The Scion AV Journal-VOL. 01

Gluekit MetAl BlADe ASAP RockyFice tRiniDAD jAMeS BlAck ScAle

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TABLE OF CONTENTS7

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INDEX DRUMSSCION AV INSTALLATION FEATURED DESIGNER

LEVI MAESTROMAKING A NAME FOR HIMSELF

OLD VS. NEW: NICK HOOK vs. 45 KINGTWO PRODUCERS TALK IT OUT

FICESALT LAKE CITY'S BEST/ONLY STREETWEAR STORE/ART GALLERY

GLUEKITGREATEST HITS FROM THE TALENTED DESIGN DUO

JFISH DESIGNSSCION AV INSTALLATION FEATURED DESIGNER

MY FIRST YEARHOW FUEGO BISTRO MADE IT

METAL BLADE RECORDSHOW THE LEGENDARY LABEL FINDS NEW TALENT

MY BEST DECISION / MY WORST MISTAKETWO MUSIC INDUSTRY VETERANS LOOK BACK

JERMAINE ROGERSONE ARTIST'S ROCK POSTER PROGRESS

A$AP ROCKYHE MAKES THIS LOOK EASY

MEGA OF BLACK SCALESPEAKING THROUGH HIS LABEL

TRINIDAD JAMESTHE NEW ILL STYLE

EVENT RECAPSAGE VAUGHN, EARACHE, HOT SUGAR, LEVI MAESTRO, TRINIDAD JAMES, BODEGA BAMZ & MORE

This is the first issue of the Scion AV Journal, a new

publication dedicated to creative culture. Inside you’ll

find expert advice and tales from those living their dreams

and making it work. Dig in and keep your brain open.

Cover: Scene from "Moleskine" by GluekitPhoto: Gluekit

STARRING

PRINCE PAULAND THE ILL-OUT CREW!

"check it out" 'on YOUTUBE.COM/SCIONAV

and scionav.com

STAFFSCION PROJECT MANAGER: JERI YOSHIZU

EDITOR: ERIC DUCKER

CREATIVE DIRECTION: SCION

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DESIGN: JAMIE STORY, NICK ACE, TONY BROWN

CONTRIBUTORSWRITERS: J. BENNETT, MR. DEAD, PRINCE PAUL, EVAN SHAMOON, ASHLEY SIMPSON

PHOTOGRAPHERS: KAREEM BLACK, GAVIN GUIDRY, PHIL KNOTT, RYAN LUSTEG

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00430-SJO

Photo: Scene from "Pop Art" by Gluekit

Index Drums are available for purchase at Scion AV Installation, 7667 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90036.

PAUL KINg POUNdS OUT A NEW APPROACh TO PERCUSSION.

Louisiana-born designer Paul King has always had an interest in percussion. He started playing drums at the age of nine

and he has been steadily devoted to it ever since, playing in his friends’ bands as he grew up. It wasn’t until 2006, though,

when King was working in a children’s science museum in Shreveport, that his hobby became something more. “We had

a bunch of free time, and both of my bosses were percussionists, so we started trying to build things,” King says. What

he developed was a custom birchwood cajon, a beautifully crafted hand drum that merged a simple, naturalistic aesthetic

sensibility with an engineer’s commitment to sound innovation. “From there, I built a bunch of different cajons, figured

out how to make bongos, and we started putting contact mics on things,” says King, who now develops drums under the

moniker Index Drums in his North Louisiana home studio. “We made powerless speakers and iPhone docs, and electronic

stomp boxes for electronic producers. It’s a lot of fun, because, really, nobody else makes them.”

indexdrums.com

DOCK BOX$ 40.00

Tight-ply birch sides and ash

faced drum has a naturally

deep sound.

CAJON 58$ 225.00A wooden subwoofer that is

environmentally sound.

BIRCH BONGOS$ 125.00

Handmade drum combines the rich,

wooden tones of a cajon with the

versatility of bongos.

Written by Ashley Simpson

Levi Maestro got started making his own videos through

skateboarding at the age of 15. “I was the only one I knew

who was really interested in it, so I guess that’s how I got

good at it,” he says of his early days, both behind and in

front of the lens. In 2006, when he turned 19, Maestro

decided to move to Los Angeles from San Diego (where he

briefly lived after leaving his native Las Vegas) to pursue a

career directing music videos. He interned for a director,

but quickly realized that his attempt to break into the

industry came at a time when the money—and with it, the

opportunities—were quickly disappearing.

Fortunately, this moment coincided with the explosion

of home video production, bolstered by the release of

affordable, high-quality cameras. So, like many of his

generation, Levi Maestro started making videos and

uploading them to the internet. “I realized I had an

opportunity to create content for myself, to get myself

popular and get new opportunities to come in that way,”

he says. “When I stopped wanting to be something I wasn’t

and started being what I was, everything started working.”

Maestro Knows is his ongoing online video project, a

series of documentary shorts that follow him on his self-

actualized road trips and interviews. His early subjects

were personal friends (Curt@!n$) and possessions (his

Nike Air Yeezys), but quickly came to include established

artists (Estevan Oriol) and musicians (Warren G, Lil

Jon). Though his early videos were all made on strength,

eventually those with money to spend started to take

notice as well. Maestro now makes his living by working

with brands and high profile individuals looking to help

build content around whatever initiatives they have going

on. Maestro says he prefers working with corporate clients

to forcing people to watch ads in order to view his content,

and therefore doesn’t put his videos on YouTube and goes

strictly Vimeo.

“Most of the opportunities people come at me with are

pretty rad,” he says, confident that part of his appeal is the

fact that he makes the videos himself, without the baggage

that normally comes along with such creative endeavors.

“[I do it] without having a crew, or even a concept. I

[prefer] getting thrown into situations and documenting

what happens, and then finding the story later.” Naturally,

he says prior experience came in clutch, “At some point

I realized I should use the style that I developed over

time. It’s very much like the skateboarding stuff I’d been

doing—fast paced, high energy, real life looking imagery

cut together to make a story out of it all.”

vimeo.com/maestroknows

Levi Maestro’s “Here I Am, There I Go” art exhibit ran at

the Scion AV Installation in Los Angeles this past February

and March.

Listen to the soundtrack for Maestro Knows America, his Scion

sponsored tour across the country, that you can find at

scionav.com/mkusa

WITh ThE MAESTRO KNOWS vIdEO SERIES,LEvI MAESTRO TELLS hIS STORIES hIS WAy.

