I work with Rachel at PotteryBarn. She is a stylist assistant, but also a very talented stylist herself. She Planned the shoot and had all the props ready. I can’t believe how easy this shoot was and how much great material came out of it. Don’t get me wrong, we worked hard. But it just felt right. I love these images. Enjoy!
I recently did a test shoot with Caitlin Blaze, a good friend of mine and a talented and driven stylist. We have been trying to test together for quite a while now, a few years in fact. Time passes very quickly. I really like the results. It was really fun to have no art directors or clients to worry about, and just play.
Kristina Quinones in her San Francisco SOMA Studio photographed by Thomas Kuoh
I first saw Kristina’s work when I was hunting for studio space. Her work was hanging on the wall at the Alabama Street Art Explosion Studios in San Francisco. I immediately fell in love with her work, I just stared and stared and dreamed of having enough money one day to own one of those beautiful flowing fluid waves encased in luscious translucent candy like shells. The depth and layers dance off the wall in a three dimensional illusion of motion, waves of relaxation and tension, pulling at my primal subconscious and bringing out a giddy joy that few art works have done. I did ask her years ago if I could photograph her, but her immediate refusal suggested her general disinterest in ever being photographed. So when I emailed her my project idea of photographing artists in their studio, I didn’t expect much. But when she agreed, and even seemed excited, I was flattered and overjoyed.
We scheduled the shoot early on a Sunday morning, 9am. Me, a family man with a baby at home, forgot that the rest of the world spends Friday and Saturday nights partying and blowing off the weeks steam. And I would not have known had she not apologized for being hungover. And you would not know from the pictures had I not just told you. We had a great time. She was fun, and funny and incredibly photogenic and made my job super easy. Not to mention the otherworldly art that flanked her, how could I take a bad photo? My only wish was to have had more time to just sit and stare at her work some more. I feel as if I could live inside one of her pieces and be totally content.
Each of her pieces take a minimum of 2 months to make. She painstakingly pours each liquidy layer and in a battle with time and gravity, dances around the room with the wooden canvas. Once the perfect flow has been achieved, she sets the piece down on an absolutely leveled base and let’s dry for several days. The humidity and room temperature must be respected and weight heavily into her calculations of pour-ability and drying time. Controlling dust is a constant battle, even one spec of lint can ruin months of work. She will repeat this process at least 10 times for each piece to create the richly complex and unique depth. No expense is spared when it comes to the wooden canvas. Only the best wood and most experienced craftsmen can create the absolutely flat surface needed. Any irregularities in the surface will cause unwanted pooling and thin spots.
Check out her website, www.kristinaq.com, for more info on her and her work.
Working on a new piece
Getting ready to pour
Studio
Bill Samios Painter in his San Francisco Apt/Studio photographed by Thomas Kuoh
Bill Samios Closeup in his San Francisco Apt/Studio photographed by Thomas Kuoh
I first Met Bill when I assisted Brandon McGanty on a West Elm photoshoot. He assisted a stylist. I think we were chatting and I mentioned I had a studio in the Art Explosion warehouse and he too had a studio there, but in the next building. He said he painted and I think I went onto his website. But I loved his big mushrooms and fun birds and branches and beautiful nudes. He then asked me to model for him and I did. I would see him now and again, and we’d talk art and our careers as assistants. Bill’s art is evolving and it’s curious to see which direction he takes. In everything he does, there is always a background in classical figurative, but the surreal elements creep in and you begin to see into his psyche. He is more and more painting his subconscious and his life story. In person, at least from my perspective, there isn’t a flamboyant gay-ness,and in his paintings too, it’s subtle. But the tenderness in which he paints his male nudes shows his love for the beauty of men.
For more of his work, visit www.billsamios.com
A long time co-worker Jane Hartmann has a collection of vintage table cloths that we wanted to shoot in her back yard. It has been a crazy summer and after much back and forth we were finally able to do the shoot last weekend. We had so much fun working together and this is what we came up with – a loose back yard summer with that aged film look. It was overcast in San Francisco, surprise, so I had to light it to give it that afternoon hard sun feel. You really can’t tell it was overcast with occasional drizzles.
