Our team
These are the talented peeps who are scouring the interweb, their own backyards, and their iTunes libraries each week to bring you new cultural discoveries to inspire.
Alison Zavos is a photographer and photo editor living in Brooklyn, New York. She’s just discovered blue cheese with honey and she is in love. She is the editor and founder of the photo blog, Feature Shoot.
Caitlin Zaino — The Urban Grocer
A native New Yorker, Caitlin spends her days between Mexico and Switzerland as an editor and writer for an international think tank. When she is not covering sustainable development and trade negotiations, she is writing and reading—not to mention cooking and eating—all things related to food. Hailing from a typically Italian-American family, a love for food was instilled at an early age. Inevitably, she began working in professional kitchens and eventually exchanged her knife for a pen (or, keyboard really). And while she tends to travel between continents on an all-too-frequent basis, wherever she lands, you can always find her in the kitchen.
Jonathan Terhaar
Abandoned by his family as an infant, Jonathan Terhaar was left on a doorstep in Romania and raised by other orphans on a steady diet of moldy bread and aurolac. Terhaar found his way to the states in the mid-80s and founded several underground publications such as “Sports Illustrated” and “People” magazine at the age of 11. Running from wealth and fame, he decided to follow his dreams of working an ordinary 9-5 job for little pay and lending his ace writing skills to friends’ websites for free. Jonathan now lives in Austin, Texas with a bunch of other hip, white people.
Yuko Shimizu is an illustrator and instructor at School of Visual Arts in New York. She has passion for any type of good art, yummy food cheap or expensive, melts-in-your-mouth milk chocolates of the world, and traveling to the places she has never been. When you don’t see her works on the pages of TIME, The NY Times, The New Yorker or PLAYBOY, or on advertising for NIKE, Microsoft or VISA, maybe she is investigating one of her passions to share it with the readers of Lost At E Minor.
Nikki Savvides
Nikki is an Australian writer and musician. As well as contributing to Lost at E Minor she writes short pieces for travel websites and longer academic articles about human-animal relations. She self-published a comic called Ghoul Lash for many years and is passionate about comic art and illustration. Nikki plays bass in Sydney band The Mansons and is currently working on a solo project under the name Ponymeadow.
Nini is a self-proclaimed Social Media Whore, living and working in Germany. Her main profession lies in the conventional corporate media world these days, but she’s certainly come around, having worked for several online music mags, with a number of photographers, and for record labels such as the iconic LA based Southern Lord Records. In her spare time, she enjoys consuming good art (of any kind) and being creative herself. She not only writes for LAEM, she also performs, teaches and bellydances. She’s addicted to Twitter (follow her via @ninibaseema), enjoys tumbling and she likes putting philosophy into images, shooting weird self-portraits, painting with charcoal on the wrong sort of paper, and all kinds of other fun stuff.
Stephanie Yazbek
Whether she believed she was secret squirrel at 6, Charlie Chaplin at 10 and Hunter S Thompson’s protégé at 16, Sydney-sider Stephanie Yazbek has finally grown into her own skin. That of an eager young film and media student who indulges in late night typewriter sessions and dates with her camera and audio kit, when she’s not walking around aimlessly lost at the UNSW campus. Growing up with a studio in her basement and a house full of musicians left her with a keen ear for music … and although she lacks in awesome saxamaphone and yazz flute skills she makes up for it in her love affair in writing, film, food, and just quietly her epic dance moves.
When she’s not writing ads in Sydney, Laura can be found indulging in her love for all things summer related on her blog, This Island Life. The hot sticky days and the balmy tropical nights have been a recurrent theme throughout her writing for years. And if she could, she’d spend her time following the summer to every exotic corner on earth. Until then, she’ll continue working on her ever-expanding bikini collection while living on the biggest Island in the world.
Xavier Toby
In the above picture Xavier is in Ephesus, Turkey. It was a great trip, however he did meet some really annoying people. The girl pictured to his left was American and not that irksome, but she did have very irritating friends. Along with travelling, Xavier also loves films and believes people be able to list their five favourite films at any given moment. His are: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Dark City, The Departed, The Proposition and In The Bedroom. This list, as with any decent top five list, changes depending on his mood, how much he has drunk and which films he can remember at the time. Sometimes it even includes The Matrix and Transformers, which unfortunately don’t have anywhere near the cultural credibility of the aforementioned films.