Written by Evan ShamoonPhotography by Ryan Lusteg

TWO PROdUCERS hASh OUT hOW TO MAKE A CAREER WhEN yOU'RE MAKINg ART.

Interview: Eric DuckerNick Hook Photography by Kareem Black

45 King is a legendary hip-hop and breakbeat producer who is one of the founders of New Jersey’s famed Flavor Unit and

was the primary sonic architect of the crew. He is responsible for such classic tracks as Queen Latifah’s “Ladies First,”

Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life” and his own “The 900 Number.” Nick Hook is a Brooklyn-based producer, DJ, engineer,

bassist and go-to dude when dance music artists want to start messing with analog equipment. He has collaborated with

Azealia Banks, L-Vis 1990, El-P and many more. We got these two on the phone to talk about figuring out the balance

between the creative and the business sides of their chosen profession.

When did you realize that what you were doing artistically through music was your career?45 King: There’s really no career in art. Art is art if the person putting it out is liked. If they stay out of trouble and keep

their name good, then they’re going to be good. People like whoever is known. You have to really put out some garbage to

lose your name—you really have to do something bad or put out music that’s so far away from you’ve done.

How tough was it to make a name for yourself and get people to hear your music?Nick Hook: It was definitely something that took a while, but I made a choice to make it organic and try not to skip any

steps. I always felt like doing what I wanted was more important than trying to get my name out there. Once I solidified

myself, I felt like I was going to be here forever, rather than some guy who shows up for an hour and is gone.

45 King: When people started saying I had good stuff, I started getting work. When people stopped saying I has good

stuff, I stopped getting work. You know what I’m saying? And that goes for someone who nobody knows what he looks like.

How long did it take for you to get good?45 King: That’s a crazy question. Once you start to get attention, that’s when you get good, I guess. But who says I’m good?

Nick Hook: I made music as a teenager for a very long time, but my first real experience in music was actually signing to

Warner Bros. [as part of the band Men, Women & Children]. The first record I actually put out was on Warner Bros., which

is a different process than most. No one ever liked what I did from age 14 to 24, then we got signed and I learned one

aspect of the business, but then I learned that it’s hard to make money, so I started to diversify. I started DJing because I

liked it, but then people started paying me money to do it. Then people started paying me money to do remixes. Having

five careers going on at once was the best way for me. If one of them disappeared, I’d have four to keep working on. If you

keep it diverse, then people start to hear about you in different circles and they all start to correlate eventually. I feel like

my career is kind of just starting.

Nick Hook. 45 King.

What is it about your career that makes you feel like it’s just starting now?Nick Hook: I’m just now getting to do what I want to do. Before it was just groundwork. Now I’m legitimate in other

people’s eyes. In the business, the people who are signing the checks, they need to trust you. It’s a stupid game that we

need to play. The Azealia Banks thing or working with Hudson Mohawke or certain milestones in other people’s minds

verifies you. Now I want to go beyond that, whether it’s cultivating artists that I meet in the clubs or mixing records for

$2000 each or producing a big major label rap record. Someone isn’t going to write a young producer a check for $100,000

and say, “Make an album.” They want to make sure that’s a good investment on their part.

When people ask you for advice, do you tell them not to go into music or do you tell them, “ This is what you need to know upfront…”?45 King: I don’t advise anybody to get into this. Art is not a concrete thing. Art can be anything. Art can be a rock. I would

tell people to get something concrete, because art is not something concrete. But I would never tell anybody not to do this.

If you can do it without it hurting, then you should do it. Because a lot of it hurts. You meet a lot of people, you fall in love

with a lot of people, and then you find out they are not around when you need them. And that hurts and that’s called show

business. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m bitter, that's just what happened to me.

Nick Hook: For real, I tell them not to be delusional. I always had a job until last year, which I relied on to pay my income,

then I could do my music and make it my music. A lot of these kids, they’re trying to make a banger that puts them on the

map. The reason I think I’m here is that I kept it true to what I wanted. I would never tell someone not to make music, but

when I started doing music, it was as a hobby. When I was 13 I didn’t start doing music to make money. Nobody liked me

and girls didn’t like me, and I was like, I might as well hang out with these other nerds and make music. Now that we got

a little bit of money and a couple of girls like us, it’s cooler, but I still try to keep the ideals of why I started. I had to save

up all summer to buy an MPC when I was 18. It was $1200. To get $1200 in St. Louis when you’re 18, you’ve got to deliver

mad pizzas. And I delivered those pizzas and I kept that sampler and I learned how to use it. It’s not a flash in the pan. I

see these kids, and once a genre starts getting popular, they can learn about the whole genre in a night. When I wanted to

learn about hip-hop, I went to the record store and put my headphones on. And that knowledge sticks with me to this day.

With the larger availability of software and the possibility to download basically any song you want, it’s tough to tell a kid to go save up for an MPC.Nick Hook: I wish these tools would have existed when I was a kid in a way, but I think when we were DJing when were

young, we’d go see 45 King because he had his crate and I had my crate and another dude played electro records. We were

all unique. It was a different process. Now a guy like DJ Sega from Philly has a $100 PC and he can show his ideas through

his brain. We’re cutting out that thing where you have to be middle class to make music, and that’s a beautiful thing. Things

change.

45 King: It’s not that I don’t like kids, but I never thought about what the kids were going to learn from me when I do

things. I just try to be nice to everybody. So if they can learn that, there’s not really much more they can learn from me. Treat

people the way you want to be treated.

Nick Hook: There are a million people more talented than me, but the phone rings because I have fun when I work and

I’m easy to work with. Giving someone the experience of a good time is more important than money. I’ve seen artists who

might be making their manager five million dollars, but if they’re miserable, you don’t want to sit with them. The thing that

changed my life the most, I did for free. I recorded “212” for Azealia Banks when she had 100 followers on Twitter and then

she became a worldwide phenomenon. I did it because a friend asked me to. It wasn’t about making money, it was about

being dope. And because we had fun that day, there was an energy that was transmitted through the music and it resonated.

That got me a million more jobs, the chance to travel the world with her and legitimate fees.

