Given Troma Entertainment’s fifty-year history of titles like Nuke ’Em High and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, it may come as a shock that founder Lloyd Kaufman is a die-hard Shakespeare devotee. According to writer, Kaufman confidant, and event host,

Mathew Klickstein, “He’s [Kaufman] always bringing up Shakespeare and how Shakespeare was very much for the people, for the rabble, for the groundlings.  Lloyd is very sincere in his admiration for not just Shakespeare’s work, but the way he put it together and got it out there.”

What if the secret to cinematic longevity isn’t prestige, but a Shakespearean knack for populist chaos? Yellow Scene Magazine sat down with Klickstein to learn how Troma has leveraged its signature brand of low budget, madcap violence, and nudity to remain the oldest standing independent studio in the industry for over 50 years and counting.

One part of that success is their clear sense of vision.   As an independent studio, you can only do so many  second takes for big stunts.  That’s why Klickstein notes that Kaufman, “is extremely intentional in everything that he does, and you have to be because it takes a lot of preparation for something that feels so chaotic, particularly when things are low budget.”

Mathew Klickstein (pictured left) and Lloyd Kaufman (pictured right)

Another pillar of Troma’s success has been its fearlessness of tackling the topics other big studios were afraid of touching.

When discussing Troma’s campy comedy film Squeeze Play, Klickstein notes, “[the film] on one level is this goofy, late night, teen sex comedy film of girls playing softball against their boyfriends. […] But, it does deal, implicitly and explicitly, with some pretty heavy topics that other films wouldn’t talk about until years later.”

Troma’s culture has attracted a wide range of talent including Spawn actor Michael Jai White, and even South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker who got their big breaks with Troma.

The ideology that guided Troma films has created a community, sometimes referred to as the Troma Army, of people who appreciate the movies’ bizarre flair. Klickstein has experienced this underground network firsthand, noting that the Troma label acts as a universal passport:

“There have been times where I have been able to stay at someone’s house, or hangout with a group of people, or be able to find my tribe because they are the local Troma people who are part of the local Troma community, and I’ve been all over the country.”  

On this occasion, Troma is inviting the Troma community and the Troma curious is to come and celebrate perhaps the most successful of Kaufman’s creations, The Toxic Avenger.  The film showcases all the hallmarks of a Troma feature: low-budget, bizarre, extreme violent, gratuitously sexual all while expressing a sincere social commentary. 

To see how the reboot modernizes for a new generation, catch the double feature of the original film and the new reimagining at the International Film Series at CU.  Lloyd Kaufman will be present virtually to provide an  introduction and will be available for a remote Q&A. Mark Togel who played Melvin, the titular Toxic Avenger, in the original film will also be present. The event will be hosted by Mathew Klickstein.  Trident Booksellers will be selling books, in addition to other surprises. 

The event will be held Saturday April 4, 7:30 PM, Muenzinger Auditorium.   

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The post The Shakespeare of Splatter: Troma’s 50-Year Legacy appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Back in August 2004, at the campus of Cal Poly Pomona, a crowd pressed shoulder to shoulder around a projector screen witnessed what would become one of the most replayed moment in competitive fighting game history: Evo Moment #37. Japan’s Daigo Umehara, down to a pixel of health in the Street Fighter III finals, survived what most players believed was an unblockable super from Justin Wong’s Chun-Li. Instead of folding, Daigo hit a string of frame-perfect parries, timed to each strike of Chun-Li’s iconic flurry, turning the tables, and snatching victory.

Daigo Umehara executes the legendary “Evo Moment #37” parry against Justin Wong’s Chun-Li during the Street Fighter III finals at Evo 2004.

For players inside the Fighting Game Community (FGC), this is a legendary moment. But outside the scene, tournaments like these often fly under the radar, and even when people have heard of e-sports, that doesn’t mean they have the access, support, or space to take part.

That idea, exposure versus access, came up repeatedly when I spoke with Donald Prellwitz, Longmont Library’s Device Specialist and the organizer behind something entirely new for the city: Longmont’s first-ever e-sports tournament. For Prellwitz, this small local bracket represents a first step toward equity in a space where opportunity is often gated by cost, equipment, and geography.

The idea began with Prellwitz’s long-standing love for gaming competitions.

“E-sports have kind of been a part of my life for a very long time. I started working in libraries back in 2015. This festival, in specific, has been a brainchild or passion project of mine in libraries for quite a while,” he told me.

His motivation came from what he noticed again and again: a gap in who gets to participate.

“A lot of it stems from experiences in libraries that showed a gap in equity when it came to certain opportunities. E-sports, especially, being one of those opportunities that is just missed out on by so many people simply because they don’t have access to it.”

Planning the event required a lot of passion and thoughtfulness.  According to Prewllitz, “To plan this event we needed […] a committee of about thirteen individuals,” Prellwitz explained. “Our goal was to figure out what was possible. As part of that planning, we looked at racing games, fighting games, 5 v 5 MOBA games, so we looked at a lot of that.”

The team needed a game that was realistic for staff to run and accessible to as many people as possible. That meant something one-on-one, easy to learn, and playable on almost any device.

Brawlhalla fit perfectly.

It’s a simple, fast-paced fighting game that’s completely free and works on phones, tablets, consoles, and computers. For a public library trying to build equity in a competitive scene where gear can cost hundreds of dollars, Brawlhalla checked every box.

This was Prellwitz’s first time running a tournament on this scale, and the process came with lessons. One of the surprising challenges was just getting the word out.

“We weren’t sure what the program would be because similar programs aren’t really that common, especially with the library demographic,” he said. After adjusting messaging and outreach, turnout for the second round of sign-ups grew far beyond what the team expected.

The players were learning too. Many had never touched Brawlhalla before registering.

“Most of our players didn’t know about Brawlhalla before the actual tournament. So, about a month or two before the tournament started, players started downloading the game and learning characters.”

Even so, the matches quickly showed depth.

“A lot of players had their own unique playstyles. We didn’t have players come in to just play a game. Players came in with intent, purpose, and a practiced regimen that they were trying to implement in matches.”

For Prellwitz, the biggest surprise wasn’t the skill of the gameplay. It was the connections forming in real time.

Players from the 13U and ABS divisions share their reflections following the 2025 Level Up Longmont Finals, held on September 27, highlighting standout performances and memorable moments

“Watching the players communicate during these matches was really refreshing to see,” he said. “A lot of them were talking to each other during the matches. And, after the matches, they continued playing just for fun. A few players ended up talking to each other, exchanged information with each other to potentially meet up later. It was really heartwarming to see that there is a gaming community in Longmont, that there are other people who share the same interests.”

For many people, the idea that fighting games build social skills seems counterintuitive, but anyone deep in the FGC understands it well. These games can foster a deep sense of respect and connection among competitors. Each opponent is a new puzzle, a new obstacle, a new temporary teacher. In good-faith competition, the same rival you’re trying to defeat often becomes the person who teaches you how to grow.

Where It Goes From Here

The tournament concluded earlier this fall, but Prellwitz is already thinking about what comes next.

“I would love to see tournaments that go intra-library or maybe you have organizations that have teams and then they send them to the library to compete. I would love to see it grow into something that outgrows us and flourish.”

A Brawlhalla tournament might seem small, but the doors it opens aren’t. Evo’s biggest prize pool came from MultiVersus, Brawlhalla’s closest cousin, with $100,000 up for grabs. Street Fighter 6’s latest Capcom Cup handed out a $1 million first-place check.

For Longmont, this first bracket is a rare chance to tap into a competitive world that’s usually expensive to break into. It is only up from here.

The ones who dared to fight City Hall.

When Boulder denied public access to police body-cam footage, we took it to court. Our fight for transparency is now before the Colorado Supreme Court — because accountability doesn’t stop at the city line.

Through December 31, every gift to Yellow Scene will be matched — dollar for dollar — through the Colorado Media Project’s Matching Grant. Give & Get Democracy this Holiday Season. Your $8 recurring monthly support not only gets you YS delivered to your house, but it’s matched for the entire year, bringing that $8/month to $192. 

Because Independent journalism isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about protecting your right to know, holding power accountable, and keeping democracy in the light. This is #newsCOneeds

The post Leveling Up: Longmont’s First E-Sports Tournament appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Black Sparrow Media describes itself as “an award-winning full-service production company with a focus on narrative filmmaking.” Their catalogue—ranging from indie thrillers to R&B music videos—is available on YouTube and their website. Now, they’re turning their lens toward gaming with a new documentary, Gaming While Black (GWB), which explores race, representation, and access in the world of video games—from character creators to development teams.

I sat down with co-directors Jamal Page and Aaron Seaney, and producer Toni Yanez, to talk about the project and the conversations it’s sparking

Like many players, Seaney started thinking critically about representation at the character creator screen. “When I was growing up I loved the Elder Scrolls games. I always picked the Redguard” he said. “I liked how they looked and their stats.”

But only later did he start to question what it means for white players to adopt Black avatars, especially when design choices reflect shallow or stereotypical takes on Blackness. The Redguard’s aesthetic, for example, leans heavily on ancient Egyptian motifs. That’s a design decision that, while visually striking, risks flattening Black identity into exoticism.

Seaney’s reflection deepened when unprompted, his son created a Black character in Hogwarts Legacy. Unsure how to respond and a bit uncomfortable, Seaney turned to his co-director. “I asked Jamal if the question was offensive,” he recalled. “And I’ll never forget, he said, ‘I’d always rather have people ask and start the conversation.’”

And so, the conversation began about character creation, race, identity, and the very real ways these choices shape the gaming experience.

Representation doesn’t stop at skin tone. As gaming journalist Blessing Adeoye Jr. highlighted in his video, We Need to Fix Black Hair in Video Games, players are often faced with a sea of customizable options for white characters but only two or three for Black ones. Most often: bald, or afro. Some argue the issue is deeper than solely aesthetics. When you boot up a game and can’t even find a hairstyle that resembles yours, it’s a small but sharp reminder that the space wasn’t made with you in mind, and that lack of variety reflects broader biases. Adeoye references real-world examples to demonstrate the harm, a Black cheerleader dismissed over her hair being “too thick,” a high school wrestler forced to cut his locks before a match. These stories show how expectations around “acceptable” Black appearance aren’t limited to the digital world. When video games erase that diversity, they echo those same pressures. 

Of course, customization is only one part of the equation. Who gets to make the games is another key issue.

To explore that question, the Black Sparrow team went to the 2023 Game Awards. Page recalled, “It was an incredible time for the documentary. People lit up at the concept. They told us this film was needed. That kept us moving forward.”

The data backs up their instinct. As of 2021, only about 4% of professionals in major gaming studios were Black. Yanez spoke to the deeper issue: “Our aim is to shed light on often overlooked realities of Black gamers in an industry that can unfortunately be hostile and isolating at times. We also think it is just as important to elevate the voices within the industry that have already been doing the work to create space and challenge the industry to come up with solution”

Despite the support they received from many within the industry, the team quickly learned how contentious and vitriolic conversations about race could be within the gaming community. Online, coordinated hate groups, often branded “anti-woke” or linked to platforms like Kiwi Farms, have made it their mission to undermine diversity in games. “At the Game Awards, we had the privilege of speaking with Alyssa Mercante, a former senior editor at Kotaku with bylines in Rolling Stone,” Seaney said. “She’s been the target of a massive harassment campaign over the past year, and when we posted about our conversation on Twitter, we were immediately flooded with hateful comments—people hurling slurs at Jamal, mocking my appearance, and more.”

But instead of backing down, the team doubled down. “We learned we had our own thread on Kiwi Farms. That only deepened my commitment,” Seaney said. “I want to ask these people directly: Do you actually believe women and people of color are ruining games, or have they just found a new source of income through hate speech?

Despite the pushback, Black Sparrow is hopeful.

“There are people out there putting in the work,” Page said. “We want this film to help spotlight and support them. We need to build the space so the next Jordan Peele or Ryan Coogler of gaming has a place to thrive.”

And signs of progress are already visible. Kojima’s next horror game, OD, is a collaboration with Jordan Peele. South of Midnight, a game featuring a Black woman protagonist in the Deep South, has earned strong reviews. These projects show what’s possible when new voices are given room to tell their stories.

Gaming While Black isn’t just about critique. It’s about possibility and the belief that games, like all media, are better when everyone gets to play.

If you’re interested in supporting the film, follow Black Sparrow Media for updates and future releases.

The post Black Sparrow Media’s “Gaming While Black” Tackles Race and Representation in Games appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

How game designer Rasheed Abueideh took Playdead’s Limbo and elevated it into a call for action. 

The following article contains spoilers for the games Limbo and Liyla and the Shadow of War. 

Shakespeare didn’t name Romeo and Juliet.  He didn’t even come up with the overall plot.  What he did was add layered characterization and elevated poetry to the dialogue.  The adage amongst creatives when desiring to make something meaningful is “don’t borrow, steal.”  Rasheed Abueidah, who developed Liyla and the Shadow of War, adopted this approach when he heavily aped from Playdead’s critically acclaimed Limbo and created a powerful experience, conveying what it feels like to live in wartime Palestine.

For the uninitiated, Limbo is simply a 2D, side-scrolling platform puzzler with a film grain noir aesthetic.  Think Mario, but in black and white.  However, instead of a beloved plumber, we follow the journey of the “Boy.” Further, the upbeat music of a Mario game is replaced with tones reminiscent of a horror series like Silent Hill, while real-world sounds—trains rolling across tracks, the leaking drip of pipes, whirring cicadas, and industrious whistles help bring life to this “other” world.  

The game opens to this black-and-white color palette with the Boy rising to his feet in a field of grass.  His figure matches much of the world around him, as he is more shadow than person. The only sign of personality is his tiny blinking white eyes. As he pushes forward, he must sneak past giant spiders, empty pits, water pits, pits full of jagged sticks created by ill-meaning humans—it’s in the title, Limbo, as in there might be one place worse than this, but only one. To further this idea, much of the background of Limbo appears war-torn: hollowed buildings in disrepair, teetering neon signs with flickering letters. 

When the game ends, the Boy is upon a grassland that eerily resembles the game’s beginning, only this time there is a treehouse with a little girl picking flowers beneath it.  Then, without warning, the screen fades to black.  When the image lights back into frame, the treehouse has been decimated; the two children are nowhere to be seen.  However, in their place are two small heaps of loosened dirt with two distinct and separate swarms of flies circling what many interpret to be their graves.  

When Rasheed Abueideh created Liyla and the Shadow of War, he took many of the elements established by Playdead’s work—monochromatic film grain aesthetic, silhouette player characters, war-torn settings full of perilous traps.  Where Liyla becomes its own game is that it narrows the scope to say this: Palestine in 2014 is simply a lived Limbo. You begin Liyla as a father looking for his daughter across a backdrop of dilapidated houses.  Instead of giant spiders presenting themselves as obstacles, it’s abandoned excavators and husks of flaming cars.  Instead of kids setting traps off in a distance, it’s men with rifles firing wildly in the player’s direction, bombs igniting mere feet away from where the player and Liyla attempt to flee.  The most tragic theme, however, is still exactly the same: there is no escape. 

Both games end in hopeless death. Liyla will often give the player the illusion of choice: as the player and Liyla dash across the Gaza Strip, you’re given the option to hide in a school you come across—but the school is struck by a rocket moments after you choose to go that way.  Another choice has you deciding if you should take four brothers playing soccer on the beach with you as you try to escape the carnage—the result is that the debris from an explosion will take out the four boys, the only thing that changes is whether or not you are with them.  The game ends with an ambulance offering to take Liyla to the hospital, where she’ll be safe, only to be hit by a rocket. Game over.  Everybody lost.

After playing both games, one could make the shallow argument that Liyla is a truncated, unrefined interpretation of Limbo because of the substantial overlap in aesthetic and design choices.  But the only art worth stealing is that which haunts you. 

Abueideh saw something in that shadow of a boy presented in Limbo and extended that metaphor—the shadows of war, forgotten, left behind things that were once fully human.  He uses Limbo’s contrast to show the humanity lost in Gaza during the military strikes in 2014.  When Abueideh lists the number of deaths of Palestinians at game’s end, it impacts the player because we’ve interacted with them.  We’ve seen the school explode and witnessed the deaths of four boys playing soccer.  Four boys who shared a last name.  A whole generation wiped from the earth in an instant.  In fifteen short minutes, Abueideh distills all the trauma from Limbo and grounds it within real-world experience.  The game marks you, indelibly making you want to be an agent for meaningful change.  The way good art should.

The post The Only Art Worth Stealing appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A brief look at how far the depiction of Black characters has come in animation.

About thirty-five years ago, I had a fever dream that began with me drool-lipped and caulk-eyed.  I was a nearly blind child, eyes still dream-hazed, flailing an alarm off at 7:17 am. The bus left for school at 7:50, with the stop still a ten-minute bike ride away.  I still needed to shower. 

I was already the only Black kid in class, so I couldn’t be the gross one, either. So, despite a bruising series of stumbles from someone in the middle of their adolescent coordination, I managed to get a short shower and change of clothes before placing Pop-Tarts to warm in the microwave. 

Backpack swung on over shoulders, Pop-Tarts searing the roof of my palette, I catch an image on the TV of something I wasn’t meant to see, something that threatened that I’d miss the bus and have to call my mom from work in the middle of the week.  

“Sorry, Mom,” I would have said with deepest sincerity. “I didn’t mean to be late, but I saw this cartoon on TV.  It was called ‘Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs.’ Can you believe it, Mom? Cartoon-like Snow White! But everybody is Black!”

The Honestly Good Intentions Behind Coal Black

In truth, however, I didn’t stay. I shut it off after I saw Coal Black dance with a man who had dice for teeth.  I remember asking anyone at school back then if they had ever seen this cartoon. “Sounds like something you made up in your sleep,” was a common response. And, it had felt like a dream. Aside from Fat Albert, I had never seen an animation with an all-black cast.  

