After a few years working in tech, JD Ricafort decided he wanted to follow a passion for musical theatre and he just...did it. Having spent much of his life singing and dancing, he actively refined the skills before leaving his job, then was cast in a number of productions. JD recently returned to his home base in Astoria to develop a new project, Super Smack. “The Nintendo Switch of rappers,” Smack is a rap alter-ego inspired by the self-described nerdy pop culture of his youth: video games, Toonami, Star Wars, and more, as well as a recent freestyle dedicated to Crazy Rich Asians that got a shoutout from George Takei. He’ll release his EP, “Fan Fiction,” in December.
JD discovered a love of writing and performing his own work after being accepted into Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal’s “BARS” program at The Public Theatre, which celebrates “the poetry of speech.” Working in tech again with a flexible schedule, he continues to craft Super Smack, who he sees as a bold, braggadocious version of himself.
JD often writes at Prince Tea House in Astoria, where I meet him on a Saturday. We sip teas and he tells me about his creative work, about finding growth in the writing process, the evolution of Super Smack, the balance of life and art.
Next we take a walk through Astoria, to the ferry that goes to Manhattan, and it’s the first weekend in a while that requires a jacket (JD’s is vintage, a gift from an uncle). I haven’t spent much time in Astoria beyond its main throughfares, so it’s delightful to have a tour from a resident. JD himself hadn’t explored much because he had been performing in various parts of the country for a while, but now he’s back and knows just where to take me. We start with the Filipino grocery store, where he gets a calamansi juice, a classic Filipino lemonade/limeade made from teeny tiny citrus. He also points out favorites of Spam and pork egg rolls, as well as various ulam (the Filipino word for main dish) and other classics like banana ketchup and chicharrones.
Continuing on, we pause at the Welling Court Mural Project, a section dedicated to street art and graffiti-inspired murals. JD is especially drawn to one with bright blues and reds--it reminds him, of course, of the Nintendo Switch. When he performs as Super Smack in the future, he’d love to have a jacket adorned with such hues.
The East River isn’t far now, and we make our way to the dock. JD has ridden the ferry from Astoria to Wall Street and back to write, an almost meditative practice. Now, though, he’s on his way to Manhattan for a rehearsal with North Coast, a hip-hop improv comedy team that performs nationally and internationally. Tonight is JD’s first performance with them, and he’s excited. He sips the calamansi juice as the ferry chugs along the river, water frothing in the wake behind us.
Follow JD on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, and Facebook.
Step 1: Move to New York. Step 2: Have experiences.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Julia Chesbrough
Julia Chesbrough opens the door to a light-filled apartment on a semi-sunny Saturday. She unwraps a pack of petite canvases and smiles. She’s going to teach me how to paint The Ladies.
“The Ladies” is Julia’s ongoing series of silhouettes, painted with the curves and swerves of gloriously imperfect female forms, in black gouache on stark white canvas. Her minimalist paintings play with how this delightfully, notoriously complex form can be revealed in just a few lines. The work has become a regular part of Julia’s artistic practice, which also occasionally includes the collages and poetry that hang on her walls.
By day, Julia is a marketing graphic designer at Hinge. Before that, however, when she graduated college with a psychology degree, she worked as a behavioral health technician for autistic children. Ultimately realizing she’d rather pursue a more artistic field, she moved to New York and did a graphic design bootcamp. After completing the course and taking on short-term clients, she was hired at Hinge a few months later. There, she’s been working in UX Design, which she feels is a happy marriage of her art and psychology experiences.
We start with our canvases, pencils, slim paintbrushes, and a tiny dish of water at a sleek white high-top table in her living room. It occurs to me now that the work we’re doing--all slim and petite and elevated and taking up little space--is perhaps the perfect practice for a New York apartment.
Julia adds a small dollop of gouache to a silver tin for me and for herself--a little bit goes a long way, she says. She draws an elegantly sweeping L shape on the canvas, an inwardly curving line for the back that evolves into an outwardly rounded line for the bottom, and invites me to do the same. I make an attempt that results in a much more lumpen, less refined shape only slightly improved after manic erasing jags, but Julia is kind and patient and waits for me. Soon we move onto the gouache, which we’ll use to outline the pencil on the canvas. Julia’s elegant lines emerge yet again...as do my lumpen attempts. It occurs to me that I am very definitely a photographer, but I enjoy painting and watching Julia paint. It’s a meditative experience, watching the black lines and their feminine shapes emerge on the canvas.
With paintbrushes poised, we talk about dating and marriage and the modern and antiquated versions of both. I’m more honest than I would be with a total stranger. I wonder if this is regularly what happens to people when they paint, that what spills from their lips is more unedited because their brains and hands are otherwise occupied, or if Julia’s warmth and kindness just makes for a comfortable space to share. Julia finishes her Lady and embarks on another, circular canvas piece.