45king.com

nickhook.tumblr.com

Check out 45 King’s “Making the Beat” on Scion Streaming Radio at scionav.com

Listen to Nick Hook’s Without You EP for Scion AV at scionav.com/nickhook

Bullough’s original plan was to bring in nationally recognized artists, but as things got going—and in the midst of the

economic turbulence of the late part of last decade—this took some time. FICE has been hosting monthly art shows,

ranging from the Spacecraft Saints to the graphic design work of Dan Christofferson. Infamous photographer Ricky Powell

was brought in for a solo show during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. “Usually [we feature] local talents, which we seem

to have an endless supply of, but a couple times a year we'll bring some heaters in,” says Bullough, who points to work from

Jacob Bannon, Sam Flores, Michael Sieben and RETNA as being among his personal favorites.

FICE’s approach to both the retail and art landscape is rather unique, in that it’s generally kept close to the vest. “[We]

focus on the community,” says Bullough. “We're not trying to blow the web up with a bunch of hype, we just do awesome

stuff in our neck of the woods.”

ficegallery.tumblr.com

FICE is part of the Scion Partners Program. For more information go to scionav.com/partners

Five years ago, Corey Bullough and Laura Hadar opened the doors to FICE in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. With its high

ceilings and open floor plan, it was ideal as both a streetwear retail store and an art gallery. Bullough, who had been loosely

involved in the snowboard industry, knew that Salt Lake City leaned conservative, but this fact only emboldened him to

help build a creative hub for likeminded locals. “I’ve always been super into street art and sneakers. And I hate the mall,

never been able to do it,” he says. He returned from a trip to New York City feeling particularly inspired, and that night

happened to run into Hadar, a professional snowboarder. The idea for FICE was born.

FICE TAPS INTO AN UNExPECTEd COMMUNITy TO BUILd UP ThEIR SALT LAKE CITy BASE.

Story by Evan Shamoon

When Kathleen and Christopher Sleboda started working together at Gluekit, the graphic design firm Christopher

developed in 2003 as an extension of his Yale MFA thesis, they immediately bonded over a shared love of hardcore punk and

vegan food. But perhaps most significantly, they shared an interest in the breakdown of traditional conceptual and aesthetic

boundaries in illustration and graphic design. “The first jobs were photographic projects for different art magazines, like the

KAThLEEN ANd ChRISTOPhER SLEBOdA hAvE CROSSEd MEdIUMS ANddIMENSIONS TO AdvANCE gLUEKIT'S ARTISTIC APPROACh.

As told to Ashley Simpson

black & white photo installation that we did for Synthetic magazine,” recalls Christopher. “It dealt with the tension between

two dimensional and three dimensional spaces—showing 2D objects in a 3D way—and played that tension out visually.”

These early, spatially experimental projects led to more commercial work for the husband and wife duo, including illustration

commissions from publications including Rolling Stone, Esquire and New York magazine. They’ve also developed into projects

in industrial design, apparel, and print work. “We’re really interested in trying to find ways to create brand new products

that we haven’t seen around before,” explains Christopher. “We’re very influenced by 1960s modernist design, 1970s punk

(album art like the first Talking Heads LP), the neon colors of the 1980s, and the work of groups like General Idea–people

who just didn’t allow themselves to have boundaries, who explored any medium they found interesting in the moment.”

Gluekit will have show at Scion AV Installation from March 16 to April 16. Here Christopher guides us through some of their

previous work and offers a preview of what to expect from their show.

gluekit.com

Scene from Pop Art.

We designed these bookends in 2010 and continue to produce them. They are powder-coated steel. This project marked

our first foray into manufacturing and we loved being able to make something solid and real. We collect books and have

bulging bookshelves, so it made sense for us to use the pile of bricks, a motif that we’ve used over and over in our work, in

this very practical product.

Pop Art was an art video we produced for the Scion Installation 7 art show. Concentrating on things that “pop!” in a variety

of ways, our video highlights acts of presentation and interaction using a simplified vocabulary, repetition and bright colors.

Aesthetically it’s somewhere between instructional video and infomercial. This work follows our interest in clichés by

employing a range of popular video tricks. We were also interested creating a “still life” that moves, ever so slightly.

"BRICK BOOKENDS" - 2010

"POP ART" - 2011

This was produced for the awesome arts magazine Faesthetic. We’ve been in ten issues of Faesthetic over the years, and

produced some of our very favorite work in the process. Faesthetic's open and later themed issues were a solid space for

experimentation. We always worked in black and white, and built out ideas about spatial interaction and odd juxtapositions

that continue to be found in our work. This bunny shirt was found at a local thrift store and inspired the entire

photocomposition.

"CLOUDS" - 2004

The title for our new exhibit at Scion AV Installation is Long Play, and its kind of a rip off of the idea of an LP record. We’re

talking to some different record labels now to redesign some of their LP records to look at visual language. Some of our

favorite records are like 20 years old now. That’s going to play into other puns and clichés and this idea of “long play” and

pieces related to that. So, we’re thinking of furniture—like stools and chairs and record players and pillows —and also other

meanings of long play, like the way Kathleen plays video games, which is to be very thorough. And we’re also looking at a

newspaper we’re producing for the show that will be called “Long Essay” where we’re pretty much reproducing every text

that’s ever been written about Gluekit and every video, so it will be this very exhaustive thing. It’s sort of taking this one

simple idea of the LP, the long player, and putting it through these different mediums and metaphors.

We’ve been really in love with newspapers lately. The quality of them and the large format and the affordability. We’re kind

of conflicted a little bit with the disposability of images in the Tumblr culture. We feel like we’re looking at so many images

each day and you just look at them for two seconds and move onto the next image. With a newspaper the large format really

allows us to sequence images and scale them in a different way than in day-to-day life. I think in general, a lot of our interest

is in the collision of those two mediums or presentations of information—the really new versus the really old, then finding

spaces in between those areas.

We’re also really interested in the quality of things in design, because it’s so easy to take logos and slap them across a T-shirt

and have them become boring. With our book ends we’re working with a company that makes steel and bends steel. These

are processes that are more involved and a little more difficult to do than just make something on the internet and have it

ordered. It makes them a little less disposable.

We’re looking at combining elements, like something with a pillow that we’re playing with. You associate a pillow with being

very soft and comforting, but we would pair that with a pattern that’s very hard and rigid. We’re looking at ways to contrast

different ideas about the form and function of the pieces.