There was something intriguing about a magical world where people looked like me, having their own stories. Many years later, while researching an article covering the work of the late Akira Toriyama, I stumbled upon a grouping of cartoons known as The Censored Eleven. The Censored Eleven, according to the Museum of Uncut Funk, is “a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists (US) in 1968. 

UA owned the distribution rights to the Associated Artists Productions (AAP) library at that time and decided to pull these eleven cartoons from broadcast because they are based on racist depictions of Blacks and are deemed too offensive for contemporary audiences.” Among the Censored Eleven was the catalyst for my fever dream, Coal Black.  

After finding it on YouTube, the fever and the dream had officially snapped. I had only been able to see the open minutes when I was younger and couldn’t reconcile that this was how people like me were being seen by the creators by my own memory of the cartoon.  It wasn’t until seeing again nearly a century after it had been created that I saw all the problematic depictions were steeped in minstrelsy.  

Minstrels’ common features, such as thick lips that don’t match the rest of the skin, broad tablet-like teeth, and massive, wide eyes, are the fundamental elements of these caricatured designs. These designs were popular during the Jim Crow era, and many of these depictions can still be seen on the Jim Crow Museum website.  

The twist is that even though the depictions are minstrel-inspired, Coal Black originated as an attempt at meaningful representation. As reported by Open Culture, the story goes that director Bob Clampett was approached in Hollywood by the cast of an all-black musical off-Broadway production called Jump For Joy while they were doing some special performances in Los Angeles. 

They asked me why there weren’t any Warner’s cartoons with black characters, and I didn’t have any good answer to that question. So we sat down together and came up with a parody of Disney’s Snow White, and ‘Coal Black’ was the result. These performers provided the voices (credited, out of contractual obligation, to Mel Blanc), and Clampett paid tribute in character designs to real jazz musicians he knew from Central Avenue.

Yet, and still, many elements celebrated stereotypes: Coal Black’s Betty Boop figure, the insinuation that she was a sex worker, and the lips, faces, and teeth of all the characters. Good intentions considered, it’s still a frustrating animation to watch as an adult.

Coal Black is a misfire. It is a well-intended, sadly accurate reflection of how non-marginalized people interpreted blackness in a style meant to ridicule, not celebrate, the richness of the culture. However, the animation of characters of color has evolved significantly since then. 

Obviously, designs like Coal Black’s are unacceptable in the modern era, so the conversation shifts. Coal Black wasn’t an original character.  She was what is commonly known as a “race-bended” or “race-swapped” version of Snow White done horribly wrong. What happens then when the criteria are changed?  What happens when the race-swapped character is done well?  How do certain audiences react? 

For instance, in the case of Annette in Netflix’s sequel series Castlevania: Nocturne. Nocturne is a follow-up to the surprise success Castlevania, which took elements from stories within the old Konami video games and piecemealed them into a cohesive narrative that spanned 28 episodes.    

While season 1 of Nocturne has many flaws, one, in particular, rattled with the loudest buzz:  Annette, whose original design was Euro-centric fair-skinned damsel, was changed to a Haitian woman skilled in magic powers inherited from the Yoruba, a religion with deities from West Africa.  A Forbes article placed the backlash in an all-too-familiar box: 

I was perplexed by the 52% audience score, literally half of the 100% and “rotten,” as it were. I wondered what was going on here, and ah, it’s another one of these. Having watched nearly all of the series now, I cannot agree with the “bad writing, bad characters” complaints at all that you see in the user reviews, but instead, a lot of focus is put on what else, its prevalence of black characters and other characters of color, altering a few origin stories to make that work. There’s a throughline of oppression and the horrors of slavery in the plot, and outside of that, a focus on gay characters as well.

It’s an infuriating game.  When looking back at a piece of work like Coal Black, it feels like history asks us to look back at the “attempt” to represent Blackness despite almost none of it is done with a sense of love or reverence.  Then, about a century later, when animators have learned and listened, a wonderfully designed character with richness and nuance gets dragged because they changed the race and role of the character from a white woman in the back background to a Black woman doing work on the frontlines.

To make something your own and watch it, too. 

The reason companies like Marvel or DC choose to race-bend and not create something new is glaringly simple: recognizable Intellectual Property. Why use a lesser-known character or an original character as the face for a new animation or Hollywood franchise? 

Simply put, the more recognizable the name, the bigger the audience. For instance, DC has the rights to characters of color like Icon and Martian Manhunter. In terms of power, either one is equivalent to Superman within the universe. Both have enough backlog content to make a Superman-like movie with a Black male lead. However, since neither one of these characters will be recognized by the general public, the chances of them being used in film will forever be relegated to deleted scenes on YouTube.  

This, sadly, is the bad news.  However, as Self-proclaimed “Blerd” Tony Weaverly Jr. often posts on his social media, the future is bright just over the horizon.  Further, the time for Black-created content is now.  The world of indie comics is burgeoning with titles like Kesha: The Demon Eater, Crescent City Monsters, Killadelphia, and Harriet Tubman: Vampire Slayer. Sometimes, the success of these can become animated series of their own.

The fever from thirty-plus years ago has broken. And so is the dream of what I hoped Coal Black would be, but in reality, there are so many people out there aiming to uplift Black culture through representation and storytelling, and I can’t wait to see what they and others are going to do next.   

Here’s a list of a few shows that have recently released or are slated to release later this year: 

Iyanu: Child of Wonder

Similarly to the revision of Annette in Castlevania: Nocturne, Iyanu is a character whose power comes from the Yoruba, the deities found within the West African religion.  Iyanu lives in Yorubaland.  She’s lost her memories, but in their place, she finds that she has incredible powers that rival the gods of her land.  The journey is a classic one that leans into the idea of confidence and belief.   

The Invincible Fight Girl

Protagonist Andy, born on Accountant Island, wants to be a wrestler. One day, when wrestlers come to Accountant Island to do their taxes, Andy ends up failing their tax return because she shirked off her accountant studies to watch self-help wrestling VHS tapes.  Now, she has to fight for her life.  The show is a love letter to Shonen, anime and wrestling.  The show uses the general idea of “wrestling” as a magic system. Instead of objects of power like broomsticks and wands, the fights have to take place in a ring.  Instead of casting spells, she has to shout the name of her wrestling moves.  It has the quirkiness and charisma that is akin to Anime like Inuyasha or epic journey narratives like Fellowship of the Ring.  This currently airs on HBO Max and Cartoon Network.

 

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Rule 56

A forthcoming project from Creative Theory World, Rule 56 is inspired by the nearly unheard-of history that details the existence of the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes (CHLM), which was founded in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1895. According to On the Shoulders of Giants, many black men who would play baseball in the spring and summer would opt to play hockey to stay in shape.  Rule 56, the rule that allows for fighting in hockey, gives this anime the space it needs to create a truly unique anime that, with any luck, can be mentioned in the same breath as Hajime no Ippo and Blue Lock. 

The post Where We’re Going, Not Where We’ve Been appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Virginia native Cha Cha Hertz, as she sees it, went to college on roller skates. She stole them from a roller rink years back and fit them with some skateboard wheels. Her story being the last covered in this series is almost kismet as she is a master of several artistic trades: photography to calligraphy to papermaking to painting to graphic design. At this current juncture in her artistic life, she is a metal worker who loves the art and the material. However, she didn’t always love it, and there’s a chance she might love a completely different form of art in the future. Cha Cha’s way is to forever be a student of art and life. By doing so, she gets to choose what is lesson and what is recess.

Cha Cha, the metal worker

“I like the physicalness of moving,” Cha Cha says. “That’s what draws me to metal work is the physicality. And, the fact that steel, bronze, aluminum — they’re all so permanent. They could last for hundreds of years or thousands. I like the permanence of them.”

This, of course, comes with a trade-off. Working metal can be grueling on the body, but when Cha Cha falls in love with something, she doesn’t take half-steps.“Working with metal, you need to wear safety gear,” Cha Cha explains. “I wear steel-toed boots, leather apron, gloves — it feels like I’m suiting up for skiing. I have a face mask and mask that filters particulates, mask for when I’m spray painting, eye protection, ear protection. The metal has toxic stuff so when I’m playing with steel, for example, as opposed to bronze which uses chemical patinas, then I would spray paint and build, much like canvas.”

“It beats the crap out of me,” she continues. “The older I get, the harder it is. Using power tools for long periods of time, a lot of time you get your fingers, your hands will go almost numb. And it can cause nerve damage. The older you get — you don’t really see a lot of old blacksmiths. And there’s not many women doing it. The women have to work smarter. When I went to my very first blacksmithing conference, I met this woman who was quite impressive, and I asked her, ‘How do women do it?’ And she said, ‘We have to work smarter than the men.’ Gravity and leverage is your friend. Power hammers and forges and plasma cutters — you have every possibility open to you. I go in for like five to sometimes ten hours, and I just go until my eyes hurt.”

A different kind of journey

In this cover series, many have started in other professions and carried over into art. Cha Cha, however, wanted to be an artist from the jump: “I was always the class artist,” she remembers. “I was a military brat; art was a self-soothing thing for me. I would copy and draw and sort of document where I was. In high school, I won state, local, and national honors. I started getting my picture in the paper, and I started identifying as an artist because people would see my picture in the paper and say, ‘She’s an artist.’ I went to college on roller skates, and I graduated on roller skates. I would roller skate to all of my classes, and I did all of my photo documentation on roller skates.”

Cha Cha didn’t have any of the struggle jobs that are typical to most artist stories. No waitressing or night jobs working in power plants. Which isn’t to say that she didn’t have her own kind of struggle. On her first interview for a photojournalism gig, for example, Cha Cha told the story of how “a big fat male chauvinist pig took a hit of his cigar, blew smoke in my face, and said, ‘Honey, you’re not worth my time.’” Cha Cha recalls, “‘You’re just going to run off and get pregnant on me. I want a man who’s married and has children.’ So, I moved to Colorado because one of my friends said ‘Come to Boulder. I have a job and a place for you to live.’ I started freelancing immediately. I’ve never had a real job. I did freelance calligraphy, graphic work.”

The encounter marks a win for those who believe in the phrase, “rejection is protection,” a flashpoint through and through. If Cha Cha had been awarded the job, she would have found herself on the corporate ladder, trying to move up instead of out.  However, as a result of rejection, she came to Colorado where she was given a path to follow and a name she still claims to this day.

Cha Cha Bowties

Surprisingly, Cha Cha’s name isn’t inspired by the music of famed Cuban musical artist Tito Puente. Further, she barely knows the steps to the dance: “I know just enough to get out of the conversation doing the 1-2-3,” she says. “I had a therapy dog that I used to take to hospitals and nursing homes, and I taught him how to do the Cha-Cha with me. He would stand on his hind legs, go backwards and forwards, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.”

Instead, her paper-made “Cha Cha” bowties grew in infamy in the mid-1980s. Warhol-style pop art was slipping into the mainstream, and Cha Cha, at that time, was not in love with metal work. Instead, she was in love with paper sculpture. She started making paper appetizers at parties that people would then pin to their outfits. Bow ties were the next evolution as they were a popular fashion accessory at that time, but so was “lampooning.” An element of pop art was calling attention to the popularity of something and teasing at the fact that they were trendy — like MAD Magazine or “Weird Al” Yankovic . Normal bow ties, while appearing boxy and monotone, also have a softness of fabric to balance the look; they’re meant to be a part of the whole ensemble. The paper bow ties, however, call attention to themselves by emphasizing the boxiness to the look and sporting an off-the-wall coloring or pattern.

They became so popular, the brand name of the bow ties, Cha Cha, became a moniker she’s claimed ever since. People started referring to her as “Cha Cha” and not her given name. In a way, her art named her. “Cha Cha fit me,” she says of the name. “I have an effusive nature, and I felt like Cha Cha fit me as opposed to the other name because I don’t feel I am that name. It just sort of fit between the name and the bowties. People started calling me Cha Cha. Most people totally embrace it. Children love saying Cha Cha.”

Discomfort needed to create art

A defining moment came when she first interviewed for the Boulder Arts & Crafts Gallery, an organization of which she was a member for 35 years. She didn’t make the best first impression though, “When I went in for my first interview, I had to interview in front of 75 artists, and it was very intimidating.” She says the interview was for papermaking and she didn’t make it the first time, so she came back with something else, and would do it again and again until she made it in. Inevitably, it was her tenacity that won them over. The situation, like many others in Cha Cha’s life, had an element of discomfort, which is something that she has learned to thrive off of. “When it comes to making art,” says Cha Cha, “you should always be doing things that make you uncomfortable and embrace it because that’s what makes you grow. If you’re uncomfortable, you’ve got to find a way to get out of that. And, part of that is: I like the problem solving of making art.”

In addition to discomfort being a key element to creating her art, Cha Cha also sees the human elements that are needed to make art special as the very reason artists don’t need to fear artificial intelligence. AI is incapable of making the distinction of comfort and discomfort. The technology serves immediacy, not the complexity of the human condition. “I don’t think that AI will ever take the place of artists,” Cha Cha explains. “I think it is a tool. It depends on how you use it and also how you relate to it. People are intimidated by it because it is fast and immediate, where a lot of artwork is a process that is not fast and immediate, and you have to keep working on it to get the effect that you need. I think it will replace some things, but you know, nothing is permanent. Everything changes, and if you see yourself saying, ‘Well, I remember,’ then you sound like an old fart. You got to embrace change because that’s the only constant in the world. If you don’t, you’re screwed.”

How life is art

For Cha Cha, everything she does feeds her art. It’s all connected.  She’s big into kayaking, for instance, and much of the art in her studio is inspired by the nature she sees, like the painted sticks that reminded her of snakes. The fantasy birds she makes often start with birds she’s seen while she’s afloat on the water. Further, whenever she learns a new medium, she adds that to her toolkit. As someone who is fond of culinary arts, Cha Cha likens mixing media to making a good stew. “Each medium is a different spice,” she says. “How do you explain cinnamon next to chili powder? It’s like making a stew. You try different flavors, and it all comes together in a really good stew. It’s the same with art. When you come up with a concept, and you’ve been doing art for long enough, you can draw from all those different concepts, and you can see it in your mind’s eye. And, oftentimes, I have no idea what I’m doing, and it stops talking to me. And I have to walk away, but it all eventually comes together. With abstract pieces, sometimes you’ve just got to do something silly like turn something upside down.”

Cha Cha’s fluid approach to completing her work rings appropriate. Never in the conversation did she ever mention an admiration for strictness of rules and often refers to what she does as “play” as opposed to “work.” And, even though she is in love with metal, she feels glass is going to be her next calling.

Much like choosing her name and going to college on roller skates, she makes her own rules. In other words, she embodies the art of living. As ethics professor and philosopher Pedro Tabensky puts it:

“Lives, like paintings, are composed. Lives are not well lived when they are lived, as it were, by following a given manual. Instead, skills guide our paths through a penumbra of uncertainty that always threatens to upset whatever provisional balance we might have achieved thus far. We cannot fully know in advance what sorts of surprises are looming behind the veils of darkness, but an expert in the art of living will best be equipped to integrate unforeseeable circumstances into the overall composition of her life.

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Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)
Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post The Artists: Writing with Fire appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Engineer-turned-artist Betina Brumm, out of Longmont, loves disruption. Be it in technology or art, she admires the kinds of creations that challenge tradition. The nature of the word “disruption” brings about ideas of chaos, but the true power of ideas comes from the opportunity they create. COVID, for example, broke all our routines and set the whole world on pause. Brumm began that pause as an engineer and came out the other side an artist who is certain this is the career she wants to pursue for the rest of her life.

Abstract realism

One of the more surprising moments in my conversation with Brumm was learning she’s actually schooled as an engineer. And, while she practiced visual arts since she was a child, she didn’t go to art school, something she believes lends itself to her creative process and a strong possibility why she landed on abstract realism as a primary means of expression: “I grew into abstract realism,” Brumm recalls. “I’m not formally trained in painting, but I’ve painted all my life,” “I started painting in my early teens. I started with pastels and crayons, to portraits, and I moved to oils. The transition to artist from engineer wasn’t an easy one.”

According to the International Society of Automation, what makes a great engineer is the ability to see and focus on the smallest of details. As the ISA explains: “Engineering is by definition a detail-oriented profession, but the field of automation requires almost fanatical attention to detail. Everything matters, which is why instrument spec sheets have so many lines on them.”

While a detailed-oriented approach is great for engineering, it didn’t lend itself as well to Brumm’s artistic expression.

“I was doing very realistic portraits,” explains Brumm. I always do painting as a gift, but I found painting portraits very emotionally draining. My approach for realistic paintings is that it has to be perfect. When I made the decision to go to abstract realism, it allowed me to play with color. Very deep and deep saturated [colors]. It gives the piece uniqueness. I’m putting the subject beneath a different lens.”

The Unknown

In her painting “The Unknown,” Brumm depicts the face of an older homeless man. On the surface of this concept, we have the idea of pity and struggle. However, Brumm’s use of color hardens the image, showing the man not only has wisdom and experience but also confidence in his world view.

In addition to the color, Brumm added texture to the man’s beard, uniquely grounding the subject. Using the freedom that abstract realism provides, Brumm adds depth to the painting, creating an image that leaves a lasting impression.

The blurring of artistic boundaries

Brumm’s penchant for the arts started at a young age. Not only does she have a love for visual arts, but she also has a passion for dancing.

“It’s more about the music itself and the expression,” says Brumm explaining her love of dance. I think that, originally, dance wasn’t related to my painting. I [painted] since I was little and did portraits all the time. But, [I] do have a series that focuses on the dance and the movement. Dance is rich and deeply emotional.”

Brumm’s roots connect to Spain, so it should come as no surprise one of the first dances she learned from a young age was flamenco. She was even able to join a tango dance troupe here in Colorado. The balance of movement and structure found within ballroom dance isn’t surprising when considering Brumm’s affinity for abstract realism.

An article on Medium characterized this crossover between the arts: “Both visual and performing arts serve as powerful mediums for the expression of emotions, ideas, and narratives. Artists and performers use their chosen medium, be it paint, sculpture, dance, or theater, to convey complex feelings and thoughts, tell stories, and connect with audiences on a deep emotional level.”

