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Tumblin’: An Interview with Jessica Fortner

There are remarkably few artists with the range of reference and visual depth of Jessica Fortner. Based in Toronto but working with an aesthetic of the furthest out-theres, Fortner’s design and illustration are equally genre-bending and deeply empathic. An alumnus of the Ontario College of Art & Design, she’s studied and worked in printmaking, sculpture, woodworking, bookbinding, and slews of other forms—a constellation of skills and media that clearly shape her work’s sophistication, novelty, and narrative tinge.

Jes is also one of the talented minds behind Squidface and The Meddler, a Canada-centric online arts magazine co-created with her equally talented boyfriend Michael Wandelmaier. I caught up with Jessica in between trips to Tequila Bookworm and The Beguiling, and asked her about…pretty much everything.

I’ve always been interested in artists’ mental states while working. Since your work has such strongly hypnotic, patterned, and surreal components to it, in what kinds of weird places do you sometimes find yourself?

That’s an interesting question. It really depends on the project. I did one piece (Mouthy) that came about from thinking about perception and it’s distortion in cases of mental illness. I was listening to a lot of Radiolab podcasts on the subject, and started to feel really subjective about everything (not being able to trust my perception). At one point my boyfriend suggested that he might be my Tyler Durden—just a figment of my imagination.

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Introducing: The New Pixel Union

Last night, at the end of a thirteen hour day, we completed our new website. Where the last site was corporate, the new one is human. Where the former site was scant, the new one is verbose. I couldn’t be happier with what we’ve done over the past few months. I’ve never seen my team so scrappy and undernourished, but boy did it ever pay off.

Please head on over to our homepage and explore our hard work. Let us know what you think. PixelUnion.net.

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Pixel Union Presents: The Gift of the GIF Giveaway

We’ve just launched our Facebook page and to show some summah love to you, we’re giving the gift of the GIF to three randomly-selected Facebook fans. Each winner will receive their very own Nishika N9000—the world’s best and easiest-to-use quadralens GIF-camera— three rolls of film and our undying love. Anyone who likes our page between now and August 13th will be entered to win: so give us a thumbs up. 

Three winners will be chosen and contacted on August 17th.  For more details, visit our contest page.