Author Archives: the LIFESTYLE

Contours, Part I: Lamp with Plant

Lamp with Plant is the first installation in Contours, a series of drawings that I’ll be developing over the next several weeks. This series is based on methods of blind contour drawing, which involves drawing contours, or outlines, of forms while looking at subjects, without looking down at the paper or lifting pen from paper. Being “blind” to the drawing process essentially breaks the connection between seeing and drawing and leaves them physically isolated from each other. This makes it necessary to attempt to re-create that connection by focusing on seeing as if you were drawing, and then drawing that vision. Blind contour is often used simply as practice to strengthen the eye/hand connection, but I find the resulting drawings very truthful in their structure, layout, and irregularities. Contours will show my Reflection and Response interactions with various people, places, and things through focused and “blind” studies.

Reflection and Response.

V.

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Snapshots From the Collective

Radio Leon (Robledo de Fenar, León, España) by Peter Muller

 

Reflection and Response.

The Snapshots from the Collective series works to create a space for Reflection and Response through photography. ANYone who wants to contribute ANY photos to this project can email us submissions at the.lifestyle.rr@gmail.com. One photo will be posted each week, and photos will only be used for the purposes of this series. Thank you and we look forward to building and expanding the Collective!!! -P & V

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Reflection and Response: The Zine (Pre-Release)

Reflection and Response: The Zine, Volume I is a project we have been working on for the past couple months. This collection of thought, craft, and experience is rooted in the processes of Reflection and Response through the artS. We decided to compile many of the installations from the first 9 months of our Feature series into a pressable format in order to fully appreciate and expand the timeless dialogue that these artists have engaged in. the LIFESTYLE collective presents this Volume with hopes of building further dialogue, collaboration, action, and artistic exchange locally and globally.

Thank you all for your continued support and lookout for the official release coming up soon! The Zines will be available for FREE distribution anywhere.

Reflection and Response.

P & V

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Snapshots from the Collective

THE NEW OFFICE by Peter Muller

Reflection and Response.

The Snapshots from the Collective series works to create a space for Reflection and Response through photography. ANYone who wants to contribute ANY photos to this project can email us submissions at the.lifestyle.rr@gmail.com. One photo will be posted each week, and photos will only be used for the purposes of this series. Thank you and we look forward to building and expanding the Collective!!! -P & V

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The Porch Swing: WORD of the day

WORD of the day XIII.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, Jim Natale.

Time n. 1) a: The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues. b: a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future. 2) the point or period when something occurs 3) a: An appointed, fixed, or customary moment or hour for something to happen, begin, or end. b: an opportune or suitable moment—often used in the phrase about time. 4) a: a historical period. b: a division of geologic chronology. c: conditions at present or at some specified period —usually used in plural. d: The present time. 5) a: Lifetime. b: A period of apprenticeship: a term of military serviced : a prison sentence. 6) Season. 7) a: Rate of speed: Tempo. b: The grouping of the beats of music: Rhythm.  8) a: A moment, hour, day, or year as indicated by a clock or calendar. b: Any of various systems (as sidereal or solar) of reckoning time. 9) a: One of a series of recurring instances or repeated actions: added or accumulated quantities or instances: equal fractional parts of which an indicated number equal a comparatively greater quantity.10) Finite as contrasted with infinite duration. 11) A person’s experience during a specified period or on a particular occasion.

WORD of the day: Time

 

Time why do I feel like I never have enough of you?

Do you love me or do you resent me?

Face twisting and turning in mockery of my dependence,

My chained link to your ebbed flow.

The wise say knock, and knock I hath,

Woe is you time! Woe is you!!

 

Time turning, a winced face

 winding, winding, winding

 

How you move so fast at times and other times so slow,

yet the same duration past; I’ll never quite understand.

 

Watches, bells, Grandfathers, straps, chains, cogs, batteries, faces, accessories, etc.

Tools designed to satisfy our fetish with time.

 

A vertigo of characters and chambers constantly in motion;

Seconds churning, turning hours into years, trading years in for memories.

 

Cuu-Cuu, Cuu-Cuu. Cuu-Cuu…

 

 

Past,

 A time far removed; a lover never to be held again, an expired love affair.

 

Here just a second ago, right here in hand

Always a trickster; the slyest of foxes, shifting, sifting, sliding out of any situation.

 

Now thinking about it, has it ever really been seen?

A ghostly matter, haunting the brain, plaguing the folds of our minds.

 

Still never to be caught nor held,

Not for one damned second.

 

Cuu-Cuu, Cuu-Cuu.

 

 

Just as aloof, the future maintains its own allure.

A tendency to tease, to feed on the hopes of day dreams

 

The unfolding of time, revealing of events and encounters unpredictable.

An elusive archer, aimed right in your direction…

 

Never promised and hardly ever kept to words.