Brumm is working on a series that focuses on this crossover by extending the focus to the movement of dancers. She has a piece where a woman expresses herself through hip-hop movements, and she’s currently working on another piece that’s of a flamenco dancer.

The artist’s control of AI

Brumm’s perspective on artificial intelligence is unique as she is both an engineer and an artist. The threat of AI has been ever present, as Brumm sees it, and as some of the other creators in this series have attested to, AI is just a tool to be harnessed.

Unrestrained Energy

“Well, as a former engineer who always worked with technology, I love robotics,” Brumm confesses. “I love disruption technology. I think people my age who have experienced decades know the challenge in changing technology can scare people. But, it is inevitable.”

She uses AI to make sketches when she has an idea. Then she begins to edit lines, angles, and colors. Brumm admitted that whenever she uses a prompt, the resulting sketch is never good enough. AI is the assistant to her creative process; she is the director of the process.

“AI has been among us for decades,” says Brumm. “But, now it’s in everybody’s reach. It’s a tool.”

A small survey conducted by Playform found 65% of participating artists use AI to do some initial sketches. Though the evidence is a small sample size, Brumm painted the picture of how AI can streamline the creation process and, like most labor-saving technology, is leaning toward becoming a mainstay in the artist’s creation process.

The subtle themes

As the subjects of Brumm’s work are from a variety of different locales, the ideas of migration and global citizenry, although subtle, can also be found in her choice of subject and her craftsmanship. In a piece titled, “The British Library” by Yinka Shonibare, curator Achim Borchardt-Hume explored the nuances: “Migration to me feels ‘normal.’ I am aware that I am saying this from the privileged position of having had a choice. Hardly a migration, yours, some may say. Yet, I chose to migrate. To me, not to belong feels like an open place to be in.”

As her mother is originally from Spain, having such a close connection to another country gave Brumm a unique lens. Abstract realism as a vehicle allows Brumm the space to shift borders, broaden structures, and add extra elements to her work. Portraying subjects from as far away as Tibet and as close to home as Colorado, the lines blur ever so gently, while always letting the core of humanity, the well of emotions, tell the story. Even as Brumm moves to work on a commercial line focused on elements specific to Colorado, she wants to use the physical elements of Colorado to make the pieces unique to this area.

“I’m actually taking something that is very unique to Colorado, which is the change between winter and spring, from nature. It’s something we have that is beautiful. And, to be honest I haven’t seen people paint it.”

She wanted to incorporate the texture involved in the transition from winter to spring and spoke of creating cards. Having a card infused with actual Colorado soil, rocks, or leaves sent across the globe would be a creative turn in Brumm’s artistic process while still carrying the heart of her work.

Where the heart will lead

Currently, Brumm has lots of things brewing. She has plans for shows across the world in places like Greece and, weather pending, Dubai. Brumm often does paintings for auctions that benefit charities. The details on how this will manifest are evolving, but she hopes to have something for the holidays along the lines of textured Christmas cards. What is surprising, despite near worldwide exposure, is her goal of having a local show of her work here in Colorado.

“I think that I would feel accomplished in different ways if I could show all my work in a local museum. Or in a local space where people can see it. Pearl Street, a Boulder museum, but as I said I’m not actively looking at that yet. I want to have enough [paintings]. It will come.”

Brumm stepped forward in her career as a painter with the grace of a dancer. Until her local showing in Colorado becomes a reality, she will continue her journey from Greece to Colorado, wherever she ends up, she simply wants to go with the flow.

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The post The Artists: Painting in the Dissonance appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Nancy Smith,  founder of Frequent Flyers Aerial Dance Company, confessed that the movements of animals or bugs don’t really influence her aerial dance choreography. However, one can’t help but see a caterpillar’s fate in her story. As someone trained in traditional dance, grounded with balance on the balls of their feet and control in the core of the body, her focus has changed. All it took was a workshop with Bob Davidson Colorado Dance Festival in 1987, and Smith was transformed. Her love of dance lifted off the ground into controlled flight. In 1988, she founded Frequent Flyers, an aerial dance company located in Boulder, and has been teaching classes and putting on performances ever since.

A brief history of aerial dance

The art of aerial dance has roots stretching back about 2,000 years into China’s history, connecting it to circus arts like aerial trapeze. However, the modern take — taut cloth hanging from the ceiling, people binding themselves within it, holding the body in  shape, and swinging in patterns through the air — evolved from “the postmodern movement” in the late sixties. “There is some circus influence, but at the time, it was more about people pushing the boundaries of what dance is,” Smith said of the art form’s origin. As previously featured dancer Helanius J. Wilkins” was inspired to express himself through movement from his experiences with childhood fear, Smith had a childhood love of climbing trees and swaying from limbs that guided her to aerial:

“I had been working with a company in Seattle dancing, moved to Colorado, and one of the people had started doing dance trapeze. I saw a show and immediately said, “That’s it. That’s what I want to do.”

“There is some circus influence, but at the time, it was more about people pushing the boundaries of what dance is,” Smith said of the art form’s origin.

However, it takes more than desire to become an aerial dancer. Smith shared the technicalities of transitioning from a traditional, grounded dance to aerial dance:

“It’s much more use of the vertical space. I will sometimes tell the students imagine the space is like a chemistry beaker. You’re trying to fill the entire beaker, not just the bottom few milliliters. You’re trying to be inside every part of this beaker. With aerial you can be up against the ceiling, and you can be swinging to the side in a way you can’t do even with another person lifting you.

“And, then, it’s the sensation, being off the ground and swinging and flying and climbing. I spent my childhood in trees and spinning until I got dizzy and fell down. “

For Smith, aerial dance has become the perfect marriage for all those feelings.

The discomfort of evolution

When training new students, she echoed a phrase uttered by high school football coaches around the globe: “Are you hurt, or are you injured?” While the line might prompt a chuckle for its seemingly tough tone, Smith emphasizes the importance of making that distinction:

“There’s discomfort and then there’s pain, the type of pain that says, ““I’m injuring myself.” And we try to help them understand the difference. Over time, your brain stops telling you it hurts, like hanging by my knees. If I had not been in the air for a long time, I’m like ““Ahh man, I forgot how much this hurts.” Then the next thing is: I don’t feel it anymore. At some point your body will tell you that you’re not being injured by this. You don’t need to keep sounding the alarm. Plus, for the thrill of being upside down,what’s a little discomfort?”

I had been working with a company in Seattle dancing, moved to Colorado, and one of the people had started doing dance trapeze. I saw a show and immediately said, “That’s it. That’s what I want to do.”

When teaching aerial dance, Smith ensures students are comfortable with the transition. As human beings lack wings or the ability to make a web, transitioning into a state of being that requires a person to move in a completely different space — feet off the ground and now dependent on silks dangling from the ceiling. Trust has to be earned. We’re not natural flyers.

“The interesting thing about aerial, especially teaching it to other people: you know people bump up against their fear all the time. It starts with your feet on the ground, but the next part of it is comfort with being upside down.

“[There’s] lots of hands-on spotting, a lot of queuing as to where to go in space, but you’re always training it on the ground first. Let’s say you’re going to do a straddle in the air, which is basically like splits. You practice it on the ground. You roll back onto your shoulders to feel what it’s like to invert into that position. Building strength in your core, then you translate that strength in the air.

“Even in cases where many students enter the studio walled-up with apprehension, they leave the studio with the sensation of gleefully flying.  Smith said, “It’s a wonderful experience to move past fear into achievement. You can feel quite elated. It gives you this feeling of elation and accomplishment.””

So many words for snow

Coincidently, the theme of transformation is central to the next major piece the Frequent Flyers are currently working on: snow. For the Frequent Flyers, the importance of snow is something that they’ve been meaning to turn into a piece of performance art for a while, as one of her performers is also an ice core scientist who travels to Greenland and Alaska:

“So, this particular show is a collaboration with myself, my long-time teacher performers named Valerie Morris, and Issac Endo. The three of us are co-creating a performance that will be at the Dairy. Valerie, her day job is an ice core scientist. She’s had an idea for a long time to do a piece about snow and all the incarnations of snow. Evaporation to crystallization and so on. So, we all agreed — the three of us — that we are going to make a show called “Ways to See Snow.” We’re taking different approaches to what are all the aspects of snow. Valerie, being a scientist, she’s approaching it more like how to depict hoarfrost, for example, physically with the apparatus and making that image come to life on the screen. The work I’m doing for the show is more qualitative. I’m working on a piece called “Thunder Snow.” I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a thunderstorm while it’s snowing, it’s very weird. And, Isaac is doing a piece about how everyone is warm but him.”

“It’s a wonderful experience  to move past fear into achievement. You can feel quite elated. It gives you this feeling of elation and accomplishment.”

Smith’s mention of all the different types of snow echoes the grade school story about certain groups within the Inuit culture not only having the language for the types of snow but also having science prove they are correct in the importance of having such distinctions.  From the National Snow and Ice Data Center:

“We all associate snowstorms with cold weather, but snow’s influence on the weather and climate continues long after the storm ends. Because snow is highly reflective, a vast amount of sunlight that hits the snow is reflected back into space instead of warming the planet. Without snow cover, the ground absorbs about four to six times more of the sun’s energy. The presence or absence of snow controls patterns of heating and cooling over Earth’s land surface more than any other single land surface feature.”

This manifests in changing avalanche patterns, influence on global food, migration patterns, etc. — so much power in such a gentle thing. The idea of snow doesn’t evoke the doomsday images from the Book of Revelation. However, snow shares a bond with water, which is a life-giving element as it sustains nearly everything on the planet. But, as nearly every ancient culture has a flood myth, water can be a life-taking element. Snow’s impact is surprisingly vast, and the Frequent Flyers are preparing diligently to showcase the reaches of its complexity.

It’s not there yet

When discussing the future of aerial dance choreography, the topic of artificial intelligence came up because Smith had already experimented with the technology.  She discovered that, while its current state is as bad as it will ever be, it still has a way to go when it comes to informing the world of choreographed dance:

Our last December show was exactly that, [a spoof]. We poked fun at Alexa. We used AI to generate imagery that was projected. It started out, though, by asking AI to choreograph something. I gave it some specific parameters. That’s what got us into the spoof idea because it was so stupid what came out of it. It just wasn’t even interesting.

However, while AI is extremely limited in its ability to create, there are claims that it can help with the finer points of dancing. According to a Dance Channel TV article:

“AI-powered tools can analyze a dancer’s performance and provide real-time feedback on technique, posture, and movement precision. By using motion capture technology and advanced algorithms, AI can create tailored training programs that address individual weaknesses and enhance strengths.”

In other words, when it comes to the craft elements of dance — the angles and shapes the body is meant to make — AI can be useful. However, when it comes to creating a piece of choreography as Smith’s experience has shown, AI still has a long way to go.

It’s never too late to learn how to fly

Transformation, from traditional dance to aerial dance, from apprehensive students to flying apprentices, from snow to water, is at the heart of the Frequent Flyer’s story. Smith’s passion for the performance art of aerial dance comes through in the certainty of which she speaks about it. She knows its power to impact the audience and its potential to transform the performer:

“This is something that appeals to people across all ages and experience. It’s a very accessible art form. And, we teach students from age five to — I have a student who is 74. She started out when she was 70. It is an amazing opportunity to have this in our community. “

The post The Artists: Oh, the View from Up Here; How Nancy Smith turned a childhood love of dangling from trees into dance appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Jim Morrissey, editorial cartoonist and a creative director in advertising, remembers how crudely drawn the character designs of The Simpsons were when it was a short on “The Tracey Ullman Show.” We talked about the evolution of his own work, the need for political cartoons, and how they function as a means to speak truth to power.

Modern iconoclasts

Around the 8th or 9th century, a group of dissidents formed a movement led by people known as the iconoclasts, which translates to “break likeness” or “image breaking.” History doesn’t note an inciting incident. Rather it reveals an incoming tide that was swelling for years as many iconoclasts would find the imagery of Mary, saints, and anything not pertaining to Jesus himself to be in contradiction with the second commandment — do not worship God through an idol.

Satire does not possess the heft and consequence of this movement, but at their roots, they have nearly the same philosophies: They both see a lofted image, something put on a pedestal for the sake of celebration or reverence and aim to challenge that placement, which is to say, they’re not better than the rest of us.  The original iconoclasts railed against images of the church while the modern iconoclasts challenge celebrity, the icons of today, through parody and satire.

Satirists mean to check power, an idea Morrissey would often come back to when he reflected on why he became a political cartoonist in the first place:

My local newspaper [printed] something dumb like, “We’re going to start arresting people who let their cats out at night!” I’m like, “This is the stupidest waste of paper.” I remember just drawing something and laughing and calling the newspaper saying, “Hey, can you guys run this?” And they said, “Sure. Hey, would you like to do this every week for us?” It was a good way of feeling like, as a citizen, you can have an opinion on something, and there was a way to get it out there.

The article “Satire: Comedy for Democracy” offers a similar sentiment when addressing the value of satire in the modern world:

“Satire also acts as a societal pressure valve. It provides a means for the public to cope with the often disheartening realities of political life. Through humor, we find a way to confront our frustrations and fears about governance and policies.

By mocking the powerful, satirists remind them (and ourselves) that they are not above scrutiny. In regimes where freedom of speech is stifled, satire often bubbles up as subversive art, challenging authority and sparking debate. Even in democracies, it keeps leaders from becoming too detached, puncturing their egos with wit.”

Morrissey echoed the sentiments of a previous artist in our series, Steve Skelton, in his love for the sardonic parody and satire of Mad Magazine and Gary Larson’s “The Far Side.” He would go on to say:

[Mad] was kind of like the holy grail for me growing up. Whatever movie was big or whatever thing was going on in culture, they were right there to parody it and make fun of it. They just had amazing writing, amazing artists. Mort Drucker, Sergio Garcia —  they just had this cast of people on staff that would just capture stuff. Couldn’t wait to get the new one. My friends and I would swap ’em or share ’em. To me, those were just rich with stories, content, art I could just copy, pre-internet.

He would go on to laud the works of Larson’s “The Far Side”:

“The Far Side” is another great example. That was science, biology, sci-fi, anthropology making fun of the whole human condition with animals and space. And, he would boil it down to what I would even consider to be like an Instagram post today. It was short and sweet for a little kid to open the panel and go, “Got it! Yep!” Gary Larson could just create magic in such a short space to make it come to life.

In a lecture given by Professor Kerry Soper, who himself worked with the Larson syndicate to publish his comics online, he talked about Larson’s approach to satire and how why it became so pervasive within the world of satirists:

For example, at one point he spoke on Larson’s tendency to “deflate or parody?genre entertainment myths, fairy tales” saying he was “kind of like the anti-Disney — like all the sweet platitudes you might get in a movie like Bambi are brought right down to?earth with his?naturalistic view of things.” To illustrate this point, he displayed a comic with the caption, “That evening, with her blinds pulled,?Mary had three helpings of corn,?two baked potatoes,?extra bread, and a little?lamb.”

The final point made by Soper about Larson’s work is what makes this kind of commentary important. Within this example of Bambi, even though we see deer grow up, the hunters are still out there. He hasn’t escaped the menu. A harrowing thought, yes, but the most likely outcome for his story.

The political turn

Considering all the influences that Morrissey has taken from Mad and “The Far Side,” one of the more interesting reveals was that those weren’t the influences that led him to political commentary. It was a library book he couldn’t remember the name of:

With political stuff I remember a book. I was at the library. I think it was 741, Dewey Decimal System. I don’t even remember who the politicians were. It was just something that I couldn’t let go of because of the art behind it, how simple it was, how stripped down it was. And, it wasn’t Mad Magazine, and it was “The Far Side,” but there was something intriguing about this world where you can kind of speak truth to power.

Morrissey would then mention the current political climate as we approach what has been an election cycle for the ages:

I was having dinner with some folks, and we were talking politics while keeping it friendly over dinner. But, I look back to July of this year, and July of this year was just one of those watershed moments in American history where I don’t think we all realize,  Wow, here you have one of the worst debates ever. Like Nixon/Kennedy back in the 60s, where Biden just shriveled under the — you know, we just saw what we’d all been thinking. And, then the assassination attempt, then “Biden step down — I’m not stepping down — Biden step down — Grandpa, take your medicine.” And, just to see all that transpire within a 30-day window was pretty remarkable.

And, even though this period has been extremely content rich, Morrissey shed some light on the trappings of such a time period:

This time is one of the richest times in the sense of there’s so much to dissect. But, the other, I guess I’ll call it a trap with it is: It’s easy to fall into the easy gag with it all. ‘Oh I can do this,’ then you look online after you’re done and see five other cartoonists have done it. So, what’s good about it is there’s a lot of ripe things for the pickings that are there for your interpretation. How do you go beyond the easy punchline? … Even when Trump was in office from 2016 to 2020, I felt myself becoming numb to parody shows like “The Daily Show.” All they’re doing is putting actors in a room to reenact what happened this week. And, I don’t blame the writers, but as a creative person you have to figure out what’s a new way to interpret what’s going on with this. How do we as creative [people] raise our level to do something completely different?

It’s inherently human

Artificial intelligence, the ever-divisive subject among the artistic community, is something that Morrissey sees as one more tool to master. As he works in both the world of political art and advertising, the inevitable future where AI is in all facets of work life is fast approaching and many have a great degree of trepidation:

I’m part of a symposium of folks in the creative world, and they were like, ‘Hey, we’re having an emergency meeting. We’re just going to talk about what AI is going to do to our business. I just remember getting on, and there were so many glum faces. Everyone just looked like it’s the end of the world. The end of the world!’ Then one guy goes, “I don’t know if anyone remembers the show on FOX called, “How did you do that?”” It was how magicians share their tricks. And, one magician was going to share all the tricks: coin behind the ear, saw a woman in half.

