Lisa Q. Fetterman is a food world rabble-rouser, and our meal planning agita is blessedly facing extinction because of her brilliance. It started with Fetterman sous-vide-ing meals for herself, her friends and fam—people who wanted wholesome, delicious food but weren’t swimming in free time and energy. She had a background in dining service and experience at some of the top restaurants in the country (like Babbo, Jean-Georges, and SF’s Saison). She was familiar with the huge immersion circulators of the fine dining sphere and the flawlessly cooked food they created, but considering how expensive and unwieldy this equipment was, you wouldn’t spot one outside a professional kitchen. Two cups of Fetterman’s expertise, a dash of moxie, and a drizzle of innovation later, she and her co-founding hubby had created the Nomiku smart cooker, the first home sous vide machine on the market.
With a patented compact design, Fetterman’s Nomiku is affordable, portable, and effective, fit for home cooks and 3-star chefs alike. Step aside Instant Pot: Nomiku is the queen of convenience, cooking food for up to 8 people with literally the tap of a button. Suffice it to say, Fetterman made quite a stir (heh) with her pioneering work in the food space, popping up on Wired, Forbes 30 under 30 list, and more. The company is now on its 3rd generation appliance and they’ve launched a meal delivery service that pairs with the device. The whole operation is a seriously genius solution for busy peeps who want to eat well (raising our hands here).
Below, dig into Fetterman’s 5+5 Q+A, in which she discusses the life-changing power of the perfect avocado, owns her next-level love of Georgia O’Keefe, and gives advice for a straightforward, no-nonsense way you can support women on the culinary scene. Call it an art-forward tasting menu. Her print mise en place is perfection! – Jen Bekman + Team 20x200
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Carolyn Castaño's piece, Heroine (After Policarpa Salavarrieta Jose Maria Espinosa), featured in her most recent solo show at Laband Art Gallery.
Summer is Carolyn Castaño’s season. We’re saying that partly because the LA-based visual artist’s bright, passionate color palettes and energetic compositions feel warm-weather apropos, ebullient like a newly opened summer bloom. But we’re also saying that because we know Castaño was looking forward to the summer months and finally having more time to spend in her studio—which means more art we can ogle (always a good thing). We hear she’s hunkered down near MacArthur Park, experimenting with colors, patterns, and textures, focussing on the relationship between the production of textiles and its effect on the environment. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with!
Dedicated studio time is a serious blessing for this artist after an awesome but exceedingly busy fall and spring. Besides becoming a mom for the second time (!!), Castaño had a lot going on art-world-wise. She participated in a handful of artist talks and panels, including at appearance at Azusa Pacific University and a visiting artist lecture in painter Mary Anna Pomonis’ class at Cal State Long Beach. Her art was part of fundraising efforts for two projects close to her heart: AMBOS, a project using bi-national art as a means of generating healthier cross-border relationships, and SASSAS, an organization that highlights music and art. Activism is entrenched in Castaño's artistic ethos. Similarly, her work was shown in The Art of Protest: Epiphany and the Culture of Empowerment at the Church of the Epiphany, an Eastside LA Episcopalian congregation and designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument that’s been a hub for various Chicano social justice movements since the 1960s. The exhibition, which ran through March 29th, brought together an incredible range of work by more than 60 artists, culminating in a beautiful cacophony of artistic voices. Take a look at what the Los Angeles Times had to say about it and you’ll also catch sight of one of Castaño's artworks pictured in the article...
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Plate 211: Great Blue Heron by John James Audubon
Introducing the newest limited-edition print to join our collection of Audubon images is 20x200 founder and fledgling birdwatcher Jen Bekman, whose early a.m. nature walks have her falling in love with her local flora and fauna—namely, one especially elegant, elongated avian habitué. Read on ... Today’s release,
Plate 211: Great Blue Heron, is the fifteenth (!!)
