MAKER MAGAZINE

I am so excited to share some eerie and darkly beautiful photographs with you today! Featured in the first issue of MAKER magazine, the shoot was the brain child of MAKER’s creative director Joanna Lily Wong  and photographer Pavel Voz. I caught up with Joanna to find out a little bit more about the shoot, and about MAKER magazine itself.

What was your inspiration for the shoot? 

Pavel and I had been exchanging images and ideas we liked for months before we even talked about doing a shoot together.  For Maker, because it's an arts magazine, we wanted to create a story using unconventional materials, bringing the beautiful and strange together.  We had been looking at Polish and Italian painters, filing them away in our mental reference bank.  Then I saw some of Taylor's (of Fox Fodder Farm) work, called her up, and we decided to create dried headpieces. The combination of the textured clay, the lighting inspired by the paintings, and the dried flowers, melded quite organically once we started shooting.  The result feels non-human, ethereal, statuesque.

Can you tell me a little bit about Maker, yourself and your colleagues?

MAKER Magazine is an arts and culture magazine based in New York City that highlights the creative mind and spirit. It started as a project to represent the non commercial projects of artists we knew and admired and to feature the creator as much as the creation.  One summer my friend Alyse Archer-Coite, Maker's editor-in-chief, brought up this idea of doing a small magazine; we just dove in, and the concept grew and grew. We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into and suddenly we found ourselves with a 270 page magazine sent to us from our printers in Iceland.  Our stockists vary from The Standard Hotel (NYC, LA, and Miami) to the boutique Creatures of Comfort, it's also available for purchase at www.maker-magazine.com. At MAKER, we're all good friends who share the same drive to create a quality product.  Everybody has different strengths and experiences and it really works to our advantage.  

Any exciting future projects to look out for?

So many!!  I'm very excited about issue 2, which will come out in the fall.

I just art directed a shoot with Jamel Shabazz,who is such a pleasure to work with and was one of the pioneers of the street photography that’s so prevalent these days. Ryan McGinness made our next cover, other artists featured include Lola Schnabel, Dustin Yellin, and Paul Jasmin. The best part of working on MAKER is being able to give a living space to work that I find fascinating and beautiful, and to work with people whose work and values I admire.     

So, MAKER magazine is definitely one to look out for. The genesis of the magazine is inspiring and the artistic values of its creators really ring true with my own. I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy of issue 2!  

Photography:  Pavel Voz

Creative Direction: Joanna Lily Wong 

Makeup Artist:  Joanna Lily Wong  

Hairstylist:  Charlie Taylor at Walter Schupfer Management

Custom Headpieces:  Fox Fodder Farm