We’re really big fans of so many different things that people do, and sometimes we wonder exactly where we fit in, in

terms of what everyone else is doing. We’re graphic designers and illustrators, but we love art and photography. The kind

of illustration we do isn’t really what traditional illustrators do, it has a little bit more of a graphic design component to

the illustration. And our graphic design is a little bit more illustrative. And the art that we do is kind of graphic design. So

we’re pooling components from all of these things, and we never quite fit or rest in any one of those worlds. We find that

interesting, but also kind of awkward as well.

gluekit.com

"LONG PLAY" - 2013

We were commissioned by Print magazine to create a cover and six interior spreads for their 2008 Regional Design Annual.

Basically the annual celebrates the best design across the county, broken up into regional groupings, so the six interior

spreads spelled out the different geographical regions in the competition.

It was a great opportunity for us to work with tactile elements and combine our love of color, typography, dimensionality

and spatial illusion. And it was the first time we produced a photocomposition piece in color. We shot the pieces in a space

at the Yale School of Art, which had an open second floor around an indoor court area, so that we could get the overhead

perspective. We built all the type out of wood, felt, hula hoops, fabric, tape, staples and foam so the forms existed in real

space, and we spent a lot of time working out angles so that the words would be legible.

"PRINT" - 2008

LASER ENGRAVED LEATHER MOLESKINE COVER$ 80.00by GluekitClassic Moleskine notebook wrapped in a handmade 100% natural

vegetable-tanned leather case.

Scene from Pop Art.

Gluekit merchandise is available for purchase at Scion AV Installation, 7667 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90036.

When Berkeley-based industrial designer Jennifer Fisher begins a new ceramics project for her jfish designs line, she has

two things in mind. “It has to be functional and it has to come from nature, from the things that I see in the world around

me,” says the New Jersey native. The synthesis of these two core values is something practical (for example a cup, planter

or an organizer), ecologically inspired (taking the shape of eggs or branches), and slightly, beautifully strange. It’s a simple,

ethereal aesthetic, rooted in a devotion to the great outdoors and a consciousness of the significance of touch that she

developed as an engineering psychology student and product designer. “I feel like what I do is industrial design, but the

pieces are sculptural,” says Fisher, who has been designing and producing her own ceramics full time for two years now. “You

can enjoy looking at them even if you’re not actively using them. I hope they draw people to them.”

jfishdesigns.com

DINO PLANTER$ 60.00

Stoneware planter cast from

an ostrich egg shell.

JENNIFER FIShER CREATES ELEgANTLy STRANgE CERAMIC PIECES ThAT gET IN TOUCh WITh NATURE.

Written by Ashley Simpson

SILHOUETTE VASE$ 40.00

These four vases can be placed together to give

the illusion that they are one piece.

GRADE A EGG CONTAINER$ 24.00Eggshell exterior hides a brightly

colored interior.

JFish Designs are available for purchase at Scion AV Installation, 7667 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90036.

Jeff Ward is the owner of Fuego Bistro, a restaurant that he opened in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2006. The Fuego Bistro Group has

expanded to now include four restaurants in the city: the original Fuego Bistro, Fuego Tacos, Fuego Cantina and Fuego Cityscape.

Here Ward tells the story of how his restaurant made it through its first year.

I’m 39 and I have 22 years in the restaurant business. I was actually a waiter for many, many years before I delved into trying

to do my own thing. I worked for many years in Las Vegas, then I moved to Scottsdale where I managed a steak house for

five or six years where I honed my craft and learned everything about restaurants. In 2006 I scrambled together as much

money as I could and I managed to get together $85,000, which really isn’t that much to start your first thing. I found this

little space that was a Cuban restaurant called Café Del Sol. I talked to the owners and they were ready to get out. I took it

over and I wanted to keep it Latin American, but I wanted to do something softer, I wanted to do some fusion, I wanted to

do some spicier food, I wanted to do some Southwestern.

I opened my doors in November of 2006. There were only seven tables inside, at that time it was really small. The first few

weeks were really daunting. It was one of the coldest winters on record in Phoenix. It rained a whole bunch and it really

hurt our business. I remember that first month really thinking, “Maybe I made a big mistake here.” Then the spring time

came and we really got lucky. We got a couple of good reviews, that really helped our business. It gave us the springboard

we needed.

That first year there were a lot of growing pains. A lot of things went wrong. I had a lot of equipment issues. I didn’t forsee

that in the summer that the refridgeration was going to break. Also, my restaurant is considered to be one of the most hidden

restaurants in the Valley in Phoenix. It’s a beautiful little restaurant in a quaint setting that’s off a little residential street,

so marketing has always been in the forefront of things I had to do. I knew that was something I was really going to have to

work on the first year.

Summers here are brutal. People go out of town—they go to Los Angeles, to San Diego, to Las Vegas—so a lot of restaurants

go out of business. It used to be a thing here in the Valley that restaurants would go on hiatus in the summer. The people

who owned Café Del Sol before me, they went on a six-week hiatus the year before and it killed their business. I closed

down for a week in 2009, I still think about what a mistake that was. You can’t close. If people show up when you’re closed,

they might never come back. So if you know it’s going to be slow, you just staff low. You’ve just got to figure it out and suck it up.

When I give people advice, I tell them to make sure they don’t go into debt. I say if you’re going to open a restaurant, you

should start small. Don’t get a 4000 square foot space for your first venture. Ours was 800 square feet, the rent was really

small and it was really manageable. We had six employees. It would have taken a lot for me to really screw it up. Even though

I wasn’t doing much in sales—we were doing $20,000 to $25,000 a month in sales in those first six months—I was still able

to squeak out a little bit in profit. If I had a big place, I would have been hosed. In a big restaurant you need cooks, bussers,

servers, hostesses, managers and all that other stuff. If need be, myself and a cook could have run that restaurant. It never

got to there, but it got close.

We’ve really grown. We started with seven tables, now we have 28 tables. Three years later we started opening more

restaurants. We expanded it over time. We’ve added three more restaurants. We also have a food truck, we have catering,

we’ve got a lot going now. Over the past six years we’ve gotten really lucky.

fuegobistro.com

Fuego Bistro is part of the Scion Partners program. Learn more at scionav.com/partnersThE FIRST yEAR IS OFTEN ThE hARdEST FOR A NEW BUSINESS. ThE OWNER OF FUEgO BISTO ExPLAINS hOW hE SURvIvEd.

