#aceair

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 03.17.19 Artist: Max Taylor

During an evening at Ace Hotel New York, artist-in-residence Max Taylor took a break from photography and drew a three-piece series of hands and flowers. He shared a bit about his process:

I try and meditate-ish to a blank mind and then capture whatever flickers of thoughts appear. It becomes  a race to trap them on paper before they dissolve like a waking dream. The fun part comes after, trying to interpret what the back of my mind was saying. I typically start with a single mark on a page and see what it builds into. Comes from a creative game I used to play with my family as a kid.  

Max Taylor is an award-winning photographer based in Brooklyn. His two favorite cities are Havana and NYC. Max likes motorcycles and scuba diving. He has mixed feelings about third person narratives.

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 03.10.19 Artist: Sheridan Telford 

Photographer Sheridan Telford spent a recent Sunday night at Ace Hotel New York “to take a step back from the madness and slow down for a sec - drifting away from [her] day to day mindset.” She created a mixed media series titled Frames Within combining written diary entries and digitalized film collage shot on a Canon AE-1, Yashica and Polaroid 600.

Sheridan Telford is a portraiture and fine art photographer living in Brooklyn. Born in Honolulu and raised in Vancouver B.C and Hong Kong, she discovered her passion for taking photos while traveling around South East Asia on family vacations at a young age. She received a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in 2014. Her work often explores ideas of femininity, nature and surrealism using mixed media of film, collage and digital practices. She loves horror films and being in nature, particularly the mountains, forests and ocean of the Pacific Northwest. 

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 03.03.19 Artist: Elizabeth LoPiccolo

During a recent stay at Ace Hotel New York, photographer Elizabeth LoPiccolo shot two photo series and two additional single images in her hotel room. Using her Rolleiflex camera to shoot on film, the series ("Three Looks out My Window " and "Four Feather Pillows") offer interior views while "Sentinels" and "Sometime After Breslin" provide a glimpse of the neighboring skyscrapers. 

Elizabeth LoPiccolo is a photographer and musician living in Brooklyn. A constant theme in her visual work is the exploration of intended and unintended forms of cultural production as they interact with constructed and natural environments. She prefers the slowness of film and appreciates the way an antique camera may encourage a subject to enter into more curious modes of being photographed. Her musical projects include Ziemba in which she supports band leader René Kladzyk, and Luscious Skin in which she collaborates with her partner Rhys Ziemba. 

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 01.27.19 Artist: Angela Rogers

During her residency at Ace Hotel New York, artist Angela Rogers created her own tarot card deck featuring illustrations of the twenty-two Major Arcana. She also made a black wire hand to accompany the deck and displayed the work atop an emerald green silk scarf on her night table, with two quarters thrown into the mix "for luck or charity." Angela shares: 

It was great to mix together my knowledge of the oracle w art... Staying up all night working on this art-ritual of sorts I went into the “zone” and in the late morning took a long hot bath for the finale... This deck is one of a kind. I feel it is already a collectible. 

Angela Rogers is a self-taught artist, singer, poet and performer. The style of her figurative paintings is strongly influenced by her “Southern Gothic” childhood and her lifelong interest in the occult. Angela incorporates a range of mystical symbolism in her work, which includes assemblages – dubbed “poppets” –intricately wrapped in multi-hued yarn. References to addiction and institutionalization often appear in her pieces, as does the influence of a near-death experience after surgery for brain trauma in 2012. She has exhibited at the Outsider Art Fair and published a feminist comic book titled No One Likes a Woman.

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 01.20.19 Artist: Laura Anne Walker

Outsider artist and proud sexagenarian Laura Anne Walker spent the night at Ace Hotel New York and created a piece on watercolor paper titled It's All Downhill. Using self-mixed India ink, gel pens and ink markers, Laura's wintry depiction features two of her artistic trademarks: cats ("usually in my work somewhere, even if you think there are none") and poetry blended into the image. Laura shares her inspiration:

There are seasons to life... When I was a kid, it almost always snowed tons for Christmas, causing days off from school, which were a joy for me... Everything about snow was amazing, enchanting, especially individual snowflakes having 6 sides, countless numbers of them never repeating a pattern, existing independently for a second and then joining the massive amounts of them on the ground, to be made into snowballs, snowmen, and igloos. We went sledding downhill, too. Downhill is a tribute to my late mother who I at 61 am now 2 years older than she was... I believe there was a blizzard the week I was born...The snow, falling and fallen, and snow drifts at night were such a gorgeous sight, like mounds of Domino's sugar!  

Native New Yorker Laura Anne Walker began drawing at age three. Her preferred mediums are ink and graphite. Laura Anne's pieces have been shown in more than 50 group exhibitions and in a solo show of 60 works in SoHo. Her work has been published in a number of online and print publications, including Raw Vision and Folk Art Messenger. A graduate of both Cornell University and the Bank Street College of Education, Laura Anne is a permanently certified, permanently licensed former teacher. She is currently a Crisis Intervention Team panelist, serving as a liaison between the police and people who are experiencing emotional distress.

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 01.13.19 Artist: Alyson Vega

On a prolific Sunday evening at Ace Hotel, artist Alyson Vega created an array of collages and mixed media pieces "inspired by the grid layout of the city as well as the tall buildings" in her hometown of New York. Her text drawing A Word Weave came from a different source, which Alyson describes:

After a stroke and brain surgery in 2007, words get stuck in my head and run over and over in a loop. These were just the ones from tonight.

try not to cry / when in doubt write it out/down / just don't tell me what to do / i'm hanging on a thread / yes it's starting to make sense to me / when the mood strikes me / your words are all that's left

New York City-born Alyson Vega is a fiber artist who taught herself to sew and quilt at a young age. She received a BA in Japanese Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University. After the effects of surgery for a benign brain tumor ended her 22-year teaching career, Alyson experienced a burst of creativity that brought her artistic ability to the fore. As a self-taught artist she creates instinctively, incorporating into her work themes of decay and loss, childhood and dreams. A number of her fiber works were acquired by collectors at a 2014 exhibition at the Eileen Fisher store at Columbus Circle, and she had a solo exhibition in 2016 at the prestigious venue White Columns.

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 01.06.19 Artist: Roger Jones

During a recent stay at Ace Hotel New York, artist Roger Jones drew a series of pieces with marker on canvas and letterhead. With titles such as People Love People, Look At Me Wit People Day and No More Money, Roger's works depict his passionate impressions of urban life through a vibrant palette and energetic linework. 

Roger Jones’ preferred subject matter for his acrylic paintings includes scenes of New York City, its people and representations of nature. He has studied painting and book arts such as bookbinding via programs at the organization Community Access and cites the works of Picasso as an ongoing source of inspiration. Roger also creates jewelry pieces and offers them for sale at local bazaars.