Jacqui Alexander
In between café hopping, painting Indian Elephants, daydreaming, taking tango lessons, messing up the kitchen with experimental cooking, collecting tea paraphernalia, pretending she speaks French, drinking Amaretto Sours, hunting for the best Pho in town, getting tattoos and making endless travel plans, Jacqui is the designer and director of the Australian fashion brand Skinny Nelson and is a ‘Jack’ of all things creative.
Jessica Koslow — Eat Sip Chew
Jessica Koslow is indeed only one of these things: Pez Dispenser. Swiss Army Knife. Chef. Stegosaurus. The answer may not be so obvious. Based in Los Angeles, when Jessica’s not transforming flour into golden loaves of bread, she distinguishes herself as a Freelance Writer on Cuisine and Libation based topics (with a sprinkling of Culture, Design, and Music mixed in for additional flavor). With a propensity for seeking out the finest original products, Jessica utilizes more than her index fingers when typing for various esteemed publications including LA Weekly and Tasting Table. You can find more on her food musings, including tempting recipes and line-based drawings, over at EatSipChew.
Greta Hoffman
Digital art director Greta Hoffman is passionately passionate about many things. She’s just as likely to argue the ins and outs of Diagnosis Murder as she is the state of politics, and isn’t afraid to admit it. Whether it’s through eavesdropping on buses or trawling the interweb, the East-London based Sydney native loves nothing more than discovering new and exciting happenings in art, design, music and culture and shares these with any who’ll listen. Other names she’s been known to answer to include Gretalilli, Hoffo, The Hoff, Gretski and personal favourite, The-Greatest-Hockey-Player-to-Ever-Live.
By day, Clare works for an international beauty brand developing cosmetics. By night, she is consumed by an unhealthy obsession for words, Tawny Frog Owls and fairy bread. She also runs Checks and Spots, a blog dedicated to checking out and spotting fashion, beauty, lifestyle and design to inspire and amuse.
In between delightful afternoon swims at Bronte beach, Kat spends her days working as a freelance advertising copywriter in Sydney. However, she’s at her happiest when accompanied by her backpack, passport and her husband Whitey. With her ‘eat anything once’ philosophy, she’s been plagued by food poisoning so many times, she’s lost count. She’s inspired by the unknown, and loves waking up in a new place, not being able to speak the language, and having nothing more to do than to find her feet. Her travels have led her around the South Pacific, Asia, the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe and the UK – and her next adventure is never far from her thoughts.
Michelle Wilding
Michelle is a communication lover, art appreciator, musically inclined tea-fiend. From graduate freshie to an award-winning freelance journalist, this ethnically mixed mongrel finds herself writing and snapping away for print and online publications. She previously worked on a national music tour, styled at a vintage fashion showroom and shot photos for poetry books; but now the Sydney native is partial to concentrate on her writing. Her hero is Oscar Wilde. That’s all, kids.
Gerry Mak
Gerry Mak tries to floss regularly, but sometimes, when wandering in the deep recesses of the Drúadan Forest, he forgets. He asks that you overlook this flaw. Though he slays shelobs and fell beasts with equal ease, he longs for nothing more than a quiet life raising emus. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a peaceful evening by the fire, reading from his collection of tales by P.G. Wodehouse as the soft braying of giant, flightless birds lulls him gently to sleep. Alas, this world is too full of evil, and Mr. Mak must continue to battle for justice, even at the cost of his dental hygiene.
Troy Mattison Hicks is an artist working in Brooklyn, NY. He spends most of his time designing and creating accessories for Necklush. He is really into collecting artwork and interviewing artists for his website This Art Is Yours, secretly recording psychedelic music in his bedroom as Zelium Quang, and drawing weird plants and people for Omomomo. Favorite things? Puppies, deep house, and time travel.
