Art Department OfficeProjects outside the 9-5.

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Art by Allison Harvard

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Real EstateIdeas for the long view.  Sharing things worth paying attention to. A roundup of — curiosities, things saved, discovered & shared.

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02    CURRENT TABS

Politics of Taste
The ability of food to tap into our senses, spark curiosity and intrigue while giving us the space to assign meaning to it remains the most democratic way it exists now. Although the choices made by the maker or audience who receives it are usually at stake, the many ways it can tell a story or become a vessel of creativity and expression by anyone rules the day. 

High Food Fashion

Combining a relentless creative vision with a medium that knows no borders, the portfolio Balboste Paris has been putting out remains to spark joy from start to end. The way they were able to flesh out an idea and stick to the intention of bringing something new to the table has been inspiring while also keeping in mind that an idea is only as good as the collaborators you’re working with who also respect the process of the craft. Unsurprisingly, fashion powerhouses are tapping this opportunity to involve food in the overall experience of telling a brand’s story. 

 Balboste Paris

Resident Kitchen Pixie

I stumbled upon Homefries during the pandemic, which I deemed fitting, and it has had an energy and lasting impression on me to this day. During a time when it brought about the most creative itches from everyone, it remains a project that was so refreshing and what we needed at that time and wished I thought of (or become a part of haha). Starring Iris Law, the second issue combined an editorial take of the modern Barefoot Contessa with a dash of an ‘It girl’ wink. Law, known not just for her taste aesthetically but also for her eye for indulging in snacks that hit the right spot that you’re craving, captured the essence of the fanzine/cookzine as a whole.

Home Fries Cookzine with Iris Law

Painterly Meals

I learned about Brianna Capozzi through her photobook, Well Behaved Women, and I figured she had this collaborative art project of painted plates for a good cause. Like her work and photography, it felt like peering into an artist’s sketchbook and this interesting POV of a different medium by the same artist. As the plates were one-offs, they all felt like canvases, and she treated them just like the images she created. The same energy of a free, dreamlike take of fictional stories on ceramics all feel like the women who portrays a character in her photos, which leaves the same impression and sandbox feel to her creative practice.

On The Nose @onthe.nose

A Slice at the Table

I still have to go through my issue of Sexy Cake, the initial issue of Cake Zine, but just like every sweet tooth like me out there, one can appreciate the tone of voice they have set out from the beginning, which still felt as fresh as when I saw them launch their first issue. “An independent print magazine exploring society through sweets,” they managed to choose a name that allowed them to zoom in on stories, recipes, and interesting rabbit holes that can’t be read elsewhere. 

Cake Zine, Issue One: Sexy Cake

The Secret Sauce of This One Man Show

It’s such a rare treat to witness the craft alone, but I also appreciate the maker of this one-man band sandwich shop. Salvos, an Italian lunch business run by Salvatore La Rosa, happens to do all the prepping, cooking, packing, delivering, dispatching, customer services, and creative side of it all, is nothing short of inspiring. It is a small and mighty sandwich shop that doesn’t seem to scrimp on quality, thoughtfulness, and attention to detail. From the blue tape he uses for the packaging that hints at his family background to the intention of using the best ingredients to make a sandwich, he’d also enjoy eating. When asked why he does everything on his own, it’s surprising to say that the key takeaway of being able to create something like this is sometimes being an outsider and enjoying the process of just the making without being tainted by the standards and usual roads of such a competitive industry.

 Salvos, Bon Appetit

Recipe Books Reimagined

A sweep of some titles I've seen and selected from book recommendations. It's always so interesting to stumble upon books that seem to have a 'read me' quality to it, but also knowing that food as a topic and theme is ever in its exhaustible form. From Le Corbuffet, a satirical book that welds humor, art, photography, and a pre-existing knowledge of architecture to a compendium of dishes that have made a mark across cultures today from Phaidon. There is so much to unpack about food and how we experience it today; even image makers like Martin Parr are no exception and can't seem to get enough of it, too. Since there is much to see and to cater to one’s taste in literature, Sqirl's book of personally selected dishes and their recipes is also a giftable piece one can indulge in.
Sqirl’s Everything I Want to Eat ; Signature Dishes That Matter, Phaidon ; Real Food by Martin Parr ; Le Corbuffet by Esther Choi 

Diners and its Ongoing Appeal

Seeing Suki order a grilled cheese sandwich and a peanut butter banana shake while asking the person filming her if they should also order fries to share has been ingrained in my mind ever since. The effervescent quality of diners and its appeal to touch the comfort of any person who wishes to dine is such an iconic setting and can also be seen in films. It’s a food concept that remains to be democratic enough for anyone to enjoy a meal or two, either with someone or just alone. Because let’s face it, you’re really after the comfort food it offers that you can’t necessarily get in fine dining or in super commercialized fast food restaurants today. The cherry on top of the video is Suki toying around with a jukebox before proceeding to a Moschino show, which she will be opening with a play on 90’s horror movies that have been a classic mainstay just like a mom & pop diner. 

