Dakota Cates (aka Wizard of Barge) is one of my favorite artists I’ve discovered through social media. Like most people who crave dopamine, I spend too much time staring into the digital void; However, when my incessant scrolling rewards me with WOB’s art, I’m always glad I went on the endorphin hunt. Funny, poignant, beautiful, and at times a little crass, Dakota’s strange world of wondrous wizards and wacky creatures never fails to disperse the storm clouds of modern malaise. I recently took a mystical journey into his DMs and we threw back a six pack of questions.

Michael Seven: How did you come up with the name Wizard of Barge? Did you consider any other names before landing on this?
Wizard of Barge: I love fantasy and magic, and “Barge” was my skate crew’s rallying cry in Houston. If you’re afraid to try something – just go for it, man! I had no idea it would become my stage name until it was way too late to choose a less confusing name. Oops!

Her art has a rather upbeat tone to it. Is anything upsetting you?
I’m sure I’m just as pissed off as everyone else, but that’s exactly why I like to bring positivity and humor to my art – to fight the fucking Chaos Lords that wreak havoc on our lives. It’s kind of a reminder to myself not to take it all too seriously and just enjoy the ride. There’s enough shit out there to watch without me blocking your eyeholes.

Which artists have inspired you in developing your individual illustration style?
I got into art through skateboarding so you were a huge influence on me early on along with the likes of Ed Templeton and Neckface. I’ve also fallen in love with a lot of fantasy artists like Skinner, Moebius, Frazetta, and really anyone who draws crazy creatures.

If you could work on a project with an unlimited budget, what would you come up with?
I grew up watching cartoons, so this is probably high on my bucket list now. I’d love to create a complete universe around my characters and see what they’re up to on any given day: follow some goblins as they play pranks in a dungeon, watch some cultists door-to-door trying to recruit new members the end times. You know, everyday events in the Barge realm.

If you had a time machine, what advice would you give to the 12-year-old version of yourself?
Follow your stoke! It’s too easy to look at your dream job and think: That doesn’t happen to people like me. It kept me from really getting out there and trying until I gave up that mindset. Oh, and don’t trust farts!

Who would win in a fight between Harry Potter and Gandalf?
Gandalf all day man! He fights armies of orcs and giant demons while Harry, uh… does his homework?! And how are you going to call yourself a wizard without a long, magical beard? I mean, I don’t have either, but that’s just genetics. Thanks father!

Check out more of Dakota’s art on Instagram: @Wizard of Barge or visit his page: Wizardofbarge.com

Sadly, while Elizabeth Talford Scott’s unwavering contributions to fiber art deserve wide acclaim, she is underappreciated outside of Baltimore, where she lived from the early 1940s until her death in 2011 at the age of 95. She has not been acclaimed in the landmark travel exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, 2017-20, which debuted at Tate Modern in London, or in the more recent survey Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South”, 2022–23, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. An extensive but concise retrospective covering nearly two decades of Scott’s textile-based oeuvre in thirteen extraordinary works partially rectifies these omissions.

Scott was born in 1916 on a plantation near Chester, South Carolina to a family of sharecroppers. He learned to reuse discarded materials and learned to quilt at an early age. These indelible lessons formed the cornerstone of her unhindered art, which is often adorned with a catholic array of brilliant objects. Gaze at the iridescent surfaces of these intricately stitched fusions and behold a tactile hodgepodge sure to satisfy even the most voracious viewer. Take The Whosit family, 1995, a five-foot-tall egg ecstatically adorned with patterned fabrics, buttons, beads, stones, shells, sequins, and other odds and ends. Or consider Upside down, 1992, another rampant, wall-mounted and trinket-laden piece of a similar size. As with fractals, the more you look, the more there is to discover. The visual feast continues, reaching a celebratory crescendo Birthday, 1997, which is adorned with dozens of faux pearls along its wavy edge. Playing by their own rules, Scott’s Byzantine creations delight in a kind of unfettered abundance that’s bountiful, dizzying, and truly unforgettable.

