What’s the role of the art gallery in the 21st century? Why are some artists successful, while others spin their wheels, forever seeking career satisfaction? For Austin Thomas, artist and owner-director of Pocket Utopia Gallery, the art world is a kind of ecosystem, and we are all viable elements within it, sustaining it and make it whole.

In this intimate conversation with Thomas that took place at Pocket Utopia—the gallery she started in Bushwick and then moved to the Lower East Side—you’ll glean some of the answers. Full disclosure: Thomas and I are recent collaborators; on August 4, we conducted a mind-blowing, four-hour lab session with nine artists called “Session One” of “Pocket U-niverse-ity.” To put it simply, we felt we could forge a radical anti-grad-school form of collaborative learning whereby an art gallery serves as the hardware, the art market serves as the software, and the artists provide the content.

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Tod Wizon doesn’t want a bio of the sort most artists want; that said, let’s give a quick rundown of his artworld accomplishments—all the better for you to grasp how little these sorts of things truly mean to him: Wizon is 59; he’s shown extensively with well-regarded galleries like Bruno Bischofberger (Zurich), Annina Nosei, Jack Tilton, and Phyllis Kind; and he’s been reviewed in Art in America, ArtForum, and ARTNews. But more importantly, after 30-plus years of being “in” or “out” of the spotlight, he’s thoroughly entrenched in his craft.

Translation: Tod Wizon Paints. Every Day. Every Single Day. Usually for eight hours. This means that he talks and walks and smokes and otherwise wrestles with the sorts of profundities all painters worth their salt have wrestled with on a daily basis, across Time. (Isn’t that what every painter’s bio should say?) Wizon feels that his efforts, when successful, afford him access to an incredibly rarified and ineffable place—a space where he feels free to lose his Self and, in the process, find Form. But my impression is just the opposite. He “loses” himself from Form’s confines and, in the process, exposes Self. Either way, it’s much the same thing: Wizon doesn’t want to talk, he wants to paint. And when he paints, it’s all good.

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Allen Ying, well known and much admired in skateboarder circles for his gravity-defying shots of skaters flying through the air, celebrated the results of a Kickstarter campaign this past August, earning more than the goal of $20,000. This means a green light for his brainchild 43 magazine, a handsomely designed bi-monthly, with a focus on East Coast Skaters. The first issue launches in mid-October. Ying will also curate a gallery exhibition with each issue, the first one to be held in New York City. 43 magazine will feature many talented skate photographers and artists.

In this interview, we learn more about Ying and his new magazine, and present a photo essay of his New York work.

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Checking in with Kelley Shields, Apparel Trend Projection Specialist

Is Williamsburg losing its edge? Our streets in Williamsburg have become less edgy because of the population surge we’re experiencing. And while the ratio within any population of in-touch, inner-thinking types is probably a fairly static ratio, when you increase a population as much as has happened in our neighborhood, the visibility, and by that I mean the ability to see past shoulders in a crowd, decreases. So maybe the answer to the question is yes, the area has lost a little bit of its “edge.” Even so, there’s still is a lot of newness in our area.

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Keeping It Really Local
By Danielle Beurteaux, Photograph by William Hereford

Anyone who reads the blog New York Shitty knows about El Blablazo. And anyone who reads the blog knows that the blog’s owner and writer, Miss Heather, loves El Blablazo. Which is why, on a windy, wet Saturday in early December, I found myself heading to El Blablazo, in the company of Miss Heather, carrying a Ziploc bag filled with Christmas tree lights.

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