As told to Eric Ducker

Fuego Bistro's Signature Empanadas.

Fuego Cityscape's Coconut Firecracker Shrimp.

In 1982, suburban L.A. metal fanatic and record store employee Brian Slagel bankrolled studio sessions for his favorite

local bands and released the Metal Massacre compilation. One of those bands was a group of young headbangers who called

themselves Metallica. Just like that, Metal Blade Records was born. Metal Massacre III surfaced in 1983, featuring a little

band called Slayer. Metal Blade soon went on to become one of the biggest independent metal labels in the world, releasing

albums from underground superstars like Cannibal Corpse, GWAR and King Diamond. Today, they boast a roster that

includes such international heavyweights as Behemoth, Amon Amarth and Pentagram. “You know, it’s funny,” say Slagel,

“the way we find bands now probably hasn’t changed a whole lot over the course of the years. People we know—friends,

record store owners, promoters—see bands and they recommend them to us. A lot of times our own bands will recommend

other bands that they’ve played with on tour. Predominantly that’s how we hear about bands, and that’s going all the way

back to the early days. Back then, you’d have to wait for somebody to send a demo tape in the mail. Now everything is a

lot easier and quicker. You hear about a band and you can instantly check out a song online. But the way we find them is

the same.”

Like most record labels, Metal Blade is inundated with demos from aspiring acts. “We do listen to everything that people

send us, but it’s somewhat rare that we find stuff that way,” Slagel explains. “Word of mouth goes a long way, though. I always

tell bands that they should get involved in their local scene, because that’s probably gonna help them get signed more than

anything else. But if you’re a band sending out demos, you don’t need to put together a flashy package. If anything, the

slicker it looks, the less appealing it is. And make sure you put your best song first. We’ll sometimes get demos with like

two-minute intros. Don’t do that. Put your best foot forward and get to the point.”

With music sales—especially those of CDs—down precipitously over the last few years, Slagel says that Metal Blade has had

to become more discerning when signing new bands. “It’s becoming really difficult to break a new act these days because

you just cannot get the CDs in the shops,” he says. “With the bigger bands, stores will bring them in, but with new bands

it’s difficult and over the last few years it’s gotten harder and harder to do that. In that sense, yes, we definitely have to be

really careful when we’re signing new bands. They have to understand that they have to go out and work; they have to tour,

and they have to make sure they use social media to their advantage.”

Slagel must be doing something right. Despite ubiquitous cries about the death of the music industry, Metal Blade is

stronger than ever. “It’s interesting because in all the pessimism and dark talk, the last four or five years have been some of

the best years we’ve ever had,” he says. “So while CDs are down overall, they’re not down for us as much as you would think.

And of course I have to thank the metal kids for that. They understand that they have to support this music.”

In the following pages Brian Slagel discusses three recent Metal Blade signees and why the label got involved with them.

metalbladerecords.com

BRIAN SLAgEL ExPLAINS hOW hIS dOMINANT LABEL FINdS NEW TALENT.

Story by J. Bennett

BATTLECROSS Origin: Detroit, MichiganStyle: Melodic thrash

“Battlecross is interesting because we did what we call a development deal with them. That’s when the band has a piece of

product already finished, and we’ll pick it up and distribute it for them. It works well for us because there’s not a whole lot

of upfront costs. It means we can spend a little more time and effort in promoting the band. We loved the way Battlecross

sounded—it’s a very melodic sound, even with the heavier vocals, which is kind of an interesting subgenre thing that’s

happening. And they’re a case study as far as a band that has used social media perfectly to get where they’re getting now.

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube—they really use them well and they’re really active on those sites. That led them in part to

getting on that Five Finger Death Punch tour, and now they’re doing a bunch of other big stuff. They’ve done a phenomenal

job in [the social media] department.”

GYPSYHAWKOrigin: Pasadena, CaliforniaStyle: Traditional heavy metal

“They’re a local band, which is something we rarely find these days. Thin Lizzy is one of my all-time favorite bands, and

when I first heard Gypsyhawk, they had a real Thin Lizzy vibe, with the dual guitar harmonies and stuff. There seems to be

a whole scene now that goes back to the late 1970s/early 1980s metal/rock kind of thing, which I’m personally a huge fan of.

We heard Gypsyhawk’s first record and thought it was really good. Then we heard some demos of stuff they were working

on and we thought they were doing something pretty special, so we decided to work with them. They’re a great live band,

and they have the right attitude. They’re out working really hard, and that’s what you need these days. You can make a great

record, which is the most important part, but you also gotta go out and make things happen. They’re doing that.”

PILGRIMOrigin: Rhode IslandStyle: Doom

“The lead singer of this band we have called Primordial is named Alan [Averill], and we have kind of an A&R thing going

with him. He’s over in Europe and there’s so many good bands coming out of Europe these days, so he helps us find

bands. But what’s funny is that he actually found Pilgrim in the US. They were really underground—I think he actually

sent us a cassette that they had done—and they play this kind of doomy stoner rock. They’re hugely influenced by that

late 1970s/early 1980s metal stuff—it really comes through in some of the riffs. They’re so good, and the whole staff was

really into it. We initially put it out through Alan’s label [Poison Tongue], but we’re working on having them graduate

to Metal Blade proper.”

STATIC REVENGER

My Best DecisionTo get out of the culture of major label deals. I had been making a good living being a major label artist, but I wasn’t making

a good career. The music wasn’t getting released and I didn’t own the rights. It was a deliberate decision on my part to no

longer be signed to a major label, so nine years ago I became an electronic artist named Static Revenger who made his own

music and owned all the rights.

