Written while viewing “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

Dear Ross,

I went to the Met yesterday and picked up 3 pieces of you. Wrapped in silver, gold, and blue; tasting like caramel or chocolate (or so I hear, I didn’t want to diminish you). Felix gave you to the world asking for nothing but salvation. So I put you in my coat pocket next to some balled up receipts, and now you sit on my dresser, existing.

I don’t know if you know what your love story does to us, Ross. What candy, light bulbs, and a pair of ticking clocks could ignite within young queer hearts, fleeing to New York. What Felix did was extraordinary – he took your ashes and set them free. Now they last longer, blow faster than through the wind or through the sea. Your love, wrapped in foil, travels through Manhattan like a pulse. And now to me.

It’s been a weird week, Ross. I rounded the corner at the Warhol exhibit and saw the Portrait of you and started to cry. Time runs out, and that’s okay. A boy I know just got diagnosed with leukemia. A girl jumped out of a window on my first day of school. I’m terrified of going home to find everything different, missing, gone.

There are too many sirens in this city. But although they keep waking me up at night, at least I can fall back asleep now.

“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”

When people ask me, “Who is your public?” I say honestly, without skipping a beat, “Ross.” The public was Ross. The rest of the people just come to the work.

- Felix Gonzales Torres

Sometimes I become one with my surroundings. I feel the borders between my body and my surroundings disappearing–leaving me with nothing but a sensation of oneness. The feeling is in many ways comforting and delightful; it is an experience of being at home in the world. Of being present. Of being alive. It contains momentarily understanding of connections between life phases, people, objects… and it brings me back in time and grounds me in the present simultaneously. But the feeling also contains dark notes, shadows, fear. Of what, I am not exactly sure. All I know is that the fear only appears when I try to grasp the oneness with my mind, with my reason. As long as I rest in the bodily understanding of my surroundings, I feel nothing but sensuous delight.

To see more of her work, please visit her website.

Things are changing for me right now; I’m moving, starting school, a new job…

These drawings are about drastic change. I illustrated last season’s Marc Jacobs collection with his newest, for Spring 2013, to show the contrast. Fashion is confusing and weird–for some reason the exact opposite of what was amazing last season seems perfect now. Hopefully doing the opposite of what I did for the last six months will seem perfect as well.

As if I were doing some kind of body study, I’ve been obsessively drawing hands on the sides of my notebooks for as long as I can remember. Now I have a whole notebook filled with them.

The Fall 2012 Miu Miu collection drew upon fashion of the ’60s and ’70s, reworking them in a way which was at once nostalgic and new.  It inspired me to make psychedelic art of my own, imitating those famous albums covers and posters from the ’60s that I am completely obsessed with.  I drew upon the work of artists who defined the psychedelic art movement – such as Heinz Edelmann, Martin Sharp, Victor Moscoso, Marijke Koger, Keiichi Tanaami, Tadanori Yokoo, John Alcorn, Peter Max, and Milton Glaser.  I found many through the book Electrical Banana by Daniel Nadel and Mati Klarwein, which I highly recommend.

I created fictional album covers for the band “Miu Miu,” by drawing upon different styles from that time and integrating textiles, patterns, colors, and imagery from the collection. And it was really fun to make!

All photographs from Style.com

Brianna Smith is a collage artist from New York; Nolan and I found her work on flickr after I recently became obsessed with collages and the unique mood they always seem to produce. The affect of her collages is focused on nostalgia and very familiar images combined with an out-of-place element, creating a feeling that can be whimsical and suddenly become deadly serious. (Very reminiscent of Beth Hoeckel’s work.) When I interviewed her, I set out to learn where the drive for this familiar/unfamiliar dichotomy comes from.

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Many of your collages have a dreamy, almost dystopian quality because they combine bright, innocent images, like strawberries and quilts, with darker ones such as skeletons and vast night skies. Where does this inspiration come from?

I am drawn to the natural world and the universe beyond, to spirituality and the metaphysical, identity and culture, hazy daydreams, still quiet nights in August where it’s too sticky and hot to think, lightning storms, nostalgia and visions of the future, the powers of the mind, fragments and forgotten pieces, the feeling in the pit of my stomach, the sun just as it rises, art and truth and most of all cheeseburgers.

Where did you grow up? Do you think your childhood home inspired the mood of your collages, or did you purposely move in a completely different direction?

I grew up in New York. I will always be enchanted and mesmerized by the past, just as I am with the present and the future. It’s hard to say what has not inspired me, our brains are constantly being stimulated and inspired and altered by perception and experience. As humans we are constantly growing and changing, not just physically but spiritually too and I like to think that my collages grow and change with me, and follow me in whichever direction I may go.

When did you first know you wanted a career in the arts? What have been some of the challenges with making a living that way? And what’s the best part about it?

I guess I don’t really place the idea of a career at a high level of importance. I sling coffee to pay bills, but I make art because I feel compelled to and because it is the only way I can order and quiet and release all of the thoughts in my brain. When other people respond to or relate to my art in some way or want to invest in it, I think it’s wonderful and really rewarding, but I will always make art so long as it naturally pours out of me.

What’s your favorite place to find images for your work?

Most of my images come from books or magazines that I have either thrifted, found at one of the countless yard sales in my neighborhood in the summertime, or they have been donated to me. There is this great thrift store I go to where everything is collected at random in these enormous plastic bins that they change out every 20 minutes or so; everything is priced per pound and I have found so many forgotten treasures there. A great used bookstore opened up just up the street from my apartment, it’s really fantastic except they keep all the best books on the highest shelves.

A lot of your work seems to combine humor and images from pop culture with more sentimental, nostalgic images. Do you tend to gravitate towards humor or sentimentality more in other people’s art?

I would say a bit of both. I get caught up in daydreams of what was and is and all that could be, and I love work that is dreamy and hazy and surreal because that’s how the world feels to me most of the time. I think it’s important not to take shit so seriously though, life is more rewarding when you realize how funny and ridiculous it can be.

Collage is such a unique form of art. What first drew you to it? Are there any collage-artists, or other artists, who you see as inspirations?

Actually a really good friend of mine is a really dope collage artist. I just remember stumbling onto her images and just being completely enchanted with not only her work, but with the idea of making collages, of the process. I love searching for old images and books and magazines, taking forgotten images and making them into something new and giving them new meaning, I think so much of art and culture involves picking and choosing elements of the past and rearranging them to suit the future. I love hunting for good sources and the magic that happens when the perfect image falls onto its counterpart. Another really wonderful thing about collage is how supportive collage artists are of one another and the amount of incredible collaborations that have come from this medium, it’s really awesome to be a small part of it.

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You can find more of her work here and buy her prints here.

Rei Kawakubo’s Fall 2012 collection for Comme des Garçons is composed of flat, two-dimensional pieces. The models look like paper dolls come to life – with their bodies molding the shapes into a coat, a dress, a jacket.

Inspired by select pieces from the collection, I flattened them even further by making them into actual paper dolls. And, it is perfectly fitting that they are now being viewed on a screen, seeing as Kawakubo’s effective description of her collection was, “The future in two dimensions.”