Jess Zaino is one of the most recognizable faces on the style scene. With a unique voice, Jess contributes her trend and fashion findings on websites TheGloss.com, Fashionism.com, Stylecaster.com and HSN.com. She co-hosts RealityWanted Radio every Wednesday on CBS Radio. And owns and operates, A Red Carpet Life, a celebrity resale store on eBay. Prior to competing for the honor of Top Celebrity Stylist on VH-1′s reality fashion show, Glam God with Vivica A. Fox, Jess was the co-host of the Style Network’s Modern Girls Guide to Life. She has appeared as the On-Air Stylist for top Style Network reality shows, How Do I Look? and The Look for Less. She has appeared live as a Trend Expert on the Home Shopping Network and her expertise has been featured on TV Guide Channel’s Fashion Team and Hollywood 411, USA Network’s Before and After’noon Movie Makeover and more. Traveling to nationwide locations, Jess hosted the ‘Make It Mine’ trend event series for Nordstrom and works with several known brands including YAZ, Hello Kitty and KMS California as a Lifestyle Host for Satellite Media Tours. Jess is writing her debut style book, Street Chic and launching an accessory line for Fall 2011. Jess lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend, Majed, is the big sister of LAEM food contributer, Caitlin aka The Urban Grocer and can be found posting to her Street Chic blog at www.Jess-Zaino.com
Lamia is an Italian French Irish Canadian Puerto Rican Southerner who currently resides in Orange County CA. She is also an artist and the Editor in Chief of the online magazine OC Arts and Culture. She specializes in painting on black velvet, screen printing, crazy performance art, collecting sunglasses, and covering things in glitter. She is obsessed with reading magazines, and hopes to travel the world by a million rainbow colored balloons, a 1950’s mint green Vespa, and a yellow submarine. She will do all this with the help of her trusted brown poodle named Coco The Wonder Poodle.
As a self-confessed magazine junkie and trend-spotter, it seemed inevitable Tim would focus his create energies on styling, shooting and producing editorial features and self-published street press covering lifestyle and design. A passionate Novacastrian (that is one who resides in Newcastle, Australia), his aim is to hunt out the best in fashion and interiors from his local region to plug to the rest of the world.
Christopher Stribley is a graphic artist, photographer, and writer from Perth, Western Australia. He is currently residing in the US, where he finds great pleasure in photographing art in its many forms, as he encounters it in his wanderings. His other interests include bunnies, music, cooking, design, films, bunnies, ink, people, plastic, toys, shiny things, and bunnies.
Marquita Taylor
Print Journalism Graduate, World Traveler, Writer, Event Planner, Shoe Lover, Art junkie, Music Addict and Culture Nerd. This is Marquita Taylor, also known as Mai Tai. When she isn’t working on her blog My Black Sneakers or one of Chicago’s most popular blogs WBC Magazine, she works a normal 9-5 job in hopes that her writing career takes off and all of you will be screaming her name. Next to writing, music is her second love. When it comes to her favorite band, N*E*R*D wins her heart. When Marquita is not in Chicago she can be found traipsing around Asia. Japan, to be exact.
Kira Heuer
Southern California gal living in London, with a background in journalism, writing for cultural columns and blogs, television, luxury fashion, philanthropy and the LA Contemporary Arts scene, Kira fills her days and late nights looking after her company Bib&Sola, a social and philanthropic cultural blog and luxury e-commerce portal. For inspiration, she is always on the look out for that next great song, art work that creates a new context, cuisine that causes her taste-buds to applaud, books that become friends and people that write their own story. She is touched by smiling strangers and nature’s unpredictability. She thinks LOVE and LAUGHTER are the coolest things in the world and will NEVER turn down a good boogie.
Daniel Fletcher is fine young man who hangs his hat in the East Village. Don’t be afraid to say hello to him at FletcherLives.com because he’s me and I’m typing this and I’d love to hear from you.
