Years ago, having recently relocated to Atlanta, I was out having a drink at MJQ when I first encountered live screenprinting hosted by Mindzai. The small manual press was being run by Jesse Jaeger who later became a friend of mine and coworker, and I bought a shirt that he printed on the spot. I have kept and worn that shirt in the years since and the experience opened my eyes to the Atlanta print service industry.

It was a couple of years later when I started following Mindzai on social media, and saw a post looking for an intern. I applied and worked as an unpaid intern for a bit which in turn led to me scoring a job there. It was a really defining period of my career and I’ve remained close with my former coworkers. Recently I swung by to take some pictures and chat with manager Susannah Caviness about what its like to work in art production.

Susannah manages the Atlanta branch of the business, which means she fills a variety of roles. “I handle everything from print production, marketing, client relations… the normal day-to-day operations,” she told me. Additionally she organizes art shows in the art gallery space, a relatively new addition to the Atlanta office.

“We’re a really small business and rely on a very small staff to make things happen,” Susannah explained. “I feel fortunate to be surrounded by creative and like-minded people who want to push Mindzai forward.” The shop, currently located in O4W, caters to the local arts and small business community.

“We also began another side of the business, Mindzai Apparel. It’s our own apparel line featuring work commissioned by various tattooers, artists, and illustrators, which has really taken off,” Susannah said, showing me the shirts on display in the gallery. They are currently running a design competition for their merch, so check it out! More info here.

Mindzai uses their gallery space to sell the works of local artists including jewelry, prints, housewares and other cool stuff that Susannah comes across. The shop is open to visitors during normal print studio business hours, Monday through Friday from 10-6.

Mindzai is owned by Scott Weatherwax who lives in Austin, TX who runs a Mindzai branch there. His affinity for the arts and his connections with the tattoo community across the country have helped to make the company what it is today.

“Mindzai started out as a recording studio,” Susannah explained. “Scott has a background in the music industry like myself, and that’s where Mindzai initially got its start. Clients began requesting things like CD duplication, then it became graphic design, which became mixtape covers. It just sort of snowballed into Mindzai becoming a print and design studio as well, and we’ve been running for almost 20 years now.”

“We dropped CD duplication services last year and began to see a steady incline and shift in products people requested. We now offer high quality art prints, screen printing, die cut stickers and the usual suspects like postcards and business cards,” Susannah said. Their fine art printing services and expertise in the matter are a godsend for many local artists who produce their own work.

A mark of Mindzai’s success is their continued presence within the Atlanta art community. As a company, they sponsor artist-oriented events, maintain a presence at conventions and festivals, and are behind many of the companies and organizations within the communities they serve.

“I have always liked working with musicians, artists, and small business owners,” Susannah told me. “Underdogs, so to speak. I love any project where we can take someone’s vision and turn it into a tangible thing. Screen printing is one of my favorite aspects of Mindzai.”

Mindzai currently shares the space with Odditees, a screen printing company. Print tech Philip Jaggar and owner Gary Stanton pause for a picture in the shop.

The space houses an automatic and manual press, the latter being run in the background by Odditees employee Chris Snodgrass.

The company is not so mainstream, however, and they aren’t afraid to push the limits with content and curse words. I asked Susannah if she had any memorable experiences from the two and a half years she’s been working at Mindzai. “My favorite story is an Austin client who left the longest voicemail. We used to have flyers that said something along the lines of ‘No Bullshit’ on them. I guess he saw it and felt the need to call us, and specifically said we needed to get right with God and that our mothers didn’t raise us right. I saved it for the longest time, I thought it was hilarious.”

Susannah and employee Lindsay Marr in the Mindzai office.

This Friday evening, February 6 Mindzai ATL will be hosting an Art Basel Recap show from 7-11pm. I’ll be there with my camera, and there will be free PBR, limited edition prints for sale from over a dozen artists. The shop is currently located in Thunderbox at 728 Ralph McGill Blvd, Atlanta GA, 30312.

Susannah also wanted to say something directly to Mindzai’s clients; “a huge thank you to all our clients, friends and family who have stuck with us over the years and believed in our vision.” The building that currently houses the shop is slated to be sold which will cause a certain amount of change and necessitate a move, but Susannah didn’t waiver in her commitment to serve her clients. “Mindzai isn’t going anywhere.”

The girls of Mindzai ATL.