Suki Waterhouse Gets Runway Ready, Vogue

Cacao In Many Ways

Being both Charlie and Willy Wonka himself, I don’t only enjoy eating it, but I’m also intrigued by the array of chocolate available in the market or how up-and-coming chocolate brands choose to innovate and push them even further. From Pump Street’s Bakery Series, which combines fresh bakery ingredients in different bar flavors, to these gold wrapped Italian chocolates, which are basically like solid Nutella from Bon Appetit. For an artful take, Casa Bosques has their chocolate brand that springs from their creative pools of having a studio running and a bookstore based in Mexico.  

 Pump Street Bakery Series ; Venchi Gianduia N.3 ; Casa Bosques Chocolate

The Frankenstein of Cold Treats

This Aussie-based shop has been on my places to go to ever since I saw them post about their gelato concoctions and collaborations. It is only fitting that they’ve set up a new flagship store that doubles as a lab and test kitchen for ‘future flavors that may or may not make it onto the menu at all of their stores.’ The designed uniforms and fish bowl quality of the interiors wouldn’t be amiss for a complete Dexter’s Lab-esque gelato experience churning out one new creation to another. 

Pidapipo Laboratorio

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03    INTO THE ABYSS

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Child’s Play

The dawn of healing the inner child is here to stay. With the help of brands and this common understanding that it’s okay to succumb to this, it feels less embarrassing now to fulfill what we used to enjoy as kids or missed out on doing so. See below an edit for anyone looking into cheaper solutions to therapy, but does the trick nonetheless.

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02    CURRENT TABS

This Life Reel  !

The highs, lows, and woahs of culture and the many ways we shape it. Knowing that a little navel gazing wouldn't hurt from time to time (and goes a long way).

Teller Tell-All

A rare sit down with the eponymous photographer we all either love or hate today. It caught me off guard how little I knew about him, but I eventually grasped who he is and how his unique POV and influence on so many people made so much sense towards the end. Such an intimate and raw profile we need more of!

YSL Talks Episode 1: Juergen Teller 

Mumblecore, At Its Best

I have been meaning to watch A Real Pain for a while now, so reading Jesse Eisenberg's profile on The New Yorker will suffice. In my head, Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera are one person or genre, but in a way, they're just different fonts (haha). This is not to discredit the name and work they've built and done so well separately, but something about who they are as actors forces you to notice more like it's your first time doing it. Throwing in casting Kieran Culkin as Jesse's cousin is already a perfect recipe for a less pretentious mumblecore film. It feels less indulgent to self-ponder and question the weight of Life because of the sharp humor and nuances they bring to the table and their choices. 

It already feels like the genres of Fleishman is in Trouble and The Adults, two favorites I hold dearly. 

Jesse Eisenberg Has a Few Questions, The New Yorker

The Self and Everything Else 

I stumbled upon this unique gifting suggestion from The New York Times, which I didn’t expect to exist elsewhere. It’s basically a personalized keepsake folio for anyone born between 1974 and 2014 on every front page. Had such a full-stop moment with the whole idea just thinking about being transported back in time to revisit the headlines, stories, articles, and photos at a specific point in history and how culture has shaped today. Such a big brain move to conceptualize a conversation starter and a treasure trove of information!

Birthday Pages, from the NYT Store

The Mundane Gaze

I have such vivid early memories of when I first started watching The Untalkative Bunny when I was a kid in grade school. Something about this almost philosophical take on a show targeted at kids feels so meditative even before then, with all the tongue-in-cheek and enlightened plotlines within a 4-5 minute episode. Fast forward to now, I've found a YouTube channel that uploaded all of the episodes, and I tend to watch it to shut my brain off (on the rare times my day isn't filled) and before I go to sleep. It's not at arm's length like rubbish television but keeps you sat enough to see what happens to a facially expressive yellow rabbit and its life in the big city.