Just outside the jurisdiction of the tangible.

 

Oh but the taste, the feeling, I can almost swear I’ve had it before.

Delusion; A fantasy so sweet nonetheless.

 

Cuu-Cuu, Cuu-Cuu. Cuu-Cuu, Cuu-Cuu.

 

 

Ah yes, the present.

A familiar face, a friend to us all.

 

Like one of those friends that come over and kicks their feet up on your kitchen table an shit.

Keep your eye on this one though.

 

One second it’s right in front of you, one blink and it’s gone or has a whole new look.

Simple as that.

 

The wedge between the future yet to come and the past gone too fast.

 

Its like that road runner moving along to fast to ever catch,

Constantly dropping anvils and TNT sticks on all our diabolic plans to catch it, to CAGE it, to hold onto it and slow roast it.

 

Never quite works like that, it only stops long enough to poke out a taunting tongue, then ZOOM.

And we’re left there just looking WILE-E

 

Cuu-Cuu.

 

 

And where do we fit into this?

Into all the complicated webs of chronology, these contraptions and interactions?

 

Thus far each one of us to determine that, to recognize for ourselves.

As for me, well…

 

 I’m that character that peeks out ever so often, just checking in on things

Never late, still never quite on time, unpredictable. Yes, that fellow, that’s me.

 

 

Not a necessity to the maze, however a great addition…

I’m that little character that pops out just to show you simply how crazy time is…

 

No name, I just am that I am.

That little fellow, yes that’s me.

 

Cuu-Cuu. Cuu-Cuu.

 

 

Maybe I’m crazy, you think?

Humph, only time will tell…

 

 

Cuu-Cuu.

Reflection and Response.

Samuel Bostick

@THEREALSHANTS

the LIFESTYLE’s role is to create collective space for active Reflection and Response through the arts. This space is built around dialogue, expression, collaboration, and artistic (ex)change involving international craftspeople and their realities. The Porch Swing series opens up a Reflection and Response residency where we feature a Collective member’s ongoing project through weekly installations.

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Shake This Maze: Tools of the Trade VIDEO

It’s been a long time comin, but today marks the release of our Shake This Maze Tools of the Trade VIDEO!! With this project we have taken our Patchwork audio-visual collaboration approach and applied it to itself.

The video content was filmed throughout the process of handcrafting the album cases for Shake This Maze. This documents the stages of cutting, stenciling, writing, folding, gluing, and packaging that went into bringing the 100 physical copies of STM to life.

Meanwhile, about a month ago, P brought out a couple of creative remixes that he based off of various tracks from the album. One of these remixes appears in the soundtrack of the video, along with a few other cuts from the album.

From the Leon studio to the Brooklyn workbench, from music to art, the Tools of the Trade Video sees the Patchwork process double down on itself and spin out through film.

This is a LIFESTYLE studios production.

Shake This Maze: Tools of the Trade from the LIFESTYLE on Vimeo.

Here’s an additional link for YouTube.

Much love to yall for the support!

Reflection and Response.

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Radio Leon #1

Radio Leon is a summer project. For the months of July and August I will be working a bilingual summer camp in the small Spanish town of Robledo de Fenar. I’ve brought some of my equipment from Madrid including my laptop, Akai MPK Mini, Novation Launchpad, Mics, Apogee One Interface, and acoustic guitar. On my days off I’ll be putting together a Broadcast of various projects I’ve been working on and release an episode every two weeks. Some of the pieces I’ll be putting up include Looping, Acoustic Guitar pieces, Shake This Maze Live From the Studio, and some special surprises. Along with the audio, I’ll release Tools of the Trade pictures and various Snapshots documenting the process and places that make up Radio Leon. I also hope to have some interviews with local DJ’s and people from the area. Tune in and check the RR coming straight out of Robledo de Fenar, España.

“I’m currently sitting on an overturned bulldozer head…”

-Reflection and Response.

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Feature: Steve Laciak

Steve Laciak is a multifaceted and multitalented musician. Upon graduating from Shenandoah Conservatory with a major in Jazz Studies, Steve has been writing, recording, teaching, and performing throughout the United States and abroad. His last few years have been spent in the Northern California town of Alameda, across the bay from San Fransisco. There he has been developing his own music in addition to playing with Motown legend Martha Reeves and the group A Gozar featuring cajon player Rene Escovido. Check the Reflection and Response Interview below and Steve’s Soundcloud to listen in on a True Artist.

Leading off with some basics, where are you from? And where are you at?

SL: I’m from back East, born in St. Paul but raised in upstate NY. After studying Jazz in VA I toured Europe and the Caribbean before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. Being fortunate enough to travel and be exposed to many different cultures, deeper than surface levels of tourist traps, I have recognized the importance of music to people around the world. It is a universal expression, but also helps shape a culture’s identity. It transcends every distinction that has evolved throughout human history, and yet it continues to keep us connected despite our limited understanding of language, sound or music. We do not need to “understand” the music to enjoy it or for it to affect us.