He would recount how many of the magicians within the community responded with deep-rooted anger. They were worried that a magician revealing the secrets was ruining magic. However, Morrissey would go on to talk about the response from the magician who was revealing the secrets, who stated so to the effect of “No. We need to up our game.”

He would further state, “’Collectively, magic will get better!’ We need to stop being threatened by something that is only innately human. We call it artificial, but all the information is from humans. For me I just want to know the tools. At the end of the day, it’s just another tool in the chest.”

A recent announcement in The Art Newspaper brings Morrissey’s views on AI to the forefront. Morrissey plays around with tools like Midjourney to get a sense of how AI works in the artistic fields. He assesses that we call it AI, but all the data used is inherently human, which is why this announcement of Dataland is so interesting. Per The Art Newspaper, “Refik Anadol Studio today announced plans for the world’s first museum of artificial intelligence (AI) arts. The museum, Dataland, is due to be launched in 2025, with a flagship location at the Frank Gehry-designed development The Grand LA in downtown Los Angeles.”

What’s even more interesting is that the artist’s studio, Refik Anadol Studio, has a  “trademark data style” which is something, as of writing this piece, has little to no precedent, but as use of AI rises, will probably be something we hear more of in the future. In any case, much like Morrissey surmised, it’s a tool we need to learn how to use. And, if artists want to produce work that will lure people away from museums like Dataland, they’ll need to “up their game.”

The worst thing to happen to an artist

Morrissey ended the interview by referencing Rocky, which is less surprising the more it’s given thought. Rocky’s story is that of a fighter, a habitual line-stepper who refused to accept that living in the box he was placed in was enough and always fought for more. Seeing the similarities between the fight within a boxer and the fight within an artist is fitting, even more so when said artist sees the world as iconoclasts did — with a want to combat by questioning those in power. When referencing Mickey’s advice to Balboa in the third film, Morrissey phrased it this way:

‘The worst thing that can happen, happened to you, you got civilized.’ I think that as creators, we can’t ever get civilized in what we do. We just always make sure to keep our backs against the wall. Not in a bad way. Not in a ‘We got to martyrs for the art.’ But, in a sense with everything becoming more AI, and things look very AI sometimes, we can’t ever be civilized in a sense of ‘It’s easy.’ We still need to try hard at what we do.

Jim Morrissey, The Colorado Sun, photo credit: Duston Doskocil, Dosko Photography

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The post The Artists: The Way To Be Uncivilized appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Beginning at the end

In addition to crediting his wife Liz for much of their collective success, Kenny Vasko often talked about musicians as human beings. Adaptability and accommodation are key components to the success of their record studio, Dog House Music Studio. One could argue that’s why Dog House has solidified itself as a mainstay in Lafayette, with the performance space “The End” serving as a musical nest for about seventy patrons to enjoy live shows. The Vaskos love to give back. From open mics to “Women’s Jam,” The End allows Lafayette to celebrate the art of music and the people who make it. This love comes from a genuine place that carried them through a very tough time in their lives.

The ordinary world

The first stage of the hero’s journey is meant to set up a point of contrast. The “known” or “ordinary world” is a simple and traditional life grounded in real world expectations such as in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” where Frodo loves hanging around, reading, and eating under hills and trees while playing pranks. These ideals are comparable to a small town or suburb where life is meant to be seen as quaint, easy, and expected. Then, within a way too short of time, he’s called to meet elves, dwarves, and men to fight orcs, trolls, and balrogs — things he’d only ever heard of in stories.

Kenny Vasko’s story started on this same spoke of the hero’s journey cycle:

“Let’s go down memory lane here. Like everyone else that went to college, I was in a band. I was the frontman. I was the high energy low talent guy that would get the crowd going. It was awesome. It was friendships I still have. Then I graduated and I got my first paycheck from a tax software company and was like, ‘Oh great! I can let these dreams die.’”

Becoming a Certified Public Accountant was a surprising fit as Vasko is an extroverted person in an introverted industry. But Vasko was a facilitator. “I’d start to make a name for myself in that way. I wasn’t the person working on a spreadsheet until three in the morning. But, I would be on the phone making sure the client was happy with what we were doing. It was good for me career wise, but I did feel like a square peg in a round hole from an emotional standpoint.”

The call

In the cycle of storytelling, there is something that pulls the protagonist away from the known world. Sadly, for Vasko, the call came with an unexpected tragedy:

“My wife and I got married in 2016, and about a week after we got back from our honeymoon, my mother found out that she had cancer. We didn’t know how long she had to live… like a month after I got married, my wife agreed to move to a small town as opposed to the Denver-Boulder-metropolitan area. And, that experience really changed us both professionally. My wife was an urban planner. She has a master’s degree. It’s something that she’s always wanted to do and after the experience of loss when my mother did pass away just a few months later, it really did drive home the point that tomorrow is not promised today.”

When they went back to work they both decided that it didn’t feel right, so they quit their jobs at the same time. Vasko took on the tax books of friends and family to keep afloat financially. He unexpectedly found himself with over one hundred clients and in desperate need of an office. “We were looking through different websites of real estate for lease or whatever then we saw this building for sale, it comes with a music studio.” Vasko likened this discovery to accepting the invitation to peruse the dessert menu. “Yeah, we’ll take a look at the menu.”

What the Vasko family discovered when digging into the details was this was a space rented by about 70 or so musicians. However, once they started to get a vision of what the place could be, they were informed that it was set to be demolished. Initially, they had accepted defeat. But, “Then we took a good long look in the mirror and thought, ‘let’s try and save it. What did we have to lose?’”

With a little finagling, they convinced the initial buyer, who had the rights site unseen, to come and look at the space so he would have a clear understanding of what he would be taking away from the community. “He flew in from Hawaii and within a couple weeks was like, ‘Oh man. I made a mistake. Do you want it?’” From there it was off to the banks in a mad dash search of a loan. That chapter of the story ended on 525 Courtney Way, Lafayette, and they’ve been adding pages to this day.

Crossing the threshold, assembling a crew 

Along with the studio came an inheritance of a mad scientist’s lab. “When we bought it, it looked like a guitar center threw up in it. It was the old owner’s old projects. A lot of stuff that might have worked in the seventies or eighties that no longer worked.” Since then they have renovated a whole wing, got a liquor license, put a music venue in the back, and now serve about six hundred musicians a year.

It wasn’t done by the Vaskos alone. Much like the Fellowship from “Lord of the Rings” or the Straw Hat Pirates from “One Piece,” they knew they’d need a crew. “My wife and I were the first employees. And, after about a month of working seven days a week, we were like ‘this is not sustainable.’” Which set them out on a quest to find a crew. Vasko made sure to shout out his lead engineer and part owner, John Remington, first. “He has an amazing bedside manner with musicians. He understands their motivations and their challenges. He runs the recording studio.” Krista, the studio manager, showed the Vaskos that music fans can make the best employees despite any blank spaces on a resume. “We found that music supporters can be better catered to be employees at spaces like this as opposed to musicians. Krista has a customer service background. All the soft skills she possesses cannot be taught. She manages the studio on a day-to-day basis. Then also does sound checks and audio engineering.”

Kenny Vasko lamented that for a time he had leaned on unpaid internships to help with the workload, but has since found a way to make the internship a paid position. “They were all unpaid for college credit. And, we started feeling really guilty about it, to be honest. Now we just got a seed donation to do paid internships which is somewhat unheard of in the music industry. We established a non-profit called “Rock for the People.” The non-profit’s mission is to create those paid opportunities or marketing tools that people need to succeed in the music industry from historically underrepresented communities. For instance, less than five percent of audio engineers are women — and even less than that are women of color — so my wife and I feel like we have a mission to make sure that the future of music isn’t all old white straight dudes.”

The ordeal

The Lafayette Music Festival has grown in notoriety over the years; however, getting support for the event was earned through perseverance and hard work. And, one can’t have a hero’s story without a trial. For the Vaskos, it started with the COVID outbreak in 2020. “We never really hosted a show. We’ve never hosted a ticketed show before. We were only a year and some change into owning the building. It sold out! It was an amazing evening…We were like we can do this.” Then COVID hit.

Not to be deterred, the Vaskos pivoted to live-streaming, something Kenny likened to the portals created by Doctor Strange from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They knew they had to do whatever was in their power to keep the doors open. “You’re doing the long game when doing anything based on partnerships. Most partnerships are a long game, it takes a long time to build trust. We called a lot of people when we wanted to do the festival and they were like ‘That all sounds great. Call us when you’re in year two?”

Then Vaskos followed suit. They called in year two and got more people on board. Then they had people call them for year three. “Now this is the first year that we have gained enough sponsors and partner venues that even if not another ticket is sold, we’ll be able to pay all the artists. But, that took three years of doing a lot of volunteer work.”

Sharing of boons

Dog House Music Studios is one of the largest in the area with a twenty-three studio complex. The space is accommodating enough that when the artist Babyface came through for the former mayor’s inauguration, Doghouse accommodated his multi-faceted needs.

Further, as a studio, the Vaskos make sure that the mission of aiding and helping musicians is at the center of everything they do:

“We’re very hands-on about everything. Musicians are human beings. On one hand, we have younger musicians who are very talented but are trying to find their way to booking shows or getting music recorded we consult with them. We help them do marketing. Get their stuff on Spotify. We also host open mics and songwriters circles… One of our major tenets is that every musician has a different definition of success. Some musicians want to play Red Rocks and that’s a different path [than] some musicians who want to play Tom Petty covers to [their] friends four times a year at [their] favorite bar.”

So much of Kenny Vasko’s message was about stewardship, service, and giving back to the community. “I am nothing without other people. I just want to get that across that like any small business or any independent organization, it truly is the bond that you have with those folks.  That really makes everything shine.”

When I asked Kenny about his final thoughts, he brought up his wife, Liz. He mentioned again how she was with him through the toughest time in his life. She co-captained the ship that would become Doghouse Music and is the star of fostering care for the musical arts. The way he spoke of her was reminiscent of a Buddhist sutra on solitude and companionship, “If you gain a companion, one who is worthy of intertwining their soul with your own then you shall overcome all dangers. Let your heart rejoice and go with them.”

The post The Artists: A Whole Crew in the Dog House appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A poem is not a bullet. A poem is not a windfall inheritance. A poem, however, still possesses the power to change a life. Z’s story sets a path for this kind of understanding. ZBassSpeaks, Poet Laureate of Lafayette, lover of science and hip-hop, was born mute yet was given voice and the power to name themself through poetry.

Identifying your voice

A measure of artistic expression in any art is understanding one’s voice. It is the most essential element to developing a style. Once voice and style are established, a writer begins to root the identifiable elements of their work that distinguish them. Antony Sher wrote of Shakespeare and Marlowe:

“Shakespeare is full of subtle, complex, delicate flavours; Marlowe is rougher, more raw. And then there’s their use of the iambic pentameter. Marlowe’s mighty lines have a thumping regularity to them. Shakespeare is like a master jazz musician, both keeping to the beat and jamming round it.

So to those people who suggest that Marlowe wasn’t killed, but went on to write all of Shakespeare, I believe it’s simply impossible. Shakespeare couldn’t be Marlowe — or anyone else.”

Even within the same poetic structure, there can be a clear difference in identity, voice, and style. This makes Z’s story even more powerful because Z was born mute, they were on the verge of having a completely different life trajectory after getting arrested for shoplifting. Then one day Z crossed paths with Ms. Ramirez, an English as a second language teacher with a passion for poetry. She convinced Z to join the poetry club. “I didn’t do it for the sake of the art. I did it because I felt like I could talk, and I could in turn be heard,” said Z.

Stage vs. page

When the word “poetry” is uttered, for whatever reason, it evokes ideas of ineffability. There is a sacred nature to the word, and it seems only those with a deep understanding of the art can truly appreciate it. Academics often consider themselves the authority of poetry. This can be a point of contention between schools of thought with the writing program that tends to hold the crafting aspect of the poem in higher regard, and the drama program that tends to hold the performance aspect in higher regard. And, almost without fail, if one listened to the conversations held in the hallways, some form of this discussion would come up. Z, however, doesn’t let it influence how they approach crafting their work.

“For me, I don’t care. I don’t care so much about it because it’s so different. Maybe too different. Yes, they have the same ancestry, but they’re too distinguishable from one another. I will switch back and forth. Sometimes I just want it to be written well and interpret it how it is. But, there are some times where I have a vision and a set that I want to deliver, so I will take it upon myself to perform it and only perform it.”

As Z pointed out, outside of those academic hallways, it doesn’t matter. Poetry doesn’t fit in a specific box. It lives far outside those halls.

Hip-Hop is poetry

Consider a conversation between a teacher and a student. The student asks the teacher a simple question: Can hip-hop be considered poetry? After a few moments of pen-bitten hems and haws, the teacher responds, “No.” When the student asks why, the teacher responds, “It’s too simplistic. The music doesn’t use enough poetic devices.”

The story shows yet another disconnect within the world of poetry. Can poetry come from outside academia and still add value to the legacy? The teacher, who perhaps doesn’t have a deep enough understanding of the genre, reduces the art form to the most fundamental elements. As Djaz’s “The Poetry of Hip-Hop” states, “At the most fundamental level, hip-hop and poetry both play with sound, turning them into meaning and then back to sound again, declaimed alone or to the sound of a drum machine or coiled inside a catchy song, verse/rhythm/rhyme….”

The difference between the two sides is that the teacher doesn’t see that the art of hip-hop is evolving by way of its use of poetic devices, focusing on using sound to create a deeper experience. The teacher also doesn’t consider how massive an influence hip-hop can have on the modern poet.

“I’ve been writing poetry practically my entire life since I’m only 26. My style of poetry has evolved a whole lot over the years. As far as influences, it kind of depends on what poem I’m trying to go for. If it’s a performance, I have taken a lot of inspiration from hip-hop, learning for myself that I can memorize things quicker when they rhyme. I appreciate the complexity of double entendre and inner schemes, creating a dense poem especially when it comes to social issues. Hip-hop can get complicated super fast. For me, I love the lyrical “Never Freestyle” by Coast Contra. It is the culmination of what hip-hop is and can be. There’s four MCs on the track, and each one has its own flavor. For one, not only can you enjoy it as a song, but there’s stories being told. When you catch it, it’s like, ‘Oh my God.’” This is not just a pop song. Like, the last rapper where it’s kind of choppy, it’s a date gone wrong. The layers in it is just genius to me.”

As Z alluded, the last MC in “Never Freestyle” tells a story of a date that turned violent on them, leaving the protagonist of the story battered and bruised. However, what’s interesting is how the story is delivered. As Z stated, the delivery is choppy, but the purpose behind shaping that sound was meant to evoke a connection to the sound effects from older martial arts films or the sound of strikes being traded in fighting games. The construction and use of sound delivers a complete artistic experience. This is the power of poetry in hip-hop.

Magic in poetry

One of the discussions within the halls of academia is the humbling of poetry. The idea of poetry being on a pedestal is often debated. If poetry is elevated at too high a level, then not many people will appreciate it. They’ll miss a chance to engage with the art altogether because it’s considered such a lofty, sacred thing. This isn’t to say certain poems can’t impact the reader in a life-changing way, but it’s often a question of how we get the reader to sit and read the poem in the first place. Z spoke on this as part of his responsibilities as a poet laureate:

“I do feel compelled to at least introduce poetry or expose people to poetry. It’s kind of an underappreciated art form. Everybody loves the muralist, the sculpture, the pottery — you know, things that are visible and tangible. What goes underappreciated is the written word or the spoken word. That’s something that can continue in different forms. Poetry is everywhere. If you have a favorite song, you have experienced poetry.”

As a poet laureate, one of the main responsibilities Z carries is getting people to see the wonder, not only opening the door to poetry but encouraging people to walk through it. “One of my favorite things to do when working with young people in my workshops is to use magic,” explained Z. They laud their “fruit card trick” in its ability to clear a path to wonder and a student’s desire to engage in writing, reading, and hearing poetry.

Magician Jason Lattington put it, “As Plato would say, aporia — where we’re faced with something that renders us literally speechless: ‘It must have an explanation, but how could it? I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to make sense of it.’ The difference is that, in virtue of being directed at the real, the experience of wonder carries a weight the experience of magic can never match.”

When Z uses magic to teach poetry, they use curiosity as a guiding light that leads others to cross the threshold, taking their first steps into a love of the arts.

To name something

The fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin best exemplifies the power of knowing someone’s true name. The metaphor, of course, leans into the idea that even if a tiny demonic imp threatens your livelihood or someone you love, if you can name it, you can then have control over it. As Dr. Krystine I. Batcho wrote on the power of names:

“On a deeper level, however, names are intimately connected to identity. Labels for things are arbitrary as they vary by language. The words for table, clock, or horse depend upon the language we use. Our name, on the other hand, can remain wherever we go and in whatever language we speak. Our name thereby serves to sustain our sense of continuity of self, despite the constant transitions we experience throughout our lives.”

Batcho further explains, “Names illustrate one of the basic paradoxical tensions in human dynamics — the desire to be known and the desire to be private. Being known is essential to maintaining authentic relationships. At the same time, revealing certain aspects of ourselves can threaten the security that privacy provides. There may be parts of who we think we are and behaviors or attitudes from our past that we no longer value and wish to leave behind.”

Z spoke about how they came to be known as ZBassSpeaks and how it felt like a necessary part of their evolution in understanding who they were as a poet. This evolution has empowered them.

“My legal name is a combination of both Maya, Spanish, and Bosnian if the story being told to me is correct. My name was just funky from the get-go. For the longest time, I was given a different nickname for people who could not pronounce my name. But, slowly I started to feel like it was no longer part of me, it was something put on me. As I got older and more involved with poetry, called me up to read. I really kind of doubted myself there. So, I took the nickname and chopped it all off to just one letter — Z. It’s a beautiful shape. It also enables me to go last [in open mics].

The name evolved by adding Bass because their voice has a naturally lower register. Further, they also like the play on the name as it sounds a bit like German: “Zee Bass Speaks,” as in, they are the voice, and we are compelled to listen.

