Friday Face #1 – Stevie C

By Lenora Jayne | Published: November 13, 2009
Illustration of Stevie C

I present to you, Stevie C. She’s a fire-spinner, poetry-writer, party-rocker, and has one of the most adorable voices ever. She also makes an excellent glam-pirate, as you see here.

She’s also the beginning of my personal “Illustration Friday” project, where in order to practice my drawing skills, I’ll draw weekly images of my friends.

And when I run out of friends, I’ll draw strangers. (Or make new friends!)

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VividBraille Illustrations

By Lenora Jayne | Published: November 9, 2009
lenorajayne_vbbridget

Newly posted work in the Illustration gallery!
This is a series of fashion illustrations I did a few months back.

This summer, I traveled to the Hamptons on a photoshoot for VividBraille. They’re a clothing company that mashes up modern and vintage influences with a message. It’s refreshing to see clothing that goes beyond visual tricks and actually begins to start a dialogue. I personally love their tagline, which is “Art is remembered not by what is seen, but what is felt.”

I was invited onto the team as a makeup artist but I ended up playing a variety of roles including photo assistant, stylist, and model. It was a great experience to be involved in all aspects of the production.

Afterwards, I pulled some of the finished photographs taken by Chris Carr and worked to create my own interpretations of the images in Photoshop. My technique involved a combination of photo-manipulation, digital drawing, and many, many layers of transparencies in order to preserve parts of the original photo, while also transforming it into my own illustration.

I had a blast collaborating with some many creative people, and would definitely love to experiment more with this photo + illustration style.

Any photographers out there that are game?

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Halloween Recap

By Lenora Jayne | Published: November 3, 2009
Space Assasin

Since I have a near-obsession with all things futuristic and space-oriented, I decided to spend this Halloween dressed up as a “Space Assassin”. Most people were confused by my getup, trying to figure out who I was supposed to be, which was essentially just an imaginary character of my own design. (Though I did get few suggestions of “Pris from Bladerunner”, due to my makeup, I think.)

Trouble and Bass

My costume was relatively simple, a combination of handmade and found elements including:

  • Leotard, made out of black holographic spandex
  • Opaque tights
  • Collar, made out of neon-pink holo spandex, plastic loop, and heavy felt
  • Belts galore in silver vinyl, handmade pink, and glittery vinyl blue belt
  • Sequined Fannypack courtesy of 3rd Earth Designs
  • Puma sneakers (not shown!)

spaceface

I started my night at Europa, for the Fools Gold and Trouble & Bass show, which was excellent, as usual. Was really digging the live vocals on Drop The Lime’s latest single called “Set Me Free”. (The Harvard Bass remix is excellent and can be found here.)
I was semi-surprised at the low turnout, but also didn’t get there until around 1am, so I presume most partiers started off there and left for another event later in the night. I ended the morning at the always-ridiculous Bushwick Boat and heading to bed in the early morning.

What did you dress up as for Halloween?

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RIP Geocities

By Lenora Jayne | Published: October 28, 2009
One of my early layouts for Broken-Echo.net

One of my early layouts for Broken-Echo.net

On October 26th, thousands of blinky GIFs flashed their last frame and scrolling MARQUEE tags came to a halting stop, as Yahoo closed down Geocities, its free website-building service.

I honed my web design chops on Geocities, almost 9 years ago, at age 14. It was my original HTML playground. I started doing web design after coming across an anime art site, and was inspired to create my own digital exhibition, spending weeks teaching myself how to construct a basic document and upload it to the web. Learning HTML was my first brush with the professional design world, and also with teaching myself a concrete skill outside of a school environment.

It’s interesting to look back at that era and what I was a part of. There was a definite group of young girls who got together and built incredible blogs, webrings, fan pages and cliques. Many owned their own domains and would often share their space with girls they barely knew. It was a mark of respect, to be handed a subdomain and 10MB of space. We changed our layouts the way we’d redecorate our lockers, constantly outdoing the previous design, constantly looking to improve.

We were the forerunners of blogs, LiveJournal, MySpace, the whole damn thing. We bought domains with pocket money, we doled out subdomains like they were candy, and we designed in colours of black, white, purple, red, and sometimes pink. We coded everything by hand, we tried all the latest in Javascript, and we bitched and ranted like nobody’s business. We were hosted between 1997(ish) and 2003(ish). We were aged between 13 and 21 (again, ish). We were girls – but there were boys too, if we let them in the clubhouse door.

We were mostly girls, we were all geeks, and we were very angsty!
-Naomi Eve

It was a demographic that had previously never really played a part in the web in this way before, and was definitely an important part of my teenage years. I met internet friends that I still keep in touch with today, collaborating, critiquing and putting our creative ideas together (and also gossiping about our lives, of course).

Here’s to you, Geocities.
Thanks for the memories.

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Nonsense NYC at 3rd Ward

By Lenora Jayne | Published: October 14, 2009

Last Saturday, I went to the Nonsense NYC party at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn.
For those not in-the-know, Nonsense NYC is a mailing list that curates all the wonderfully whimsical, weird, and unexpected parts of New York into a weekly events listing.
It’s been an intrinsic part of my life here, since I first discovered it four years ago. I remember leaning over Najy’s shoulder in a tiny 8th St. dorm room as we hunted for our Friday night thrills. There was a sense of wonder at the strange and beautiful events that New York’s creatives were constantly coming up with. And, indeed, none of this spirit has been lost. This week’s update contains everything from Super-8 film screenings to aerial circus performances, discussions on the Bauhaus movement, and 90′s music sing-alongs.