My Worst MistakeThe worst mistake was something that I actually had no control over. It happened 12 years ago. It was my first record deal

and I did what I thought was the right thing and hired a fancy lawyer to make sure the deal was done right. Then the

following year I signed to a major label. There was one word that was supposed to be in the contract that my lawyer had

accidentally forgotten—the word “not” was supposed to be in a clause, but it wasn’t. That mistake cost me $200,000. I

never really understood the lesson in that. I guess I should haven taken the time to empower myself to know exactly what

every part of what I was signing meant. After that mistake, what I should have done was sue the lawyer, but I wasn’t savvy

enough to do that. Needless to say I didn’t work with him again.

staticrevenger.com

Hear Static Revenger’s Music in Motion, his free EP on Scion AV, scionav.com/staticrevenger

KARL SIMON OF THE GATES OF SLUMBER

My Best DecisionEarly on I decided to invest in decent equipment. When you get to a more pro level, everybody has it, but there’s a reason

everybody has it. When you get to the level of touring and releasing albums, you don’t really see a lot of people on beater

gear. People play vintage stuff, which is ridiculously expensive, but you don’t see people on bad gear because it doesn’t

sound good. It doesn’t have to be a $6000 guitar, but it has to be quality equipment. If you’re a local band or doing covers

in bars, it’s fine, but when you start putting it under the microscope of recording, it just doesn’t stand up. It’s not bad

equipment, it’s just cheap. A carpenter doesn’t use the tools you’d find at a drug store. He doesn’t have a $4 hammer, he has

a $50 to $60 fine finishing hammer because he uses it every day because he wants quality results.

My Worst MistakeNot advancing shows on tour. Advancing means calling the promoter to reconfirm everything that’s already contracted. If

you’re doing ten shows, you need to make ten phone calls two weeks out. Keep calling until you get an actual person on

the phone. Let them know you’re coming. Let them know you really meant that you wanted food. Run over the technical

specs and run over that rider. Otherwise you might find yourself in the middle of nowhere with a promoter hardly honoring

anything they promised you. I hate to attack promoters, but there are some people out there who I don’t understand how

they stay in business. When we first started, I figured that if I had it written on a contract and they signed it, then all of

sudden, that was what was going to happen. I don’t know if that was a mistake or if it was just ignorance, but if someone

says to advance the show and you don’t do it, that’s a big mistake. If you’re doing a self-booked thing playing a bunch of

basement shows, you probably are going to have a great time, but that has a whole different ethos than working with a

promoter who is expecting to make some sort of profit.

slumberingsouls.com

Hear The Gates of Slumber’s Stormcrow, the band’s free EP on Scion AV, scionav.com/gatesofslumber

WE ASKEd SOME OF ThE ARTISTS ThAT SCION WORKS WITh TO TELL US ThE BEST dECISION ANd WORST MISTAKE ThEy MAdE EARLy IN ThEIR CAREERS. hERE’S WhAT ThEy CAME BACK WITh.

The Gates of Slumber.

Static Revenger.

Born and raised in Houston and Austin, Texas, Jermaine Rogers has produced iconic rock posters for about two decades.

He’s done work for everyone from the Foo Fighters and Tool to Radiohead and Led Zeppelin. He also creates beautiful and

bizarre portraits of his artistic heroes Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol and Vincent Van Gogh. “It really started when I was in high

school in Houston in the late 1980s,” he says. “I had friends that were in little bands, and I’d do flyers for their shows. At

some point, I was in a record store and I ran across a Frank Kozik flyer, and it just blew me away. It was kinda like what I was

doing, but for real, you know? It wasn’t for my friend’s garage band. It was some dude doing the same style of stuff but for

the Flaming Lips and the Melvins.”

Within a few years, Rogers quit his job at Houston’s Museum of Natural Science to start making art fulltime. “I sold my

brand new car and moved into a little studio apartment,” he recalls. “It was a total starving artist kind of life for three or four

years. I started doing stuff for new bands like Built To Spill, the Deftones and Radiohead—all bands that were pretty small

at the time. But as that music started to grow, my art came along with it.”

Rogers will have a solo exhibit at the Scion AV Installation space in Los Angeles from April 13 to May 4, 2013. Here he

discusses some choice pieces from the span of his career.

jermainerogers.com

"FRIDA Y VICENTE" - 2013

Frida Kahlo and Vincent Van Gogh are two of my heroes. They have obvious similarities in their maverick approach to art.

Frida got a little more visibility during her lifetime, but originally she was just Diego Rivera’s wife. Both her and Van Gogh

used the self-portrait better than any other artist, if you ask me. They used self-portraiture to document climactic events

in their lives. In Van Gogh’s self-portraits, he’s hiding from you—you can see it in his eyes. But in Frida’s, she’s exposing

herself to you. I figured if they ever did meet, it might be like this. Right after the incident where he cuts his ear off, he

goes to see Frida. And of course she would be there to comfort him, probably without a word. No romantic stuff, none of

that. But she understands. I wanted to depict her protection of him. If you look at it, her arm comes between you and him.

You’re not getting close to him.

A TOUR ThROUgh ThE MOdERN ROCKPOSTER ART OF A NEW CLASSIC.

As told to J. Bennett

By this time, I had a little bit of a following but it was kind of a scattered cult following. This Tool poster was a perfect storm

for me. I’m thankful to whatever made the image come out of me that way, because I think the image was iconic. As far as

the color theory, this is when I kind of started to develop my own palette. But all that’s the minor stuff. The major thing

is that this came out right when Tool became this really powerful thing in music. When you’re doing rock posters, it’s not

all about the art, it’s about the band. If that same image had been used for a smaller band, the poster wouldn’t be as well

known. Then there was an interview done in Circus magazine, I think, where one of the guys in Tool said that the poster

was a "quintessential Tool poster." That helped.

“I had done a poster for Neil before that was really more atmospheric. When this one came up, I wanted to attempt to make

the Neil Young poster. By this time, I’d been working for about ten years, and I had a following. When you get to that point

in rock poster art, you can’t slack. With every poster, people are expecting the next level. And that was really depressing

because I couldn’t come up with any ideas for a long time. So I just drew him holding up the peace sign. And then it hit me:

I could make it cross generational boundaries if I could make it psychedelic. For me personally, the biggest thing that came

out of this poster is that I got a compliment from Wes Wilson. You could argue that he really perfected the psychedelic text

in the 1960s with his Fillmore posters. So when I got an email from him, it was a big deal for me.”

"NEIL YOUNG" - 2003"TOOL / MELVINS" - 1998

I actually started using this bunny in my art around the late ’90s because my wife and I had a bunny. It was a lop-eared

bunny, so that bunny is him. I was doing posters for a Foo Fighters tour, and the idea was to do the bunny as the star of

legendary rock & roll album covers. For the Austin City Limits show that Foo Fighters did, it was a rip-off of the Clash’s

London Calling album—it’s the bunny smashing a guitar. This one was of course a rip-off of David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane

album cover. I also released this as an art print, and I decided to call it "A Lep Insane," because the scientific genus for a

rabbit is Lepus, and Bowie’s title was a play on words—‘a lad insane.’ Bowie looks very stoic on that album cover. His eyes

are closed, and I tried to depict that same emotion in the bunny. People seem to love this image. It’s probably one of the

best-known things I’ve done.