— Andy Martinelli Clark

The lives of many Mexicans are punctuated by performances; An ensemble of mariachi musicians celebrates a birth, performs at a First Communion, plays for crowds gathered at weddings and birthdays, and is engaged for funeral memorial rites. A traditional musical genre dating back hundreds of years to the rural communities of western Mexico, their tune sounds as proud and bold today as the musicians who travel from place to place to perform for their listeners. The actors’ outfits are just as exuberant as their ballads: their tight-fitting, decorated trousers, short jackets, embroidered belts, boots, wide bows and sombreros. Known as the charro suit, their attire has become a universally recognized symbol of national pride and Mexican identity.

mariachi, Eric Medel‘s first solo show with Rusha & Co. celebrates these artists and places them at the center of his work. The musicians, armed with their fiddles, guitarrónes, trumpets and guitars, appear ready for battle. Or as in the case of Mariachi on 1st St. (2022), could be marching home. Their uniforms resemble armor, gleaming and bold, as important as the men the charros wear. It is not for nothing that their designs go back to the liberators of the Mexican revolution. Some of the men, as in violin (2023) or En La Noche (Night) (2022) perform their solos in solitude, breaking away from their ensemble to shine for their moment. Other scenes, as in show time (2022), Pa La Photo (For a picture) (2023), or the largest piece in the exhibition, lists! (2023) show the band as a body. Medel’s depictions of its heroes emphasize its chosen protagonists as a kind of celebrity, iconic figures deserving of recognition and aspiring to fame.

Continuing his practice of documenting everyday life for Medel, his family and the community of Mexican-American people he is associated with, his new exhibition takes inspiration solely from these itinerant entertainers. Equal parts documentary filmmaker and synthesizer, Medel weaves the lived experiences of his community into stitched scenes with vivid colors, tactile textures and engineered surfaces. His textiles are based on observing the world around him, imbued with a sense of the photographic. Born in the city of Puebla, Mexico, Medel now lives and works in Boyle Heights, just blocks from the famous Mariachi Plaza de Los Ángeles. Located at the intersection of 1st Street and Boyle Avenue, Mariachi Plaza has for nearly a century been a meeting place for musicians willing to be hired to perform at restaurants, private parties or community events. Like Medel, these musicians are ambassadors of their culture, preserving and passing on the intangible heritage and traditions of the Mexican people to future generations.

Medel’s practice is a continuation and preservation of his family’s creative practices – his mother’s knitting and his father’s woodworking. Medel’s embroidery was first designed on his mother’s sewing machine. Wavering between sculpture, painting and crafts, Medel’s process of creating his denim canvases is painstakingly and meticulously detailed, evoking the immigrant labor that underpins life in increasingly globalized metropolises. His works on canvas are embroidered with lustrous and colorful threads, each stitch reminiscent of the extravagant outfits of mariachi ensembles. A charro suit with custom embroidery by legendary Boyle Heights supplier to the mariachis, La Casa Del Mariachi, hangs among the works on the gallery walls, sculptural and acting as a proxy for Medel’s own presence in the exhibition.

In his studio, Medel’s industrial sewing machine emits its own rhythm as his hands move his denim canvases back and forth as the machine perforates and threads the images. He becomes a musician in his own right, orchestrating his images in tempo, with each line of the string corresponding to the musical notation on the canvas. Medel’s approach is intuitive and – like a kind of improvisational instrumentation – spontaneous, each mark made clear and each colored thread chosen from a series of spools.

The scenes of everyday life depicted by Medel refer as much to the lineage of genre painting by Dutch masters, the French Realist paintings of Gustave Courbet or the works of Diego Velázquez from the 17th century as to the Chicano muralists such as Chaz Bojórquez or Carlos Almaraz, who changed the landscape of East Los Angeles on the walls of buildings throughout the neighborhood. Medel’s practice highlights these less recognized forms of fine art and glorifies his roots through his subject matter and choice of medium.

Erick Medel was born in Puebla, Mexico in 1992. He holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent exhibitions include strings of desire at Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles (2023); Dirty realism: Otra noche en LA at Veta Galeria, Madrid (2023); With us at Ojiri Projects, London (2022, solo); Unseen Threads at Martha’s, Austin (2022); apple in the dark in Harkawik, New York (2022); a solo presentation at Zona Maco in Mexico City with Rusha and Co. (2021); Hustle De Sol A Sol at Martha’s, Austin (2021, solo); The human scales at the Rochester Art Center (2021); Breakfast in America at Rusha & Co. (2021); Still here at Martha’s, Austin (2020); And Every day, every day, every day, every day freedoms Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (2019).