The next steps

Within the writing arts, there is a concept known as being a good literary citizen. The idea is that someone passionate about arts should spread the good word and encourage those around them to contribute in some way and give back to the community that fed them, kept them safe, and gave them direction.

For Z, these citizens are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who inspire hope and wonder respectively, and Z’s teacher Ms. Ramirez, who shared her love of poetry.

Now, Z is ready to give back in the best way they know how. In addition to having two books come out this year amongst other projects, Z is taking on typewriter poetry, a there-and-gone practice that takes in elements of freestyle rap. Typewriter poetry means Z sits in a public space and has a person come up to them with a word or an idea. Z then takes about six minutes to spontaneously write a complete poem tailored to that suggestion. They encourage anyone who is interested, if they see them in a public space, to stop by and receive a personalized typewriter poem free of charge.

Z is at every Art Night Out in Lafayette. And, if you have the time, come up and engage with them.

The post The Artists: Now You Hear Me appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The state of education in America is still in a period of recovery from the Covid pandemic. Across the globe, schooling is suffering from a multitude of issues from staff shortages, increased violence and misbehavior among students, and the gap between test scores that students used to reach pre-pandemic. An article published on Brookings stated:

“We tracked changes in math and reading test scores across the first two years of the pandemic using data from 5.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8. We focused on test scores from immediately before the pandemic (fall 2019), following the initial onset (fall 2020), and more than one year into pandemic disruptions (fall 2021).

Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were 0.20-0.27 standard deviations (SDs) lower relative to same-grade peers in fall 2019, while reading test scores were 0.09-0.18 SDs lower. This is a sizable drop. For context, the math drops are significantly larger than estimated impacts from other large-scale school disruptions, such as after Hurricane Katrina—math scores dropped 0.17 SDs in one year for New Orleans evacuees.”

Fortunately for many local students, Boulder Valley School District stands out quite a bit from the national trend of lowered test scores. “Nationally, we’re still seeing some impacts of continuing to strive to rebound or move forward to pre-pandemic levels of learning. In BVSD, we rebounded to pre-pandemic levels last year,” BVSD Deputy Superintendent Lora De La Cruz.

However, social aspects of interacting with others — halted during the pandemic — still show signs of concern. Additionally, as a whole literacy levels are on the decline. Another difficult aspect of education and mental health is the rise in violence among students. According to an article from the Center for Health Journalism:

“[T]he number of children expelled and suspended from schools increased statewide, with Colorado school districts handing out more severe discipline during the 2021-22 academic year than they did in 2019-20.

More than 83,400 Colorado children were suspended during the 2021-22 academic year and just under 800 students were expelled from school, according to the latest data from the Colorado Department of Education.

Schools aren’t just expelling and suspending more kids for severe infractions, such as bringing weapons to campus. They are also doing so for behaviors like destroying property and substance and alcohol use, according to the data.”

The issues that education is facing are highly variable. The solutions for the problems must be multi-faceted. The angles of approach range from high-dosage tutoring, summer programs, wellness centers, extended school days, and reduced class sizes. Afterschool programming, fitting within the idea of an “extended school day” can be a great asset by allowing the space and time to catch up academically while still providing the students more time for socialization — a crucial aspect of post-pandemic recovery.

A brief history of afterschool programs

The concept of the afterschool program has roots that reach back to the industrial revolution.  As factories boomed the amount of staff available couldn’t meet the demand and constant need to expand. This demand for labor helped drive a wave of immigration and, subsequently, child labor. In addition to the obvious moral quagmire of having adolescent children work long hours with dangerous machinery or inside coal mines, child workers also presented a problem with wage management. They would often be paid less than an adult immigrant worker, who was already making less than a white adult natural-born citizen worker.

Once the Progressive Era (1890s – 1930s) came about, ideas of exploiting children for labor combined with concerns about assimilating immigrant cultures within the tapestry of American values changed the landscape. Regimented education, which would evolve into the modern school system we have today, began to be established. Although far from perfect this schooling plus programs like the YMCA and settlement houses were used to give working class families some much needed help with childcare.

With children no longer a part of the workforce, the problem of their education, activities, and guidance became a primary concern. The darkest side of children with too  much free time was mirrored in the cautionary elements of Disney’s “Pinocchio” where all the kids engaging in smoking and drinking are transformed into literal “jackasses.”

Settlement houses and programs like the YMCA took on the responsibility of providing youths with a safe place to exist. The Playground Movement took off which created safe and engaging spaces for children to play in the forms of parks and playgrounds designed specifically for children and families.

How afterschool programs can help students

Today, many afterschool programs aren’t just more school. One of the biggest issues with teaching, even before the pandemic and the rise of technology was the attention span of an average student.

Many primary schoolteachers think children’s attention spans are getting shorter and classroom behavior has deteriorated since before the Covid pandemic according to the Guardian. More than two in three teachers surveyed said pupils’ behavior in class had declined. Children were more likely to move around the room, complain about being bored, and annoy or provoke others in the classroom. The survey of 504 primary and early years teachers in schools in England by the online subject resource Kapow Primary found that 84% of teachers agreed that children’s attention spans are “shorter than ever” post-Covid. Nearly two-thirds had noticed an increase in inattention and daydreaming. Further, most regular schooling has fairly large class sizes with 19-22 students on average reported in Colorado.

Many afterschool programs began as a way to help socialize, emphasize the idea of “play,” and utilize smaller class sizes. Afterschool programs are often a more customizable approach when it comes to implementing lesson plans and creating an effective learning space. This gives teachers the space to incorporate lessons that address variable learning styles, such as VARK learning styles — Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, and Kinesthetic — leaning into how a student learns best.

Here are some afterschool programs:

Pre-School Learning and Enrichment

Age Group: Pre-K (3 to 4 year olds)

Per BVSD “Because children’s brains and bodies grow at such a rapid pace from birth to age five, the preschool years are a critical time for them to build a strong foundation of knowledge and skills. Our integrated preschool program offers an exceptional opportunity to do just that.” Class size is capped at 18 students.

They offer morning and afternoon classes with some locations offering an additional half-day.  The curriculum is “play-based” meaning they tend to use activities as vehicles for the lesson. As these are younger students, leaning into the want to move, explore, and interact.

Primerose School of Longmont 

Age Group: Pre-K

Per the website, “We’re more than a daycare in Longmont. We know how young children learn best, which is why our Balanced Learning® approach combines plenty of purposeful play with nurturing guidance from teachers.”

This program focuses on helping pre-K students, like those who miss the preschool cutoff deadline, by providing pathway programs that help them keep up with their peers in that age group.

School Age Care (SAC)/Adventure Camp

Age Group: K-8

“BVSD School Age Care offers inclusive, fun, and licensed surroundings for kindergarten through 8th grade students before and after the bell. Seven enriching Learning Zones give time for creative exploration, homework, and outdoor play to complement the school day. On no-school days, Adventure Camps provide full-day excitement at local entertainment centers,” per the BVSD website.

Some of the zones even have STEM — Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics — lessons. The idea of the seven zones addresses the problem raised by the pandemic about attention spans. Having multiple zones allows a student to play and interact with something new once they get bored.

Valhallan Esports Training (Broomfield) 

Age Group: High School

This program is a bit unorthodox as Esports is still a fairly new space for the Western world to enter. On the other side of the globe, however, games like League of Legends — abbreviated LoL — and Defense of the Ancients — much more commonly known as Dota — have taken over in places like Korea and China. Often, in the East in a place like Korea, between the primary lesson period that ends about 4 pm and the study period that goes from about 6 pm to 8pm, students will go to PC cafes and game with each other.

Per the website, “Valhallan originated out of our belief that video games can be a means for enriching lives and creating community for young people. Valhallan provides premier esports programming and teaches life skills in a fun, safe, and inclusive environment.”

What Vallhallan offers appears to be along those lines in a supervised environment with much of the language on the website promoting the ideas of proper online etiquette and a chance to build camaraderie while learning the skills of the game, not too unlike other sports teams activities like baseball or football.

The Animation Group

Age Group: 3rd-12th Grade

Because this program focuses on the field of animation, it allows several options for students to learn and engage in different aspects of the craft. Further, many students may have a passion for learning elements of this craft but may be hard pressed to find a way to learn them in traditional primary schooling. The Animation Group provides them with the outlet they need.

As per the website, “Animation Production Group is an after-school program to give students experience working together as animators, character designers, scriptwriters, and voiceover actors to create their own cartoon animated productions.”

These are just some of the options that are offered in the area. The deficits set in place by the pandemic are a multi-headed beast that needs to be approached from all sides. Considering the ideas of socialization and play form the foundation of after school programs, those aspects of the learning deficit could be best addressed by way of these kinds of programs.

The post Afterschool Programs: Socialization and Innovative Education appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

For Helanius J. Wilkins, a multihyphenate choreographer, it’s about the conversation. During the interview, Wilkins reached back to Louisiana, where his artistic journey began, narrating every significant milestone as we trekked the path that led him to Boulder, where he will unveil the third iteration of his work, “The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging,” sometime this fall. “The Conversation Series” is an evolving work that demands a lot of Wilkins, but he understands the call. He sees what he has inherited from the artists he admires and what it means to leave something behind for those who have yet to come.

Even Fear is a Dance

While there wasn’t a single flashpoint moment that Wilkins could pinpoint as the singular event that made him fall in love with dance, what was surprising is the fact that his affinity for expressing himself through movement didn’t start with “The Sound of Music” or the infamous “streetsweeper” scene in the classic breakdancing film “Breakin’.” It wasn’t film or dance at all. The first movement Wilkins attributes to expression was powered by fear. “As a child, I was very shy and afraid of people. The way in which I responded and expressed myself was by moving my body in some way, shape, or form, navigating the challenge, if you will. The challenge was fear, and how I navigated that was to move. And, at that time, [the movement] may have been just to scurry or hide beneath the table. Whatever it was, whether it was to grab my grandmother’s leg, it involved effort and a shift in my body. Not knowing then what I now know, I was activating how my body can be a vehicle to navigate commentary, to reorient to my surroundings, and create change.”

Wilkins’ words aid those of us who use words to understand how dance can be seen, akin to a child who can’t express what hurt them, but they can point to where they are hurt. The motion of dance often has an underlying emotion or idea that it’s trying to communicate. In “Thrive Global,” Nicolein Dellenson described what she sees as metaphors for dance: “[Let’s] talk about conversations that are more like a dance battle than anything else. I’m sure you can instantly recall similar experiences you’ve been in before. Those conversations where both parties shout their own thoughts and opinions as loudly as possible to get attention, where arguments and facts fly around and nobody is willing to give the other space, let alone have the floor.”

These conversations remind me of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video, where he intervenes as a kind of mediator to ensure everyone is ultimately performing the same moves as one team. A dance battle is a solid example of how movement can suggest underlying emotion. People involved aren’t fighting, but the gestures are no less angry or vicious. The hurt and passion are on clear display. When Wilkins talks about scurrying for shelter, one can see how that motion and the feelings that spurred it can be the initial steps of a dance.

Representation and Inheritance

Although Wilkins doesn’t attribute the moment of seeing Alvin Ailey on PBS as the time he truly fell in love with dance, seeing Ailey’s work on TV had an undeniable impact on him: “One of my earliest childhood memories is watching a PBS special on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and introducing himself as a choreographer and remembering that very distinctly resonating with me. Even though I didn’t know what the word ‘choreographer’ meant, this set me on a path of sorts. The power of enacting change the way that Ailey did is, in many ways, whether consciously or not, an inheritance of will. For example, before Ailey launched the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958 in New York, he learned under renowned choreographer Lester Horton. Horton’s importance in the world of American dance has several facets. As remarked on the Alvin Ailey website, notable among his vectored impact was his stance on integration in the world of dance: ‘He was also among the first choreographers in the U.S. to insist upon racial integration in his company — in his 1995 autobiography, Alvin Ailey wrote, “What it came down to was that, for Lester, his art was much more important than the color of a dancer’s skin.”’

When Horton died unexpectedly, Ailey took on a leadership role before starting his own dance company that still teaches Horton’s technique to this day. Not only that, although Ailey’s company is known for giving Black men a space to learn dance, the school’s philosophy still maintains Horton’s philosophy. The will was passed from teacher to student, and now Wilkins, with his current work, is taking on that same path.

Racism as a Pandemic

When Wilkins opened up about his experience dealing with COVID lockdown, he talked about examining what was going on with the world around him. While it put a pause in his creative process, within that time, he and his team simply learned to adapt to the new normal: “The first thing that came out was this screen dance called ‘Dirt.’ That allowed me a platform to really carry forward some of the things that were slipping away and allowed me to address things not directly related to COVID but everything that was happening that was leading to the various protests and holding structural racism as a pandemic. How this goes back to creating a space of fear, a space that needed to be examined, I was afraid to be outside. I was afraid to be in public. I was even afraid to be in my own home.” This prompted Wilkins to go back to that scene of fear from his childhood that made his body move, and with the help of his team, he discovered a way to use that fear to fuel what would become the “Conversation Series.”

Rebuilding a World One Patch at a Time

Witnessing what happened to George Floyd in broad daylight cracked and shattered my sense of place in the world. The beats were stuck on repeat: this has happened before; this will be a talking point for a while, but when it loses steam, some people in the world attempt to handwave away what we all witnessed as an isolated incident despite the clear pattern. Much has been written about that moment, the movement it sparked, and what was left in the ash once the fervor of rage burned through. Words alone, perhaps, are not enough to convey the deeply layered experience of being Black in America in a post-COVID world.

Lauren, from Natural Embodiment in Colorado, wrote about how the body can be an ally in creating dialogue and a means to treat trauma, especially when digging into the layers of one’s feelings as part of a healing process: “The drama of our lives plays out within our bodies. Moods, emotions, desires, boundaries… these are things that we feel in our muscles, hearts, and stomachs. We can dive much deeper into your WHOLE experience by tuning in to the body, allowing new insights to emerge.” When Wilkins talked about his experience in addressing racism as a pandemic, it isn’t so much protest as conversation.

“What I do is build worlds. I’m a world builder. That’s what I’m interested in. It’s not about what I can do with dance, what I can do with film, what I can do with any other form. I’m asking myself what is required to build that world. I arrive at a medium because something in the process says that’s necessary, not for the sake of spectacle.” He acknowledged there are bells and whistles in the production that chime and blow, but they only exist to embellish the overall message.

How to Make a Quilt

The image most of us think of when hearing the word “quilt” is actually a “patchwork” quilt, wherein the quilt maker takes different pieces of cloth and stitches them together to make a whole cover. Wilkins took this approach to his masterwork where he combined his background in film and dance to create a stage production that gives voice to those often unheard of by interviewing people from each of the fifty states. “It’s about me going to communities and learning what it means to be a resident where they live, what are the things they care about, what are gathering sites, what are matters of urgency. It’s not about me being centered. It’s about me being de-centered in order to learn. How do we build a world that is more inclusive? For me, it’s listening to each other.”

Wilkins talked about other aspects that dictate the “first phase” of his process: — conversations about belonging, discussing specific places within that state or city that residents can’t go to, places where their ancestors didn’t belong, and then going to those places. This is all before the stage production. Each production will play out differently as the aim is to visit all 50 states, with each new state informing and reshaping the work as he stitches old and new stories together. The most human aspect of this work is that after every cycle of this process — going to a place, speaking to a people, learning.

The post The Artists: An Inheritance of Hope appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Cowboy Bumblebee

David Sockrider, a traveling artist currently residing in Ward, doesn’t need a lot of space to work. His studio is well-windowed, providing sightlines to the natural splendor of the trees sleeved in snow. His simple wooden desk sits in front of one of these windows, the back of the desk fortified with tubes of paint, plastic cups full of brushes, and lamps angled from the desk corners to provide light and perspective.

The notion of following the art came about a lot in my conversation with Sockrider who, for reasons beyond him, found himself on a path tread by Georgia O’Keeffe, who herself was a traveling painter who steered away from pretentious living.

How One Story Ended

Sockrider at his studio in Ward

Much of Sockrider’s story navigates the waters within the popular adage, “Adversity is opportunity.” Before the infamous worldwide reset that was Covid in 2020, Sockrider was an art designer for an independent game company in Boulder, Colorado. This gaming company attempted to make tabletop and trading card games whose aim was to take on juggernauts of the industry like Magic: The Gathering. As one might expect, the venture didn’t last too long.

“Covid happened and that kind of put us out of business,” Sockrider said. “I had a room open up at Taos ski resort, and I’m a snowboarder. And the rent is about half of what it is here, so this is a no-brainer. You know? I can go anywhere I want. If I can go to a ski resort and cut my rent in half that’s a win-win to me.”

With his path set, Sockrider packed up his van and headed for the Southwest, living out the philosophy of a Jack Kerouac poem by using his will as a guiding light. As long as he follows his love of painting as an expression of his own freedom and still make money, Sockrider is “living the dream.”

Red Rocks Primitive

Forgotten Details of the Artist’s Dream

An untold detail of the artist’s dream is the number of different odd jobs they have to work in order to keep the paint cans full.Keith Haring, an American pop artist, worked as a busboy in a New York City nightclub. Abstract painter, Marc Rothko, supplemented his income by teaching sculpting and painting classes in Brooklyn.

Sockrider’s path would often take similar turns. Sockrider took to working in a hot springs spot in Arizona, painting murals in a ranch house. Another turn had him staying in a Methodist Church painting murals on crosswalks. It’s not for want of the odd job, however, Sockrider attempted to get a regular nine-to-five, but they weren’t calling back.

“I was trying to get jobs at a convenience store. I tried to get a job at the hardware store. I tried to get a job at the art store, and I couldn’t get a job!” Sockrider said.

A Haven in Taos

Wolf Maiden

Sockrider found himself in the artist collective in Taos. The collective has roots dating all the way back to the early 1900s when two artists from New York discovered their love for the southwestern landscape. These two artists seeded the idea that would become the Taos Society of Artists in 1915.

The foundation established by this collective grew in infamy, known throughout the states as a place where an artist can get a chance to make a living. Sockrider found himself within the collective while he lived down there, traipsing across the land in the fashion of a traveling artist.