I was living in Seattle at the time, about a block from the Crocodile Café. I worked out a deal with one of the dudes there

where I would do flyers for some of the shows in exchange for meal vouchers. I loved Mudhoney, and I’m also kind of a

Lennon and McCartney freak—I’m just fascinated by the whole cult of personality that surrounded the Beatles, because

that was the first time in the history of popular music where every member of the band was a star. So I had this idea to draw

the Beatles as a grunge band. At that point, I needed every dollar I could get just to pay the rent, so I’d sell off the originals,

but I actually got this piece back about five years ago. The guy who had it emailed me and we worked out a trade for some

Radiohead prints that he wanted.

"MUDHONEY" - 1997 "FOO FIGHTERS" - 2008

How was it being on Kathy Griffin’s show?It was fun. You look at her on camera and you know that she must be goofy all day. But to actually meet her in person and realize

that she’s definitely really goofy on and off camera is just terrific. And she’s sexy, too. I think Kathy Griffin’s sexy.

I heard you were at a fashion show and you walked the runway. Tell me about that. Hood By Air is one of my favorite brands. I’ve been supporting [them] since 2008. Shayne [Oliver], the designer, he kinda took

some time off—his boy [that he did the line with] split to do his own thing and get inspired again. I just used to hit [Shayne]

and tell him, “Yo, you gotta get back to it, you’re better than a lot of these brands out here.” And I was so supportive of his brand

that he asked me to do the honors and walk it.

How easy was it?Very easy.

Do you see yourself doing that again?Nah man, I ain’t no fashion model. And besides, I ain’t tall enough anyway.

hARLEM'S NEW hERO gIvES PRACTICAL AdvICE ON EvERyThINgFROM WALKINg ThE RUNWAy TO ShARINg A STAgE.

Interview by Mr. Dead / Photography by Phil Knott

New York’s young fresh prince A$AP Rocky has differentiated from other rappers with his unexpected taste in both music and

fashion. And his individuality has paid off: His major label debut Long Live A$AP was one of the most anticipated releases

of 2013 and he has found himself covered in increasingly high profile style outlets. Rocky recently sat down for some pizza and

an interview with Mr. Dead for Scion AV’s All Purpose Show web video series. Here’s a preview of their conversation.

A lot of MCs don’t care about how they look, but I noticed that you give it a lot of consideration. Give me a little insight into your fashion sense of consciousness. I don’t really direct all my energy into it. I just got a lot of taste, and I showcase it with my fashion.

Older MCs have been coming at you sideways in terms of your executive decisions in hip-hop. How do you feel about it?I don’t care what anybody else has got to say. I do what I want. That’s it. Not to play the tough guy role, but if anybody’s got a

problem with it, see me when they see me how they see me. Other than that, why should their concern be what I choose to

do with my craft or my art?

Who have been your inspirations to motivate you and inspire you to get to where you are now?I come up off everything, everybody who did it before me. The other day I was listening to a lot of Kool G. Rap, before that I

was listening to a lot of Three 6 Mafia. A couple of weeks ago I remember playing a lot of old school stuff, rhythm and blues,

stuff like that.

Right, you got a quirky taste for music. You’re sort of a weirdo, as am I. My mood changes and I can adapt and appreciate different types of music. I mean, that’s what it’s there for.

People automatically associate the fact that because you do hip-hop, that’s all you listen to. Nah. I mean, as far as rock goes, like Nine Inch Nails, I could probably tell you about one or two songs that I really, really love,

and I might know a little bit about other stuff, but I can’t name all of their albums. People are scared to say that they listen to

certain things or like certain songs because they don’t want to be labeled as a poser.

Usually when you do your show, you have a lot of people on stage. Give us a little insight into that. I try to know everybody that’s on stage. You don’t wanna be spittin’ and somebody that’s not with you goes and jumps into

the crowd and hurts somebody and then you get blamed for it. We don’t let strangers onstage, you can never be too careful.

It’s just us.

I’d like for you to break down the difference between a well-dressed man and a not well-dressed man. It’s self-explanatory. I don’t know, I’m not a stylist. I know what looks good on me.

What the difference between a dude looking good and a dude not looking good, thinking he’s looking good?That’s most of the rappers in the game right now.

Before you got into the rap game, did you always have this sense of style and swag, or were you one of the less fortunate dressers?I’ve always been jiggy. I came out my grandma jiggy.

Break down the cozy boy movement.The only way you can be a cozy boy is if you’re very, very, very cozy. You gotta have some cozy boy slippers, some very rare cozy

boy velour sweatsuits, some very rare A$AP Yams cozy boy headbands, an R. Kelly T-shirt... Last but not least, the only way you

can be an official cozy boy is if you have a cozy boy robe.

asapmob.com

Mr. Dead is the Co-Host of Scion AV’s All Purpose Show, hosted by Prince Paul, on scionav.com

TELLINg ThE STORy OF A gROWINg STREETWEAR BRANd.

Story by Evan Shamoon

Streetwear brand Black Scale is the brainchild of founders Michael “Mega” Yabut and Alfred De Tagle. When they started

their company in 2008 they had a clear vision of what they wanted to accomplish. “We wanted to do a brand that not only

represented our style of fashion, but also [one] that represented the way we think,” says Yabut. “We don’t believe in the

obvious or being predictable; as we learn and grow, we want our collections to grow with us.”

In its five years of existence, Black Scale has opened stores in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, as well as a Los

Angeles warehouse for wholesale distribution. “The approach for all of this has been timing,” says Yabut. “We try to let

these opportunities grow organically. This does not mean sitting back and waiting for things to happen—we have had to be

aggressive with these opportunities in order for us to grow.” The company started with streetwear fundamentals of T-shirts

and hats, but has since branched out into outerwear and accessories.

Over the last five years Black Scale has also released collaborations with artists including Jun Cha, other brands like Amongst

Friends, as well as a recent, high-profile collections with A$AP Rocky and Fool’s Gold. “Black Scale comes from us learning

to balance our darker side,” Yabut says of the brand’s name. He explains that the word “black” conjures images of the

mysterious, providing a sense of potential and possibility, while “scale” helps regulate and set the brand’s way of thinking.