Find out more about this badass local shop by going to their website, Facebook, following them on Twitter and Instagram, and come out to the show this week!

-Is

When I first moved to Atlanta in 2007 the internet had not yet fully surpassed movie rental shops. There was a Blockbuster on Ponce as well as Movies Worth Seeing, a small hole in the wall rental spot in the Morningside area known for more difficult-to-find titles. For a time, they were popular and thriving, however both of these spots have since closed in the wake of Redbox and Netflix.

And yet, a single movie rental shop remains and thrives in the new digital era: Videodrome.

I’ve had a long standing relationship with this small movie rental shop. The iconic building is located at the corner of North and Highland across from everyone’s favorite gas station, Buddy’s. The shop has seen me in many different phases of my life. There were hungover days, groggily fumbling for a Mystery Science Theater that I hadn’t already watched a million times. There were first dates, films for class, girls nights, sick days, the whole lot.

The place is an institution, a tribute to the love of film and cinema. Their selection is massive, with genres that vary from specific to broad. New movies are added to their collection constantly, featured on their main wall before being worked into the general shelves. Behind the desk and on the counter sit an army of figurines amassed over the years. The collection is perpetually changing and evolving over time as pieces are added, broken, or go missing.

The clerks use a system of paper tickets in addition to their computer to keep track of the ever growing and evolving movie selection. I dare not estimate how many movies sit on their shelves. I feel certain that I would be wrong no matter what number I guessed.

Walking among the tightly packed shelves, it’s easy to lose track of time. Old movies play on TVs suspended from the corners of the room, and people quietly mill about browsing titles. The clerks have always been incredibly knowledgeable, most of them having worked there for many years. There is something truly magical about this place.

While there I spoke with Matthew Owensby, resident “Videoman” and newsletter editor. He has been working at Videodrome for 10 years and he took some time to talk with me and show me around the place.

 Matthew Owensby, Videoman

I asked Matt why he thought that Videodrome persists throughout the lean times in Atlanta unlike so many other shops that have fallen before. “I’d say our location has been a big factor. We’re on a very visible corner. Our parking lot sucks, but at least people know where we are. Our store is pretty cozy too. People like coming in and hanging out.”

There’s also something to be said for the impact that their community ties has had to their business and praised the crowd of regulars who frequent Videodrome. “Our customers are great, and it’s rewarding to provide lots of cool folks good stuff to watch.” This is, by the way, absolutely true. Anytime I have had questions about movies, needed suggestions or generally wanted to talk to someone about film or cinema, the folks behind the counter here have been the most kind and helpful.

“It’s nice when famous faces drop by, too,” he said, showing me pictures and memorabilia on the wall. “Peter Fonda and Bill Paxton stopped by and said hey this year. B-movie icon Wings Hauser was kind enough to reach out to us and send us a care package of autographs and stills a couple of months ago.”

Videodrome employee Donnie Leapheart

“Woody Harrelson came in and rented some stuff once,” Matt said, laughing as he recounted the memorable story. “Nice guy, dressed in about 80 percent hemp. He hung out and talked for a while. The weird thing is that we all pretended he wasn’t super famous famous actor. We knew who he was, he knew that we knew, but we all just had this weird, stilted conversation that danced around the subject entirely.”

I asked Matt what genres or areas of the shop that he would recommend checking out, and he listed the film noir section, documentaries, and cult/horror. “All of our sections have lots of sub-sections, which make it easy to get sucked down a genre rabbit-hole.” Yeah, no kidding.

Matt took me behind the counter and into the back room where they store the DVDs. The quantity of films really becomes apparent here, seen in the volumes of discs stacked tightly on shelves in the small but tidy space.

In addition to housing an extensive array of films, the shop plays an important role in the artistic community at large. Populated by avid film lovers who are more likely to have seen David Lynch films than David Spade movies, the space is a refuge for film and art enthusiasts. They sometimes sponsor film-related projects like Buried Alive, and their presence can be seen during events like Streets Alive when their parking lot becomes a party destination.

It was an honor to get a backstage tour of this Atlanta legend, and I highly suggest stopping in sometime yourself. See their website for more information, like them on Facebook, and definitely sign up for their newsletter to hear about new films that are coming out.

A few weeks ago I went to visit Erin McManness at her home in Decatur. The charming second floor apartment was decorated on nearly every wall with art. In a workspace nestled into a small corner of the kitchen, Erin sat down and spoke with me for some time about her work and life.