Miss Cakehead, of Cakehead Loves Evil, is a creative director from London, and founder of The Mad Artists Tea Party which puts on events such as the World’s first 18+ Cake Shop. Charging around life in the company of fellow creatives such as Pete Fowler and the Jellymongers, she is known for her quirky love of all things a little bit dark and twisted & her ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ Joy Division tattoo. Having recently headed up the creative team for the guerilla screening of Placebo’s Trigger Happy Hands, created a tweeting bike and shocked the UK with some extreme ‘anatomically correct’ cakes, it’s fair to say you never know where her work, or endless thirst for creativity, will take her next.
Born on the shores of Bondi Beach, Sydney, Greg fills his time with surfing, bass playing, roaming the streets with his Staffy, Chloe, and quoting arbitrary lines from arbitrary comedy films. Greg studies media and communications at UNSW and has studied journalism at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where he acquired a killer music blog and a love for Brett Easton Ellis. If you’re not into Seinfeld, you may find yourself a little overwhelmed with George Costanza references.
Low Lai Chow is a spacebar invader and freelance writer from Singapore. She travels light and is working on exercising demons from her past.
Wen Vo is a twenty-something year old art lover. She’s been studying art as a child and graduated from the prestigious High School for Creative and Performing Arts located in Philadelphia. In 2008, while attending Fordham University in NYC, Vo co-founded McJAWN, a Philly-based art and culture magazine. Currently, Vo resides in Philadelphia, actively supporting and inspiring the thriving art community. She’s also a fan of rap music, puppies, hummus and purple drinks.
I was born in Chile, raised in Australia, and I love writing, taking photos, skipping town and landing in other countries, long walks on the beach, and strolls through parks at dusk. I have a little blog with a brilliant friend of mine who resides in London called FlyAroundMyPrettyLittleMiss where we gab about anything and everything that takes our fancy. I am an avid fan of live music, and have been to more gigs than Tiger Woods has had affairs. I have about twelve cameras, and try to carry at least one with me at all times. I believe in good wine, good books and other people cooking for me.
Melissa Banigan is a novel writer, artist, and consultant living and working in Brooklyn, New York. When she’s not hacking away at a manuscript, she can be found planning a long-term trip around the world, working on her art, discussing fine cuisine with street vendors and single-handedly raising the coolest kid on the planet. Check out Melissa’s travel planning and adventure blog; her business site with more information about her editing, writing and marketing services; and her blog with images of her art.
Rani Nugraha
When not loitering outside of bakeries, Rani is always in search of that ever elusive vinyl copy of Engelbert Humperdinck’s secret basement sessions. She’s big on street art and often low on phone battery. Responds well to Pinot Grigio and Belgian beer. Wonders what cream of corn and vanilla bean cupcakes would taste like. Once tried to make tofu burgers and accidentally made tofu smoothie instead. Hopes to launch a range of Bacon related interior furnishings like cutlery, pillows and lamps before someone else does. Is aware that this bio is almost completely food related. There’s a long-standing rumour she might be a writer. Has a bi-cultural Indo/Australian heart and currently resides in Amsterdam, getting around on a bicycle she affectionately calls ‘The Force’. Don’t come between her and her Lomo LC-A camera or you will get hurt.
Bridget Barnett
Staying true to her expatriate upbringing, Bridget splits her time between Hong Kong, London and the surf town of Noosa on Australian’s Eastern coast. She runs jewellery label, Barnett, with older sister and fashion illustrator Kate. When in Hong Kong Bridget is usually found trolling markets for vintage shirts, sourcing skull heads to add to her growing collection, and sampling coconut cake from local bakeries.
Christine is an actress and writer currently based in Berlin. Originally from the small New England state of Connecticut, she favors big cities and a European lifestyle. She briefly lived in Paris, then London, then she settled into New York City for 8 years before deciding it was time for a new city. She is currently acting in an exciting project launching in September, writing screenplays and looking forward to one day adding filmmaker to her list of accomplishments. She channels her love of films, photography and everything else into her blog, The Five Senses.
Margarita Peker
Margarita is a Sydneysider that originally hails from Moldova (don’t Google it – this is a place that sounds far more exotic than it is). She spends most of her days typing emails very quickly, eating lots of cereal and running cool campaigns at Klick Communications. She attended top universities in Sydney and London to become a certified Media & Communications person, but claims her comms skillz are actually the result of years of talking to too many strangers in too many foreign lands (after too many drinks). Sometimes, she even tweets! What a multi-tasker.