“Balance is key to our aesthetic. Without balance, our vision is irrelevant and meaningless.”

As the business continues to grow and new opportunities reveal themselves, Yabut remains aware of the challenges, not just

externally but internally as well. “The toughest part about running Black Scale has to be the hiring process of the company,”

he says. “We’ve been very fortunate to have a solid team, but with the growth the team will have to get larger. You need

strong people to work with each other and trust each other.”

Yabut says that the ultimate goal for Black Scale is to evoke emotions, and to create topics of discussion through its designs.

Asked to pick a favorite moment from his five years developing the brand, he points to the building of the brick and mortar

spaces, which enable this form of dialogue. As he says, “We can tell the complete story of Black Scale with our stores.”

black-scale.com

Black Scale is part of the Scion Partners program, scionav.com/partners

Trinidad James rose out of Atlanta's ultra-competitive hip-hop scene semmingly out of nowhere. He signed with industry

powerhouse Def Jam on the strength of his Don’t Be S.A.F.E. mixtape and his “All Gold Everything” single. Now the rap

world is waiting to find out what the unpredictable MC will do next. James recently sat down for an interview with legendary

producer Prince Paul for Scion AV’s All Purpose Show. Here’s a preview of their conversation.

A LOOK BEhINd ThE RISE OF hIP-hOP'S NEWEST hIgh FLyER.

Interview by Prince Paul / Photography by Gavin Guidry

What was your f irst job?Landscaping in Atlanta. Cleaning, cutting grass on the side of the highways and stuff.

I would have never thought that of Trinidad James.People build you up. How big of an artist that you are is not on you, it’s on the people that listen to your music. And they build

you up so high that for you as an artist, you’re scared to fall because you’re so high. And for them, they want to knock you down.

I’m a regular person that does good music, in my opinion.

I’m a bit older than you. For people in my generation, it was about the album, front to back, and you caught the whole vibe of the artist. Do think nowadays, because of iTunes and the way kids are geared, it’s flip-flip-flip?That’s why you’ve got more girlfriends than wives now. Back in the day, people went back through the steps to get married.

These days you have 30 girlfriends. Times are changing. We found a way to skip steps, and we skipped them.

Where do you see yourself in f ive years?In five years I’d like to see myself musically respected, and have two businesses that have nothing to do with music. [One

would] definitely be my own clothing boutique, and I was thinking about a hotel—not in the States, but in the Caribbean. I

was born in Trinidad. It’s a very great place to vacation.

You and me are gonna get a company together and rule the world. There’s no limits on life. You can do whatever you want to do. A lot of times we hold ourselves back and it’s nobody else’s fault

but the man in the mirror.

trinidadjamesgg.com

Check out The Scion AV All Purpose Show, hosted by Prince Paul, on scionav.com

You got it together quickly in terms of the way your deal came about. You’re making moves. Life’s moved really fast for the last six months. Putting together my tape, putting out my tape, and then where I’m at right

now as we speak, it doesn’t happen like that very often.

I listened to the new mix CD. “Gold on My MacBook,” I love that song. My music, man, to be honest with you, is real life. It’s reality, it’s my life. And when I hear a beat, the way that I lay down the

music to it changes every time, that’s why every song on the tape is different. I feel like I’m cool with everybody. I’ve never

been a racist person, as far as I have friends from every different race. So I had to make music that could catch a little bit of

everybody. [With] my complete project, not every song on there is for everybody, but every song on there is for somebody.

How did you learn to record like that? The voices, the adlibs, the hooks—to me, that’s something that’s usually a craft that takes awhile. You kinda got it down on the f irst go-around. To be honest with you, it just takes practice and understanding music. I love music, period. Hip-hop, all genres, and I listen

to a lot of music. Anybody can do music—people do karaoke all the time, and they do great impersonations of people. All you

have to do to be your own artist is figure out how to do your own thing. Somebody has to do a karaoke of you. I found an original

way to be myself and it really worked out.

Who inspired you? Was there a specif ic type of music you grew up listening to?I’m really weird when it comes to music. I went through a lot of different phases with music. I used to be really big on up north

rap. It originally started off with me liking your down south rappers like Goodie Mob, but I remember distinctly loving up

north rap. I deal with genres, that’s what I listen to. I never really got caught up with artists. There are artists that I like, but I

feel like everybody brought something to the game that I liked. I’ve always been the one to like that person for that—whether

it’s their voice, their lyrical pattern, whether it’s how good they dress and they can’t rap.

People always talk about your style, your fashion sense. Is that something that was always in you to be that way? I started off as one of those kids who definitely was not a good dresser, definitely did not have any good shoes or none of that

stuff growing up. So when I got a chance to make my own money, I said I’m never not gonna be fresh ever again.

Trinidad James at Scion AV Presents: Open Mic in Brooklyn.

A$AP Ferg at Scion AV Presents: Open Mic in Brooklyn.

Sage Vaughn at the opening for his “Life” exhibit at the Scion AV Installation space in Los Angeles.

Oceano at Earache’s Scion Label Showcase in Pomona.

Bonded by Blood at Earache’s Scion LabelShowcase in Pomona.

Vektor at Earache’s Scion Label Showcase in Pomona.

Antwon at Scion AVPresents: Open Mic

in Brooklyn.

Kenton Parker and Mr. Brainwash at the “Life” opening at the Scion AV Installation space in Los Angeles.

Guests at the “Life” opening at the Scion AV Installation space in Los Angeles.

Guests at the “Life” opening at the Scion AV Installation space in Los Angeles.

Bodegan Bamz at Scion AVPresents: Open Mic

in Brooklyn.

ARTWORK & LIMITED PRODUCTS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE.

SCIOn AV HAS CREATED A HyBRID SPACE THAT FOSTERS InDIVIDUALITy AnD ALLOWS IT TO gROW. WE PROMOTE InDEPEnDEnT ARTISTS By SHOWCASIng THEIR CREATIVE VISIOn In A RETAIL SETTIng. 100% OF ARTWORK AnD PRODUCT SALES gO BACK TO THE ARTIST OR TO A CHARITy OF THEIR CHOICE.

SCIOnAV.COM/InSTALLATIOn

"FROM THE CRADLE TO THE gRAVE" ExHIBIT By SSUR

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