“I did a lot of camping. I lived in a yurt on the edge of a mesa for a year and a half.” The yurt also served as an art studio.

While the collective in Taos lived up to its reputation of being a haven for artists. Sockrider found it difficult to make friends during his time there due to the stress that Covid placed on society at that time. Most of the aspects of living in the southwest, like going to visit pueblos and seeing indigenous living firsthand, were all closed off due to the pandemic.

“I didn’t get a chance to see any of the [Pueblos] because they were closed.” He would go on to discuss the isolation. “There’s up to 60 artists there, but I didn’t know anybody. I ended up getting a dog. I did well in Taos, but I craved coming back to Colorado.”

Backyard Jam

The O’Keeffe Trail

During the conversation with Sockrider, we discovered we both had a connection with Georgia O’Keeffe. I had spent many summers in Abiquiu, New Mexico on the Ghost Ranch near her estate. Something that struck close to home with Sockrider since before he headed out to Taos from Ward, he revealed that she has a connection with both places.

“There’s a painting she did of a church here. And, when I was in Taos, I ended up working next to the famous San Francisco De Asis that she painted, and I was like, ‘I’m on the Georgia O’Keeffe trail.’”

Mother Nature

The painting Sockrider referenced from Ward is Church Bell, a painting from O’Keeffe’s personal collection that depicts Ward Church as it was in 1917, when she traveled there with her sister. The church still stands and serves as a community center.

The painting O’Keeffe did in Taos, however, was San Francisco de Asís Catholic Mission Church in Taos on Ranchos de Taos. And, while Sockrider attributes Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock as major influences in his work—the Van Gogh influence most evident in his painting “Paddleboarders Frisco Colorado” with “Groundation” and “Galactic” showcasing the influence of Pollock—one can’t help but notice the O’Keeffe influence his use of colors in a landscape painting like “Taos Coyotes Sunrise” that shares a lot in common with how she saw the southwestern desert.

In a letter penned to artists Arthur Dove in 1942, O’Keeffe wrote about the landscape of the Southwest:

“I wish you could see what I see out the window—the earth pink and yellow cliffs to the north—the full pale moon about to go down in an early morning lavender sky . . . pink and purple hills in front and the scrubby fine dull green cedars—and a feeling of much space—It is a very beautiful world.”

The Uzumaki Swirl

Wild Nights

The spiral is a recurring shape in Sockrider’s work. As an image, the spiral embodies a nearly primordial power, as it is amongst the oldest geometric shapes discovered within historical artifacts that predate even the roots of many modern religions. One of the more interesting aspects of the shape is, while it can suggest both great power and movement, it is also neutral in nature, meaning it can be viewed as a positive or negative force depending on one’s perspective. An article from Comic Book Resources covers how the Japanese interpret one end of the spiral with their analysis of the shape also referred to as “Uzumaki” or Uzumaki swirl. According to CBR, from a lecture at Heidelberg University in 2014:

“The Uzumaki swirl was commonly used on pottery and to engrave caves and in or at least around graves in the Jomon, prehistoric era of Japan. Its meaning has not been uncovered, and the symbol itself drastically changed in use as Japan’s religion changed from Shintoism to Buddhism sometime within the 10th century.”

The focus of the article is on how horror manga-ka, Junji Ito whose work of the same name, “Uzumaki,” brought the shape of the spiral into subculture just outside of the mainstream by emphasizing the darker angles of interpretation. The story is set in a town that is under a curse that leaves all its people tormented by the sight of Uzumaki swirls with many driven insane. The interpretation is almost a play on words as the characters follow the shape and “spiral” into madness. As Ito took the spiral in a negative direction, Sockrider respects the power in the brighter interpretation of the shape.

“Even before I even went to Taos. It was the Van Gogh influence, you know. As a designer, we study basic shapes: circles, squares, triangles, and spirals. But, spirals are a good representation for growth.”

Sockrider is particularly invested in ideas pertaining to the cycles of “rebirth,” giving inspiration to Sockrider’s goddess and maidens series: “I have the goddess of marijuana. I have a summer maiden. I have a wolf maiden. I have mother nature.”

For many indigenous cultures, the spiral marked their migration as they searched for their homes.  The spiral suggests movement, called the eye to trace a path. Poetic then that this shape is a favorite of Sockrider’s. The spiral is a calling card, allowing him to leave his mark as he passes along his travels.

A.I. – Something All Its Own

Coffee Owl

Considering that Sockrider’s sole avenue for income is painting, one might be surprised to find out that he doesn’t consider AI much of a threat.

“With AI imagery now, that’s not what we do. We paint pictures. I have this discussion with my artist friends because a lot of artists freak out. You can just text-prompt up anything you want. And, I’ve tried it. It definitely has limits, and it’s never going to produce exactly what I want. You don’t have an original painting. It’s all ones and zeros in there.”

To Sockrider’s point, Sora OpenAI sent a brief but powerful shock through the zeitgeist, this past February with its mind-bending ability to use assets to create short videos that have the appearance of something created with a team of people behind a camera. Yet, these images can be created using simple keystrokes.

However, even considering the initial impact, the weaknesses in graphics became apparent. There is also the fact that all of these images are created from existing assets. So far, AI can only produce a flawed recreation of something that already exists which, as Sockrider pointed out, is not what artists do.

From Ward to Taos and Back Again

Who Are You

One of the first signs you’ll see when flying into Albuquerque, New Mexico reads “Land of Enchantment.” It is as kitsch as any other slogan; however, almost anyone who has experienced the area noted that there is an intangible truth to the statement. The Ghost Ranch is just that. The artist collective in Taos is just that. It’s the turquoise-red-yellow dirt of the desert. It’s burros chewing cud, cabins with adobe walls, and pueblos with feast days where they dance until it rains.

O’Keeffe was drawn to land hidden behind a wall of mountains because of its natural beauty — the ranch is mud, and dirt, and snakes, and tumbleweeds all recluse from the modern world. This lack of pretension is another aspect of O’Keeffe’s path that calls to Sockrider:

“I’ve been a web developer for twenty-five years. I was creating websites down in Taos for high-end galleries. But, when it comes down to it, I really want [to] spend my day painting. And if that can pay the bills. I just want to live comfortably and do what I want. This is the path I’ve taken. And, if it requires me living out of a vehicle and doing the best I can, you know, I’m going to learn along the way and try and figure it out.”

Sockrider’s statement lends itself to the poem “For the Traveler” by John Donahue, that listening to silence, along a  “journey can become a sacred thing.”

Sockrider invites you to come out and support his artist dream by attending a showing of his work at Purple Haze in Denver at 15th and Curtis, starting July 5, 2024. Prints of his work can be found at Kind Mountain Collective in Idaho Springs, One Brown Mouse in Ned, and, of course, at Purple Haze, 15th and Curtis, Denver.

Bear Pond

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Ascending the bends of Bellevue Drive towards the Glass House up near the reach of the Flatirons, the phrase “big guy upstairs” became a touchstone of my conversation with Matt McMullan, award-winning architect and designer of the Glass House. Having the rare opportunity to see the marvel of a home constructed of stone and glass up against the angled peaks of the Flatirons giving view to all of downtown Boulder was edifying to say the least. One couldn’t help but feel like Batman in the Watchtower of DC’s Justice League or Zeus on Mount Olympus. The sensation was somehow simultaneously empowering and humbling. McMullan’s personal belief is that everyone deserves shelter, a place that is transformative.

You get a chance to understand this perspective if you align yourself from the house of glass nearing Boulder’s highest peak, you could glimpse the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless on the other side of town. Both buildings are of his design, and between these two buildings, we can get the scope of McMullan’s beliefs and how they could help the city stop an incoming crisis before it starts.

Designs for an aging place

Much has been written about the Glass House. It was even covered by Yellow Scene over a decade ago. A testament to its lasting power, the house has been owned by two families. The hope for the next owners is that they share the same feelings of reverence for the space. According to McMullan, everyone involved wants to make sure the space is truly cared for.

Development of the Glass House is rooted in the idea of familial love. McMullan’s drafts laid the groundwork in a web of inspiration emblematic of dichotomy within the idea of livable art. For instance, the house features an elevator not for the sake of having gaudy features, but because McMullan wanted the space to be an aging house, meaning the place is somewhere people can grow old. Using the elevator removes the need to climb stairs and eases the wear on an aged body.Experiencing McMullan’s livable art was most notable standing behind the chunk of stone inside the house set between the kitchen and the dining room. The stone faces an even bigger stone placed above a koi pond just outside the glass walls. Both are aligned with a mountain peak and, if one stands at the correct angle, one can feel the connection to the surroundings almost as if you’re looking at the rock growing into the peaks of the Flatirons themselves. Or, as McMullan puts it, “Baby rock, Mama rock, and Daddy rock.”

Being inside but still connected to the mountain is a unique feature to this particular piece of architecture. As McMullan likens the house to a “glass tent” with much of the design inspired by aspects of nature — the master bedroom referred to as a “quail’s nest” — anyone who visits can feel in harmony with the environment. “You’re a visitor, and yet you’re communing with nature.” McMullan also said about the space, “You can show it off at parties, but if you want to walk around in your jammies and house shoes, you still feel comfortable doing that. Within the overall composition, there are places where you can hunker down. It’s about livability and beauty.”

Shelter from the other side

For about as long as the Glass House has been standing, the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless has been too. With McMullan as the designer of both, the two are connected by divine synchronicity perhaps invoked by the “big guy upstairs.”

When the initial idea for the homeless shelter failed — originally pitched to be located where New Vista High School now stands — McMullan was called upon to resurrect the project. “Both of them were happening at the same time which, to me, was a very strange dichotomy between that house for basically two people, then doing something for 160 people.” He continued the comparison, “overnight sheltering for people who are just coming in off the streets to people who are in their transitional program, which was where you wanted to get clean, sober, get their life back on track, which, to me, was like the big guy upstairs saying, ‘Hey, you’re doing these two completely different things. One is creating this beautiful, livable work of art for these folks who have the means to do it. And another one that will live on beyond you and will touch hundreds, thousands of lives.’ And, yet, both have to be transformative.”

Shelter and dignity. Everyone deserves the right to a home or shelter that promotes dignity and respect, inspires them, and allows them to transform their lives. Especially with the homeless shelter, gives them the ability to transform their lives to get them to where they want to be.”

To that point, the shelter was built with the idea of safe space. There are spaces to sleep and congregate with a great view of the mountains. The windows are tinted to allow for a more colorful view of the world. For those occupants who may be averse to the closeness of the communal spaces, the atrium was designed as a “release of space,” letting those who want to be alone get the distance they need.

McMullan shared a story validating the importance of shelter and timing: “We had the shelter completely finished, and there was supposed to be this brutal snowstorm, and we didn’t have our elevator permit. You can’t get a certificate of occupancy to open the building until you get your elevator permit. I called the inspector, and he said, “I’m not going to be able to make it.” So, I called the public works director for the city of Boulder. After a brief discussion on the situation, she called right back, “The inspector will be there between three and four.”

McMullan was inspecting the shelter that night, ensuring that things were running the way they needed, when he ran into a man whose whole body was lousy with ice and snow: army jacket, long hair, matching beard, everything. McMullan checked in on him and asked, “Hey man. Are you okay?” The man shared that he had heard of the shelter’s opening as he was hitchhiking through western Kansas and eastern Colorado before running into the fortune of a trucker’s grace that allowed him to hitch a ride to town. If the shelter hadn’t been opened that night, the man wouldn’t have had a lot of options.

Navigating the trail

Long before McMullan discovered a love of architecture, he was a runner for University of Colorado Boulder. He still loves running — having full knowledge of the landscape, the bumps and hills, when to push past the congestion on a curve, all while enduring the elements. The bends in a racing trail place the runners into a squeeze. They must navigate the congestion, getting caught in the clutch of runners drags their time down. McMullan’s approach to competitive racing applies to how he approaches life. “You have to figure out the dynamics of that race. Am I going to go hard and burn all the people off me? It’s the same thing here. You have to figure the ultimate goal is to get to the finish line and have it be a success.”

McMullan believes his most special trait is a kind of foresight. He looks at how his gift as an architect will be needed in the future. The next thing he sees coming around the curve is a cause for concern for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caretakers. He believes if nothing is done to help, the issue could become a major point of stress for the housing crisis. He called the solution to this incoming problem his big I/DDea.

The data buttresses the validity of McMullan’s assertion that this is a problem that will grow in the future. Helpers Community, a non-profit that advocates for individuals with developmental disabilities, states that “one in six, or about 17% of children aged 3 to 17 years old have one or more developmental disabilities.”

Further, a report written in 2022 by ECONorthwest indicates: “It is likely that more than 37,000 adults in Washington State are facing housing insecurity,” and that “housing unit production specifically for adults with IDD declined during the 2010s to levels well below those of the 1900s and 2000s.”

The Arc, a 501(c)(3) organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, also raised concerns about this issue. Between Colorado’s looming housing crisis  and the number of people living with IDD, one can clearly see the housing threat that McMullan hopes to thwart. The big I/DDea aims to provide affordable housing for both those enduring the condition and their caretakers.

“It’s the big I/DDea. So, we’re initially going to start in the Denver metro area, but I’d love for this to become a national thing where I put together a group or template. We can create this in multiple states, become a national network.”

Harnessing the power of the future

One of the tools that McMullan is excited to master is artificial intelligence. He sees AI the same as any rising technological advancement: “You either get with it, or you get crushed by it. Same way that there’s been a technological breakthrough. I still know people who hand draft. I already run AI tools where I can come in what would normally take me six to eight weeks to figure out [the solution], like, in three days.”

He likens the challenge along the path to mastery to the character George Bailey from “It’s a Wonderful Life” and his claim to lasso the moon. McMullan sees tremendous potential in the technology. He plans to use AI to create large language models. These models would essentially create an active database that would aid in the IDD housing project by allowing him a better understanding of a specific issue. He could then use that information to create a space that caters to a person’s needs. When the model is complete, he would no longer need to find the foremost expert on certain developmental conditions, sit them down, and ask them about varying degrees of the condition when creating a space for that person. Instead, he’ll just go to his model which will have access to that person’s work. All the information will be there, and the expert will still receive credit.

The grand design held together

The recent snow reminded me of an anecdote McMullan shared about standing in the center of a storm. The Glass House staircase leads up from the dining room to the floor with the master bedroom encased in glass. The platform where the stairs meet is also made of glass and juts over a koi pond. Everything is completely visible, so when a flurry of snow is pelted and whipped across the sturdy glass, one could stand at the center of the most furious expressions of Mother Nature’s power and admire it safely.

This anecdote about standing in the center of the storm embodies the power of safe and secure refuge. However, considering he also designed the homeless shelter, one can’t help but think of the other side of that glass, being stuck just outside. McMullan revealed it was the death of a veteran caught out in a snowstorm that roused a nun to rally the community around the need for a shelter in the first place. The act is reminiscent of the James Baldwin quote, “The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person.”

McMullan’s drive and beliefs may very well make him one of those people: “People will say, ‘Are you retired?’ No, I’m just tired. I work seven days a week, man. And, if I’m not working, I’m thinking about work.” The “big guy upstairs” hit up McMullan with the I/DDea concept at 2 a.m. one night. McMullan answered, forcing himself out of bed to his desk where he began to lay down the bones of the project. With any luck, it will be as successful as his previous ventures. A whole lot of people will be better for it.

The post The Artists: Rocks in the Glass House appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

How illustrator Steve Skelton reignited his passion for art through puzzle making.

Steve Skelton

Completing a puzzle is as close as one can get to completing a work of art without creating it. Having a clear view of a picture in one’s mind and seeing it manifest provides a deep sense of fulfillment, of clarity. So, then, one wonders if the opposite is true. If a complete image begins to fragment into nothing, does that create the want to be made whole again? This is the journey of Steve Skelton, an illustrator who lives in Longmont, Colorado. He has worked in nearly every aspect of commercial visual arts for over 20 years, endured tragedy, lost his passion, and found himself again through puzzles.

Locating the edges of inspiration

The roots of Skelton’s style reach back to painters like Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Bruegel the Elder, both known for the “Wimmelbilderbuch,” or hidden picture book style, that fills a large landscape with busy, highly detailed images depicting a scene that has the energy of a large event. Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” depicting Eden with bodies upon bodies celebrating in bacchanal fashion, embodies this concept.

Skelton’s work follows the evolution of picture book format by featuring whimsical concepts with a cartoonish influence while keeping the “busy” feel to the image. He described his style as MAD magazine meets “Where’s Waldo?”

“I like silliness and whimsy. I think we can use a bit more of that.” Although he marks Gary Larson, who created “The Far Side,” and Bill Waterson, creator of “Calvin and Hobbes,” among his influences, the bedrock of his inspiration was built upon the work of Don Martin, one of the MADdest of MAD illustrators.

Skelton started out pursuing this world of whimsy by becoming an illustrator for newspapers, which afforded him a chance to work with Hallmark, Playboy, and Time magazine. His most prized work was his own comic strip, “2 Cows and a Chicken,” which won him the FineToon Fellowship from the Washington Post in 2004.

The rise of the internet

As much of Skelton’s success was in the early 2000s, the turn south was sharper than expected when the internet came around. “I grew up wanting to be a syndicated cartoonist in the newspaper. And, so, I was pursuing that for a lot of years. I did a panel. The last one was carried by the Times-Call for over three years. “That had success, but right then newspapers started to really struggle. I think Craigslist pretty much killed the local newspapers.”

The decline in local papers and, by proxy, the space to print illustrated cartoon strips, was just the beginning of closing avenues of income. Skelton’s work with Hallmark would also dry up, a loss that Skelton also attributes to the rise of the internet.

Camping Puzzle

The negative space

An important element of visual art is the ability to manipulate positive and negative space, giving a sense of positioning and shape by what is present within the image as much as what isn’t. Empty space begs to be filled. Understanding how to fill that negative space can be a long and daunting prospect.

