Cartoons are often reserved for the funny pages or maybe the New Yorker, so if you saw some of Michelle LeFade's work for the first time, you could be forgiven for feeling like they don't belong in either. The stories they tell, and the manner in which she tells them don't often resort to word bubbles or ellipses. Instead, it's the line and the thickness of the brushstroke, the hyperbolic nature of the character's bodies or the wry smiles they wear that tell you more about what's going on in the frame. 

It's for reasons like these, along with a host of other more varied examples, that I wanted to invite cartoonist, illustrator and visual artist Michelle LeFade onto Mind to Make. I wanted to find out where Michelle got her style from, how it's evolved, what of herself she puts into that work, and where she's diverging from that path? 

In the interview we discuss the answers to the aforementioned questions, as well as the importance of staying true to your own perspective and how retaining your own voice can be the inlet to your own creative discovery and peace of mind. We talk about what it means to become a “professional” artist, and the role that social media is now playing in that process. Related to that subject, we discuss how time influences branding and the importance of staying true to your artistic vision through the rebranding process. Michelle talks about playing with audience perception, scale, form, minimalism and balance in her work and how she manipulates her practice due to necessity and how she still makes it work for her. 

Other topics include fetish, the feminine and the sexualization of women in art, using yourself as a subject, retaining old ideas as fuel for impeding creative blocks, and the single-minded focus that comes from working with ink and brush.

MICHELLE LEFADE 

Instagram: @mainmitch

 

MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE

Aaliyah - O.I.A.M. (D. Matthew's other bootleg)
Missy Elliot & Janet Jackson - Burn It Up (BOT SHUDDIDOWN Edit)
Missy Elliot - Lose Control (Machinedrum Remix)
N.E.R.D & Rihanna - Lemon (BSNYEA Edit)

This week on Mind to Make, I'm speaking with visual artist and film maker Oliver Husain. Oliver is the creator of MTM logo (yeah!) and his pieces involve image, sculpture, movement and textile. In this interview we discuss the importance of training to underscore your practice. We discuss Oliver’s early influences, his humbling and educational experiences connecting with artists in other cultures and how the spaces you create in and show your work in change the context in which you see that work. For Oliver, perspectives ultimately remain constant despite the inspiratory sources we encounter, but technology is a tool he uses to breath new life into his work. Lastly we discuss the importance of not defining what art means and why being sure and safe are perhaps the biggest obstacles to achieving your artistic goals.

Music throughout the podcast was taken from Oliver Husain's films - Green Dolphin and Isla Santa Maria 3D (Sound design/Music by Michelle Irving) which can be found along with the rest of Oliver's portfolio at http://www.husain.de/

If you're in Toronto between May 10th - June 16th, you can catch Oliver's latest show French Exit at the Susan Hobbs gallery

 

OLIVER HUSAIN BIO

Working at the intersection of moving image, performance, sculpture and installation, Oliver Husain has developed a captivating and curious art practice. Oliver Husain (1969, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto. He came to Canada in 2006 having completed a short-film trilogy set in Shanghai, Jakarta and Hyderabad. Husain studied fine art at the University of Baroda in India, and holds a BA and an MFA from HfG Offenbach, Germany. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Gallery TPW, Toronto; Western Front, Vancouver; Art Gallery of York University, Toronto; and Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany (with DaGroup). His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto (2016), Art Museum at the University of Toronto; Depth of Perception (2015), Oakville Galleries; Qual und Wahl (2013), Kunstverein Wolfsburg; Blowing on a Hairy Shoulder/Grief Hunters (2011), ICA Philadelphia; and Q (2005), Para Site, Hong Kong. His films have been screened at numerous international events, including Toronto International Film Festival; Experimenta Festival, Bangalore; Malaysian Video Awards, Kuala Lumpur; New Generations Independent Indian Film Festival, Frankfurt; and San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. A monograph on his work, Spoiler Alert, was published in 2012.

AIR DATE: APRIL 23th, 2018

On the 3rd episode of Mind To Make, I sit down with pretty and pun-y fashion designer and drag queen Buzz. I wanted to have Buzz on the show because since having been introduced to the world of drag, I’ve been astounded by the numerous disciplines it involves, from performance to design and how consistently creative the artists in that world have to be to compete. This is no different for Buzz. Buzz’s bio reads as follows…

Buzz is an emerging fashion thing who runs a label called ReBaie by Rebée. ReBaie was born in the mall (proverbially and otherwise), and currently converges at the fun n' funky intersection of tween-ness, me-ness and Venus. Buzz is on the bored of some stuff and never salts her driveway before she tastes it.

Though Buzz doesn’t spend as much time in that world these days, we discuss her secretive introduction to fashion and drag and the sometimes sticky relationship between familial expectations and the need to pursue art. 

We talk about how fashion changes your perceived role in society both internally and externally and what it means to put yourself into your art both literally and figuratively. We discuss breaking through societal norms and what it means to develop your brand means and how it can evolve over time. As you can discern from Buzz’s bio, the worlds of drag and fashion is are permeated by a strong sense of humour and self-deprecation and we talk about how that’s influenced Buzz’s work.

Finally, we talk about Buzz's perspective on being a millennial in the art world.