Platform focused on exposing up-and-coming artists and creatives associated with Las Vegas
Eri King is a multimedia conceptual artist from Las Vegas, who currently resides in New York City. She received her MFA at Hunter College in 2017. Her work focuses on everyday objects that are often over looked and transforms these various objects into a different concept that goes beyond what is normally viewed of the object(s).
ERI KING | https://eriking.net/
INSTGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/eriking/
Sonia Barcelona (aka Seelinger) represents Las Vegas as a musical muse who celebrates the beauty of brown skin, true friendship, and love in her lyrics. Her voice is smooth as honey and as cool as a Sade classic.
I had goosebumps listening to her performance during her April 1st video release party for her newest single “Higher.” Joining Barcelona, we’re local artists David.cuf, Elmer Albapo, and Rasar of The Lique. The collective came together to put on an amazing performance at Zet Gold’s studio (The Bakery).
During our interview, Sonia revealed that she was a late bloomer when it came to music but she always had a natural talent for it. “I played the flute and didn’t practice…but somehow I was first chair [in high school],” Sonia said with a smile and a shrugged.
Growing up, Sonia helped her mom with her shop at the Broadacre’s Swapmeet, which was one of the reasons she never committed to music in her youth. She was wearing mala beads that she wore as a lucky charm to remind her of how far she’s come in life. “I’m grateful to be playing music for what I do now,” Sonia stated. She continued, pointing to the mala beads, “I remind myself that I could be in 100-degree weather for six hours so things could be a lot worse.”
Sonia just finished touring the West Coast, stopping through San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland. Next up, Sonia makes her way to San Diego to record some new gems.
Josh Walker is the founder of a new exciting event held at PublicUs, called Group Hug. Held every second Saturday of the month, Walker’s goal is to help fuel the art and music culture in Las Vegas. After living in Los Angeles for six years, Walker wanted to emulate the art shows and DJ performances he experienced out there. “One of my passions is to bring people together, but my biggest passion is music,” Walker said.
PublicUs helped aid in his vision after it became a staple for Walker when he moved back to Las Vegas two years ago. “I would come in every day when I lived in the area and the owners, Kimo and Lane, we’re unbelievably kind.” The idea sprung into fruition when Walker discovered a small event space adjacent to the main coffee shop. “I thought that I could raise awareness for PublicUs, because it’s an amazing local shop that everyone should know about,” Walker said.
The featured artists, Zet Gold, Angela Johnson, and Ian Racoma, brought on an electric array of art that the crowd continually circled around to observe. With Walker and Tony Comfort spinning groovy tunes throughout the evening, Group Hug was a successful night of art, music, and good vibes.
Watch our exclusive interview and acoustic performance!
Here, I documented our little trip in California. Initially, we came for the Beach Goth music festival but after a storm came through and flooded the venue, my friends and I made fun elsewhere. Check out our adventure through the musical fun and the spontaneous activities!
Nica Moten (aka Fashionnica) has been spotted doing everything from modeling clothes for local brands (like Crykit’s Playhouse and KYNEW), hosting RAW Femme’s first inaugural artist showcase and empowering women with her new business, HER Collection. She is a model, freelance fashion stylist, and an online shop boutique owner. To top it all off, Fashionnica is proud to be launching her self-named clothing line in November.
Meeting Nica for the first time, her warm, bubbly, and enthusiastic personality is refreshing and up-lifting. During our interview, she described herself as someone who loves her city and is someone who wants to contribute to the growth that Las Vegas has been experiencing. “Vegas has been unique all along. We are slowly changing the way our culture looks at our city. Not for the sin, but for the beautiful structure and substance we have from all the amazing artists this city harbors,” Nica said.
Although born in San Diego, Nica moved to Las Vegas at a young age and has always appreciated the diversity of cultures she grew up around. “In high school, every ethnic culture was at my school…since it’s a transit town, everyone is in and out but while people are here they bring their values, cultures, and art from their hometowns. It’s a beautiful thing,” Nica said.
Always growing her repertoire of talents, Nica received her cosmetology license from Euphoria, attended Fashion Careers International in Los Angeles for merchandise marketing where she also received her fashion buyers license. Sometime in mid-November, she will be presenting her own clothing line, Fashionnica. Highly inspired by the 90s and elements in nature, the Fashionnica line will have a mix of basic pieces and edgy pieces.
Nica was gracious enough to collaborate on an interview and styling video with me to showcase her talents. Watch our interview to learn more about the boss babe and check out how she styles summer pieces into Fall appropriate outfits.
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Zet Gold’s art is playful, childlike, and occasionally backed by clever puns. She calls the process of creating art “birdwatching” which expresses stories made from daily observations.
Born in Saudi Arabia, Gold grew up praying in underground churches with styrofoam windows. Her father moved from the Philippines to Saudi Arabia for work, where he was also a missionary pastor. Concealing her Christian faith in a Muslim country gave Gold an interesting perspective to view the world from. After burying their Bibles in the ground, Gold and her family left Saudi Arabia for San Diego, then eventually to Las Vegas.
Gold recently graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a BFA in graphic design and has exhibited countless art shows. The Bakery, is where you can find her creating most of her work—she shares the studio with her brother, Miah (fashion designer), and Jasmin (fashion photographer). She credits street graffiti as her doorway into the art world. “It kinda started off just hitting up trains with my brother, then a year after I started to take art more serious,” Gold said.
Besides “birdwatching” Gold has collaborated with various local artists, musicians and businesses—Flora Pop, Echo Stains and Chase R. McCurdy to name a few. Her next show will be a The Bakery on November 12th with musician, Sonia.
During my family trip to Hawaii, I wanted to test out how well the iPhone 6s captured video as well as put together a memento we could all look back at. So here are the highlights of our trip mashed up into a small video. Overall, I think the quality of the video from the iPhone was better than I anticipated. Let me know what you guys think.
Light Leaks 