Etsy Artists of Color showed me a lil love

A while ago my sister introduced me to this blog called Etsy Artists of Color. So, I investigated and realized it was a whole community behind the blog. I decided to join and found there were lots of helpful hints and people willing to share lots of tips and tricks. I highly recommend you check them out…especially because they recently featured my laser cut bamboo Adinkra coasters as a pick of the week.

WHYY’s Friday Arts

Hey, did ya’ll see me on TV last month? I kinda forgot to put it here, so look below:

Watch the full episode. See more Friday Arts.

HGTV stop trying to make DesignStar the Apprentice

Hi, my name is Sharif and I’m an HGTV addict. That’s right, I can’t get enough of it. I watch it in the morning, I watch it at night and some times I even watch reruns.

One of the things I like to watch is DesignStar. I’ve watched it from the beginning and have always really enjoyed it – until now. I still enjoy it actually, just not as much. In case you don’t know, DesignStar is a show about a group of people with various design backgrounds chosen to compete for their own show on HGTV.

This is the first season being produced by Mark Burnett, the same guy behind Apprentice and Survivor. I guess for people who like those shows this could be a good thing, the problem is DesignStar has never been like any of those shows. It was quirky, artsy, innovative and talent was able to shine through the reality TV haze. Now that production companies has changed, so has the show. Instead of contestants standing behind paint buckets in the hopes of finding a nice fat budget to work with, or being able to take a room in a large house to design, they now work in large groups where no one individual talent can be seen and roll their luggage behind them to elimination in the exact same way they did/do on Apprentice. The jovial host is gone as well as his signature: “your show has been canceled line.” In place of those things we simply have the judges. That wouldn’t be so bad if Vern Yip, as if in some attempt to mimic Donald Trumps “vicious” business acumen, wasn’t edited to be the head of a tribunal while the other two judges are relegated to knowing glances and head nodding. On top of that, the deliberation between the judges has been dubbed over with “intense” music so the public never has any idea of why the judges (Vern) have chosen an individual for elimination.

I really wonder how we or the judges (Vern) will know who a DesignStar is if every week there are two teams. The old DesignStar had a mix of team challenges and individual challenges that actually made sense. They also used to make over homes for real people like veterans or families in need instead of empty apartments inside of these anonymous New York high rises that we can only assume are owned by Donal Trump (thanks for the insight @shesherara).

Now, instead of being about competition of design individuals, it is literally a popularity contest some times. Worst of all, instead of taking the opportunity to make design accessible, the recent changes really remove the endearing quality the original DesignStar had to offer. Instead of the designers being inspiring and giving insight into the artistic process, the show really is just about what people do to not go home. The audience has much less idea what makes a designer tick and why they make the decision they do. This seems to be counter intuitive to HGTVs programming – but what do I know?

The Apprentice and Survivor, although I don’t watch, have been around forever so I guess they must be doing something right. I just wish they wouldn’t do it to DesignStar.

the next great artist – really?

Bravo’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist has been on for a few weeks now. I can’t say I watch faithfully, but I’ve seen a few episodes and I can say – I’m not impressed. I thought, at first, that I liked the idea of the show but now I’m not even sure of that. Is the way to find the “next great artist” really by sticking a bunch of people together, telling them what their inspiration is and putting them on the clock? …then threaten them with dismissal if they don’t live up to your expectations…?

Isn’t that just an office job?

Moreover, what exactly IS a “next great artist?” How do we know when we see it? The great artists that we recognize today have created incredible works over a number of years. They tapped into some kind of universal psyche and created stuff that we could appreciate or would learn to. While there are definitely people who are “authorities” on the matter of what is great, good and not-so-good in the way of art we can generally all agree that it’s mostly subjective. I mean, what I think is great may not be great to someone else.

So does Bravo telling us who the next great is actually make it so?

Furthermore, will the eventual winner actually believe in their new title? And if so, how will that affect the work they create? And since when have artists simply settled for being told who and what was great?

