"Christmas In America: Happy Birthday, Jesus" by Jesse Rieser

Missouri native Jesse Rieser captures the most wonderful time of year, Christmas in America.

The photographer, Rieser, frequented suburban neighborhoods in the west coast for a time period that spanned 2011 to 2013, so says his Instagram, to portray people's festive spirit. His pictures depict an overload of Christmas cheer manifested in Santa Claus costumes, tacky household decorations and dubious moments where merrymaking does not seem to mix.

Rieser says "Christmas In America" was inspired "by the absurdity of a five-story inflatable Santa who appeared to be guarding a tree lot." While the images depict Christmas tradition, they also speak to the superfluity of the holiday unconcerned with pizzazz.

Browse through Rieser's "Christmas In America" above and explore more of the photographer's work here.

Source: It's Nice That

Poison by Sean Beauford (Opening Reception Recap)

Sean Beauford captured by Keep Pittsburgh Dope

Inside The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's 707 Gallery on Friday, Dec. 11, I halted my note taking, sparked by the installed TIME Magazine covers titled "Are We Giving Kids Too Many Drugs?" and "Kids Who Sell Crack," to say to Makayla Wray, after previously meeting her at the corner of Penn Ave and 7th St walking to the show, "I know you're a fashion designer." She smiled and replied emphatically, "That's what I like to be known for! You should write that down. I'm quick with it," finishing her statement with a "dab."

Wray's use of the hit dance craze alerted me to the national and local contemporary flavors on display at the exhibit curated by Sean Beauford.

While I gazed at a lucid black, purple and white painting called "Codeine Crazy" by Amani Davis, Travis Scott's platinum record "Antidote" played. Around me, Chancelor Humphrey of Keep Pittsburgh Dope was dancing and taking pictures of people, like rapper Mars Jackson. A friend of KPD, visual artist, and food photographer Cody Baker heard the tune from outside and instinctively joined the party.

Space began to crowd and I looked down, as to not step on any feet and to find room to walk. I saw multiple pairs of Vans, an olive green pair of Eras, Sk8-His in blacked out and classic black-white colorways, and Old Skools. Along with Timberland 6" Boots, colorfully painted Timberland 6" Boots and "Wheat" Air Force 1 High, Yeezy Boost 350 "Moonrock," two pairs of Chelsea boots tan and black respectively, green Dr. Martens and Jordan silhouettes filling the room.

I stood next to a podium that read, "The Kids Aren't Alright," and observed owner of JENESIS Magazine and co-founder of Pittsburgh event space Boom Concepts Thomas Agnew, along with cultural practitioner D.S. Kinsel, artist Baron Batch with an eye painted on his red sweatpants and many more among the active, youthful, creative and intuitive attendees who celebrated Beauford's Poison art show.

Photo by LinShuttr

Photo by LinShuttr

Via Poison

Beauford, a young man from Mansfield, Ohio, works in Pittsburgh to deliver atmospheres attractive to popular culture. His latest project taps artists for an introspective exhibition that comments on America's drug use.

The show alludes to the amplified life experience drug users become addicted to. Drugs heighten reality, take away pain and stimulate euphoria; they make people feel alive all the while destroying their lives in the process.

Outside 707 Gallery, where Poison is located, plastered on its front window in bright pink is the phrase, "WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE."

Artist and Poison contributor Hannibal Hopson said, "You have life and you have death. There is a time to be alive and people choose to cut that short in a number of ways, like drinking 40 oz."

Positive and negative values fill every piece featured in Poison. Hopson's "Teuton Fury |40 oz|" is cement casts of Steel Reserve and Colt 45 with sunflowers pushing out of the top. Another contributor, LinShuttr, has canvas covered in crayon drawn clouds, sun rays, trucks, and fish accented with attached crack vials and boxes of Arm & Hammer baking soda.

"Teuton Fury |40 oz|" by Hannibal Hopson

Along a wall, I viewed photographs by Good Mike. The images chronicled heroin and cocaine users cooking on a white stove top and shooting up while sitting in a bathtub. Once viewers reach the end of the consecutive images they are greeted by a hooded figure passed out face-down on top of a mattress on the floor, a scary symbol that death's reality is lurking.

Performer Grits Capone, standing on an orange milk crate, said in his spoken word piece exclusive to the opening reception, "Death is inevitable, but baby patience is a virtue."

"What A Time To Be Alive" emerges as a theme and underlining message to Beauford's Poison because the exhibit reflects upon the parallels and choice of evocative experimentation and destruction resulting from drug use.

Subjects like hip-hop and streetwear intersect with drug culture because artists glorify the lean sipping, pill popping and blunt passing used in their creative processes. The excitement lies in the masterpieces being created; drugs are used as a celebratory aid. Hopson and Davis spoke to gallery patrons with Olde English 40 oz stuck to their hands.

Beyond the relevance of "What A Time To Be Alive" as Drake and Future's mixtape title, the phrase and the opening reception for Beauford's Poison actively describes a progressive environment.