What does Reflection and Response mean to you? How does your music fit in with that definition?

SL:  As an artist, I’m often consciously addressing issues of the day on a trans-personal or a personal level. We voice concerns that are shared by our friends, families, community or cultures, as a loud speaker. Throughout history, movements either political or social, have been accompanied by musical movements. Music has wide ranging affects from calming to exciting, consoling to galvanizing, it can be therapeutic and it can bring tears. I feel it my responsibility to share music that blesses me with everyone I can. There is so much wonderful music already in the world, that it’s difficult to be familiar with it all. With so much new music or music yet to be written, it’s important to remember our musical heritage and traditions while we embrace the new. I love sharing the gift of music, continuing the tradition that has always existed, and if this is not the responsibility of artist then who’s is it?

When I reflect on the divine nature of music it becomes obvious how powerful it is. The more music we can appreciate, or begin to appreciate, the more ways we open ourselves to to the wonderful joy and blessings that music gives. We can benefit in ways we may not fully understand, but our lives become enriched from it regardless.

What else have you been working on recently? What are you looking to work on next?

SL: I’ve been working on a new EP; it should be out this summer. It’s along the indie folk acoustic tip. We were in studio this week working on “Big Shot”, the most country sounding song on the EP, and we recorded the guitar solo as a conversation between myself and the engineer, Jim Hawthorne. He’s an amazing guitarist so we traded phrases back and forth and finished with a harmonized line ala Chet Atkins! I’m hoping to get some airplay with this new CD and garner some national attention.

 Is there anything else you would like the Collective to know?

SL: I’m moving from my home 12 years in the bay area to Tennessee, next month. It’s a very exciting time in my life! I’m looking forward to what the immediate future has in store.

Tennessee Lullaby by Steve Laciak

Check out Steve’s Facebook profile and Soundcloud for updates and recordings!

Reflection and Response.

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Snapshots from the Collective

Untitled by Danny Kaufman

Reflection and Response.

The Snapshots from the Collective series works to create a space for Reflection and Response through photography. ANYone who wants to contribute ANY photos to this project can email us submissions at the.lifestyle.rr@gmail.com. One photo will be posted each week, and photos will only be used for the purposes of this series. Thank you and we look forward to building and expanding the Collective!!! -P & V

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The Porch Swing: WORD of the day

WORD of the day XII. Weekly installations from the ink of Samuel Bostick‘s pen!!

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, Jim Natale.

Idle adj. 1) Lacking worth or basis. 2) Not occupied or employed—inactive, not turned to normal or appropriate use. 3) Not scheduled to compete. 4) Having no evident means of support; shiftless, lazy.

WORD of the Day: Idle

A wise woman spoke, “Idle hands are the devils workplace…”

How much more an idle mind?

To be of purposeful orientation, yet lacking soul’s inspiration

Is there more stagnant a situation?

Sleep being the cousin of death, a brief breath of immortal rest

Why rush to the inevitable end?

I’ve watched it happen, seen the way it creeps. That sluggardly infection spreading from one to the next. Laziness is a disease; a contagious pathogen with schemes to hijack the mind’s creativity. Enters through the eyes, as they are the door to the soul; once seated it multiplies. A cancerous cell spawned of viral source. Idle chatter, idle thoughts, idle actions; I renounce these.

Beware!

Take care not to consume the commodity they call idle time. Stay active, stay productive, use your mind! Get up! Use your two legs, get out and walk you who are lame of ambition. I give you my word, be it my legs were no more than pegs I would not stop my walk, if it were a jake in my step still I would move. To desire and never have— hell on earth for those lazy. Not all dreams come true, still all labor does have its yield. Idleness is not an option. Not when you’re on a mission.

A society where labor is looked down upon. ‘Save that for the slaves and undesirables, we the bourgeois decree’ says the establishments that be. ‘This calls for reconnaissance of the proletariat state’ respond the people.

Power.

Regain the soul’s intuition; it knows the truth that lay in your heart. Why wait for tomorrow to begin what today you can start. Not even the next moment is promised. Unchain the brain from the mainstream, cut the cord from the TV, and axe the microwave. Bring nutrition back to life, work towards your goals, grounded in belief, and exhibit the change you want to see.

Live life.

Reflection and Response.

Samuel Bostick

@THEREALSHANTS

the LIFESTYLE’s role is to create collective space for active Reflection and Response through the arts. This space is built around dialogue, expression, collaboration, and artistic (ex)change involving international craftspeople and their realities. The Porch Swing series opens up a Reflection and Response residency where we feature a Collective member’s ongoing project through weekly installations.

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