Erin McManness adds details to some typography in her sketchbook.

The cozy space has several work surfaces, plenty of storage, and hanging displays nestled under the desks. Pinned on the bulletin board were print samples, sweet notes and funny doodles. A selection of textiles hung from a screen divider in the corner, and lining the tabletops were bins of special occasion cards ready to be sold.

I first encountered Erin and her work during a group art show at Mindzai. I saw several of her illustrative and fantastical portraits in group shows at the gallery. The rich colors, depth of story and composition of her pieces drew me in, and I have enjoyed seeing her work throughout the last couple of years.

Originally hailing from Baltimore, it was a series of decisions that has led her to live in Atlanta. “I refer to myself as a northerner,” she told me, and her loyalty shines through in her fervent support of Ravens football. “I bleed purple,” she said.

In Erin’s family, art has always played an important role. Her grandmother was an oil painter, and her father is an artist by hobby. She told me of days when she would go with her father and sister to her grandmother’s house with a blank canvas and that they would all paint together.

“The great thing about painting is if you mess up, just paint it white again and start over,” Erin remembers her father telling her. These painting sessions were important to her not just because she enjoyed the act of painting but also because it brought her close to her father and grandmother.

Erin holding one of her father’s paintings, at right a note of appreciation pinned to her inspiration board.

She also spoke of the influence of watching Disney movies during these painting sessions. “I love those old Disney movies because they have the animation, but they also have the matte painting behind them,” she explained to me, “because at that point it was too much to animate what was going on in the background.” This struck me as quite the sophisticated observation for a child of only 8 or 9 years old. After all, I had watched all these same movies, and yet I wasn’t sure I had ever given much thought to the process.

“There’s this great scene where the little mice are running around her skirt, but her skirt is just this beautiful painting in the background. I just loved that… they don’t make movies like that anymore,” she said rather wistfully.

Past design samples and sweet notes from her beau pinned to Erin’s board.

Erin’s mother is also encouraging and enthusiastic about the arts and has been for her whole life. She is a preschool teacher, and Erin told me about many times when she and her sister would act as guinea pigs for her mother’s craft projects. In fact, it was her mother who pushed her to pursue visual arts long before she considered it seriously herself, and eventually had to admit that her mother had been right about that all along.

As a teen, Erin had fallen in with the theater kids at school, and any time that she was not on stage she would be drawing endlessly in her sketchbook. Erin became known as the artsy kid, even among her creative theater friends.

“I actually did musical theater for most of my young life and I went into my undergrad as a musical theater major. I took a scenic painting course as part of the theater requirement, and I started realizing that I really loved that class,” she said.

Hand-cut gift tags.

Erin attended Messiah College as a studio art undergraduate student in Pennsylvania. “For some extra money I had started doing commissions and drawings of peoples’ online role-playing characters,” Erin said, “and I realized that I liked doing that way more than I liked doing my scenic painting work.” After graduation, Erin spent a brief period working at Messiah in various administrative roles.

Erin relocated to LA and began pursuing fashion design. There she worked for several well-known and well-respected designers, coordinating fashion shows, traveling domestically and abroad for special events, and fitted models during exhibitions. The work took her out of her comfort zone and was a good experience for her, but after some time she found herself wanting something else out of life.

“In LA it’s like if you’re not trampling, you’re being trampled,” she said of the year or so that she spent there.

Erin moved several times more before settling down. First she went to Philadelphia, then spent some time in New York City, then headed back to Baltimore. During this phase she worked a variety temp jobs at places like doctors offices. “Everyone was unhappy,” she said of her experiences in that world.

“I realized I couldn’t really get a job doing what I wanted to do- I wanted to work for myself, I wanted to do illustrations, and I wanted to have my own business that was illustration based. I decided I really needed to go to grad school,” Erin said. “SCAD was my top choice, and I got in! The rest is history.”

I asked Erin about the difference between being a student at Messiah and SCAD. As an undergraduate student at Messiah her education consisted of a rather strict, formal training in classical arts and fundamentals like oil painting. There, the bar was set by accuracy, and “the best painting was the one that looked most like what was actually there in real life.” The skills she learned in draftsmanship and drawing during her time at Messiah have served her in many ways throughout her career, and the art history education she received greatly influenced her work.