Check out Jane’s portfolio and her blog for more styling inspiration.
Marco Cochrane in his Treasure Island Studio on San Francisco Bay working on his latest 50 foot tall sculpture "Truth and Beauty" Photographed by Thomas Kuoh.
It’s kind of an amazing story how I came to know Marco. In 2008, Tjarn, my close friend and the best man at my wedding was hanging out with his friend Pilar at Esalen Institute in Big Sur California. She was telling him about her ex-husband and their two kids, how they don’t talk anymore, but is an excellent father and an amazing figure sculptor and how he got himself a patron but how their relationship was strained because of the women that modeled for him. And as they began to hike along the coast they run into a man carrying an alabaster white sculpture of a woman. Pilar shouts, “That’s her, that’s the woman!” They walk up to the man and introduce themselves and found out that Marco is a good friend of his and had given him the sculpture.
Tjarn was very excited to relay this whole story to me, not only because of the weird coincidence, but also because I had just started figure sculpting. I realized that I knew of Marco thru his youtube videos and have seen his work. I called him to visit his studio and told him of the story from Big Sur. We had a great time chatting about sculpting, life of an artist, how he came to sculpting and much more.
In 2009 Marco contacted me and asked me to help with a very large Burningman project. But the timing wasn’t right, my baby girl was about to be born and my priorities have shifted. But as I watched his vision come to fruition, I knew I was witnessing an important moment in Art history. No one had ever done anything like this ever! The triangular lattice frame that allowed the gigantic sculpture to stand on one leg while the other leg and the arms stretched out into space was an engineering marval, but more miraculously, epically beautiful.
I feel honored to photograph him in his Treasure Island Studio on San Francisco bay as he works on his next master piece, Truth and Beauty. It is scheduled for completion in 2012. Follow the progress here, http://blissdance.us/
Bliss Dance is temporarily installed on Treasure Island, and if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and make a stop and be inspired. Pictures doesn’t do it justice, you must see it in person.
More on Bliss Dance…
http://blog.burningman.com/culture-art-music/bliss-dance-has-emerged/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bliss-Dance/178138685533265
Portrait of Philip Krohn in his West Oakland studio by Thomas Kuoh in July of 2011
I had the great fortune of photographing one of Oakland’s gems, the installation artist Philip Krohn, in his West Oakland Studio after a recent show. When I first saw his work I was amazed at it’s simplicity and beauty. The concept of recyclable items re-purposed as art usually brings images of amateurish grade school projects of cut up soda bottles and broken AOL CD’s glued into some bad mosaic. But Philip takes it to a whole new level. His recent show, After the Flood, takes several tons of old shreded t-shirts, used vegetable oil jugs from restaurants, refuse from construction sites and other dumpster dive finds, and selectively sorts and organizes them into deeply introspective, political and socially critical Art.
The piece I fell in love with, grandiosely titled The Oracle, is a three story tall stack of plastic cooking oil jugs back-lit to resemble a bit-mapped glacier which foretells of a future in the hands of man. The plastic made from petroleum used to carry vegetable oil derived from an industrial process shipped via diesel chugging big rigs to fast food restaurants where a nation of obesity, materialism and single-use ignorance throws them out to be picked up by a visionary who stacks them neatly into a beautiful and contemplative display of Art.
I look forward to seeing what Philip comes up with next. in the mean time, follow his work at http://www.philipkrohn.com/ and buy an EARTH sticker from http://www.earthsticker.com/. All net proceeds go towards supporting non-profit organizations listed on their site.
The Oracle by Philip Krohn
Split Rail #9/10/11, 2007, cardboard salvaged from waste, by Philip Krohn
Split Rail #12, 2007, cardboard salvaged from waste, 144 X 96 X 80, by Philip Krohn
Juggler's Thought, 2007, willow prunings, 180 X 28 X 28", by Philip Krohn
