The Help Desk is all about getting answers to your financial questions! Send an e-mail to CNNHelpDesk@CNN.com
How to build an emergency fund
The Help Desk is all about getting answers to your financial questions! Send an e-mail to CNNHelpDesk@CNN.com
Endangered Species by Synthia Saint James
Giclee on Canvas
Image size= 24″h x 32″w
She has 7 children’s picture books currently on the market, two of which she wrote, “The Gift’s of Kwanzaa” and “Sunday.” She also has 2 books of poetry and prose, “Girlfriends”. and “Can I Touch You, Love Poems and Affirmations”, an audio book.
Spring 2012 Shopping: 100+ Dresses to Wear to Summer Weddings
Get the Look: Kim Kardashian’s Kanye West Ice Cream Date Look
by Claire
Angie writes, “Can you give me details of her outfit?”
KK was seen out eating ice cream with Kanye West in a gray sweatshirt and leather pants, accessorized by Christian Louboutin Unbout Illusion Pumps in black and a Céline luggage tote in light brown.
How to Break Into Fashion: Celebrity Stylist Becca Alexis
by Claire
We’re almost 5 months into 2012, and we’ve yet to have a Breaking into Fashion interview!
Well, I decided to end the drought by profiling celebrity stylist Becca Alexis:
The University of Florida and Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising graduate has worked with everyone from Trey Songz, Mary J. Blige, and Ne-Yo to Janet Jackson, Marlon Wayans, and Jamie Foxx, styling music videos, commercials, editorials, and print advertisements. She was nice enough to take a few moments to tell you aspiring wardrobe maestros a bit about her story, and offer advice on how you can follow a similar path into the bright lights and action of celebrity styling.
She says, “My primary experiences in fashion were as an illustrator and designer. I made clothes for the various performance organizations at my college. After graduation, I decided it was time to develop those talents into an occupation, [so] I enrolled at FIDM and began working with the costumers for various TV and film productions. I knew this was something I wanted to do 3 years later while working at a costume shop where several stylists came and had costumed pieces made. I realized I wanted to combine both worlds and turn it into my brand.”
“The celebrity aspect happened by chance. My first celebrity client was Nelly. [I styled] a commercial promoting his album. I had worked with the commercial’s producer on a local LA fashion shoot and she asked me if I would come in as a stylist.”
Now, you’ll find her running to and fro, pulling items from showrooms, attending fittings, sifting through e-mails, and attending to her long roster of clients.
If you want to follow a similar path, she advises hopefuls to start small. She says, “Intern. I recommend interning for one person for at least a year to build a good foundation. The key to a successful styling career is a combination of talent, commitment, and reliability.”
“[Don’t attempt ] to microwave the path to success. Experience is not something you can hustle. Allow yourself to develop and build a foundation. Work at a magazine or a retail shop. Learn the business well and how to brand celebrities with the right looks. “
If you specifically want to work with celebrities, she says, “Be super super confident about your work. Know your fashion and develop relationships where you can call a major fashion house and get the hottest runway looks. Every vision should integrate the client’s likes and dislikes, what fits and what’s pertinent to the brand being projected. It’s a synergy of both. Perfecting it requires listening attentively and staying a step above the trends. Celebrities dictate many trends and you want your clients to convey that. ”
Speaking of trends and fashion, we had to ask Becca about her ten wardrobe must haves! She divulged, “An amazing black blazer. I have 3: Dolce & Gabbana, Zara, and DKNY. A classic black dress and a classic white dress. DVF wrap dresses have been ‘in’ for decades. They’re totally worth the investment. A statement necklace. Toss it with jeans and a tank top for automatic chic! Wear it with a basic dress to be noticed!”
Black Enterprise TV
Organization of Black Designers (OBD)
The Organization of Black Designers (OBD) is pleased to announce DesigNation8: DesignPower! which will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio October 25-28, 2012.
DesigNation8: DesignPower! will bring together some of the world’s top designers to explore how the power of design impacts and influences the local, national and global economies. And to showcase their work.
OBD is a multidisciplinary, multicultural professional organization and the proud producer of the most diverse design conference in America. Our membership represents those who engage in industrial, product, architectural, interior, graphic, multimedia, visual merchandising, fashion and exhibit design. Our conference attracts established and emerging designers, educators and students. It is also an unparalled opportunity for marketers and new product launches to reach early adopters and a highly viral audience. With members and affiliates nationally and internationally, DesigNation8: DesignPower! reflects the mission of OBD for inclusion and diversity.