Skelton had surgery go sideways on him years back. He didn’t give too many details on the procedure, and I didn’t want to pry. He did admit the most important part: The surgery and the unexpected recovery kept him out of work for almost two years.

This took a toll. When he found enough strength to get back to work, one of his most steady streams of income had unexpectedly closed. Ceaco, an off-brand puzzle-making company, informed Skelton that his “Tooniverse” line of puzzles had run its course. Further, despite all his efforts, his comic strip, “2 Cows and a Chicken,” was discontinued. “For the last 15 years, I’ve been doing whiteboard explainer videos that are business to business or business to consumer or PSAs that are kinda cool. But, I lost my identity in doing that because — it took me like 10 years to realize that my name wasn’t on any of them. I had lost control of my identity, made me kind of sad, doing this kind of work made me unfulfilled.”

In an interesting parallel, Don Martin, a primary influence for Skelton’s work, had to also go through some excruciating hardships as he battled blindness for most of his adult life. One hesitates to mark such events as part of the “journey,” the negative space one must explore in daily life in order to find purpose. But, perhaps Skelton himself would be heartened to know that even his idol suffered great hardships and despite it all, produced memorable art.

Gaining a new perspective

As avenues for income were dwindling, Skelton knew he had to come up with a novel idea. Motivated by his experiences and losses during the 2-year span he couldn’t work, he wanted his next project to be something that was truly his. The project ended up being an extension of his Tooniverse puzzle concept called “Name That Toon.” During this process, he not only reignited his passion for creation but began to learn what it meant to be an independent artist in the internet age.

“The secret to making it as an artist, almost, is that if you can make something that you can sell over and over — it’s called passive income, but it’s not really passive if you’re working your butt off!”

The concept of putting Skelton’s original artwork and making it a puzzle game worked well in concert with one another. His successful Kickstarter campaign proved it.

Noah’s Ark

“When you go to a museum, you may look at the greatest painting in the world for about five minutes then walk away. So, in doing jigsaw puzzles, I don’t know if there’s anything where someone’s going to experience your artwork intensely for that long. I didn’t go into it because of that, but that’s kind of a neat thing that happens,” he pointed out.

Turning his original illustrations into a puzzle makes it tangible, allowing the audience to interact with the work, something that’s also not allowed in museums unless given explicit instruction. In many ways, Skelton’s new venture is a kind of modern art, something that takes the mixed-media approach from the Pop Art movement of the ‘50s and combines those elements with modern technology to create a unique experience.

Whether Skelton intended to or not, by using a mixed-media approach, he may have discovered an evolution of the modern art experience.

The advance of technology, the loss of art

As for artificial intelligence and art, “I think it’s great for science and medicine and stuff like that. Even logistics, I mean, oh my gosh. It’s going to be good for a lot of things, but for art, it will just be troublesome. Whether you’re talking music, writing, photography, illustration, graphic design — all of them will be impacted negatively.”

“AI will be good for mankind, but a lot of people will be displaced by it,” he noted poignantly. An article written by Sarah Shaffi in The Guardian revealed that even the prospective best-case scenarios with AI art come with sizable sacrifices. Among the many issues covered, an idea was proposed that would stop these programs from stealing work they don’t have the rights to use. This would at least stop programs from making money off other people’s works by adding measures for opt-in laws that would allow artists authority and give them say as to what specific AI programs have access to use their art. This would limit the automated aspect of AI. Sadly, this will still negatively influence small artists because the AI program would be used for small, low-paying jobs that are commonly used to build portfolios.

At a certain point the fight with AI feels akin to the folktale of John Henry competing against the drilling machine. One wonders how long the artist fights to keep up. A point that Skelton noted, “I wanted to draw like Don Martin, like Mort Drucker. It took me years to get better with all of it, and with AI all of that time goes away.”

Dog Park

Art needs the human condition

The life of Vincent Van Gogh, the unofficial saint of art and suffering, was the focus of an episode of the BBC’s “Doctor Who.” The episode ends when Van Gogh — famous for his art as his poor mental health and poverty — sees his own artwork on display in a museum. Van Gogh, who had only sold one painting his entire life, weeps as mobs of people clamor to get a glimpse of his work. Watching this version of himself getting to see the impact his art made on the world was sublimely rewarding.

The struggle of the artist’s search for validation, one ventures to assume, isn’t something that is lost on Skelton. However, now that he has reached his 60s, he’s finally found something that is truly his: “It’s always a fight between trying to make something that comes from within you as [opposed to] making something that’s for a client. It’s a different thing. I think we all become writers, artists, and musicians to explore what’s inside of us. And bring it out, nurture it.”

One can’t help but think back to Skelton’s statements describing the loss he felt when he was bedridden, a feeling that compounded later when he wasn’t able to write his name on his animated whiteboards. So much depends on the signature, the human-to-human contact stipulating that the artists will put their all into a piece. Even if that change is a little more whimsy and silliness, without the name, a space is left between the curator and audience, leaving no acknowledgment of the time, sweat, and pain endured to bring the piece of art into the world.

Skelton admits that he still must do work outside of his puzzles to make ends meet. But, he has “Name That Toon” in perpetuity. The project is his. It’s the culmination of all the things in life that he loves while also creating a unique take on modern art. This is the foundation for his legacy — one he can proudly sign his name to.

The post The Artists: A Fit for Found Pieces appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Evolution of Black Characters in Animation from West to East

The most memorable whisper passed across the fifth-grade playground of my youth was the existence of four secret characters in the classic fighting game “Street Fighter II.” Not only did the rumor turn out to be true, but it is also a lesser-known aspect of Mike Tyson’s legacy: He appeared as one of the bosses. If a player had enough skill to make it past the initial part of the game, they’d face a boxer named Balrog. However, if you examined the character screen where the bust of the character was placed, you’d see what was clearly a rendering of Mike Tyson.Paired with the character’s movie set, you have a clear, unlicensed interpretation of Iron Mike.

While I didn’t have the language to describe what representation in media meant when I first learned about the character’s inclusion to the roster in 1992, I knew his appearance meant that there was a chance we’d see more representation in media with nerd niches. Even Tyson wasn’t aware of this fact until an ESPN interview in 2019. In awe of this revelation, Tyson gave his blessing and expressed how flattered he was to be a part of such a culture-shifting IP.

One would be forgiven, however, if one looked at a recent render of the character and failed to see a resemblance. The picture of Balrog shown to Tyson was from the original game released in June 1992. One wonders what he would have thought if he had seen the most recent designs from 2016s “Street Fighter V” because the character appears as a devolution from the original.

Balrog’s modern look distances itself from resembling Tyson and leans into a more monstrous appearance with a wide nose, bulging eyes, and thick lips. The philosophy behind pushing the character design in this direction is valid, moving it further away from Tyson — who gets zero royalties for his image being used — and moving it closer to fitting the name Balrog. Still, the choices made for his 2016 version approach a dangerous threshold, making me wonder why these types of designs still appear in animation and games.

Noticing the Pattern

Written almost twenty years ago, one of the most influential articles on the representation of race in anime is an Op-Ed by Carole Boston Weatherford titled, “Japan’s bigoted exports to kids.” Much of the article puts into perspective what it means to be an African American mother who buys Pokémon or Dragon Ball Z toys for her kids — toys with imagery that is beyond problematic and finds itself clearly in the realm of bigotry.

She wrote that Jynx, Pokémon #124, “has decidedly human features: jet-black skin, protruding pink lips, gaping eyes, a straight blonde mane, and a full figure complete with cleavage and wiggly hips. In her pink gown, Jynx is a dead ringer for an obese drag queen.” While some have argued that Jynx is inspired by Yuki-onna, a Japanese mythological figure associated with the ideas of winter, snow, and tragic love, the character design doesn’t show any kind of influence from the more traditional character. Nintendo’s only adjustment was to change Jynx’s color palette from black to deep purple. In an interview in 2021 on Rob Kent’s YouTube channel, Weatherford rightfully accepted credit for the change.

The Mr. Popo of It All

Weatherford also acknowledged that there was no change for another character she mentioned, Mr. Popo from “Dragon Ball Z.” In her article, she wrote that Mr. Popo is a “rotund, turban-clad genie with pointy ears and jet-black skin, shiny white eyes, and, yes, big red lips.” She referred to him as a Sambo character and likened both his and Jynx’s inclusion in modern works of art to a teacher reading “The Story of Little Black Sambo” in the classroom after its ban in the late 1980s.

Mr. Popo’s character design is a bit of a lightning rod when it comes to the conversation of race in anime. While many argue the character isn’t meant to be Black, something that seems to be true, one can’t deny that his appearance is problematic and had never been outwardly addressed until Weatherford’s Op-Ed, but there is something very interesting about the situation centered around Weatherford’s characterization of Mr. Popo as a “Sambo” character.

A Sambo character is an archetype made famous in minstrelsy. Minstrelsy is a vaudevillian variety show performed on stage and screen from the 1800s to about the 1960s where sometimes Black, but more often, non-Black people painted themselves black and portrayed demeaning caricatures of American Black culture.

Weatherford is not alone in her disappointment. “Dragon Ball Z” was a battering ram of a show scheduled to hit every afternoon after school at 4 p.m. The story had a degree of escalation and animated action that Western audiences haven’t seen to that point in after-school programming. The show quickly became a global hit, so it felt like a cold slap to the face to see a character of Mr. Popo’s design suddenly appear on screen. Much like Weatherford articulates, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is how people in Japan saw us? Why did the manga-ka, Akira Toriyama, design Mr. Popo this way, and how was that allowed on screen?

Mickey Mouse the Minstrel

To find the answer to these questions, we have to go back to “Astro Boy.” While not the first anime ever created, it is considered to be the foundation for the most popular genre of anime known as “sh?nen.” Sh?nen essentially translates into “young adult,” as in young adult novels popular in America but with pictures. Its creator, Osamu Tezuka, credited Mickey Mouse as a big influence — but not the look you may be thinking of.

This was a young Mickey covered in an article on Mel Magazine’s website, Mickey Mouse Proves You Can’t Erase the Racism of Blackface by Zaron Barnett III. The original Mickey is the one Barnett puts under a microscope. This Mickey is prone to making some risky decisions.

For example, the article mentions 1929’s “The Haunted House.” During the opening scene when the lights go out, you can still see Mickey’s gloves and the outline of his face where he cries out, “Mammy!,” which is a reference to a famous minstrel song by the same name and a minstrel archetype. In another example, “Mickey’s Mellerdrammer,” both Mickey and Minnie perform a version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in blackface. Both animations are still available on YouTube.

While not a one-to-one recreation, the style and designs of Osamu Tezuka’s characters show a clear connection to early Disney cartoons in the stylized noses and eyes of his characters — Dr. Tenma from his own “Astro Boy,” for example, is essentially a humanized rooster. The influence of American animation on Tezuka’s style is clear.

Barnett, with the help of “Birth of an Industry” author Nicolas Sammond, exposed that minstrelsy has always been at the heart of American animation. If this is to be believed, then the roots of what’s wrong with the design and depiction of Black characters stem from American animation. “American animation is actually in many of its most enduring incarnations an integral part of the ongoing iconographic and performative traditions of blackface. Mickey Mouse isn’t like a minstrel; he is a minstrel.”

Mickey Mouse – This was a young Mickey covered in an article on Mel Magazine’s website, Mickey Mouse Proves You Can’t Erase the Racism of Blackface by Zaron Barnett III.

Atop Kami’s Lookout

When “Astro Boy” was done, Tezuka’s place atop the mountain was replaced by one of his biggest fans, Akira Toriyama. Toriyama also noted that he is a big fan of Disney animations and would go on to create what is arguably the single most popular IP to come out of Japan, “Dragon Ball Z.” The timeline is set: Western animation is deeply rooted in minstrelsy, and Japanese audiences who were unaware of that fact find themselves strongly connected to the art form. The catalyst for character design choices that ended in the shape of Mr. Popo begins to become clear.

What’s even more fascinating when considering the minstrel roots of popular animation is that the book “The Story of Little Black Sambo” was a collection of stories created in 1899 by Helen Bannerman, a Scottish woman who married a doctor in the Indian Medical Services. While living in India, she created the characters as bedtime stories for their children. The djinn (genie) inspirations for the character make sense as they did live in India during that time, however, it is still unexplained why she chose minstrel-heavy inspiration for the characters.

What it does provide, is the missing link for the inspiration for Mr. Popo’s design because the Japanese have their take on the character from “The Story of Little Black Sambo,” who coincidentally has “jet-black skin, big red lips and bulging eyes.” This version of Sambo, while aesthetically different from Bannerman’s original release of the story, is the same likeness of Mr. Popo without the turban.

Weatherford’s observations may be more apt than even she realized. “The Story of Little Black Sambo” was banned in 1988 due to racial outcry from an organization formed in Japan known as The Association to Stop Racism Against Blacks.

In Japan, many oblivious to the racial overtones hold Sambo as a formative character in their youth. He’s a savvy magical character from their childhood, a trickster. This fact may shed light on one of the more interesting developments in Toriyama’s design choices: It’s believed that the original idea of Mr. Popo’s design was something more akin to a sentient baby chicken. Toriyama admitted to revising the character at some point in the process. What a strange coincidence it is then when the character of Sambo would be removed from shelves in Japan, Mr. Popo would be released in the Dragon Ball manga that same year, 1988!

The Snow that Clings When Spring Rises

Zooming past the errors in design found in Mr. Popo and Balrog into the present day, we can see strident leaps in the character from “Guilty Gear: Strive, Nagoriyuki.” His name translates to “the lingering snow,” and he is a vampire samurai of African descent. “Guilty Gear” is a series known for forward thinking and inclusivity in character designs.

The designs are unlike typical fighting game characters for people of color, ones that typically rely on associations within aspects of pop culture like music — as in the Street Fighter series Dee Jay who is most known for being a Jamaican recording artist. Nagoriyuki’s character design is inspired by Yasuke, the historical figure in Japanese history who went from a slave to a free man serving an Italian Jesuit missionary, Alessandro Valignano.

The duo of Yasuke and Valignano traded with Japan in 1581 with Yasuke essentially serving as the bodyguard. At that time, Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful warlord in Japan, caught wind of a large man with peculiar skin. Nobunaga requested an interview with Yasuke and ended up so impressed by him that he threw a welcome party and employed Yasuke from that point on. While Nobunaga’s history is violently complicated, all accounts of Yasuke hold the man’s character in high esteem. He would eventually become the first foreign-born samurai in Japanese history.

Much of Nagoriyuki’s design draws from this historical figure: He is a samurai; he’s lost his leader. He has a mask that’s reminiscent of “mempo,” samurai battle masks that display the visage of demons. He wields a “nodachi,” a Japanese katana over thirty inches in length. He’s simply a unique and truly inspired character design that’s become fashionable in modern anime and video games. Even famed fighting game streamer and former fighting game competitor Maximilian Dood remarked in his video Rate the Designs: Guilty Gear Strive vs OLD GUILTY GEAR about Nagoriyuki’s character design, “Do I even need to say anything? … He looks so fucking cool it hurts.”

While there is some space to make comparisons to Marvel’s “Blade,” in terms of fighting games and original characters coming from Japan, Nagoriyuki is one of a kind and a marker of not only where Black characters are at in modern games and anime but is also a light into the future of Black characters in Eastern media.

Where the Circle Begins

Personally, one of the biggest culture shocks I had as an English as a second language teacher in Asia was how the word “burger” was perceived. Many of my students, both middle school-aged and adults, would associate the word with the brand “McDonald’s.” If we did a food lesson, they’d say something like, “I don’t go to McDonald’s because I don’t like burgers.” It took me a minute to reconcile this idea as an American. I hadn’t eaten a burger from McDonald’s since I was in elementary school for the same reason my students didn’t: McDonald’s burgers are gross.

However, here’s how I could best understand this notion: For many in Asia, the first burger they ever had was from this franchise, and as a result, the two are bound together — what you get from McDonald’s is the reference point of what a burger is. One of the more difficult things to clarify for a student who had written off burgers. Thinking McDonald’s is the pinnacle of burger making is a tragic perspective.

This McDonald’s paradox sends me back to Mrs. Weatherford’s statements on exporting hurtful imagery.  However, much like McDonald’s burgers, it is America’s role in promoting minstrelsy in animation and exporting to the East that suggested these kinds of design choices are okay. Japan imported these images from the West first. America is the starting point of the circle because, as Sammond said, all American animation is essentially rooted in minstrelsy.

“I don’t go to McDonald’s because I don’t like burgers.”  It took me a minute to reconcile this idea as an American.

Further, it’s within this space where we can find a little grace for Mr. Popo. Considering how animation and imagery imported from the West is what gave Toriyama the inspiration for his designs and style, there’s a stronger chance that he intended something closer to reverence than derision in his work. What is inspiring is that most of the problematic designs are in the past, and the direction and path being tread forward is full of original and unique designs providing character representation. In addition to a character like Nagoriyuki, there is Olgun from “Fire Force, Yoruichi from “Bleach, and Kuzan from “One Piece” in anime, and in gaming, there is Kimberly from “Street Fighter 6;” Dolores from “King of Fighters XVI;” and the trio of Leroy Smith, Raven, and Eddy Gordo to name a few from “Tekken.”

As it turns out, I have had several good burgers throughout my travels in Asia. Not surprisingly, it simply took the time to examine the mistakes that were made and the care to learn the lesson from these mistakes to ensure that what’s made next is an evolution we can all be proud of. 

The post Black History: A Little Grace for Mr Popo appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

My first visit to the Pavilion in Denver’s Cheeseman Park started out fine. Everything was as one would expect from a large park in a big city: couples walked dogs or flexed Pilates poses while others played frisbee or volleyball throughout the park’s well-kept green grass. However, as I was in search of Meow Wolf’s first Monster Battle in Denver, I had hopes of something much more fiendish. I continued along the sidewalk with my hope slowly drifting away when I caught a beat on the wind. The beat thumped to a new rhythm, rising over the giggles and chatter from people on park benches and grass. I followed the beat along the winding path until it swelled to a nearly overwhelming thump. And, that’s where they were. The monsters were vibing in the Pavilion up a small hill.