Audubon edition we’ve included in our ever-growing
Vintage Editions collection, which means we’ve already
shared loads of
context on
Audubon’s life and career. With that in mind, I’m going to focus on the inspiration for adding this particular bird to our menagerie, which has to do with two specific Great Blues, the urban shoreline they inhabit, and how getting to know that place and its myriad avian residents has sustained my soul and fostered an amazing friendship as I, a lifelong New Yorker, settle into my new life as a full-time San Francisco resident.
Heron’s Head Park, a small bit of greenery and wonder that has flourished along the industrial waterfront of Southeast San Francisco since 1999, is not in fact named for its dignified denizens, but rather for the outline of it as seen from above, which bears an uncanny resemblance to—you guessed it!—
a heron’s head. Made up mostly of marshy wetlands, Heron’s Head and its neighboring slice of reclaimed waterfront, India Basin Shoreline Park, are flanked on either side by industrial sites, and yet they host a flourishing, complex ecosystem which hosts over a
100 different species of birds.
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The newest installment of our Literary Gallery series is not to be missed. It was assembled by published author, accomplished poet, and Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College, Dr. Joshua Bennett, and it’s a requisite reading list, if not a work of poetic plangency itself. In describing his approach to the task of pairing 20x200 prints with a few of his most treasured texts, Bennett somehow manages to articulate the crux of the exercise while awakening in us a renewed sense of the value of such an undertaking. And that’s all before his actual matchmaking, which speaks for itself.
Bennett’s easy eloquence astounds—just take a sec to appreciate his turn of phrase and his poignantly-paced, luminous read-aloud style in this video produced by his alma mater, UPenn. While an undergraduate there in 2009, he was invited to perform for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at The Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word at the White House. That honor was just a hint of what this writer had up his sleeve. He’d go on to receive his Ph.D. in English from Princeton in 2016, become a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, and publish his debut poetry collection, The Sobbing School, via Penguin Random House in 2016. Centering the complex interiority of the Black experience, the collection was a National Poetry Series winner and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.
There’s surely so much more in store for this talented young writer and academic (Bennett’s not even thirty yet), and we’re on tenterhooks waiting for what’s next. His first book of essays, Being Property Once Myself: Blackness & the End of Man
, is forthcoming from Harvard University Press, and his second collection of poems, Owed
, will be published by Penguin Random House in 2020. In the meantime, tuck into his thought-provoking intro and take a turn through his art and lit pairings ...
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Woman Hiking--WPA recreation project, Dist. No. 2, a 20x200 Vintage Edition
To heck with getting outta the woods—let’s go in. Our new
Vintage Edition isn’t just a particularly unique blast from the past, it’s also an infectiously gung ho take on depicting great-outdoors-going. We plucked
Woman Hiking—WPA recreation project, Dist. No. 2 from one of our favorite vintage archives: the arts-related arm of FDR’s Works Progress Administration. Made sometime between 1936 and 1939, this design appeared on one of the WPA’s widely distributed posters as part of the community recreation programs encouraging an array of enriching extracurriculars, from reading to tennis.
Maybe it’s the thought of getting some serious distance from the office to enjoy the warm weather we’ve been having, but if we could take our pick of pastimes right now we’d opt for the outdoors.
This edition speaks to us. But this nature’s calling for another reason, namely the bold, offbeat color combination and interesting injection of abstraction. The style isn’t easily identifiable—sort of a deconstructed art-deco-esque look brought to life by some sketchier strokes. And the details are delectable. Take, for instance, the bird that’s landed on the letter H. Plus, there’s a mountain (heh) of other cool things about this print. Let’s take the scenic route, shall we?
Woman Hiking—WPA recreation project, Dist. No. 2 might not be quite what you’d expect of a 1930s-era design. Why? Because it stars a lone female figure hiking up a trail. That seems like a pretty radical image when you couch it in its historical context—the world of outdoor recreation has long been a boys’ club, even more so almost a century ago. Clad in shorts with tousled hair rippling in the breeze behind her, this backpack-toting outdoorsperson is a woman on a mission. Her limbs are bent in action as she makes her way up the hillside with determination and a subtle smile perceptible in the silhouette of her face. She’s an
“unlikely” hiker, and we’re glad she’s been given the limelight ...
