Issue 2 is complete and is being shipped to subscribers! Issue 1 is sold out, but we made 150 copies of issue 2, so if you’ve been waiting, now is the time to subscribe!
CRAFT DESERT: Drive, (Issue two’s theme) features two more fantastic interviews and a piece of creative writing ruminating on the theme. It features cover art by Maik Jimenez, as well as a special surprise piece of SWAG with his imagery emblazoned on it.
In issue 2:
Tristan Shone (Stage name “Author and Punisher“) creates intense, driving, industrial music on carefully crafted machines. His backgrounds in engineering, music, and art, come together to create a performance that places him in direct contact with grinding, spinning, sliding, crunching, heavy custom made machinery, despite the sounds themselves being digitally created. His machines are used to produce and manipulate the music. Rob Duarte (Artist and educator) interviews Shone and discusses his inspirations, and drive to bring the digital into direct human contact through his machines.
Lowrider painters, like Danny D, are masters of their craft, and share that craft through events like Paint or Die. These artists are preserving the art of pinstriping and custom painting on elaborately decorated and lovingly built cars. As practice, events like Paint or Die see these artists applying their skills to other, non-vehicular, objects such as rollerskates, bbq grills, and trash cans. Denise M Sandoval, Ph.d, interviews Danny D and discusses the history of lowrider culture, the importance of passing on these skills, and how artists like Danny are working to bring this culture into the mainstream. In 2018, Sandoval curated an exhibition at the Peterson Automotive museum entitled, the High Art of Riding Low, that featured the highly refined work of many of these artists.
Finally, our guest writer, Paloma Checa-Gismero, ruminates on our theme, Drive, in a wonderfully thoughtful piece addressing inspiration, writers block, being stuck, and accepting and pushing through that. Paloma is a Ph.d Candidate at UCSD, who studies “the politics and organizational forms of global art biennials”. She is currently completing her dissertation and teaching part time at San Diego State University. She has written extensively about arts and culture.
The co-founders of CRAFT DESERT, Adam and Kerianne, thank you for reading and encourage you to keep telling your friends to check out the publication. Issue 2, like issue 1, was assembled, printed, and coil bound by hand with the assistance of Christian Límon, an energetic and enthusiastic art student at SDSU.
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