Saturday night felt like a family reunion for me, everyone I’ve met and spent time talking to, dressing up or dancing with in the early morning hours was there.

So many of the groups featured that night were ones that I was familiar with, had volunteered or worked for, and had also helped inspire and push my own art collective as well. I definitely took pause to appreciate all the amazing people that I’ve connected with in the past four years here, to have them in the same room.

But as the Nonsense crew themselves claim, “The enemy of anyone celebrating 10 years in New York is nostalgia.” And looking at the event, I realized, with some pride, that I could be at the Nonsense 20 year celebration, with a little work.

The New York that comes to us every week is vibrant and alive.

You might be making art, but we think what you’re doing is far more important. We think you’re creating culture. We are creating culture. All of us. Whether you’re going to see an art show in a maze or sticking your neck out with a one-night lease on a huge warehouse.

In case no one ever thanked you, thanks. Without you there wouldn’t have been a list. Thank you. Sincerely.

Here’s to another generation of inspired and ingenious creatives here in NYC, experimenting on and enthralling the city with their new creations.

I’m looking forward to being a part of it.

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Bombay Dreams Illustration

By Lenora Jayne | Published: October 8, 2009

Bombay Dreams
New illustration, done for an upcoming party in Toronto thrown by RefugeNYC and RoyalPink!

The party is called Bombay Dreams and I was asked to do my reoccurring girl character (you’ll see her in my other flyers I’ve done for Refuge and Newmindspace) in an Eastern style. I took my inspiration from the Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of beauty, prosperity and good fortune, with a few modern adaptations (obviously).

I’d love to see how a four-armed girl would rage on the dancefloor.

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Artitronic at Club Exit

By Lenora Jayne | Published: September 30, 2009

Last weekend, I participated in an excellent art party at Exit in Brooklyn, called Artitronic. Artitronic is the brainchild of Jay Clue and DJ Dali that synthesizes two of my favorite things: “banging beats and dope artwork”.

They embody a similar ethos as Lowbrow Society (which is my art collective), in the fact that they value a low-key and unintimidating atmosphere outside of the fancy art-gallery scene, where people can hang out and talk shop.

I was impressed with the sense of community within the artists, especially. Many seemed to know one another and chatted amicably, asked me about my paintings and collage work, and just generally helped out with the event to keep it lively. The scope of art shown was deliciously varied; everything from hand-painted skateboard decks to macabre horror photography to psychedelic fractals.

I chose to show two large fashion-girl paintings, rendered in some crazy bright neon gouache and cutout paper, along with a spray-paint and collage piece that I did for this summer’s Mashup party. The collage seemed to get a lot of lovin’, which surprised me, because I felt like it was less “original”. I definitely will be exploring working at a larger size, because I feel a huge relief to break out of the sketchbook format and just take over a beautiful sheet of rag paper (my current preferred surface, I love how it takes watercolor and colored pencil).

Needless to say, there was also a stellar lineup of DJs as well, including Udachi, who drops the best wobbly bass, as well as Odi, who is a pillar of the NYC drum & bass scene.

Hopefully, I’ll get some scans or photos this week of my work, but for now, this post is without images, boo!

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This I Believe

By Lenora Jayne | Published: August 25, 2009

When I was a freshman at Parsons, three years ago, we had an assignment to write a one-page essay in the vein of an ongoing radio segment called “This I Believe” on NPR. This is my most recent version of that essay, and I think, a good way to introduce my new blog.

Wordle.net visualization of my manifesto

I believe in brilliance.

In the limitless capacity that you and I and all of us have for creating and being beauty. And not just in the boring magazine-slick plastic-surgery sort of way, but the beauty of the individual and the crowd. The beauty of authenticity, of fully and wholly owning every part of yourself, without apology. Of the endless permutations that define us in degrees and decades are what make the universe electric.

I believe also, in losing the barriers between self and surroundings. The magic that throttles through our veins when a connection is made, when syllables and neurons and heartbeats become no longer lonely, but shared. These shared moments become stories, shared stories that can be set upon the world for others to reach out to.

I believe in the art of connecting with one another, the instances of light and brightness when synapses fire in the same sequences. When a look, a nod, a smile, a touch, a sound is made and shared and there is an understanding that goes beyond any need for language.

I believe in the construction of community; that our social architecture is more incredible and more important than our individual lives alone. I believe our combined efforts and energies become an alloy that is indescribable and indestructible.

I believe in the sheer bliss of experience, of turning my life into a constant living work of art. I believe in the beauty of single, sparking instances where a connection is made. Of sharing, spreading, speaking up to burst open your world a little further.

I believe in constant evolution, every second is a chance for revelation. Every second our bodies have changed from the last, so there is no reason why our minds should stay static. I believe in personal dynamism, of constantly breaking down and rebuilding yourself in order to create a more perfect state of being. I believe, as well, in always learning and always keeping an open mind, for we are infinite in our ability to appreciate and understand.

I believe in chaos, in the reliability of instability. I believe that there is a beauty in never staying the same.

I believe in self-expression and the importance of sharing our stories, struggles and secrets. Creativity is our vehicle for these expressions, for entertaining our dreams and dreaming up our futures. I believe that self-expression is the key to connection and change, a cipher in order to unlock our differences.

I believe that art and music are transformative; that the motion and exploration of the body and mind within beauty and ugliness can create a new understanding of the universe and of one another.

I believe in light, color, brightness, because they are the purest manifestations of the sun.

I believe in love and hate and despair and envy. I believe the sanctity of emotion, and experiencing each in all of its infinite hues, because it is what makes us human.

I believe it’s important to remain in a constant state of wonder.

I believe in our combined brilliance.

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