An overgrown glitchcore forest of forbidden fruit: the aesthetic commissioned by marketing agency Brand New: A Collective for this Golden Apple 23 promotional event sponsored by Crown Royal in partnership with Solange Knowles for Saint Heron. The historic City National Bank in Galveston, TX became a vessel for this multi-media/augmented reality performance during the week of Juneteenth. A powerful tribute in the city emblematic of emancipation to and by black artists and musicians (performances by serpentwithfeet et. al.), and a playful take on cultural iconography with bitten apples and golden snakes styled throughout a banquet table tableau dripping with fern vines and modern myth.
Planning and creative direction by NYC/LA-based BN:AC
Some photographs by Elizabeth Miranda, Marcus Ingram
Golden Apple 23 Whisky Launch
A multimedia event
Crown Royal Golden Apple x Saint Heron
At the cusp of their 4th year in business, chef Jan-Mitchell Aviles and his team pulled out all the stops for a menu celebrating the unique fine dining concept's success in the Houston food scene. The pop-up kitchen (currently in its "The Chef's House" era) provides a single multi-course dinner service (wine pairings optional) per night around one table, with space for only 8-10 guests. Guests may or may not all know each other at the beginning of the night, but by the end they have forged a time-and-place mini community fueled by vibrant conversation and the shared delight of beautiful food; specifically an experimental, global fusion cuisine which can best be described as poetic. A masterful staff makes connecting with the meal and the cultural histories behind each dish feel easy, as they join in on nerding out about ingredients, answering questions, laughing and chatting with the diners throughout the evening. It's truly a one-of-a-kind experience. Floral and fruit styling for this particular evening were inspired by the chosen theme of "one night in heaven," with pommegranate, figs, and orchids evoking the sultry and romantic ancient Arab world mythology of Heaven, and deep colors + heavy textures complementing lighter, etherial ones to honor the magnetic polarities of masculine and feminine energies.
Branding + Graphic Design and Photography by Shaider Divinia
A Culinary speakeasy's
3rd anniversary party
Ensemble
HTX
That time we built a 300 sq ft indoor mossy swamp for Hope City, commissioned by Houston-based art director Shaider Divina. A hyper-local botanical landscape celebrating the sense of place locals find in the boggy land around the coastal plains, designed to evoke feelings of belonging and being at home for the members of the religious community of Hope City, a Houston area Christian megachurch. Photography from this piece was used as the cover art for a single that the institution's worship band released on Spotify after performing and recording it from the set, and videography by the in-house production team allowed for several recorded elements (community programming announcements and an end-of-year sermon) to be broadcast with aesthetic continuity across several satellite campuses at a later date over their holiday break.
Photography and art direction by Shaider Divina
Music Video Set
Shaider Divina x Hope CIty
During the planning for this photoshoot, Entrepreneur Servanté Cook told us that when he was young other kids used to make fun of him for how black his skin was, and that he quickly internalized the old trope that dark just isn't as respectable or valuable as light. In his personal journey to root out this cultural narrative and fall in love with who he is in every possible way, Ser took all the tenderness his younger self really needed and extended it outward to black men of all ages by designing a line of skincare products specifically for them. His dream (which has become a reality) was to create a platform of affirmation and care for a community that, as he observed, does not receive nearly enough invitations to experience tenderness, much less to adopt a daily ritual of tending to one's own body as a route to taking good care of one's soul. Ser Skn products are a love letter to young black men everywhere: you are gorgeous, and you deserve to be cherished. Also, as the cheeky tagline goes, "drink water, moisturize, mind your business."
A Skincare line launch
With moonbeam body therapy
Ser SkN by Servanté Cook
Creative direction and floral: HML
Photography: Jontrice Murray, Nadine Berns
My proprietary style of design at Edges Wild is a cocktail of methodology and aesthetic that I've come to call "Folk Art Floristry," a reference to the ways objects, aesthetics, and even traditions or rituals from a person's everyday life can be the chief inspirations for a floral design collection, even if those elements of one's folklore are not, at first glance, related to botany or florals, or to the occasion for which you are commissioning them.
By way of example, the tattoo half sleeve I had designed by Canadian collage artist Loraine Mohar began as a list of creatures and plants that I grew up loving and couldn't imagine getting tired of wearing as permanent art. As I wrote her, "I'm an amateur naturalist and find endless fascination in the worlds of flora, fauna and funga, celestial bodies...I love semi-macabre skeletal formations and carnivorous plants." In response, of the finished artwork, she said "I really wanted to emphasize the transmutive and transience of life cycles, the playfullness of natural exploration and the cosmic wonder in our similarities to all life forms." I loved the digital and print collage assemblage final product so much I wanted to bring it to life in as many 3D forms as possible. I think I'll be drawing on it as a muse and iterating for years to come.
my Tattoo as a Folk Art Floristry case study
HML for EWS: It's Personal
Photography by Sean & Carissa Archibong of The C S Visuals