July 1 - 2 - 3s and an Introduction!
my first newsletter, covering Armenian photographer Van Leo, my favourite new website platforms and the best cold meals for hot weather.
Welcome to the very first report of my monthly 1 2 3s!
Collectively, we are losing our minds. I don’t think that’s an overstatement. I know that in my current unemployment, the hot, muggy New York days are stretching beyond me in a loose, hazy, confusing daze. It feels like the first lockdown again. I find myself making spreadsheets documenting each hour of the day, making sure I can’t lose myself to the haze for longer than an hour at a time.
That’s why I’m here. For the past few months, I’ve been working in a school, helping kindergarteners tie their shoes, learn their ABCs, and learn counting. To learn to count, they are tasked with collecting tokens that represent numbers (1, 10, 100). So I’m collecting items every month and compiling them in a weird, fervent search for some kind of way of tracking time: typography, my projects, exhibitions, meals, films, drinks, books. For designers, my clients, my friends, my girlfriend. I plan to keep this entirely free, but in return I would really appreciate subscriptions, shares, follows and telling your friends about it!
So without further ado, I present to you my first 1 2 3s, of July 2023.
1 Exhibition I Wish I Could Go See
Becoming Van Leo at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. I’ve been down a bit of a rabbit hole learning about Armenian studio photographer Van Leo thanks to learning about this new exhibition.
Growing up in Egypt, yearning for Hollywood glamour, Van Leo had no interest in capturing anything ‘real’. In the photography studio that he shared with his brother, Studio Angelo, he would often turn the camera on himself in his spare time between taking wedding shoots and passport photos. Using various costumes, shaving his face in different ways, even experimenting with surrealism, he would morph himself into different characters. I’m not saying that this man was gay, but I will say that this sounds very queer to me. Obsessed with this line from this Apeture profile:
Van Leo used to say that he had taken many nude photographs of women, but had burned them in the 1990s for fear of being attacked by Islamic fundamentalists.
And one more quote that I am obsessed with, on art as a vocation:
“Photography is an art, and if you are born an artist, which is a gift from God, it must be appreciated by the people. One photograph is worth ten thousand words.” Van Leo wrote these words in 1966, in response to a question about “gainful employment,” on an immigration form.
Please someone fly me to LA so I can see this exhibtion!
2 New Website Platforms
I feel like we are entering a new, more playful age of the internet. I’ve been having fun creating new profiles for my design and art work on new web platforms. These cover the full range from minimalist to maximalist:
Read.CV, a plain-text CV and resume platform. I find this format far easier to read than PDF CVs, with much better design than EnhanCV. You can check out my CV, and (for now, at least) my project Recipes from a Free Artsakh is featured on their front page:
To the colourful and extravagant: I’ve made a digital sketchbook / moodboard on drag-and-drop platform mmm.page, and you can check out my page at m.page/flolow. I’m using this as a platform to visually record my current obsessions and research interests!
If you have profiles on these platforms, or I inspire you to make one, please do send it my way!
Added bonus: I have also updated my website at lowlowlow.studio!
By the way, my wonderful headshot was taken by Edi - you should check out their work!
3 Cold Meals for Hot Weather
I recently asked my instagram followers for their favourite meals to make in hot weather requiring little to no cooking in an oven or stove. And so, here are my current favourites!
cheese, bread, salami, cornichons, stone fruits, olives, tomatoes, cucumber: Alice and I are in the habit at the moment of taking some combination of the above as a picnic to the Botanical Garden. the absolute pinnacle of hot weather food. perfection.
cold soba noodles: many veg and dressing combinations work for this. Our favourite is cucumber, scallion, radish, and peanut sauce.
tacos: tortilla, corn from charred corn on the cob, chunky guacamole (i char the avocado to get extra flavour), rocket / arugula, done.
Thank you for reading my first list of lists. Please subscribe and share with your friends and colleagues!