A group of guests congregated outside the show. A girl named Morgan said, "It's nice to see them [referring to Poison artists] doing something. Growing up here, I did not see this progression in Pittsburgh."

By utilizing fashion and lifestyle outlet Keep Pittsburgh Dope to promote the show on Instagram to other actors in Pittsburgh popular culture, combined with the art itself showcased in Poison, Beauford illustrates there is no better time than now for people to create and offer positive output to their environment.

See artists Amani Davis, LinShuttr, Mathias Heavy, Good Mike and Hannibal Hopson's work at Sean Beauford's curated Poison at 707 Gallery on Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. - 8 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. through January 10.

707 Penn AVE

Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Ian Kenneth Bird Photographs Iconic T-shirt Designs from Mid-1980s to Now

T-shirts are at the core of every streetwear label, they execute the ethos of the brand and a reflection of society with subtleties and bold graphics all the while remaining understated thanks to the garment's casual style.

Ian Kenneth Bird, a skateboarder and photographer from London, along with British lifestyle shop The Goodhood Store are engrossed with influential T-shirt designs from the era before the internet: mid-1980s to 1999. They presented an in-store exhibition, now complete, called, "TSHIRTTHEN," which illustrated how graphic tees captured different trends and cultures. A book also chronicled the development of graphic tees then and now. Co-founder of GoodHood, Kyle Stewart says, "The T-shirt's ease of production has made it a vehicle for many different subcultural movements and I became fascinated with the period just before the internet-- it's like a forgotten land where art, bands and fashion don't exist unless they've been transferred to the digital age."

Bird photographed original T-shirts from labels like FUCT and Supreme for their ability to grasp icons of the era and mold them into unique messages representative of each brand. Shirts older than the models wearing them prove how timeless elements of streetwear are. Enjoy the visuals by Ian Kenneth Bird for "TSHIRTTHEN".

Source: It's Nice That

Brandon Tauszik Shows Barbershops' Integral Role Through Gifs

Brandon Tauszik: Tapered Throne

In the African American community most men get their haircut at a barbershop. The shops and the people that run them remain as one of the most important institutions to black communities because they foster comfortable and open environments where people can talk, form friendships and be themselves.

Brandon Tauszik, a photographer from Northern England, took to his Oakland, California residence and explored the independently owned barbershops in the city's black communities. To learn about the crucial role the shops play, Tauszik offers a glimpse at the daily routines and interactions shop owners have in his latest series, Tapered Throne.

An introductory essay by Dr. Quincy T. Mills, a professor of Africana Studies at Vassar College, accompanies Tauszik's exhibition and explains the loyalty one has to his barber. Mills writes:

“Haircuts are not commodities for African Americans. You cannot get one anywhere, from anyone, at any price. One’s barber knows how he likes his hair cut, how long to keep the sideburns, how to shape the taper. Outside of the particulars of one’s cut, a barber will come to learn much about their clients. Information is divulged about family, work, recreation, and sometimes their greatest fears and joys.”

— http://taperedthrone.com/

Brandon Tauszik: Tapered Throne

Barbers form a Rolodex of names, events and places relevant in the community, their shops become the pulse of everything current in the neighborhoods. In cities where crime is abundant barbershops add positive influence and support. A man named ATL said of Fruitvale Barbers in 2014, "We sometimes have to deal with a lot of negativity in Oakland; poverty, crime, violence. But I don't believe my shop has to be part of all that."

The series of images Tauszik presents are made more intriguing by his use of gifs. Gifs offer the spotlight aspect of a photo, but, "At the heart of a gif is the loop... you're able to spend time within the moment as the same sliver of time passes on infinite repeat," Tauszik says. The footage is reminiscent of a barber's pole forever turning outside his shop, as viewers see the clippers move back and forth, around and about a myriad of black heads and chins. 

Tapered Throne illustrates how barbershops create valuable relationships and sync communities, see for yourself at brandontauszik.com and be sure to read the paired essay.

Brandon Tauszik: Tapered Throne

Photographer Sage Sohier Captures Same-sex Couples in the 1980s

Thanks to the United States Supreme Court's ruling on June 26, same-sex couples have the Constitutional right to marry. This victory for the gay rights movement shines light on the importance of individual equality, acceptance and understanding the world is concerned with today; the victory shows stark contrasts of how far society has come since the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. 

In her book, At Home with Themselves: Same-sex Couples in 1980s America, Photographer Sage Sohier examines 1986 when mass media and the public blamed AIDS' outbreak on same-sex promiscuity. She says of her project, "The advent of the disease led me to think about the prevalence, variety and longevity of gay and lesbian relationships... My ambition was to make pictures that challenged and moved people." In the '80s it was common to keep same-sex relationships discreet and away from ridicule due to the persecution and discrimination of the time.

Personally Sohier was impacted upon discovering in the late '70s her Father was gay. Her photographs are sparked by curiosity about homosexual life, set in and around cities in Massachusetts, like Provincetown and Boston, as well as others across the country. Honest, personal images appear depicting natural interactions between couples themselves and other people in their lives, such as parents and children.

Read more on Sage Sohier's book here and explore her other work at www.sagesohier.com.