Eventually, the gouache dries. Julia moves our canvases to her fire escape, spraying them with lasting sealant. And voila! The Ladies are done.
Follow Julia on Instagram.
Purchase her work on her website.
Check out her work on Behance.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
Subscribe to Miss Manhattan Hangs Out.
“The Ladies” is Julia’s ongoing series of silhouettes, painted with the curves and swerves of gloriously imperfect female forms, in black gouache on stark white canvas. Her minimalist paintings play with how this delightfully, notoriously complex form can be revealed in just a few lines. The work has become a regular part of Julia’s artistic practice, which also occasionally includes the collages and poetry that hang on her walls.
By day, Julia is a marketing graphic designer at Hinge. Before that, however, when she graduated college with a psychology degree, she worked as a behavioral health technician for autistic children. Ultimately realizing she’d rather pursue a more artistic field, she moved to New York and did a graphic design bootcamp. After completing the course and taking on short-term clients, she was hired at Hinge a few months later. There, she’s been working in UX Design, which she feels is a happy marriage of her art and psychology experiences.
We start with our canvases, pencils, slim paintbrushes, and a tiny dish of water at a sleek white high-top table in her living room. It occurs to me now that the work we’re doing--all slim and petite and elevated and taking up little space--is perhaps the perfect practice for a New York apartment.
Julia adds a small dollop of gouache to a silver tin for me and for herself--a little bit goes a long way, she says. She draws an elegantly sweeping L shape on the canvas, an inwardly curving line for the back that evolves into an outwardly rounded line for the bottom, and invites me to do the same. I make an attempt that results in a much more lumpen, less refined shape only slightly improved after manic erasing jags, but Julia is kind and patient and waits for me. Soon we move onto the gouache, which we’ll use to outline the pencil on the canvas. Julia’s elegant lines emerge yet again...as do my lumpen attempts. It occurs to me that I am very definitely a photographer, but I enjoy painting and watching Julia paint. It’s a meditative experience, watching the black lines and their feminine shapes emerge on the canvas.
With paintbrushes poised, we talk about dating and marriage and the modern and antiquated versions of both. I’m more honest than I would be with a total stranger. I wonder if this is regularly what happens to people when they paint, that what spills from their lips is more unedited because their brains and hands are otherwise occupied, or if Julia’s warmth and kindness just makes for a comfortable space to share. Julia finishes her Lady and embarks on another, circular canvas piece.
Eventually, the gouache dries. Julia moves our canvases to her fire escape, spraying them with lasting sealant. And voila! The Ladies are done.
Follow Julia on Instagram.
Purchase her work on her website.
Check out her work on Behance.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
Subscribe to Miss Manhattan Hangs Out.
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...For a Year and a Half!
As ever, a new six months brings us a fresh crop of outtakes from previous Miss Manhattan Hangs. It’s been a year and a half, but I only look forward to more. I’ll keep the text short at 250 words so attention can be paid to the images.
Thinking about it now, an interesting aspect of this project is how it’s become a way to maintain consistency. The life of a freelancer is not usually filled with such a thing, and yet here it is. Every week, despite a concussion or travel or what have you, another Miss Manhattan Hangs Out appears in your inbox. And here I am on the other side, editing photos and typing away, hoping to share a little sliver of someone else’s life with you and in the process perhaps a little of myself.
If people are making dumplings, getting into drag, or going to the theatre and that’s what brings them joy, then all the more power to them. I’m just happy I get to be there to see it all. I never believed the thing you get paid for should be the thing to define you if that’s not what you want or if it’s not who you are. We define and create ourselves, our stories, and there is no template for doing it “right,” no answer to what we “should” be doing. People who carve their own paths, in or outside of the work world, have always been most interesting to me.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
Subscribe to Miss Manhattan Hangs Out.
Thinking about it now, an interesting aspect of this project is how it’s become a way to maintain consistency. The life of a freelancer is not usually filled with such a thing, and yet here it is. Every week, despite a concussion or travel or what have you, another Miss Manhattan Hangs Out appears in your inbox. And here I am on the other side, editing photos and typing away, hoping to share a little sliver of someone else’s life with you and in the process perhaps a little of myself.
If people are making dumplings, getting into drag, or going to the theatre and that’s what brings them joy, then all the more power to them. I’m just happy I get to be there to see it all. I never believed the thing you get paid for should be the thing to define you if that’s not what you want or if it’s not who you are. We define and create ourselves, our stories, and there is no template for doing it “right,” no answer to what we “should” be doing. People who carve their own paths, in or outside of the work world, have always been most interesting to me.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
Subscribe to Miss Manhattan Hangs Out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)