“I’ve always been a decorative person,” she said, indicating an affinity for the style of art nouveau. “I’m not a minimalist, as I think you can tell.” She gestured to the floral and dreamy paintings around us and laughed.

Later, as a graduate student at SCAD, Erin felt that the standard of achievement as an artist had shifted. She found that “the most successful illustrators break rules, rendering wasn’t king anymore… it wasn’t about how well you can draw, rather it’s about the idea.” She told me of encountering several classmates and friends, like Barry Lee, whose styles she found enviable at times. “I’m still trying to break my own rules about art,” she said and spoke of her desire for aesthetic perfection in her work.

“I believe in conveying great ideas and conceptual ideas, but I also really believe in beauty,” Erin told me. In her opinion you must combine both a unique idea with accurate and purposeful execution according to standards of beauty and aligned with proper proportions. Erin’s clean, romantic aesthetic I could see displayed throughout the variety of pieces and products surrounding her in the studio space and serves to unify her work throughout the variety of mediums in which she works.

Recently, living as a graduate and independent artist in Atlanta, Erin has begun to focus more on networking and online sales. A coworker introduced her to a website called Minted where you can license designs and win prizes as well as earn royalties on products that they create and sell. Instantly, Erin felt quite at home. She submitted a design for one of their contests and won first place. Since then she has introduced a variety of products and designs to Minted and the experience has proved to be a life-changing one for Erin.

Several of Erin’s patterns that are available for sale on Minted.

“I think people really want the touch of the artist. They want to see the actual work- the handprint of the artist,” she said. “People really crave that connection.”

The connections she has gained from working with organizations like Minted have also allowed her an opportunity to meet a larger community of craftspeople and artists who make money from their illustrations. In addition to her flourishing social media supporters, Erin has now attracted the attention of a much larger audience within the online creative world through her connections with sites like this. She indicated just how important business growth is to her in this phase of her career, and talked for a while with passion about expanding through marketing education and networking with social media.

To see her work for yourself, check out her website, facebook, etsy, instagram, twitter, and Minted account. “I really love that stuff,” she said excitedly. Judging by her online presence and the success of her products, her passion is working out in her favor.

-Is

It was a cold and rainy day when I made the trek over to visit my friend Barry at his apartment in Buckhead. From the outside it seems like just another run-of-the-mill cookie cutter apartment, but once inside I realized that this is Barry HQ.

The living room/studio space walls are lined with artwork, both by Barry and also by his friends. The pieces he’s got are mostly from art swaps, and you can even find a few portraits of Barry himself on the wall near his computer.

Originally from Nags Head, NC, Barry moved to Atlanta 5 years ago to attend SCAD Atlanta for illustration. Since his graduation in November of 2013 he’s become involved with many local organizations and art shows as a freelancer.

“I would describe my work as very quirky, and my aim is usually to put a smile on people’s faces when they see it. So, I usually have some form of absurdity in terms of how I work and what I do with my work.”

“I like using really bright colors… I like really bright quirky scenarios. Very fluid movements, I often have separated noses in my characters… borderline cartoon-ish but also could work in illustration and fine art realms,” Barry said of his work.

I first met Barry as an intern at Mindzai Creative where I worked. Right off the bat his paintings and portraits were a hit at the Mindzai art shows. It was easy to recognize his iconic works among the work of many others, even before I had put a face to the name.

At the time, Barry was a student at SCAD Atlanta and many of his pieces were portraits of celebrities or movie characters. “It was a nice marriage between my love of pop culture and my personal art style,” he said of that phase. The celebrity portraits were indeed very popular and Barry used that momentum to begin selling and marketing his work to a larger audience.

Barry’s first solo show was at the Octane Westside, and featured celebrity portraits. They were well received, and sold well, but afterwards he reported feeling that he was burning out on the portraits. It was then that he decided to branch out and experiment with other subject matter for his work.

“I really wanted to kind of step away from just doing portraits because it was what people expected,” he told me. Recently, Barry was granted the opportunity to again have a show at Octane Westside. This time around, he decided to delve a bit deeper into his own life and story for inspiration.

Barry was born with a condition called Nager Syndrome, a rare congenital anomaly syndrome that has set the tone for his life. In his youth, Barry had experienced a good deal of discrimination from his peers in school because of his condition.