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It takes a village to build a space that sincerely supports local business and cultivates creative thinking. Sonja Rasula is the mayor of that village. In 2008, the former tv design personality went out on a personal and professional limb to launch Unique Markets, a large scale pop-up marketplace that brings together a community of entrepreneurs, artists and makers. It took a lot of skill, expertise, and good old fashioned gumption, but Unique Markets quickly became the largest shopping event of its kind in this country, drawing in crowds of 50k. An estimated $1 million is spent during each two-day show, which doesn’t just have a tangible positive impact on the local economy—it also gives the independent creatives and small business owners who exhibit at the event a better shot at making a living doing what they love.
Belief in the importance of increasing artists’ access to opportunity is a driving force of what we do over here at 20x200, so Rasula’s mission is close to our hearts. That she’s gone all-in on a sort of modern day pioneerdom and dedicated herself to fostering creative communities is wildly motivating and, frankly, refreshing. It’s no wonder Los Angeles Magazine named her one of LA’s Most Inspiring Women. Rasula’s work has since branched out to a business conference called CAMP, as well as The Unique Space, a permanent spot housing 18 private offices and a bevy of cool companies from Bustle to Blue Bottle. We can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
In the meantime, we’re feeling lucky that Rasula somehow managed to steal away from her super busy sched to make five cool 20x200 art selects and answer five of our Qs. Get the scoop in her 5+5 interview below! – Jen Bekman + Team 20x200
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What do ink, quotes, tenacity and iconic overalls have in common? Amos Kennedy, who gave us a quick tour of his Detroit print studio. Sneak a peek below, then pop over to the blog for the full shebang.
A rabble-rouser with a cause, Kennedy’s energy is infectious, his irreverence inspiring. His prints convey his imperishable passion, and his determination to move others to action, to encourage people to put their brains to positive use. He has a predilection for powerful quotes and potent phrases, conveyed via sharp graphics, bold typography, and curious color combos of overprinted text. His hand-pressed editions are a gutsy balance between controlled chaos and planned precision. A thumb print, a thick splotch of ink, an unexpected smudge—it’s all part of the appeal.
Kennedy quit his job at forty to pursue life as a master printer, and he’s achieved just that. (We’re pretty sure he could achieve just about anything his set his mind to). He operates his own letterpress printery, Kennedy Prints, was honored as a United States Artists Glasgow Fellow in Crafts, teaches workshops all around the world, produces prints prolifically and sells them at his own shows, and is a vocal advocate for the democratization of art and design and the importance of employing creative powers for wider good. (Get a taste of his incisive insight via this clip from the 2016 AIGA Design Conference in Las Vegas.) He even starred in a documentary centering on his own printing practice—Laura Zinger’s Proceed and Be Bold. Throughout it all, he refers to himself as a “humble Negro printer”, and does so with purpose. “There is a profound difference between ‘negro’ and africanamerican. My ancestors were the enslaved peoples whose labor built the wealth of this civilization,” he says in an interview with fellow 20x200 artist Jen Hewett.
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Crank the AC, kick off your shoes, and pour something on ice—your indoor oasis is gonna come in mighty handy as it heats up to unbearable outside. Besides, you can bring a cherry-picked slice of summer to your temperature-controlled sanctuary with in-season art! Just cruise on over to our
Fifth Annual 20x200 Swimsuit Edition(s) and dive in.
Maybe your bliss is a
quiet beach, or
Brooklyn hot dog hang, or a
bottle of rose bustin' out of a picnic basket. Whatever floats your boat, these
warm weather apropos editions represent the best of the season for all sorts of styles, and they’ll keep the summer splendor going year-round on your walls.
Dip your toe in our
Fifth Annual 20x200 Swimsuit Edition(s) below...
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