- FASHION
- GRAPHIC
- INTERIOR
- ADVERTISING
- ANIMATION
- ARCHITECTURE
- INDUSTRIAL/PRODUCT
CONFERENCE GOALS To help you create your design career future by:
• exposure to innovative ideas, methods, products and approaches
• investigating new methodologies, technologies and materials
• making connections with like-minded people
• gaining insights into design trends and market changes
• collaborating in new partnerships and teams
• setting new goals and finding new opportunities
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
• Design firms
• Corporate design departments
• Graphic designers
• Design/Lifestyle magazine publishers
• Interior designers
• Fashion designers
• Architectural designers
• Industrial/Product designers
• NewMedia/MultiMedia designers
• Design educators
• Design students
• Internet/online companies
• Advertising agencies
• Public relations firms
• New design technologies
• Hardware/Software companies
MEET The design leaders and decision makers from all segments of the global design industry marketing, and promotion in one place at one time.
DEVELOP New relationships and reinforce existing partnerships.
SEE Hands-on demonstrations of new technologies, products and services that define today’s competitive marketplace.
EXPLORE New technology, ideas, information and creative resources for a more profitable year ahead. DesigNation® offers great value in exhibition space, equipment and additional services.
DesigNation is the first one of a kind multicultural, multidiscipline design conference in the world. Produced by the Organization of Black Designers, DesigNation has become the United Nations (UN) of design conferences bringing together graphic, industrial, fashion, interior, architectural, product, advertising, broadcast and multi-media designers from all over the globe.
Started in October 1994, the first conference entitled Dogon to Digital revolutionized the design industries by recognizing the emergence and cross-pollination of disparate design disciplines. Designers of color gathered in Chicago to discuss future trends, the African American design aesthetic, issues of visibility and invisibility, as well as provided a platform to showcase designers work, to acknowledge historical accomplishments of pioneering designers of color and to ultimately engage the entire design community to explore more diversity in practice, scholarly pursuits and recognition.
Corporate sponsors, allied industry partners, educational institutions and others seeking to connect with high caliber design professionals recognize DesigNation as the only design conference to sponsor and attend. Major Fortune 500 companies including but not limited to Proctor & Gamble, Ford Motor Company, Steelcase, General Motors, Nike, Hallmark Cards, and Disney have exhibited and/or sponsored employees, human resource professionals and key executive staff to hire, partner and/or solicit new business from conference attendees. One of the most successful features of the DN conference series is the Portfolio Review open to professionals and students alike. This celebrated event brings together attendees of immeasurable talent and companies looking to hire top creative individuals
Oni Lasana Productions
Oni Lasana
“Putting ARTS in Hearts!” from…Philadelphia 2 Virginia…Mississippi Delta 2 Germany…Rhode Island 2 Maryland…North Carolina 2 Delaware…Los Angeles 2 Ohio…New Jersey 2 Louisiana…New York 2 Trinidad & Tobago!
Oni Lasana means “Desired Poet of the People”. She is a cultural chameleon and a creative muse to many. Ms. Lasana shares her gifts as a dynamic, vivacious, spirit driven Performing ARTress, Performance poet, Creative Theatre Director, Storyteller, Musician, Vocalist, Mentor, Jewelry Maker and an enthusiastic advocate of Arts-in-Education. Her life journey is in offering positive cultural awareness programs on African, American and Caribbean cultures, to communities worldwide.
Lasana’s unique performances & workshops lift the spirits of young and old. Featuring American History, Literature, Theatre & Music fused with a flair for poetic storytelling. Her dramatic and humorous, one woman productions and interpretations shines off the page, and onto the stage in interactive, educational entertainment performances, school assemblies, theater productions, festivals, corporate, social gatherings & community events.
Michelle Davis Petelinz, Artist
Saharan Landscape 18” diameter bamboo bowl
Wall hanging is painted in four sections to denote sky, air, sand and underground. Sculpted clay spiral pieces adorn the air, and textured clay bars travel across the sand level. Both sky and underground levels have raised, textured surfaces, and metallic pen outlines delineate each section.
I’m a mixed media aritst, working in acrylic paint, polymer, and hand painted paper collage. I’m also a part-time art teacher, full time wife, mother, sister, aunt and citizen of the world.
I love turning my designs into stamps. I love the “Zen” of cutting into a new rubber carving block, and I’m also enamored with my new method of creating stamps with “fun” foam. This month, I’m teaching a stamp-making workshop: “Hand Carved Stamps with Polymer Clay,” at Jerry’s Artarama in Raleigh. I’ll share techniques for making stamps which can also be used with paper and fabric. Click hereto register for the April 18th workshop.
Today, I’ve been working with my handcrafted stamps and my Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate (have I mentioned how much I enjoy working with this fantastic invention?! Okay, yes, I guess I have, just a couple of times!) to create the monoprints above. I’m loving the ones which look like African fabrics (they’re all papers), and I have great plans; they’ll be showing up in projects I’m working on for my upcoming shows this summer.
Back to work…photos to come!
Mira Gandy Visual Artist
My work is based on ideas related to beauty, self-image, cultural diversity, race, sexuality and the influence of media. It is intriguing to me that these issues affect how women view themselves and how society sees them. As an African American woman who grew up in New York City surrounded by multiculturalism I am fascinated by what ideas and implications can be made regarding aesthetic beauty, female identity and colonialism by fusing various components together on a visual plane.
