara Marsh Sheffler (Guide) is a writer who lives on Manhattan's Lower East Side. In her past life as an actress, she was featured in Woody Allen's Celebrity and in The Looking Glass Theatre's Off-Broadway production of Much Ado About Nothing. A recipient of the Fagles Prize, she has most recently been working on Our Trespasses, and Guide. She is performing excerpts of Guide in tandem with Luke Cissell's (The Myth of) Infinite Progress around New York City. Sheffler is also providing the libretto for Cissell's adaptation of The Ambassadors. She won the White House Easter Egg Roll in 1986.
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