I can’t speak for everyone, but I do think that one of the things that drives artists is a spirit of self-expression. This means a lot of times we end up being somewhat counter-culture – appearing to be going in the opposite direction of the majority. That’s one of the reasons why a lot of independent artists would rather struggle to get their work out there than settle into something safe and routine. So I wonder how being told who amongst us is the next greatest will affect that individual and the artist community as whole…?

Overall, I dig how well some of the things that naturally occur in the artistic process fit the concept of this kind of reality show, i.e going to crit, showing your work in a gallery setting, etc. but it’s really nothing but a project runway ripoff that doesn’t really do much of anything except come off as feeling a lil too self-important. I’m a little afraid of what non-artists might start to think looking at this show. The people on the show do create relatively good looking, large scale pieces of work in a short amount of time. Do people who aren’t familiar with the artistic process understand that not all art is made this way? If not, then doesn’t that in some way devalue or diminish work that takes months to create?

Having said all that, I hope Abdi wins because I like his stuff!

Linda Magazine talks about sex…and me!

A few months ago I got an e-mail from someone in the Netherlands asking me for more info about the Emotions Can Be Dangerous Line. Next thing I know, I’m in the very sleek, very chic Linda Magazine. It’s a women’s fashion mag based in the Netherlands that’s all about high style, hot fashion and great design. The issue my tiny write-up appears in also happens to be about women who pay for escorts! Thanks to this link, I just found out that Linda Magazine gave male escorts to some of their subscribers as part of the promotion for this particular issue. Whoa!

new product: coasters + watch me on TV

Once again I’ve let my blogging duties fall by the way side. Sorry! I’ve been busy with lots of stuff though and I’ll prove it by blogging about the stuff I’ve been working on. I’ll start by telling you about my new products: two different lines of coasters. I’ve been working on these for MONTHS and MONTHS and I’ve finally perfect the recipe for laser cut bamboo coasters. The coasters are made from 1/4″ thick caramel colored bamboo. Each one is laser cut/etched by yours truly. One of the good things about the coasters is that bamboo grows in water, that means when these lovely things get wet, they don’t even warp – they just dry. And, oh yes I mustn’t forget that my friend, Karen Martinez of imisutoo, did a super fine job of giving me an assist on package design. Speaking of packaging, all coasters come in a tin that fits 4 coasters perfectly. You can use the tin to keep the coasters in or remove the coasters and use the tin for storing other goodies. Check it all out here…


The Adinkra Coasters are based on a a symbol language from West Africa called the Adinkra. These symbols represent words of wisdom, advice and life lessons. Traditionally they are seen on fabric, as wood block prints and on pottery. More recently they are becoming as ubiquitous as chinese characters in America and can often be seen as tattoos and even as parts of corporate logos. I’ve chosen about 25 symbols to work with for now and each pack of coasters comes with 4 different symbols, and a sheet explaining what each of the 25 different symbols mean. While they’re completely durable and useable as coasters these can also be viewed as works of art.


Above are pictures of my new East/West Coasters. Like the Adinkra coasters they are sold in sets of 4 and are made from laser cut bamboo. Instead of being rooted in tradition, however, these coasters are a full on tongue-in-cheek, play on words assault. Instead of using the term East Coaster or West Coaster to identify someone from that particular region, those terms are used to identify these literal coasters. As such, they are designed to look like compasses that always face East or West.

Look for these coasters online at: http://sharif.etsy.com and http://mastersofnone.org as well as at stores listed under the retail section of the masters of none website this month! Also, tune in to WHYY’s Friday Arts at 8:30pm TONIGHT to see me talk about where/how I make these! If you miss it, you can catch it online later here: http://www.whyy.org/tv12/fridayarts/index.html

Rep Hard Rep Local

So, I was walking down South Street the other day with my friend David when I saw a bunch of Phillies and other sports gear in the window. I said “my ‘ills‘ should live here.” He said “yeah, they should…go tell them.” So I did. Now there are “ills” for sale at CheesesteakTees at 5th & South! Hooray! I’m sort of on a probation period there – if my things sell well, they’ll order more, so go buy it!