Untalkative Bunny Full Episodes

Modern Humor

I have a soft spot for artists who use words to convey their art: Jenny Holzer, Barbar Kruger, Lawrence Weiner, and Tracy Emin, to name a few, with the intent that there is more than what the literal messages usually are (for which I totally agree and totally on the same page with). On a more contemporary take, I’ve always admired Charlotte Le Bon’s eye, cheekiness, and wink, which she brings to her creative practice. From her self-directed film, Falcon Lake, and art through sculpture and photography, even her drawings and paintings all feel like extensions of each other, always in conversation and alive. This piece is no exception, with strokes of humor akin to Rene Magritte,  who already pushed the boundaries of what art could be and the many ways we see.

Charlotte Le Bon

Yours, Unapologetically

Jenny Slate, who I know from roles in films (see Everything Everywhere All At Once and Marcel the Shell) and her stand-up, has caught my attention for a while now, ever since her collaboration with Cat Bird and eventually discovering she's a newly minted writer too. Something about her sense of humor and quirks makes it hard not to notice and be intrigued by what she has to say. With the promise of a dazzling, impossible-to-categorize debut, the book channels the pain and beauty of life in writing that feels fresh, new, and burstingly alive. With a summary from the author herself:

Hello and welcome to my book. Inside you will find:
× The smell of honeysuckle
× Heartbreak
× A French-kissing rabbit
× A haunted house
× Death
× A vagina singing sad old songs
× Young geraniums in an ancient castle
× Birth
× A dog who appears in dreams as a spiritual guide
× Divorce
× Electromagnetic energy fields
× Emotional horniness
× The ghost of a sea captain
× And more

I hope you enjoy these little weirds.

Love,
Jenny Slate


Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

The “It” Girl of Parasocials

I’d like to think a person’s favorite vlogger represents themselves and their essence in a completely aspirational way. ‘Tell me your favorite vlogger, and I can tell who you are’ kind of thing. Or ‘you are who you really watch.’ The evolution of YouTube and content on the platform has led us to paths where we can have front seats in the lives of people we might not even imagine we’ll ever come across. Or better yet, have a scoop on their schedules and what’s going on in their lives, which eventually leads us to develop pseudo relationships as if we know them in real life with the amount of access and information given to the public. I don’t have a definitive judgment on whether this is a good or bad thing just yet because, for the most part, it builds community and a sense of self (similar to having a friend or a chic big sister); it’s tough not to turn a blind eye to the negative and dark sides it sheds on too. 

I have been enjoying and staying entertained with Devon Lee Carlson’s vlogs for a while now. I just think she wears her coolness on her sleeve so lightly and has this knack for staying true to her personal style, which remains to be so inspiring.

Devon Lee Carlson, Youtube 

The Glass is____?

 All this time, I had this black hole feeling about social classes (where I stand, how to cope, and survival of it all), especially belonging to an industry that influences and somehow depends on it so much. The success part mostly. Whether you’re looking at it in a relationship, friendship, career, and future trajectory kind of a way, it’s an odd feeling to be perceived, for starters, what more if classes are involved? Wherein it can affect the projects you get, the friends or people you attract, but also how you relate to the world and how you show up as. 

“I’ve been working class and I’ve been middle – this is the real difference“

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02    INTO THE ABYSS

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In Opulent Times

’Tis a struggle to edit down six selects to fit what I imagine a velvet-lined music box (a.k.a. this website). Still, this penchant for soft grandeur, excess, attention to detail, and ornamentation has never left since Sofia Coppola debuted Marie Antoinette in 2006. Adjacent to a Filipino’s love for horror vacui (a term coined for fear or dislike of leaving empty spaces, especially in an artistic composition) and hosting because hospitality is a love language, nothing is as synchronized with this fetish of the rich and wealthy.

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01    CURRENT TABSA dispatch of links, wishlists and digested media that hopefully don’t get lost in the ether. Slow digestibles if you will!

Sound Lounges in a period of Pop Uprisings 

The vibe of Khan Jamal’s free spirtual jazz feels respiteful and like a watercooler break from bops the music industry has been dropping since the year began. Listen as ambient noise or if you’re just looking into a different genre cleanse.