Just like that I was in a different world. Here’s a list of monster battles I’m familiar with: King Kong vs. Godzilla, Freddy vs. Jason, Abbott and Castello Meet Frankenstein. So, I was expecting to see costumes inspired by Gwar and Slipknot warring to see which of the two is the edgiest band. However, what I witnessed was much less Souls-inspired and somewhere between creatures from Adventure Time — playful designs with vibrant colors inspired clouds and candy — and the images comedian Patton Oswalt’s presents in his stand-up bit that details his battle with insomnia. The bit is titled Vestibule of Dreams. In it he discusses his belief that everyone’s dream has their own troupe to play out the scenarios — the nightmare group has their own players and costumes, as does the school dream, as does the sex dream, and so on. I won’t spoil the rest of the bit, but that idea is essentially the experience that is the Meow Wolf: Monster Battle—all the troupes, both dreams and nightmares, came out at once to throw a party.

Up on the hill a DJ’s fired up their wheels of steel in front of the sectioned backdrop that displayed flashing lights orbiting behind him in fluid shapes. The horde of dancing monsters formed in front of him: there was costume made of white reflective material to create a sort of ice cream princess; a couple furry beast-faced monsters in red onesies that could have been minions from Cuphead; a man blew bubbles from a tiny wand all while looking like a biblical prophet aside from his glasses and rainbow-colored ram horns.

At the base of the hill, where the two giant fountains lie empty, performers whirled hula-hoops lit with fluorescent lights and juggled bowling pins of the same design all while doing flips or riding on roller skates. One man came with a “best I could do at the time” energy. His costume was him being full belly-out in a bathrobe wearing nothing but boxers and sandals. Meanwhile, on the other side of the park, a young woman wore nothing but a black fishnet onesie with matching thong underwear and cattail and sparkling pasties.

Then, just when I felt I had a grasp of what this event was, a group of cyclists led by a man in a purple vest with his hair styled in purple devil horns rode in like the Wheelers in Return to Oz. They flowed into the venue with a serpentine weave, in and around the fountains spinning and popping wheelies, amplifying the moment with their own energy and music.

The magic began to fade when the sun went down. The purple devil-horned cyclist blew a whistle, and they all snaked away as fast as they came in. The little clumps of monsters scattered across the venue began to thin. I decided it was time to head back into normalcy, following along the sidewalk truly thankful that Meow Wolf put on such an event for those of us who, on random Thursday, decided to not stay in to watch TV or go to the park for yoga or to post on IG, but instead decided to track the footsteps of the wild things and let them lead the curious ones to a moment a lot less ordinary.

The post A Party for Dreams and Nightmares: Meow Wolf’s First Monster Battle in Denver appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Harriet Tubman: The Conductor and the Slayer of Demons

The independent comic, “Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer,” is a testament to the magnitude of Tubman’s legend. In my dialogue with Hasira “H-Soul” Ashemu, a community organizer, the founder of the Righteous Rage Institute, and the author of “To Heal a People,” it became clear that Tubman’s legacy is a potent force that propels his activism and illuminates the thrilling aspects of her narrative.

Although the indie comic’s concept may seem far-fetched — Harriet Tubman defending slaves from demon bounty hunters — it’s an undeniably electrifying idea. H-Soul, who deeply respects the real-life Tubman, known to many as “Moses,” emphasizes the less sensational and more profound aspects of her life and strategies that have served as a blueprint for his movement to bring healing to communities and workplaces through DEI — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — work.

Harriet Tubman in 1895 (Public Domain)

H-Soul pointed out an often overlooked aspect of Tubman’s life: “Much of Hollywood neglects the fact that she spent as much time engaging with white people as she did liberating slaves. The Underground Railroad wouldn’t have existed without white abolitionists.” Indeed, the most common information about Tubman that surfaces in an internet search are the highlights of her life: a spy, an unofficial army leader, and an American hero. However, Tubman’s diplomatic efforts, as H-Soul noted, were equally crucial to the success of the Underground Railroad, yet they often fall into the shadows of her more dramatic exploits. As H-Soul engages with people through keynotes, community-based programs and business training, he educates people around why that is. 

H-Soul’s approach is a powerful example of multi-racial coalition building. It seems most of our modern day social justice movements put far greater focus on advocating and pleading with the existing power system to change. H-Soul would argue this leads to a huge expenditure of energy with incremental change and empty commitments, at best. 

“We have to recognize that 95% of our thoughts, actions, and behaviors are completely subconscious. We are hard-wired to prioritize our base-instincts to fit in, and to avoid at all cost any potential risk for shame, embarrassment, abandonment, and sadness. We often don’t realize just how much control, shame, fear, and anger have over our lives, through our subconscious thoughts, actions, and behaviors.” 

Instead H-Soul guides people to direct that energy into healing themselves and to create the systems and institutions that they wish to exist within.

Laying New Tracks

H-Soul’s journey into activism was predestined. “I’m a Cub. My parents were members of the Black Panther movement. Children of Black Panthers are known as Cubs,” he explained. His drive and desire to bring healing to himself, his family and his community also connects him to Tubman: Both had mothers who were healers—Tubman’s mother was a renowned healer, while H-Soul’s mother is a nurse and spiritual counselor for thousands. His Cub upbringing led him to Ghana, where he absorbed invaluable life lessons and deepened his connection to traditional Afro-Indigenous healing practices. 

Much like the classic hero’s journey, H-Soul left home, faced trials, and returned to share the wisdom he had acquired. These experiences shaped his philosophy of the Four Rings of Wellness, as detailed in his book “To Heal a People”, which reflect the wealth of Afro-Indigenous tools, practices, and traditions that he believes are the key to any pathway to individual and communal liberation. 

“Living in Ghana fortified the teachings that were ingrained in the Civil Rights era, in the Black Panther Party,” H-Soul reflected. “The current state of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the United States is largely mythical. There is no collective equity or inclusion consciousness in the American psyche.”

This is why H-Soul believes any meaningful movement for freedom must be done through multi-racial coalition building, what he calls an “inside-out” strategy. 

“Harriet Tubman spent as much time speaking to, organizing and educating white people in the North about the wickedness and the impact of slavery as she spent in the South [. . .] creating the network necessary for Afro-Indigenous people to escape.” This network was the stitching that attempted to unite the open wounds of slavery.

White abolitionists were crucial in providing necessities since they had access to valuable safe havens, lodging, and financial resources. H-Soul echoes this in his “Conductor Circles” movement. Conductors are people with some level of access to power, resources, and opportunities who are committed to utilizing that access to help people chart their own pathway to freedom and liberation from systems designed to oppress. 

To Heal a Person

Jim Brown was a multi-sport athlete who excelled in lacrosse and football. On “A Football Life,” aired in November of 2016, Brown explained why he played with such intensity, “I was dealing with race since I was born. And, in my inner self, my strength was unbending when it came to accepting that b.s.” Some still argue that Jim Brown is the greatest running back in the history of the NFL.

The infamous Cleveland Summit with Muhammad Ali in 1967, when Ali was boycotting the Vietnam War, once filled people of color with pride. However, according to a report on PBS NewsHour by Kevin Blackistone, everyone’s motivation for attending the meeting, including Brown, was to dissuade Ali from protesting the war. The wound deepened many years later when Brown supported Donald Trump and openly opposed the peaceful protest initiated by Colin Kaepernick.

Jim Brown when he played for the Cleveland Browns. Photo by Malcolm W. Emmons – The Sporting News Archives (Public Domain)

With the news of Brown’s passing on May 18, 2023, I asked H-Soul a challenging question: How do we reconcile our feelings about a prominent figure with both an iconic and a problematic history? What do we do when our heroes can no longer bear the weight of the pedestals we place them on?

H-Soul reminded us: “We in Africa, we in Asia, and we in Central and South America never-ever created our heroes or our gods to be perfect.” This perspective helped me reconcile with Brown’s duality. One gets a sense of how personal healing is important when our heroes remind us they are human. 

Additionally, it’s a reminder that in the multi-generational battle for social justice, we have ended up with a lot of wounded warriors. People that fell back into survival mode, seeking to fit into the fray rather than stand out in revolution. 

We can use the mistakes of those who inspired us to reflect on ourselves, then we can identify what within us needs to be healed. And, if the aim is to heal a people, the process must start at the individual level.

A Healing Pathway for DEI

“We often say we are not the right partner for you if you are looking for a checkmark, check the box type of DEI which is very popular.” 

He’s right. Many DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives read like directives in shame. They’re usually something along the lines of 1) Respect, 2) Listen, 3) Offer solutions, etc. There is an element of humiliation in them that then leads towards divisiveness. 

H-Soul focuses on healing, developing bonds, and building community, taking a unique approach.

His approach first and foremost seeks to lift the heavy emotions of shame and blame off of people, while also creating a sense of power and accountability. Instead of further shaming executives into changing, H-Soul taps into the human drive for survival and relevance.

“We go into organizations that have a plantation mentality. It’s very hierarchical. It’s very male dominated, very patriarchal in a lot of its instances. Instead of convincing them to do the right thing, we appeal to their self interest. We show them how that model of operating is the death knell in business. The corporate business model of the fifties, sixties, and seventies is no longer sustainable in a global economy. If you cannot operate authentically with Brown people, with Asian people, with gay people, with women, if you can’t operate authentically with them on a global level then you will cease to make money and stay in business.” 

Healing always comes first. Further, with states like Florida continuing to radicalize by censoring what books children can read and conflating history with “theory,” there is a need to work both within and outside of systems, as the new abolitionists of the underground railroad. 

Moving towards freedom

Freedom School is a program that teaches history that is actively being covered up by states like Florida and Texas. The school examines what led to the current racial hierarchy. Students also get a chance to heal from damage caused by structures that weren’t designed with their success in mind. 

H-Soul believes that young people educated with the real history of America — how certain systems developed with the intent to divide — will seek out movements being built today that predate our collective assimilation to a system of racial hierarchy.

So far, H-Soul and the Conductor Circles have been able to raise nearly one million dollars. That money has been invested in programming and services for 30 afro-indigenous healers who are part of community events and programs.

H-Soul ended our conversation by addressing how important it is to find allies as he builds this new railroad. “We as an organization are focused on decolonizing and healing the human psyche. I’m in the human potential business. DEI is about human potential, human liberation.”

If you’re interested in learning more about H-Soul and his philosophy, check out his book “To Heal a People” at iamhsoul.com or his consulting website www.RRIConsulting.org.

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Buffalo Beck shares his latest book, his store, and living with amnesia

“No, no it’s a roadside attraction,” Bruce “”Buffalo” Beck had corrected me when I mistakenly referred to his shop, Buffalo’s Last Stand, off I-36 in Cope, Colorado as an antique store. Beck earned the nickname “Buffalo” from his brother who was inspired by P.E.I. Bonewitz’s book Real Magic. Magic might also have had something to with the publishing of his own book as Beck himself admits was a bit of “a fluke, so to say.”

“Tales of the Metal Fisherman” was released March 7th, 2023. The book follows an unwitting narrator, a proverbial “fish out of water,” is new to town and happens on a bar that has the vibe of watching Cheer’s reruns in modern times. Which is to say, it’s hard to believe that a bar like this ever existed – patrons were so closely bonded they felt like family. The character known as the Captain is what gives the bar a beat, a sense of rhythm and movement that brings life to the story as our narrator’s curiosity is what allows Captain to speak upon his bizarre, yet entertaining, experiences.

According to Beck, the writing process in the creation of this book was like buying ice cream at a shop that let you pick the toppings free of charge. As in, once he got the flavor he wanted, he started adding stuff he thought sounded fun. There was a brainstorming session where he and his cousin came with the concept as they had familiarity with: repo men. Then there was the title, and once that was settled, they began adding elements like the cars and kinds of characters that he wanted to see.

As the wicked never rest, so goes Beck working on his second book. However, this time he’s shifting genres. He wants his second book to be CNF, creative nonfiction, whereas “Tales,” while mostly inspired actual stories, was a work of fiction. This second book one might refer to as a herculean undertaking as it aims to cover Beck’s bout with amnesia. As such, he is taking the very first book that he had attempted to write, working title Abracadabra, and adding to it the way coders update code in patches. “The words stay the same,” he said when I asked about the connection between writing and amnesia.

According to Beck, writing helps with his own amnesia both literally and figuratively. The words staying the same means that they tell the same story, and as long as that story is documented, that moment came to be re-remembered and stitched back together.

The second function that writing has in battling amnesia is reminding Beck how the act of writing itself makes him feel, reminding him of the value that it has to him. Beck is still working towards the publication of his next book.

Until then, he awaits customers at his shop, Buffalo’s Last Stand. Which if you’d have him tell it, may just be the most interesting sight to see in Cope, Colorado. “It’s forty-five minutes from nowhere,” he said of his store’s location. He went on to paint his section of Cope with minimal brush strokes, “There’s a phone booth, a park, a post office, and me.”

Beck urges those who follow their curiosities along the path less traveled to come around and see his shop. You’ll recognize the store, not only by the name, but also by the advertisement in the right front window, “Men’s Crisis Center.” The sign is meant to encourage others to come in and talk, which is a “much needed” service from what I’ve been told.

Among the most notable trinkets is the small art gallery that depicts prints and paintings by the likes of Picasso, Dali, and Dr. Seuss. He is also in possession of hand-painted cells used in classic Looney Tunes animations; in addition, he has several buffalo themed wine bottles, postcards and baseball caps, and, for any retro gamers, there are two pinball machines for sale.

If you are interested in getting a copy of “The Metal Fisherman,” you can find it on nantucketebooks.com, or by
calling (720) 459-8761, and, of course, by visiting Beck at Buffalo’s Last Stand.

The post Don’t Call it a Roadside Attraction appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

How Seth Viddal, co-founder The Natural Funeral, is normalizing human composting as a safe and useful burial option.

I asked the co-owner of The Natural Funeral Seth Viddal, a stout man with a shaved head and a righteous beard — and a dead-ringer for my mental image of Tom Bombadil — if he had heard of the term “Sky Burial.”  He laughed, “Yes! It’s reserved for special deaths, for dignitaries.  But, it’s where the body is placed on top of a mountain to attract vultures to come to digest the body and distribute it back to the earth.”

From a certain distance, the Tibetan ritual of Sky Burial reads as a decorative rug covering the ‘Ick factor’ of the actual practice. However, when viewed from a perspective within the culture, the rite leads to divination by allowing the spirit to become one with heaven and re-enter the cycle of reincarnation once a vulture has finished digesting the remains.

The ‘Ick Factor,’ as Viddal calls it, has plagued the idea of human composting as a valid and safe method of disposing of one’s dead since before even he was aware of the possibility.  In 2020,  Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada, and Sen. Robert Rodriguez, D-Denver, proposed legislation for human composting with bill HB1060. This method of composting had been used for livestock and was proven to be sustainable; however, it met opposition from both Christian and Jewish leadership before it was completely derailed by the COVID outbreak. The bill didn’t make it through session.

Later in 2021, a prospective client actually brought the idea of human composting to Viddal who, up until that point, hadn’t known composting a human body would be an option for burial. Viddal  immediately used the resources at his disposal and lobbied the Colorado Energy and Environmental sub-committee to provide the service. A new bill, SB21-006, was also making its way through the legislature. The bill allowed for the use of containers to accelerate the process of decomposition. On September 7, 2021, human composting became a legal form of burial with two specific caveats: first, the soil made from human composting cannot be sold; second, whatever is grown within said soil cannot be used for human consumption.  This made Colorado the second state to allow for such a service, the first being Washington State in 2018.

During this process, Viddal began working on the vessel to contain the body that he would later dub the “chrysalis.” The chrysalis is constructed with dimensions roughly the same as a normal casket.  The appearance and shape of its construction, however, is more time-capsule than coffin as the wooden box the body is kept within is bookended with wooden wheels.  The wheels provide for easy transportation, allowing it to be rolled in and out of the warehouse wherein it is kept.  Further, inside the casket, the body is laid upon a bed of alfalfa and wood chips.  Additionally, grieving families are allowed to place mementos of their lost loved one within the chrysalis as long as they are things that will properly degrade during the process (wine, grounds from their favorite coffee, etc.).  Within about six to nine months the family will be welcome to claim the soil that remains once the process is finished.

The Chrysalis, photo provided by The Natural Funeral

The first service of human composting on September 22, 2021 sent a knock that could be felt throughout the nation. The Natural Funeral has performed seventy-five human composting funerals as of this article, and they’ve been sought by people from outside the state for their service.  Considering the demand, they are still shockingly the only funeral home in Colorado to perform this service.

Though it is highly likely that number will grow, Viddal was very clear that every service he performs is special.  “I never want to be callous,” Viddal remarked when asked about how he mentally prepares to begin a process that will inevitably turn a human into soil.  “You want to feel grounded,” he said with his eyes closed, perhaps visualizing taking his first steps, shoulders braced for carrying the weight. An Atlas-like undertaking, the word ‘service’ brings with it all planetary heft of a grieving family— a story has ended, a space created where it wasn’t wanted, and lives must now learn to move with a different rhythm.

The opposition to human composting still remains. The Catholic Church has said that it still does not support the idea of human composting citing safety concerns, and the Jewish leaders have had mixed reactions as some see it occupying the same space as cremation while others oppose death having a tangible benefit.

Although Viddal admits that human composting is a net good for the environment, he never influences the choice on the grieving family.  Dealing with the remains of a loved one is never easy. Composting a human may give some reservations, however, with Oregon legalizing the practice in the summer of 2021, and four more states also legalizing the practice, it shows that the winds are changing direction. Further, since human composting has been proven to be safe and good for the environment — and as long as those choices made for the deceased were made with care — navigating the ick becomes easier.  Just as Viddal stated whether  its Tibetan rituals involving vulture poop or humans becoming soil, “It’s all beautiful.”

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