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We can see from here just how beautiful you are.

babe /bāb/:

A person that is open to the world around him or her, strives to be themselves in the face of inevitable hardship, sees beyond what is to what could be, and pursues their goals with an inspiring joie de vivre.

07 Oct Stephanie Brown

Meeeerrroooowwww. A pained howl erupts out of Chicago tattoo artist Stephanie Brown’s “very rude” cat from time to time, interrupting us as we chat in her comfortable home studio in Logan Square.

As we sip hot tea on one of the city’s first chilly weekends, I get to look around at Stephanie’s space. Objects that vaguely resemble artifacts from some untouched corner of the world reflect and complement Stephanie’s sketches, drawings, and paintings, reminding me how much Stephanie loved drawing at the Field Museum when we met years ago. Now, Stephanie’s drawings of birds, flowers, bats, bugs, and much more are no longer confined to two dimensions—they live eternally on the skin of her clients. In just four years, Stephanie has become an incredibly successful tattoo artist, achieving creative autonomy at an unprecedented pace in a world that places heavy emphasis on seniority and experience by making some of the most beautiful tattoos I have ever seen.
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20 Sep Corvas Kent Brinkerhoff II

“I should do more site tours at midnight with a flask of whiskey.”

By this point in the night, we are buried deep in the imaginings of Santa Fe art collective Meow Wolf with one of its founding members, Corvas Kent Brinkerhoff II. Sipping from a small silver flask, we have traversed Meow Wolf’s major workshops, empty except for Golda Blaise. Blaise, another Meow Wolf artist, was logging late-night hours creating tiny, spiky sea creatures out of a strange, plastic goop. The scenes inside the workshops were haunting in the near-stillness. A disembodied eye that will later be inserted into a watchful forest of aspen trees sat lazily on an orange chair. A half-built tree house loomed over spiraling chunks of cardboard. The skeleton of an inter-dimensional portal cast shadows of what was to come.
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13 Sep Katie Heath

“I’m sorry, I haven’t talked to anyone in a few days, and I’m just vomiting words on you.”

Katie Heath, the eternally deadpan and hilariously sarcastic mastermind behind the FLUNK LIFE t-shirt brand, apologizes to me on a recent, cross-country catch-up call. “I live alone now, which is why I’m crazier,” Katie explains. “I recently moved into a huge place, which FLUNK LIFE did kind of pay for, in an old persons community. I don’t really get to party now…I think if I were Andrew WK-dumb for parties I’d be a happier person.” But instead of living a party-hard lifestyle, Katie’s busy filling orders for her t-shirts, having sold over 2,500 since she opened up her online store three years ago.
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