In Focus: Khan Jamal, via NTS Radio

Pleasure Lists and the return to Mails & Letters

I recently downloaded Substack on my phone and plan to get back to reading newsletters first thing in the morning. Ever since -ber months crept in, I’ve been so behind this and my 7,000+ mail count has been piling up. Going through my inbox feels like wiping out the guilt I sweep under the rug when it comes to my screentime and doomscrolling on my phone. I don’t think I can compare the feeling of reading newsletters and discovering new things along the way because it feels like having gems in my pockets and having a post purge glow. 

As a creature of habit, I devour substacks like The Pleasure Lists and other similar formats, but have also been a paid subscriber to Substack’s hall of fame queen Emily Sundberg for a while now. The yearning for analog and slow media has never been stronger and I’m glad I get to be in the crux of this reckoning.

The Pleasure Lists Q&A: Emily Sundberg of Feed Me

Fashion Freud-ward 

Leaning towards her actual bloodlines and the British cheekiness that can also be seen in her clothing line, Bella Freud launched a fashion podcast with a ‘free association-esque’ theme, but less of the cringey therapy speak we’ve probably seen everywhere (even in podcast platforms). Each guest is to 'lie on the couch' and explore the connection between fashion and identity, going deeper in engaging conversations that goes far beyond what we wear: diving into the unspoken language of clothing and the ways in which we use style to navigate and communicate in the world.

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

High (Tea) on Surrealism 

I recently bought an Abode Set from Saan Saan as a birthday gift for myself and have been sorting through my saved shop lists and Carousell for a nice container to house them. The cleansing set meant to protect spaces or put a protective shield around your home includes a black tourmaline, pyrite pyramid, desert rose selenite and a palo santo stick originally consigned from Woo Woo Ritual Goods. I’m gutted but also glad I got to save this cup and saucer from the Salvador Dali Surreal World collection from a now defunct local Instagram biz that used to sell these along with other artful goods. It reminded me of some Gohar World pieces by Monica Magsanoc, a Filipina illustrator and designer that became a zeitgeist mainstay.

Salvador Dali: The Surreal World collection, Museum PH

From Active to Everyday Wear 

I discovered this brand from a NYC based ballerina I follow on Instagram and immediately fell inlove with how the garments were styled and how she wore them IRL when teaching a Pilates class. Their take on their Collections with a fashion-forward eye is so refreshing and makes you look forward to styling them in endless ways, coining the pieces as ‘evolutionary activewear.’ Because if there’s an activewear recommendation I’d trust, it would be from a ballerina. 

Live the Process, Evolutionary Activewear

Fresh Faces & Cat Eye Experts

Though I rarely save beauty, skincare and makeup content, I have a few Vogue Secrets videos I always turn to and one of them is Olivia Wilde’s. Her effortlessly cool and simple routine spoke to me the most because it already felt like how I get ready and how much I’ve enjoyed the process of it over the years. However, I might still have to rewatch and continuously scrub through the video to learn how she puts on a cat eye like a pro.

Olivia Wilde for Isla Beauty, ‘Washing Faces with Friends’

The Art of Jump Scares 

Actual Source is ahead of the publishing game in many ways, so it’s hard not to browse their shop without adding something to your wishlist. They managed to create the secret sauce of what it means to create meaningful work they want to do, but also function as a studio doing groundbreaking work for A24, Atmos, and Popeye (to name a few). This photobook by Jacob Haupt, which captures scenes from his haunted apartment, is no exception to the other titles they’ve produced via their publishing arm, which are equally unique and a ‘can’t get anywhere else’ piece.

Jacob Haupt: Did I Scare You?, by Actual Source

A Graceful Edit 

As much as I'm part of the crowd who gets entertained and has a knack for well-put-together or high-concept shows, (see: Sabrina Carpenter’s opening show number) the lofi-ness and, in some way, relatable imagery Gracie Abrams has been putting out has struck me in the same light. With a little bit of researching and Instagram stalking, it made sense that her stylist has clothed the bodies of Lily-Rose Depp, Billie Eilish, Kiko Mizuhara and has work in the spreads of Homme Girls, a magazine created around the concept of women dressing as men, the 'HommeGirl'. I think it's very satisfying when an artist looks exactly what she would sound like because it enriches the whole experience and this new appetite of how we enjoy music today. 

On Set with Gracie Abrams, for NET-A-PORTER

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01    INTO THE ABYSS

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A Visual Course of the Senses

An edit (a love letter really) of the diverse mediums that have indelibly shaped my senses. From tactile photography to the auditory and visual delights of music and color,  the je ne sais quoi of these selects transcends the time they were created and binds them, akin to a well-orchestrated dining experience.