Partially because of Barry’s inherent love for art and partially to curb the bullying from his peers, he started making art for his classmates and bullies. “I wanted not to be known as the different kid but the art kid,” he said, and explained how creating art became his badge of pride and a way to avoid discrimination.

Barry’s parents have always very much encouraged his artistic drive. “When I was like three years old my parents got me a little easel,” he said, and he was “immediately drawn to it.”

As a child, Barry would watch Muppets and Looney Tunes and draw them on a stack of computer paper in the living room. Those influences are still visible in his work today, and Barry’s affinity for cultural icons is evident in the framed records and homage prints hung around his apartment.

In this series, called “Home is Where You Drown,” he explores the struggles and of growing up with this condition.

Photos courtesy Matt McDaniel

“The work that I made a couple of years ago was very surreal, kind of dark, and very angry,” he told me. This time around, however, he created a personal series that was funny, odd, intriguing, and still very bright within the realm of his personal artistic style.

“I wanted to do something out of the box, to take my humor and take the characters I’ve been creating and put them in an environment… I wanted to make them symbolic, and make them tell a story,” Barry said.

Photos courtesy Matt McDaniel

“Half of my job as an illustrator is to tell stories and I feel like not many people can tell my story. I thought it was a really good opportunity to bring my story to a wider audience, and also to stretch my wings in terms of creating things. You know, to really create new worlds.”

For many followers of Barry’s career, this new body of work came as a bit of a surprise. Not many of his friends really knew about the struggles he has gone through, and so seeing it displayed so proudly evoked some conflicting opinions. Growing up in the digital age, Barry has done an excellent job of marketing himself and his work through social media for many years. This means also that many of his fans may never have met Barry in person, rather having been exposed to his work through Tumblr or Instagram.

The response to this show was varied though mostly positive, Barry said. “‘I usually love your work- it’s so bright and cheerful, but then when I read these stories it kind of brings me down,'” people told him, “and I’m like- that’s the idea.”

Creating work that is approachable helps Barry to connect with his audience. “It either angers someone or it’s like ‘I get it’… I think a lot of people got it,” he said.

“I think that my work can translate to a lot of different backgrounds, and I think that’s something that I’m very lucky to have. I have people old and people young really responding well to my work,” he explained. “I want to really create work that resonates with everybody.”

Not only does Barry intend to continue creating digital paintings, but he also aims to broaden his horizons and begin creating in new mediums, such as children’s books.

“I have a good feeling about where I’m heading,” Barry said of his career. “I feel like I’m finally getting into my style and into my groove about what I’m doing with my work.”

There is no doubt that we will see much more from this artist as he continues to explore the limitations of his imagination and the cultivation of his artistic ideals.

Check out his online portfolio, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram to see more of Barry’s art. The mural from “Home Is Where You Drown” will be on display at Octane Westside for the forseeable future, so next time you’re around that area make sure to stop in and see Barry’s work for yourself!

-Is

Welcome to my blog, here’s what’s up with me these days…

Recently I’ve begun working on a few long term photography projects. My time working for newspapers has ignited ideas about generating content, and I find photojournalism to be a refreshing, eye-opening experience. For a long time, and through a couple of iterations, I have been formulating ideas about chronicling the people and places in Atlanta.

I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of the art community for nearly the entire time I’ve lived here. Never before had I witnessed a place so vibrant and full of people making things. Not only that, but the community welcomed me and has continued to encourage and inspire me. The art scene is passionate, well-respected, and here unlike so many other places I have been you can find many independent artists who make their living simply by creating things.

It’s marvelous. And I want to talk about it.

Throughout the winding years of my early 20s and by virtue of many late nights at bars, internships at local galleries, and classes at Georgia State, I have come to know many remarkable people. In speaking with my friends and getting to know them both virtually and in person I’ve come to hear many amazing stories and I have been intrigued to learn more about them, their art, their path, and the community as a whole.

In the style of photo essays I seek to find and highlight some of the most influential members of our local artist community. In some cases this will mean interviewing artists in their natural environment to see where they create their art, as I think there’s a special magic in any place that fosters a lot of creativity. I will also be visiting local businesses that I think are interesting and noteworthy to snap photographs and highlight cool spots in my community.

Stay tuned to see some of my favorite people and places that make Atlanta my home. Also check them out in the cross-posts on my Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/portraits.by.isadora

Thanks for reading!

-Is