I often depict women in pairs. I want the viewer to feel the intimacy between the figures in the painting or wonder about what type of relationship these women have with each other. My works of couples are about physical intimacy, sexual innuendo and love. They are purposely reductive and address the concept of disclosure. In contrast, my collage works are formally more complex and political. They are about contemporary women and media culture. These paintings force the viewer to decipher the meaning of what they see.
A key element in my work is the use of collaged images to embed additional meaning into my paintings. By placing media imagery onto women’s faces or bodies I create interesting situations. Slabs of meat become breasts or colored diamonds become a woman’s face. I mix figuration and abstraction, building texture and using color and composition to evoke a mood. The richness of the materials I use provides me with a way to combine multiple ideas within a space. By using cut up media imagery, I can create a new idea from something already in existence and even make it unrecognizable. I am influenced by the collage work of Wangechi Mutu and the bold color portraits of Mickalene Thomas, whose works are beautifully loaded with racial, social, and feminist commentary.
Whether I am making drawings or collage paintings, I am seeking to use these compositions to articulate specific or ambiguous narratives. There are times when I am direct and other times when I omit information and leave room for interpretation. I do not always want to tell the viewer what to think. For me, it is more interesting to pick and choose which visual information to reveal. I want my work to engage the viewer and lure them in, much like a real conversation, filled with both nuance and directness.
Creative animal-inspired fashions
Animal print is as classic to fashion as the little black dress. But this spring, the orange-and-black look of leopard is heading to the back of the closet in exchange for cuddly kitten faces.
How to Self-Publish Your Own Quilt Catalog: A Workbook for Quilters, Guilds, Galleries and Textile Artists [Paperback]
Book Description
Publication Date: March 16, 2012
Be a quilt artist + author! If you know how to use Microsoft Word, have Internet access, and a dozen or more images of your artwork, YOU CAN make your own art catalog. This workbook will show you step-by-step how to concept, layout, write, publish and promote a 24-page or 36-page full-color paperback art catalog. You will also learn how to have your catalog available on Amazon.com, the largest online bookstore.
If you have thought about creating a catalog of your artwork for your family and friends, for your regular customers or collectors, for a school project, for your professional artist statement, for an exhibit of your work, or even for your historical quilt or art history research, this workbook is for you!
This workbook is specially designed for quilters, quilt historians, textile artists, guilds, and gallery owners.
more info….
Don’t Call It a Comeback
Date: Monday, April 23, 2012, 5:46 am
By: Tonya Pendleton, BlackAmericaWeb.com
They’re your favorite girl group’s favorite girl group. Sisters With Voices, the 90’s trio noted for their hits “Weak” “Right Here (Human Nature)” and “Anything” are headed back to the spotlight with the upcoming release of their new CD “I Missed Us.”
Now signed to indie label Mass Appeal/E1 Records, the group released their comeback single “Co-Sign” a few weeks ago. Leanne “LeLe” Lyons, Tamara “Taj” Gamble-George and Cheryl “Coko” Clemmons got their start in New York City in the early 90’s eventually recording their “It’s About Time” CD for RCA in 1992. They were part of the early blend of hip-hop and R&B getting their biggest hits on the strength of their harmonizing over rap-influenced tracks.
As part of a group of 90’s hitmakers that included Shai, Blackstreet, Silk, Jodeci, Total and Xscape and rap acts like Missy Elliot and The Notorious B.I.G., SWV became as well known for their on and offstage antics and love lives as they did for their music. After 7 years and together, the group broke up in 1998. Taj and Coko married, while LeLe continued to raise the children she’d had before the group blew up. Coko began a solo career, recording two albums – one secular, one gospel, while Taj appeared on both “Survivor” and “I Married A Baller” her own reality show about her life with George for TV One.
By 2005, the group reunited and started recording and touring. Although an initial album project didn’t happen, it attracted the attention of Mass Appeal Entertainment/E1 Records who signed them up for a new album project. Not only is their album out now available via download and in stores, they’ll be on tour this spring and summer as well. You can also catch up with them on Centric on Sunday, May 13 at 11 p.m. in their episode of “As Written” which includes behind the scenes footage, interviews and a live performance of some of their new material.
Here are SWV’s upcoming tour dates on the Fresh Music Festival with Doug E. Fresh, Keith Sweat and Guy:
May 18
ATLANTA, GA
Funk Fest
Wolf Creek Amphitheatre
May 25
LAFAYETTE, LA
Cajun Dome
May 26
HOUSTON, TX
Reliant Arena
8 p.m.
May 27
GREENSBORO, NC
Greensboro Coliseum
LAS VEGAS, NV
Orleans Arena
7:30 p.m.
Find the rest of the SWV tour dates at www.therealswv.com.