Visual artist and monkey enthusiast Cary Polkovitz was brought into this world on a day when the sun shone on one side only in the early 1060s. His early life is shrouded in mystery, but he has hinted at some height-stunting rituals performed in the deepest parts of the Amazon jungle. He emigrated to the States due to some misunderstanding between himself, the pygmy king of the island of Whappanoi and a goat. Finding himself in the magical land of Brooklyn, he was accepted by the tribal elders who adopted him as one of their own. After his artistic schooling in the Big City, he bid adieu to his former life and left a clone of himself in the north to continue his good works.
Who or what is Scratch My Nose? A group of creatives who have directed over 30 major art projects in many different disciplines incorporating film, books, performance, graffiti campaigns, street art, radio and sound. There creative, ritalin inspired, doodling yet serious approach ‘challenges complacency’ in art and culture through asking ‘questions with a question’. Hence it is the itch you can never quite scratch. Members of Scratch My Nose now live in Sydney Australia, Santiago de Chile, London UK and Sesame Street.
If you’d like to become a Lost At E Minor contributor, drop us a message via the Contact page and tell us what you’d like to write about for us.
Joseph Barbaccia’s sculptures are all about the squiggly bits, the body humor, and the fabulousness of it all. Read more
Dictators have generally not been a very amusing subject, in any way, shape or form. But then along came Twitter and the rest, as they say, is history. Read more
This interview with James Lavelle gives a fascinating window into the making of the latest UNKLE opus, End Titles, Stories for Film.
This mini-museum is right next to that shining fortress of New York’s MOMA and always has interesting shows, is never crowded, and the works are sure to inspire you. The Folk Art Museum is best known for putting now-popular outsider artist Henry Darger under a huge spotlight. And they’re showing some of his masterpieces yet again. Don’t miss it! Read more
Ok, so maybe it’s the extra-strong Brooklyn coffee I’m drinking or perhaps its that the pine coated goodness of Christmas is well and truly in the air, but I’m kinda excited this morning as my wife has just launched her website, Feature Shoot, which is a resource for photo editors, art directors, industry professionals, and pretty much anyone who appreciates good photography. It’s a great way to discover new photographic talent and the website is already bursting with interviews with up-and-coming American photographers alongside that of established photographers who have completed a project or whose work has taken on a new direction.
Setting Sun’s cover of Tom Petty’s You Got Lucky was recently released as part of Buffet Libre DJ’s compilation CD, Rewind 2. Says frontman, Gary Levitt, of their version on the song: ‘We got back from our European tour on Christmas Eve with a December 27th deadline for the track looming. It was finally started on December 26th and then sent off completed the next day. It was a great exercise in having to let some things go. That’s twenty-four hours out the door complete, old school style. That’s how records used to be made. Motown, baby, MOTOWN!’ We have the song for free download in our Music Download section [psst, it's in the third column of the site]
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WeMe Creative has an awesome new female tee available called All About Me, featuring ‘pattern wrap over’ printing. Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Cookie Boy’s creative cookie designs
I don’t eat cookies, so good thing Cookie Boy’s cookies are little pieces of art too pretty and cute to eat. Read more
How ’bout this Jose Manuel Hortelano-Pi guy, huh? Quite the illustrator, yessiree Bob. From Spain, too. Spain is great! Read more
It’s refreshing to see artists like Joe Kievitt who are contented to explore the beauty in simple forms and asymmetrical patterns. Read more
Nerd-attack! Man, this TARDIS zipper robe is so much cooler than any Star Wars crap people are hawking this days. This is for the true gangsta nerd.
Mathematics? Leave me out. Fashematics? Now you’re talking! This gem of a site is a runway equation that adds up to a whole lot of wonderful.
Danot has created a stunning line of new illustrated tanks and tees, featuring our latest obsession, the Forlorn tanktop. Is it a bird? Or a face? Or all of the above? Dive into this graphic and decide for yourself. While you’re there, check out the other great new Danot pieces in the Lost At E Minor store
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